Get rid of "Borderline Personality Disorder" as a diagnosis

There may be very few people very interested in this topic, but I feel the need to write about it anyway. (It would appear that very few people are much interested in anything I write, but yet I soldier on). Here it is:  As a mental health professional for 30 years, I came to work with many women, (all women I might add) who I or someone else gave the diagnosis of "Borderline Personality Disorder".  Over the many years of my practice, in many different settings I kind of became known for working well with those with that diagnosis, behaviors, life experiences.  People would refer to me, as most professionals in the heyday of my practice, didn't want to work with those with this dreaded diagnosis. They were thought of as difficult, manipulative, unwilling to change, etc, etc, etc.  Well, then here comes Marsha Linehan in the late 80's or early 90's, who gave me a whole new way to look at all this "borderline" business.  Much more compassionate and forgiving than say, Kernberg, Kohut and that ilk.  Let's pause for a moment to reflect on the fact that it was almost 100% men who came up with the diagnosis to begin with.  That and practically all the early mental health diagnoses. 

Anyway, Linehan was coming from a more spiritual, actually Buddhist, point of view.  Her theory of the origins of the behaviors and life experiences were more rooted in early childhood experiences than the psychodynamic hoo haa of the Kernbergs and others. Finally there was a way through.  Basically the approach to the therapy with these individuals was to help them to find that elusive "middle way" in all things.  A fairly cognitive approach.  Teaching skills, the concept of "wise mind" (the blending of "reasonable" and "emotion" mind), teaching the person to recognize feelings, and the therapist always searching for a balance between acceptance and support and the push for change.  Always the "middle way". 

Since I have retired, I have continued to reflect on this "diagnosis".  I have come to the conclusion that the diagnosis of "Borderline Personality Disorder" needs to be eliminated from the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual used by every mental health professional who bills insurances).  Here is why I think that: I have come to believe that almost all women of the boomer generation or before, in at least the white culture, have been raised to develop what came to be known as "Borderline Personality Disorder". I can only speak for my culture. (Interesting to me that I never saw those behaviors and life experiences in any of the refugee women I worked with in the last 10 years of my career). I can't speak well for African Americans, Latinos, Asian or Native women.  For good or ill, my practice, until I started working with refugees, was with white people predominantly.  I think that most of those women, as girls were raised to not think, feel or talk. I know I was.  Not so much because of the way that I was parented in early childhood.  In fact, I think I was parented pretty well by two people doing their best.  In my case it was my mother's alcoholism  later in my childhood that taught me to ignore my own thoughts, repress my feelings, and never speak my mind. Because of that reality, I have my own "borderline" behaviors having to do with repressing feelings that later sneak up and explode on me and others, having difficulty with speaking my mind to the people in my life it is most important to do so and other behaviors that I have had to confront and work on up to this day.  It is my opinion that most white women of the boomer generation or before were raised this way in varying degrees of severity.  The girls who were raised in the most repressive environments were the ones, as women or teens, who showed up in my practice leading desperate lives of broken relationships and emotional chaos.  

The term "Borderline Personality Disorder" sounds so harsh and ominous. Borderline what, anyway? I actually think the early theorists thought it was borderline psychotic.  In other words, that anyone with this diagnosis could "break through" the border between not psychotic and psychotic.  The behaviors and inner experience of these individuals was thought to be so crazy and erratic, I guess, that "borderline" was the best way those theorists could put it.  But if we look at the behaviors and inner experiences of those afflicted with this life problem, to me it has come to look like the person's spirit was broken by early life experiences and the broken relationships and chaotic emotions and thoughts are the person's attempts at trying to make their life work.  But of course it never works if you are going at life not knowing your own emotions, not able to find middle ground, feeling you can't be heard or understood unless you express things in the most extreme way.  You wind up driving people away from you and being thought of as difficult.  I believe that what we call things in the mental health profession is very important. How we think of the people who come to us for help is even more important.  I propose that we rename this life problem "Broken Spirit Syndrome". Or make it a subset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the complex variety and take it out of the personality disorder context entirely. And I mostly think that therapists who work with women with these types of life problems look to themselves and their own "borderline" ways of being in the world to de-stigmatize  their clients' suffering.   I think that Linehan herself has come out of the borderline closet.  

So there are my thought this fine summer morning.

Bill Cosby and Atticus Finch and other sorrows

I find it interesting that we are grappling with two beloved icons falling from grace at about the same point in time.  I have only read the reviews of Harper Lee's book about carrying the news that Atticus Finch turned out to be a Ku Klux Klan member later in life. It's a little bit interesting that Harper Lee wrote this book first and then wrote "To Kill A Mockingbird", because she knew the way it would turn out in her story.  Truthfully, as much as I loved the book and,later, the movie, I have always felt a little bit uncomfortable with the image of Atticus Finch as superhero.  Defender of black men wrongfully accused of raping a white woman.  We white people have always wanted to elevate our role to a position of leadership in the long struggle for civil rights for black people in this country.  It has never been the case that white people have taken a role of leadership in this cause.  Not really.  Now white people, don't start sending me hate mail.  I know that many white people have stepped up and participated and even given their lives for the cause of civil rights.  That is not what I am saying.  I am saying that the role of whites in this has often been highly exaggerated in literature and movies, even as recently as "The Help".  So that Harper Lee morphed Atticus Finch into a racist jackass, that is a wonderful reality check for white people.  An unlikely morph in the real world I think.  But still it is fitting. Poetic almost.  Because we put too much onto the shoulders of our heroes.  We elevate them.  We capture them.  We limit them. I look forward to reading this part of Harper Lee's story.   

Then we have Bill Cosby.  Heroic black comedian, able to relate to whites because he was so non-threatening.  I guess.  He was funny and truthful and all of the things we want in a hero.  An icon.  And unless there is some outlandish miscarriage of justice going on before our very eyes, turns out he was also a serial rapist. Maybe a sex addict gone over the edge, at the very least.  It would be heartbreaking if it wasn't so vile. 

Seems like we mix up fiction and real life.  

Then in the meantime, we have President Obama showing up in Oklahoma to people waving the Confederate flag.  The ugliness of this is almost too much to be able to express in words.  President Obama has been subjected to the rawest, ugliest, nastiest kinds of racist bullshit from the very beginning of his term in office.  His family has not been spared from overtly racist comments. If this fact doesn't illustrate that we white people are so very far off from the Atticus Finch ideal, I am not sure what would.  We are haunted by the legacy of racism in this country. As President Obama said at his eulogy for the pastor killed in the recent massacre, it is our original sin.  

Yet I have faith that we will find a way through.  I do.  Maybe President Obama's term in office has served to elevate the issue to front and center, where it needs to be.  We can't correct a problem that we are in denial about.  We need to look at it square in the face.  I believe in the basic goodness of the human race. We will find a way.  We will.  

Well, well, well...ACA and Marriage for Same Sex Couples, the Law of the Land

Sometimes right just prevails.  Or maybe right prevails after people fight and sweat and protest and show up and take it to court and stand on their heads and many years pass, then right prevails.  But to have two such epoch rights happen within 24 hours of each other is really something to get excited about.  Yet, then we have the massacre in Charleston. And yesterday President Obama's eulogy for Clementa Pinkeney somehow squeezing some measure of hope out of the murder of 9 innocent people by a psychopath wrapped up in the Confederate flag.  Don't ask me how he summoned the guts and pure damn eloquence to do it, but he did.  And leading the people in attendance to "Amazing Grace"...wow, my peeps, it don't get too much more mind-blowing than that on a Friday afternoon.  May we somehow find a way to dig down deep in our souls and confront the legacy of slavery in our country once and for all.  It's killing this country.  It's killing young African American men every other week it seems.  We have a prison system that incarcerates in hugely out of whack percentages black and Latino men, which my friend, Joan, refers to as slavery, and she just may be right.  President Obama referred to slavery as our country's original sin. I've heard it put that way previously, but to have the President of the United States say it in front of God and world...wow and mercy.  So maybe the next right to prevail will be that.  It will be some kind of national spiritual upheaval that makes us look reality in the eye.  And do something about it.  Like for instance, if we recognize that our police officers carry our projected and denied racial hatred on their shoulders and act it out for us in shootings of unarmed black men, and instead, recognize that racial hatred in ourselves, maybe we will start getting someplace, white people. No offense, my fellow white people.  But really.  We got to own it and stop pretending racism is something of the past. And I do not mean by that that I, you, we go around saying "I hate black people and Latinos and Asians and Native people".  That ain't it, my white peoples, my tribe, my familiars.  It is recognizing that we have benefited from institutionalized racism that is the legacy of slavery.  Period.  That legacy has driven a psychic and spiritual wedge between "us" and "them".  And the "us's" are the ones that have to do something about it.  Start with yourself and go from there.

The other thing is this sudden upset with the Confederate flag.  As these things go, it is better than a sharp stick in the eye as a place to begin confronting our long history of racial hatred.  A Bill Moyers posting says it better than I ever could.  You may have seen it on Facebook or some other social media.  The author is a guy who grew up in Mississippi and knows of which he speaks.  I shall attempt to include the link here:

Why the Confederate Banner Must Come Down

That's it for now.  Let's create a world worth living in.

More on Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner

This is not a topic that I would think to write about out of a clear blue sky. But this whole thing that has been stirred up around Bruce Jenner becoming Caitlyn has just gotten me thinking about a bunch of stuff. I have identified myself as a feminist since my early 20's. Over all those years I have fought against the sexualization of women. Not that I have necessarily been in the streets about it. More in my own life and where I might have influence on other lives. It offends me and I think degrades women for Caitlyn to pose for Vanity Fair using all the bells, whistles and technologies available to her, the end product being a dolled up caricature of a woman. For chrissake, this is a 65 year old person. What the hell is the matter with posing as a 65 year old woman?? What kind of message is being sent to girls, boys, women and men by this ridiculous caricature? That the only kind of woman worth anything is a young, beautiful one?

The other part of this that really bothers me is that Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn, has been a part of a family that has made celebrity into some kind of circus act. They have dedicated themselves to appealing to our very basest instincts such as greed, an obsession with "looking good" and other degrading bullshit. I get that it is a good thing for all of us that a famous person has come out as transgender. I just don't think that posing in this circus act way for Vanity Fair does one damn thing to "normalize" this variation on our humanity. It just makes it seem glamorous. So in other words, this, like all the other cheap antics of the Kardashians, is just another glamorous thing for the rest of us to long for and never quite achieve, gay, straight or transgender. I believe the harm this image does outweighs the good in the long run of things. What would have been so bad with being a 65 year old transgender woman, plain and simple? Instead we have an image that promotes self delusion and foolishness. And, believe me, I understand that Caitlyn gave up her youth playing the part of a man she didn't feel herself to be.

I want LGBTQ people to live in a world in which they can be people. Just people, not stupid caricatures. To marry, have civil rights, have children if they wish to. I want to live in a world in which sexual and gender identification is no longer some kind of a hot political issue. I wouldn't mind seeing the end to sexism and racism. I want a lot of shit that I probably won't live to experience. I'm just not sure that glamour poses on the cover of magazines does much to advance us toward those ends.       This is me, last year, age 65:

More this, that and the other thing

What with this, that and the other thing, I have neglected my blog of late.  I'm going to try to do better as Spring becomes Summer.  I am reading the wonderful Lila by Marilynne Robinson.  For those of you who have read this set of stories that were started with  Gilead and Home, you know what I am talking about when I say, "Gee whiz, what writing." It's just lovely prose.  Sometimes I just loose myself in the words.

Seems that my little world has changed since Steve and I returned from a trip back East.  Steve had his last day of work on March 27 and we left for Cape Cod on April 1.  We returned on April 16 and since then life has felt like it is screaming down a 12 lane highway at about 100 mph.  Just stuff, you know, but lots of it.  Then we both got sick for several days and here I am.  I finally feel ready to reflect on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness a little bit.

Something very interesting happened while we were in Boston.  I am kind of sure that this sort of thing happens with a certain amount of regularity in big cities.  But for this Idaho hick, it was interesting and a bit disturbing.  We were on the T, which is what the subway is called in Boston.  First time for both of us.  We were on our way to visit the JFK Museum and Library.  Well, the doors close and right away this lady, standing in front of the door, starts yelling, "Please somebody give me $5.00". And then elaborates on why she wants the $5.00, something about her brother died in New York and she is trying to get there to go to his funeral. She just keeps yelling out her story and begging for the $5.00. Well, I look around me and everyone is just staring forward or looking a their phone.  I am the only person even looking at the lady.  I just sat there frozen between my compassion for this lady and my fear of being thought of as an idiot if I got up and gave her some money.  I am ashamed to say it, but it is the truth.  I get it.  It isn't going to exactly engender sympathy in others to stand in a subway car and yell at people to give you money.  But, man alive.  She was somebody's daughter.  And I just sat there frozen in my own ineptitude and fear.  She did bitch us all out when she got off the car at the very next stop.  She said, "Have a nice day, and I don't mean it!" or something like that.  Guess we all had it coming. Not one of humanity's prouder moments I guess.  She had some moxie, I'll give her that.  I wonder how much she made that day. She could have used a consultation on more effective ways to panhandle, I suppose.  But still.  Would it have killed me or anyone else on that car to get up and hand her a few bucks? Talk about your existential dilemmas. And if anyone was filming this little encounter for some college paper or something, we all flunked whatever the test was, including the lady yeller.  Anyway, one of those moments that makes life continually intriguing.

In the meantime we have Ferguson, Baltimore and God only knows what else.  Oh yeah, nut cakes yelling about how Obama is going to invade Texas or some damn crazy thing.  Steve and I just watched the movie "Selma" last night.  I thought it was very well done.  But I couldn't help thinking that we have gotten so short a way down the road to freedom and equality in this country.  The violence and mayhem visited upon the people who walked across that bridge 50 years ago is still going on.  Never stopped.  As much as we would all like to believe that things are better, they are not.  The pieces have just moved around on the game board.  Some of our police forces around the country have themselves caught in a big mess, fueled by racism, fear,  I don't know what all, that has led to a black citizens being shot dead.  As a person who has benefited from institutionalized racism, one of the things I can do about it is write about it here and show up where I can.  I intend to do that until I can't do it anymore.

I also just watched a PBS show on Kent State called "The end of the 60's". It made me realize that the  the simpleton mindset that developed during the Nixon era of "the folks who dissent are not real Americans" has morphed into something much more insidious.  It's this faction of the Republican Party that has become a cult of insurgents.  What used to be considered kind of far out cuckoo thinking has now become mainstream Republican party conversation.  Actual elected people are spouting utter nonsense like "Obama is going to invade Texas". Steve had a teacher in high school who was a famous John Bircher type, who at the time was correctly thought of as being cuckoo.  Well now that cuckoo lady would be welcomed with open arms into the bosom of the Republican Party.  I'm telling you, there is something festering in the Republican Party that allows this kind of insurgent mentality to emerge.  I just read an article by one of my favorite journalists, Leonard Pitts. I have enclosed a link to his article because he says exactly what I mean. The link is to an earlier article and there was  follow up article into today's Idaho Statesman.  Thank you, Leonard Pitts for articulating so well what I have been thinking on for a long time.

 Leonard Pitts Jr.: 20 years after Oklahoma bombing, hatred still out there 

Depression and the wrong headed notion that it would cause someone to fly a passenger jet into a mountain

I just read an article in the NY Times that supports this crazy idea that the guy who flew the jet into a mountain a few weeks ago suffered from depression. The Times article does a great disservice to people everywhere who have depression and suicidal thoughts. The article focuses on the guy's history of mental health treatment and so on, all of which I assume is true. But what journalists and others fail to grasp is that a person has to have a certain level of sociopathy, or more to the point, psychopathy,  to choose to end his life while murdering 149 other people. While there may be a certain number of suicidal people who may impulusively drive their car into another car or something of that sort, generally speaking, people who kill themselves are only interested in harming themselves, not others. People who fly passenger planes with people on board into mountains are after something more than their own deaths. It may be notoriety or fame or attention or whatever. Psychopaths kill because they can. They live their lives outside the normal assumptions and rules that govern most people's lives. Whether he was depressed is far less important than the reality that he was very likely a dangerous person, bent on doing something awful.

I don't think airlines have the tools to differentiate between normal depression and a potentially dangerous person. To not recognize the difference between the two in the aftermath of a terrible incident like this one and to paint this bad guy with the same descriptive brush as a person with clinical depression, only serves to feed our ignorance and fear of people with treatable mental illness. We don't yet know how to detect the psychopaths among us. They are usually pretty good at masking their real intentions and fooling the people around them. This guy probably left clues that were ignored that might have gotten him caught before this happened. We don't know and probably never will. But please read with great skepticism newspaper accounts that call this guy "depressed". I spent my career as a mental health therapist. I know from depression. People who I have worked with deserve way way better than to be lumped in the same category as this murderer.

Laughin' and cryin' with Sherman Alexie, Waneen and Barb

So here is the rest of the story that ended with me and Waneen reading Sherman Alexie aloud in North Bend, Washington:

In 1976, Steven was needing to transfer to the University of Idaho in order to finish up his degree.  So I went searching for a job and eventually found a job with the residence life program at Washington State University, which is 8 miles west of Moscow, Idaho, where the University of Idaho is located.  That is where I met my friend, Barbara  (I have two friends named Barbara, one of whom is alive and well and living in Spokane). Barbara was the Associate Director of Residence Life.  I was hired as a Head Resident, which meant that Steve and I lived in a high rise women's dorm with 350 screaming, hormonally unbalanced 18-20 year old young women. How we survived this situation, I shall never know. We were pretty young too at the time, so that helped

  Barbara became my fast and good friend almost immediately.  She was a full on feminist, a thinker, a reader, a lover of music.  And she was a fantastic cook.  I became a part of a little women's community of friends.  Those were great days, except maybe for the crazy  young women, nuttier guys, elevator rides, drunken parties and other charms of dorm life in the mid 70's. Steven was 24-25, I was 27-28 these years.  One of our favorite memories of this time was the Miss Va Va Va Voom story.  One day there was a knock on our door and Steve answered.  There stood the most luscious, gorgeous college Freshman the world has ever beheld.  And she says, "There's something wrong with one of the washers downstairs.  Could you get it fixed?" Steve replies, "Uh, uh, uh, uh, ...okay". He did manage to keep from drooling, which under the circumstances was a good thing.  So we named her Miss Va Va Va Voom and have never forgotten her.  

Well, two years pass and Residence Life decides that they need to get supervisors for the Head Residents, who can supervise everything more closely.  So I applied for the job and got it.  Another person who applied and took the job, site unseen, was my friend, Waneen.  She and I met on a grassy hillside one late summer day.  I said to her, and I swear this to be true, "You and I are going to be lifelong friends." Here it is 47 years down the road and I'll be darned if that little prediction hasn't held up. Waneen became good friends with Barbara as well and life continued apace for another two years.  I remember long dinners and longer talks with Barbara, Waneen and myself.  I remember glasses of wine and breakfasts at the Biscuitroot Park or the Hotel Moscow.  I remember dinners at the most fabulous restaurant in Pullman called the Seasons.  It was this little house up on a hill in downtown Pullman.  It was chef owned and operated and served the best food in the world.  It really may have been world class cuisine.  I remember Waneen, Barbara, me and several other women going to the San Juan Islands to go to a workshop put on by Anne Wilson Sheaf, who at the time was a big feminist writer and lecturer.  At the time she was in the process of writing Women's Reality, which became really kind of central to my emerging self. I remember, I remember, I remember...

But life being life, in 1980 we all went our separate ways.  Barbara went back to Delaware, where she had been before coming to Pullman.  Waneen started on her journey that took her all over the world first as a Peace Corps volunteer, then as a trainer for the Peace Corps, then as a country director then on to other countries and places for the next 20 years.  Steve and I moved to Portland, where I started graduate school at Portland State University.  Barbara and I stayed in touch.  In fact she came to visit me in Portland the first year I was there.  But as the years went by, our contact diminished as both of our lives took on different trajectories.  

Until 1995.  By then, Waneen was traveling back and forth and around and decided to visit Barbara in Delaware. Well, she found her in a mess.  This crazy thing had happened at the university where she worked.  Somehow she got caught up in some kind of crazy thing where a colleague accused her of racism. And her boss sort of threw her under the bus over this allegation.  This all came of the accuser harassing her and her responding, as I recall.  Barbara was the last person who would use race as some kind of weapon.  They called me while Waneen was there.  Waneen was very worried about her and so I invited her to come out.   She came in July of that year.  She spent about a week with me and was visibly shaken, not herself.  She was doing all the right things, going to a therapist, taking medication.  She had married, but the man was an idiot and didn't know how to support her. Her friends kind of deserted her it seemed like.  She was broken.  She really was.  But at the time, I didn't really believe that.  I thought she would be okay with time.  Well, she wasn't and in September she killed herself while on suicide watch in a psychiatric hospital.  I had called her the week before and she was hysterical.  I tried to talk to her husband, but he wouldn't talk to me.  I called back again in a few days and she said she would be alright.  By then she had decided to end her life and was just waiting for the right time and way.  A few days later she was gone.  It was a classic ride up to suicide.  I was a therapist by then of course.  But I couldn't have done anything. She died while on suicide watch in a locked facility. So Barbara to find a way to make it happen. There was something about this thing that happened that took her to her knees and she just wasn't able to get up again.  I will mourn her forever.  

Well, now to the part where Waneen and I met in North Bend, near Seattle.  It was somehow the most convenient place for us to meet at the time with Waneen's work and life. She we meet up in North Bend, about 20 miles or so from Seattle.  We stayed at Steve's friend Don't house.  He was off on a Himalaya trip, so the house was ours. This was not too long after Barbara's death.  We had wanted to meet so we could have some sort of ceremony of goodbye to our beloved friend.  We did a bunch of stuff, all of which I can't totally remember. The biggest thing we did is we took these photos that I had taken of Barbara while she was visiting me in July and took them down by the waterfront in Seattle and tore them up and lit them on fire and let the ashes go into the water.  We talked and cried and carried on.  I had brought my copy of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven  and took to reading it aloud to Waneen each night before we went to sleep.  It really did make us laugh and cry.  Or it made me laugh and cry.  Anyway, this one night we had just turned out the light and out of nowhere the smoke alarm went off.  Well, I being of little or no use in a middle of the night, have to do something situation, just kind of ran around while Waneen got up on a chair and somehow got the thing to stop.  So we go back to bed and a little while later, I would not make this up, the faucet on the washing machine breaks off and starts gushing water all over the place.  Well, if I can't deal with a smoke alarm, you can only imagine how completely useless I am when water is gushing out all over the place.  Again, Waneen gathers herself and somehow manages to turn off the water.  It was the craziest thing ever.  We were convinced and still are that it was Barbara's spirit in there giving us shit. Saying goodbye.  Telling us to let her go. It was amazing.  Truly.  

I don't have much left of Barbara. A cookbook of her's and a recipe that I still have in my little recipe box.  I still make it every now and then. It is the original paper, in her writing. Here it is: 

Sherman Alexie

Just last week, I wrote a post on Sherman Alexie and then promptly and accidentally erased it.  It's taken me all week to try to get up the gumption to re-write it.  Here goes:

Last Wednesday, Steve and I attended one of the Readings and Conversation programs put on by a local outfit called The Cabin.  They bring in wonderful writers from all over to talk to an eager audience that pays a lot for a seat.  Last time it was Chris Albani and the time before it was Erik Larson.  We have seen Amy Tan and Marilynne Robinson and a bunch more.  If my memory wasn't totally shot, I would name off a few more.  But there you go.  This time, it was Sherman Alexie.  I love the writings of this guy. We heard him speak years ago when he was just starting to gain fame.  He was kind of snarky and insulting to his audience then.  This time, he was more good-naturedly snarky. No telling what a few years and lots of money can do for a person's stage presence. He was  so great, so funny.  I have read so much of his work: Blasphemy, Indian Killer, War Dances, Flight, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, and, of course, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven (more about that one later).

Anyway, many of you may know that The Absolutely True Diary... was banned by the Meridian school district a couple of years ago and then subsequently reinstated.  Of course, his talk had to start out with some joking about that.  And he had a few words of teasing and gentle ridicule for the white liberals types in the audience, which of course included me and Steve. But then the rest of his talk was a memory story about when he was 15 and going to an all white high school and fell in love with an 18 year old girl with a big,giant boyfriend, who eventually tried to beat him up.  The story was infused with so much tenderness, humanity and humor.  It was lovely.  It is amazing how much he is able to capture what is uniquely individually him and so universal at the same time.  Both Steve were inspired and enlivened by his words that night.  

So here is the part that is more personal and also one of the reasons why I love his writing so much:  Back in 1995, a friend of mine, Barbara, took her own life.  She was my good and dear friend and was also the good and dear friend of my friend, Waneen. We had all worked together at Washington State University in the late 70's. At the time of Barbara's death, Waneen was working and living abroad. Somehow it was convenient for Waneen and I to meet in Seattle.  So we decided to do that to grieve for Barbara and sort of comfort one another.  So I met Waneen at the airport and we drove to North Bend, near Seattle to stay at Steve's friend, Don's house.  At the time, Don was on one of his many Himalaya trips.  So Waneen and I had the house to ourselves.  I had just started reading the wonderful book of short stories, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven, by our buddy, Mr. Alexie.  During the day, Waneen and I would do all kinds of stuff related to honoring our friend.  This whole thing is grist for another blog unto itself, because, believe me, it is filled with drama.  Anyway, at night, we would lay in Don's little double bed and I would read aloud from The Lone Ranger and Tonto.... We would laugh and cry and carry on.  That book helped us through. No doubt.  I'll never forget. I think Barbara was helped into Heaven herself with those stories.  I will never tire of Alexie's tender, angry, hilarious and beautiful words.  He speaks to the best in all of us.  And I thank him humbly for that.

This whole Netanyahu thing

Okay, so today Netanyahu is supposed to address the U.S. Congress and tell them what a ding bat he thinks Obama is for trying to negotiate a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Iran.  He's been saying the same thing about Iran for the last 20 years and, of course, to some degree he is correct. Their government is populated a bunch of nuts who hate Israel.  I can't make any claims to know enough about anything to have an intelligent opinion about whether Obama is right or wrong on this issue.  I do think, however, that I am smart enough to know when I am being played like a violin.  Boehner and  Benjamin Netanyahu are engaged in some kind of crazy shenanigans that have more to do with politics than whether or not Obama is doing the right thing regarding Israel and Iran.  It is absolutely inconceivable to me that Boehner would invite a leader from another country to address the Congress of the United States without the involvement of the President of the United States.  He is doing it for purely and nasty political reasons.  If Nancy Pelosi did this when George W. Bush was President, she would have been, rightly, run out of town on a rail.  But, of course, Nancy Pelosi would not in her wildest dreams have taken such an incrediable action.  It is equally inconceivable that a leader of another country would agree to participate in such a dog and pony show.  To collude with the likes of John Boehner says something about Netanyahu, although I'm not sure what.  Maybe when the people in your own country are of varying opinions about what to do about Iran, the best thing to do is to go to another country where you will speak to an audience that mostly agrees with you.  What an unspeakable insult to President Obama, both the invitation and the acceptance.  What an act of disloyalty to this country Boehner has committed.  To circumvent the most basic protocols of political and policy discourse in order to humiliate a President you don't like.  Wow...  Where the hell were you when Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were invading Iraq based on total lies? That did more to destabilize the Middle East than anything Obama is doing in our policy with Iran.   I can only hope that this comes up later to bite them both in the ass.  They richly deserve it.

Here's a link that makes sense to me:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/03/03/390187703/after-netanyahus-speech-a-reality-check?sc=ipad?f=1001

More on Chance, the dog and the Summer of Nick Von Bell

I thought quite a bit about Chance the dog and his owner from my last post.  I hope actually that Chance is still running wild with lots of open spaces and things to explore in heaven. Or maybe he has come back as a dog whisperer who works with aggressive dogs. I hope to God, truly, that his owner is now clean and sober.  Maybe that was the event that tipped her over into sobriety and recovery.  And I hope that little boy doesn't remember that day at all.  May it be so.  

On another note entirely, I have been remembering an even more ancient set of events than the one I shared last time.  During the summer between 6th and 7th grade, I decided that I would invent a make up boyfriend.  I was 12 at the time, right?  Some of you who are my Facebook friends who I went to school with may remember this and be relieved that I don't continue to believe this story.  Anyway, his name was Nick Von Bell.  I kid you not.  He was from Paris and during the summer, he took me to Paris and we just had the most wonderful time.  I must have met his family and we toured the city and I learned French and all kinds of things.  

  So when school started up in September I actually decided to tell people this story.  I remember the kind of blank stares I got from the girls I told this story to. It was like, "Okay, Linda.  Thanks for sharing."  I kept up with he story for quite a bit of the first part of 7th grade.  I finally just let it go and never did go back to the girls I told the story to tell them I had made it up.  I guess I thought they just forgot about it and had concluded I was nuts.  Which at some level I had to have been to think it was a good idea to make up something so absurdly not possible.  But let's remember, Kennedy had just recently been elected, we were still being subjected to the duck and cover drills to help us survive a nuclear holocaust, the cold war was very cold and the Cuban Missile Crisis just around the corner.  It was like Camelot meets Dr. Strangelove in the wider world.  Why not make up a story about a boyfriend and going to Paris? Of course, there was that tiny other backdrop to this fantasy in my "real" world.  That was the worsening of my mother's alcoholism that set the stage for much of the way my life has played out since, the good, the bad, the absurd and the sublime.  Back then, it was the bad.  Anyone who knows about alcoholic families back then, before we all started talking about Everything, knows that drill.  So Nick Von Bell and Paris.  Not a bad deal, when you stop to think of it.    

For my Valentine

Once upon a time,not so very long ago, in 1981 or1982, Steve and I lived in Portland while I was going to graduate school. We were living in NE Portland near the Lloyd Center in a little apartment with these wonderful neighbors living in the same building. There was Escobar, who was from Peru and made us lovely pastries. His wife, Jan. Then there was a young woman who lived downstairs, who's name I can't recall right now, but I do remember her cat's name, Loretta. That's kinda nutty, I know. Anyway, in the house right next door there lived a woman, who was almost for sure a crackhead. Which is okay as far as that goes. But she had a big Malamute Husky named Chance who she kept tied up on a short leash in the front yard all the time and I do mean all the time. He was kind of an unpredictable dog. Like one minute he might bark like crazy at us and run to the end of his leash and another time he might just walk over to the edge of the driveway and be sort of friendly. We would talk to him then, but otherwise we would usually give him a pretty wide berth.

In the meantime, there were bikers and kinda scary looking people coming and going from this house with Chance standing watch at all times. Well, one day I was standing in our living room and I hear this growling sound. I stepped out onto our little porch to check out what might be happening. I looked over and here is Chance with his jaws clamped on to a little child's head, shaking the child like a rag doll. Well I let out a scream and Steve came running. He took one look and raced over to the scene, while I continued to scream like a crazy woman. First he yelled at the dog and then quickly jumped behind the dog and yanked at his collar until Chance released the child. He held the dog above the child and either me or someone else was able to get to the little boy and get him out of there. His little head was bleeding and the little guy was panicked and crying. Chance did not do anything. He just let Steve lead him away. Steve said he thought it was like he knew he had done something very wrong.

We later learned that the child, who was about 4-5 years old, had to have multiple stitches in his little scalp. There is no question that Chance would have killed that baby if Steve had not been there to pull him away. We later appeared in court, in a case brought by the boy's parents,  and Steve testified to that fact. The judge was all ready to dismiss the case, but was shown a picture of the injuries to the little guy. He took one look and ordered the dog destroyed. I have always held that Chance should have been given to some rancher out somewhere and the woman who kept him so cruelly should have been destroyed. That would have been way more just. But, no one consulted with me on the matter.

Steve's actions that day represent who he is in his deepest self. I suppose you could say that anyone would do the same given the same circumstances. I honestly don't know if I could have. Maybe I would have beaten the dog on the head with a shovel or something. I really don't know. But there was no time to think, just time to act. And Steve did. Yesterday he told me he was riding his bike and passed a dog and it suddenly all came rushing back, the fear and panic. That happens every now and then. That guy who saved that child, who is probably around 38 years old today, that guy, my husband, that is who he was then and who he is today. I am ever grateful.

This, That and the Other Thing

Here I am in Barcelona a few years ago

Not sure why I chose that photo for today's blog.  But there you go.

I have been thinking lately about my strange relationship with cyberspace via Facebook and this blog mostly.  For instance, just very recently I had an entire process of decision making occur that included 4 other human beings that took place via Facebook and email and nary one word was spoken in actual in person speaking fashion.  The whole thing happened over a period of several days as well.  Ideas were shared, other people consulted, etc. Very interesting to me.  It's dangerous territory for someone such as myself, who is basically an introvert.  For instance, my last blog about my childhood friends, the Pearson's, I am not too sure I would share that story verbally, face to face with just anyone.  I actually have told only a very few people that story face to face. It was also somewhat of a departure from my usual blog fare, kind of going from "hey, what's going on in The World to what's going on in my world or my head or heart.  One risks oversharing, if you get my drift.  Especially if one is an introvert.  Hey, let's just let the whole world know a little somethin' about me they didn't know,bam!(Well, not the whole world. In view of the comments I get back it may really be like about 10 people who ever really see this thing, but hey, that's 10 people who didn't know my Pearson's story) I seem to be using the word, "hey" quite a bit today.  But I digress.  Back to my point: I feel that I am creating another persona on this blog.  Not my original intention.  I mean, not totally another persona, but sort of. Is that entirely a good thing? Is doing that feeding some insatiable force in the universe pulling us all away from actual human contact and interaction? This is my question to you, dear reader, if you are out there and inclined to reply. No pressure, you understand, but still... and "hey"!

On another topic entirely, I just finished reading the book "All the Things We Cannot See", by Anthony Doerr.  Not to brag or anything, but he lives right here in Boise.  Anyway, it is the best damn book I have read in a very long time.  I highly and unreservedly recommend it.  What a lovely and compelling story.  The title so captures the very essence of the story. And, ironically, given the above paragraph, the story involves a relationship that develops with very little face to face contact and how the most obscure things connect us.  

And also, this whole thing with Brian Williams...how much we seem to want to hang out in the corridors just waiting for the popular guy to trip and fall on his face.  Who amongst us hasn't totally exaggerated or actually lied or done some damn thing that we hope nobody hears about? (See Anne Lamott's post on Facebook today)  And as Bill Moyers points out so well, who cares whether Brian Williams lied about something he did or didn't do in Iraq.  How about calling out the liars who started the entire war on a giant pack of lies, the result of which is a much destabilized Middle East.  No, let's rattle on like a bunch of junior high nerds on CNN and other "news" channels about how Brian Williams lied.  Are we really that dumb as a nation? 

And then again, there is all the bruhaha about President Obama pointing out the obvious about Christianity.  Maybe he should be impeached for speaking the truth about something.  Jeeeeezzz...

Mr. and Mrs. Pearson, part II

I have gotten a few responses to my last blog that make me think that I need to add something.  I am really appreciative of the encouraging and reassuring responses I have gotten.  I kinda think we all have some sad or traumatic experiences of childhood that are not completely resolved and maybe never will be. Things we look back on as adults from the perspective of being adults.  I am not suffering terribly with this memory.  But my relationship with the Pearson's and the abrupt and sad way it ended is a profound and poignant aspect of who I am. That's a big part of what I learned about suffering and trauma in my work with refugees in the last ten years of my career.  Well, that's it.  Let us take comfort in one another and carry on.

Mr. and Mrs. Pearson

Recently I have been thinking about the neighborhood I grew up in and being reminded of what a little community it was.  I have many good memories of that neighborhood, Fairway Drive.  I guess it was called Fairway Drive because the neighborhood, Southwood, bordered a big golf course.  I don't know.  None of the other street names were golf related.  Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Pearson lived just about right across the street from our house.  At the time of my memories of them I must have been between about 6-9  years old, something like that.  They, of course, seemed ancient to my young self, but were likely in their 60's. (the decade I am now in, but not to put too fine a point to it..) Anyway, somehow, I got into the habit of going to their house regularly.  They taught me to play Scrabble, at least at the level I was capable of playing.  If I was 6 years old when I started, it must have been like 2 letter words and stuff like that.  Mr. Pearson was in a wheelchair.  I have no recollection of why he was in a wheelchair.  I vaguely recall the word "stroke" being part of the discussion.  Mr. Pearson was from Sweden, so spoke English with a lovely accent.  They kind of let me have the run of the house when I was there.  One of my fondest memories of being with them was that they had a bedroom that they used kind of as a library.  I used to go in there and poke around looking at books and I don't know what all.  Well, they would keep big giant Hersey bars in that room and I would sneak a piece or two or three every time I went into that room, thinking that I was really getting away with something, I suppose.  They had a back porch with one of those green plastic wavy roofs that were kind of common back then for porches.  It gave the porch a kind of other worldly color and I loved being out there.  Sometimes we would go sit on the porch and hang out just for a change of scenery I suppose.The porch was often warmer than it was outside, so it felt cozy and nice.  Where I grew up, in South San Francisco, CA, it was often damp and foggy and dreary, so that porch offered warmth and coziness for us.  Mrs. Pearson would give me coffee in tiny cups with a big dollop of evaporated milk.  I will never smell or taste evaporated milk without thinking of her and Mr. Pearson.  Her influence, along with my Great Aunt Jean's, was what got me going on coffee at a very young age.  She told me stories of making bathtub gin in San Francisco during the prohibition days. She shared memories with me that made me think she was quite the party girl in her day.  We were good friends.

Well, this is where the memory gets sad and a little murky for me.  One day I went over to their house as normal and went to knock on the back door.  I think I would usually knock on the door and then just walk in.  When I went to do that, there was obviously something leaning against the door so I couldn't get the door open.  Then I heard a kind of moan and unintelligible talking.  It sounded like Mr. Pearson.  I was immediately overtaken by a fear so deep and visceral that I froze up and just ran away.  I was so frightened that I didn't tell anyone, not my parents, not anyone.  In fact I never told anyone this part of the story until years later, because I felt such a deep sense of shame that I didn't do anything.  Well, it turned out that Mrs. Pearson had dropped dead and apparently, Mr. Pearson had tried to get to the door to get help or something and fallen out of his wheel chair against the door.  They were discovered by a neighbor sometime after my encounter at the back door.  Mrs. Pearson was dead and Mr. Pearson may have had another stroke and was taken to a nursing home.  I never knew what happened to him after that.  Or I don't remember.  I still carry some of the shame with me that I was too frightened to even say anything to anyone.  It was the childhood magical thinking perhaps that if I don't say anything or think about it, it really isn't happening.  But my young heart was broken. And has never been fully repaired from the loss of them and from my unintended involvement in their last moments as a couple.  But I am grateful to them for their kindness and care of me at that tender age.  I know they would forgive me for my fear and I hope that some day I am fully able to forgive myself.

I Cannot Keep My Mouth Shut (altho this is probably totally obvious by now)

Once more into the breech...

What with the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and the Republicans in Congress making news with their calls for more restrictions on abortions and crazy talk about rapes (is there ever a theory or idea looney enough to be ignored by the Mitch McConnells of our world???), I am moved to hold forth the topic of abortion:

When the people who are so passionately anti abortion, or "pro life" (as they erroneously refer to themselves) start being equally passionate about what we do for children who are born and here among us, then they will have some credibility.  But not until then.  The majority of people who are anti abortion are the same ones who want to do away with food stamps, don't give a damn about properly funding education, want to undo Obamacare, are against government funding of child care services, don't give a damn about ending poverty, etc. etc. etcetera.  Some of these same folks are strangely against birth control and for the death penalty.  If you are not in support of policies that help children who are already born you have forfeited your right to call yourself "pro life". You are pro birth and that's it.  Being pro birth doesn't amount to a hill of beans if you don't back up that value with actions and beliefs that support the child once he or she is born.  I will stand up to any pro birth bullshit actions that would create a world in which safe and legal abortions aren't available to my nieces and the other young girls and women I know and love.

That's it.

President Barak Obama

This is my president. Photo taken by me at one of many citizenship ceremonies I have attended in the past several years.

I have been an unabashed fan of President Obama from the beginning.  I never thought he ought to be a miracle worker.  I never expected him to walk on water.  But in my opinion, he is the best president we have had in a very long time.  I wish he would have kicked ass more.  So I kinda like the way he is coming out of the starting gate in the aftermath of the Republican win in Congress.  I love his proposal about paying for community college.  I love his proposal 
about increasing taxes on the very wealthy.  I love his vision for this country.  It reflects my values and the values of practically everyone I know. 

I believe that much of the opposition to him and, frankly, the extreme rudeness shown to him in SOTU messages of the past and last night, is rooted in racism. Even those on the left who have complained that he hasn't done enough on this, that and the other thing ought to take a good look at whether or not some of their criticism of him may have some roots in unconscious racism: the expectation that black people need to do better than white people in similar positions. It's not that there are no valid criticisms.  Of course there are.  It's just that it is dangerous to dismiss the likelihood that some of the negativity about this man is rooted in our unaddressed history of racism. Racism is this country's cross to bear that we must find a way to address with courage and dignity.  

In short, there is no president in my lifetime that I can identify as much as this president as my president.  History will be kinder to this man than many people have been during his tenure.  I sit here and watch the State of the Union address from last night and watched the address he gave at BSU today. I can only say that his vision ought to be our vision.  When the Republicans come up with a vision that doesn't begin and end with the word "no", maybe they may  may earn the respect that I give wholeheartedly to our current president, Barack Obama.  I say, "Keep it up, President Obama. Keep going after what is right and decent and forward thinking and if the   Congress doesn't want to jump on board, then they should just get out of the way and you keep going!"   

Post Birthday Post

Clever title, no? Anyway, having just passed my 66th birthday I am left to wonder how on earth I got this far.  How have any of us gotten this far, what with the state of the world and so forth?  Today I attended a rally to "Add the Words" to the human rights laws of the state of Idaho concerning gender identity and sexual orientation.  I guess it is a step in the right direction that after 9 years of advocating for a hearing before the state legislature that this cause is finally going to be heard.  This speaks volumes for the individuals who have hung in there with this cause and for the state of the state of Idaho.  Let us hope and pray that the Idaho State Legislature comes to it's senses and passes a bill.  I wouldn't bet the farm, but one never knows. We live in hope, sometimes in spite of the evidence.

Meanwhile, the old world keeps spinning in spite of efforts by hateful groups to stop it from doing so.   We have the Boko Haram in Nigeria and elsewhere. ISIS in Syria and Iraq.  The crazies in Pakistan who murdered school children and then more recently the Charlie Hebdo murders by another bunch of psychopathic killers.  Who knew there were so many psychopathic killers out there in the world just waiting to join up with a group that would allow them to live out their dreams.  Killing just because they can. It's a scary damn mess.  I think I already may have mentioned somewhere in "Tweets..." that Steve and I had the good fortune to listen to Salman Rushdie speak to a huge audience here in Boise.  In addressing a question about Islam he said that he felt that these groups identify themselves as Muslim, so they are Muslim.  That view went contrary to the view I held up til then, that these groups were just hiding behind Islam.  But his words made me change my mind.  Who can speak better about this topic than a man who was living under hiding for years because the Ayatollah put a Fatwa on him.  Rushdie said that Muslims must stand up to these groups and examine what it is in Islam that may be supporting or encouraging these acts of violence and hate.  I have been encouraged and heartened by groups such as  Gatestone Institute:  Gatestone in Sunday's New York Times: "Beautifying Islam"   . In this ad in the NYT last Sunday a group of prominent Muslims published their thoughts about taking back Islam from the strangle hold that a bunch of psychopaths have on it in our current world.  I say "Amen" and about damn time.  Of course as we all know, Christianity has not exactly been without it's tiny faults over the many centuries either.  But at least, to my knowledge, there are no bands of raving lunatics calling themselves Christians running around killing school children.  We do have the Westboro lunatics, but still...

I would so love to see a group of millions from all over the planet have a big old protest march of the type we saw in Paris last week about all of it. About Paris. About Nigeria. About Pakistan. About Syria and Iraq.  I'd go.  Where would we meet?  Where would there be a big enough space to hold us all?  I think there are millions who would go. We could join hands and chant, "Not on my watch, you sons of bitches"  Would you go?