Turning Blue in Southern California

TURNING BLUE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Karen Nelson

CHAPTER 1

Volition: the faculty or power of using one’s will (Oxford Dictionary of English).

Some years ago, a gentleman, in conversation with me, insisted that he never sees, hears or touches anything that does not have a concrete presence in reality. Red is red. Blue is blue. Do re mi is do re mi, not fa ti la! Had I tried, I would have had no luck at all convincing him that his belief was a delusion!

No one (indeed, no living, breathing organism) sees, hears, touches, tastes or smells with the brain. The brain interprets electro-chemical impulses that arrive via nerve pathways for each of the five senses. In fact, the brain, under normal operation, is so efficient at its job, we don’t even recognize the nanoseconds of time for such interpretations. And even this pathway description is way too simplistic. It turns out that nerve pathways aren't so cut and dried in their purpose. Neuroscientists have discovered that we can "see" with our tongues! And snakes, apparently, smell with their tongues.

So, everything in your mind is perception, not reality. Or rather, there is no reality outside of your perceptions. And, perception is, by definition, an interpretation of movement, of friction in space. As such, perceptions can be wrong...

What does this have to do with volition? Volition is NOT an all-or-nothing position. It is, at best, a potentiality depending on past and present circumstances for each individual.

Do you find that scary? Disturbing? Freaky? Well, let me just qualify all of this for you: while you may find your behaviors (both internal and external) not 100% of your own choosing, you ARE responsible for all of it, 100%. Taking responsibility for your life, for your thoughts, for your behavior, for your feelings while understanding that you aren’t entirely volitional in these things is, I think, what Dr. Brene` Brown calls “daring greatly.”

So, if you lay down in front of a doorway, do you have a legitimate complaint when people step on you? Perhaps not.

If, on the other hand, you are minding your Ps and Qs, acting respectfully of others and someone taps you on the shoulder and slaps you in the face when you turn around, do you then have a legitimate compliant? Perhaps.

No one that I know feels good about being stepped on or slapped. And, while you may not be culpable for what someone else does or does not do, you have a choice in how you respond to what someone else does or does not do. If nothing else, you have a responsibility to yourself to perceive your experiences in a way that allows you to survive and be well without denial, reprisals or shame.

That's a hat trick! Much, much easier to say than to do. And, it’s a choice...until it isn't any more.

So, at almost 62 years old, I'm really tired of fighting out with everyone and everything. In the immortal words of P!nk, "Just beam me up. Let me be lighter. I'm tired of being a fighter." Working for a crazy governmental agency that cares not one wit for its employees if it sees no political gain in it; being willing to throw its employees under the bus for political gain; feeling like my "friends" really don't care about me or what happens to me or support my endeavors; feeling truly alone and bereft of all human kindness really sucks, is not life affirming nor does it ever lead to growth. Neither does feeling sorry for myself. Yet, this is my default closely followed by anger.

To be honest, I don't know how to get off of this f'in rollercoaster. It doesn't feel good and brings more of the same. I went through something similar about five and a half or six years ago. Clearly, I didn't learn an f'in thing. I feel stupid and incompetent. Talk about reprisals and shame; I'm deep into that hole. Reaching out to "friends," not going to happen. They have their own problems and issues with which to deal. Clearly, one has to be on or close to death's door for them to jump into action (this is BS. See * below). Don't get me wrong, I greatly appreciate my close friends' efforts in this regard. Some more so than others.

*And now, I must modify these statements about my friends. I must take responsibility for feeling alone. I have done that to myself. My friends did not do this to me. I did reach out and expressed verbally my current state of utter confusion, grief and anger. I feel listened to and heard. Thanks, my friends (by the way, this word Friend encompasses family as well).

The only thing I can think of doing, is to jump off the rollercoaster into space. That is, essentially, what I've done after finally recognizing the years of messages: I let go of my car, I've let go of my careers (the government agency job and my private practice) and downsized all of my expenses. Some ask, "What will you do?" At this point, I can only answer, "I don't know." I'm just waiting for another message from the Universe. I'm "waiting to exhale."

And, it's not easy...I feel like Muhammad Ali might have felt after he began showing signs of Parkinson's Disease. He was a fighter all of his life in everything he did or didn't do. Even his choice of a spiritual path shows that fighting spirit.

Me, too. Though I'm not a boxer nor attached to any religion, I've always fought out for my own rights and have, quite literally, stood up for the "little guy" as a child protective services worker. I spent the better part of my tenure working in that agency investigating allegations of abuse and neglect. I worked hard to NOT detain children from their families as the State, quite frankly, is not a good parent. I have to admit, though, the fact of someone (law enforcement) having that option was a great relief.

I was a union steward and picketed my bosses when necessary. At one point, I was the only worker walking the line for several hours with my boom box playing Aretha Franklin's RESPECT and other songs that seemed pertinent to me and the situation. All that, while management came out to the parking lot to take photos of me, I'm guessing, to intimidate me. Didn't work. The boom-box volume went up, and I danced that line.

Even as a child, I have many memories of fighting out against what I perceived as wrong. At seven years old, I wanted to be like Super Girl: strong, independent, fighting for justice against injustice and, of course, able to fly at will!

I learned early on in my childhood that being scared was a liability. Vulnerability was like having a target on your back. Two of my sisters risked the "wrath of mother" by shaming me into seeing a horror flick they wanted to see. It didn't matter that they were five and six years older than I. What I couldn't control was the resulting nightmares which is how our mother learned the truth. I don't recall or, more likely never knew, what consequences they faced from the "wrath of mother." I know that she beat my oldest sister with her shoe on the back some years earlier when I squealed about my sister slapping me in the face. I was about fours years old which made sister about sixteen. I felt horribly guilty. This is not to say that I never told on my sisters again. It did mean that I only told on them when I felt I had no defense. And my default defense was always anger.

And, for the most part, it worked for me. Or, at least, that was MY perception of this strategy. It came with a hefty price that I now realize I shouldn't have paid. Over and over and over again. Now, I'm bankrupt. I have no more juice for any of it. I keep getting the message from the Universe, from Source, from the Creator, whatever you want to call it if anything. No matter in which direction I turn, the message is, "STOP!" Left, right, forward, back, "STOP!" "STOP!" "STOP!" "STOP!"

Fighting out is deeply ingrained into my identity. I don't know who I am without my fight. Last week, another friend called me and asked me what I was doing at mid-day. I replied, "Nothing." She, in an effort to be supportive commented, "Just taking it easy, huh?" I said, "No. I'm doing nothing and its NOT easy." This is not to say that I am a human "doing" instead of a human being. I can do nothing with the best of them. I haven't been bored since I was about eleven years old. Doing nothing isn't the same as BEING nothing. And therein lays the rub. "The Fight" was my raison d'etre. Struggle, struggle, struggle. We come into this world struggling. Everything we do or don't do, it seems, is designed to counter entropy. Friction will slow us to a stop if we don't fight against it! Once you're stopped, it’s harder to get going again, it takes more energy. The sweetest, most sublime music stems from friction, from this struggle against entropy.

We rail against the coming of that "good night," against the wind or the current, always trying to get upstream. Just so we can feel alive. There must be something else. Some peace, satisfaction or happiness downstream. Once I figure out how to stop rowing upstream and allow whatever I want to be, once I find out what it all means, I'll let you know, too. Until then, I'm still "waiting to exhale" and turning blue in Southern California.

"You live in a dream world of your creation. To find your way, discover your power, learn what matters.

There's no room for guilt or doubt and little need for hesitancy or half measures." Mike Dooley

"Even if you don't have reason to be happy—make it up. Fantasize it. Make a decision that you're going to be happy one way or another—no matter what." ---Abraham

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
Albert Einstein


The following is a brief time-line of the messages I have received in the last nine months or so from the Universe about my fighting out:

In late January, 2013, P3 workers (part-time and temporary) at Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) learned that, not only will we be fired and rehired every year like we had been beginning in the summer of 2010, but now there are new requirements: each P3 worker (75% of whom are retirees) must complete a psychological evaluation and medical assessment prior to rehire every year; for the psych eval, P3 workers would have to bring an updated resume` for the interviewer/psychologist. A number of P3 workers quit on the spot. Until this time, P3 workers, when they were released and then rehired, were done so in small groups of ten to fifteen making the process easier for all concerned and meant a loss of time of approximately 1 week. P3 workers were live-scanned prior to release so that all were approved for rehire (the older one gets, the more difficult it is for the live-scan machine to register one's fingerprints). The first group exposed to the new process went through it in February, 2013. It wasn't until April, 2013, when we learned that 72% of those workers were not rehired because they "failed" the psych eval. One P3 worker, who passed the eval was, nonetheless, demoted by these evaluators because his educational background didn't fit with a higher grade. Another P3 worker flat out refused to go through the process citing DCFS policy that there are NO new hires hired as CSW IIIs or above. She was rehired without the psych eval. Because of this loop-hole in hiring policy, the department changed its procedure to exclude CSW IIIs and SCSWs (Cbildren's Social Worker and Supervising Children's Social Worker) from having to complete the psych eval and medical assessment. However, Personnel now required live-scan AFTER release and BEFORE rehire which, for many retirees, now stretched out the lost time from one month to as long as three months. They also required that everyone be released/rehired individually rather than in groups thus isolating the individual experience.

I began a process of complaint about this change of procedure by, first complaining to the P3 manager, then to my representative on the Board of Supervisors for L.A. County. Our manager was between a rock and a hard place: typical for DCFS, she was ordered to comply with Administration's requirements of this process and yet also required to deal with the extreme fallout of workers quitting, others not being rehired, others complaining but going along with it and still others not being able to do any meaningful work on their cases due to long absences not of their making. My rep on the Board of Supervisors, Zev Yaroslavsky, apparently didn't care that his county government was violating federal law.

Toward the end of April, 2013, I complained of age discrimination by the department to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a Federal Government agency sworn to make companies and government agencies comply with federal law. One week after I was interviewed by an investigator for the EEOC, I experienced a mild stroke. The interview had gone well, and I felt bouyed by the outcome. The stroke only affected my visual perception for part of my right eye. Nevertheless, after three months, I had to finally admit to myself that I am now visually impaired at least until my brain re-wires around the damage. It took me three times as long to read the records on my cases, and driving to an unknown location for home calls was very frightening. I worked a lot from home.

When, finally in August, 2013, my car died and I learned that the department was further seeking to isolate those who complained of age discrimination by offering unsolicited raises in pay for only retirees, I got the message from the Universe. Stop fighting.

There have been other messages from the Universe as well: concerning my private practice as a hypnotherapist and my inability to make it profitable enough to keep my office; having to learn about hypnosis and neuroanatomy in order to make a presentation to students at my former school in hypnotherapy BEFORE I had the stroke (!) in an effort to put myself out there for possible other teaching opportunities; applying for disability benefits and being turned down because DCFS does not contribute to social security for its employees; and other messages always about fighting out. I'm not at all saying that these messages against fighting out are for anyone else but me. And, I still don't know where it will lead. I am willing to try anything, any suggestion once (like applying for social security disability) as long as I see it as potentially beneficial for me. If it doesn't work, that's when I give up the fight.

Back, again, to some other immortal words of P!nk: "I don't feel like calming down, no I don't. I don't feel like hiding out, so I won't. I can't turn the volume down, so I sit here in this chaos and piss watching the storm passing. Storms are beautiful. Right here it's beautiful, it is."

CHAPTER 2

So, the answer to the conundrum, if a tree falls in the forest when no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound, is no, it does not make a "sound." Sound is perceived and a brain interpretation. Therefore, if there are no brains with their sensory pathways to perceive it, there is no sound. This does not mean that there is no disturbance in air waves. Physics clearly supports this idea. Disturbances in air waves is what our physiology picks up and transmits to the brain for interpretation all things being equal. If there was a person in the forest who, say, is totally deaf, they would likely perceive this disturbance as a vibration in air or ground (depending on the size of the tree and how close the person was). That person's presence, assuming he/she was conscious at the time, would give credence to the "sound" vibrations the brain may then interpret.

Why in the hell am I writing about trees falling in the forest? Our presence as sentient beings in this world makes a difference. Just being present and witnessing life events changes those events, making them sensible if nothing else. But, to what end? Well, one of the finest minds we've ever known, Albert Einstein, said, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." Is that true? Can we really change events simply by changing how we look at them? In some ways, yes, in other ways , no. Ignoring reality does not make it disappear. I don't believe we can change the fact of the fallen tree in the forest. Way back in the pre-history of our country, a sizeable meteor fell to Earth in the northern desert of present day Arizona. Geologists believe this event happened some 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene era long before, it is believed, that humans inhabited the area. It wasn't even a desert at the time. We can pretend this event never happened since there was no one around to witness it. Nevertheless, the presence of the crator leaves us wondering about its origin.

In May of this year, when I experienced an ischemic stroke to my left occipital lobe, the doctor in the emergency room told me this is what they discovered through the miriad of tests they ran on me. I know this is what he told me for two reasons: a friend was with me at the time and heard the conversation, and I immediately called my sister in Arizona and informed her thusly. Nevertheless, some time in the hours or days after that conversation, my mind distorted the information and reduced the diagnosis to a transient ischemic attack (TIA). Transient being the operative word meaning temporary with little or no permanent damage. I clung to that distortion for better than two weeks before I was disabused of it in my first appointment with a neurologist. I didn't like the neurologist, but this isn't why. He did nothing to find out who I am and gave me no hope for recovery even when I asked about neuroplasticity and rewiring around the damage (clearly showing an acceptance of the true diagnosis). His statement was, "That takes years. Now let me prescribe for you this medication that works to prevent a second stroke, a blood thinner." I took the prescription but never filled it since its own website described some side effects like memory problems and confusion. While I don't know who I am right now without my fight, I do know that I am nothing without a working brain. I went back to him a month later, told him that I refused to take his medication and why and challenged him to test my blood to see if my over-the-counter supplements were doing what is necessary. He refused by lying claiming there was no such test and insisted that I had only two choices, aspirin (I am allergic) or his prescribed meds. I had a third choice, I said goodbye.

My point is this: distorting the reality to make a diagnosis more palatable did not change my reality any more than the neurologist distorting the truth changed my mind. I am fairly certain that he did what he did out of an ethic to fight against death at all costs. This would likely be his way of keeping his oath to "first, do no harm." But, without knowing who I am and what is important to me and MY life, he cannot adequately assess "no harm."

Now, back to what we CAN change. I could see that neurologist as old, as rigid and as a product of a learning machine (medical school) that finds it difficult to accept its failures. In this case, a huge failure to appreciate the wonder and flexibility of the human brain and it's outcome, the human mind, until about ten or fifteen years ago. The information was out there all along in anecdotal stories. But, because they couldn't really SEE the changes and damage before death and only SAW the unhealed damage after death, the neurological community clung to the belief that the brain is fixed by age 22 or so, does not repair its damage and is set in stone. They clung to that belief much like I clung to the distorted diagnosis of a TIA. I suspect that the old way of viewing the brain is what that neurologist was yet clinging to as well. I can do nothing to change his mind.

There is an old joke: what is the difference between God and doctors? God doesn't think He's a dostor! My own personal belief is this: no doctor is any MORE a god than I am. I prefer to believe that the placebo effect is not an anomaly, a mistake to avoid in medical research. It is evidence in support of the idea that, even with all of their schooling and experience and knowledge about the machine workings of the human body, doctors have no idea of how the human mind can find extraordinary ways to heal the body. They refuse to acknowledge the "ghost in the machine." Ghost in this sense refers to the human spirit, the power of the human mind and belief system over which doctors have NO CONTROL! Many (but certainly not all) M.D.s, D.O.s and D.C.s find that idea very scary. It seems to fly in the face of all they know, all they've ever been taught and all they believe. And, if the face of neurology can change so dramatically in just the last ten or fifteen years, perhaps doctors' knowledge and understanding of the machine workings of the human body is not as complete and final as they want to believe.

Do I believe that I can repair the damage to my brain done by an ischemic stroke? The evidence so far suggests that I cannot undo that damage. However, there is much evidence that I can help my brain rewire around it, that I can, in time, recover my brain's ability to fully interpret the input from my sensory organ, my right eye. So, I will.

Can I change the sequence of events and messages that lead me here? No. I cannot change what happened. I CAN change HOW I see it. I can change what it all means and be open to whatever new experiences are in store for me. I CAN focus my energies to pinpoint what I want for myself in this life once I figure that out! There's a psychological axiom: you tend to find what you're looking for. To the extent that this is true, I'm going to look for what I want and expect to see that within whatever configuration it appears. It is all in process. I still find myself ruminating about how things could be different. In order to do that, I have to focus on what is or what has been. Nothing is likely to change that way. I can only allow myself to acknowledge and, to a certain extent, honor this for what it is, my former strategy to protect myself from pain or hurt. At one time, it did work otherwise, I would never have adopted it as
a strategy. It has not worked well for quite some time. Time now to adopt a new one.

CHAPTER 3

Bet you thought I was done. Ha! Gotcha!

The last chapter ended with a note about time. Now, I have to talk about Time -- it is such an interesting phenomenon to me. More than just a weekly magazine, and much less than we care to know, Time does not exist outside of our perception. Yes, humans can make an instrument that, for a while, accurately measures time passing. And our brains carry the thread of our experience from one moment of consciousness to the next. But what does that even mean? Here, on the planet Earth, in an eight or nine planetary system in the "back water" of the Milky Way, we accept that there are 60 seconds in every minute, 60 minutes in every hour, 24 hours in every day, seven days in every week, approximately 30 days in every month, 12 months in every year, 365 days to every year which is how long it takes for our Earth to revolve around the primary star in our system...wait, that's not entirely correct. The Earth does not revolve around the Sun in a perfect circle. It, like all of our planets, travels in an elliptical configuration. Consequently, the Earth takes approximately 365 and 1/4 days around the Sun, and every four years, in order to acknowledge that course of "time," we add a day to the end of February, our shortest month. What?!!! Oh, dear. Another damn conundrum! This is not to mention that RIGHT NOW, in Australia, it is tomorrow! So, how old are you? How old would you be on Mars? Or Venus? And how could anyone adequately measure the age of the Sun never mind the Universe?

All right, enough time spent on Time! As you may imagine from the previous chapters, I have a point. I just have to organize my thoughts...Back in April, 2013, when I filed a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (a federal agency) against DCFS for violating the law against age discrimination, I was advised that the EEOC had a time limit of 120 days to investigate and come to some kind of decision about the complaint. That time limit is rapidly coming to a close this month. However, as far as I know, with the Republican Party holding our government hostage over a law (that the Supreme Court has deemed constitutional) because they don't like it, I'm guessing that the EEOC is on full furlough. After all, the EEOC is not vital to our nation's defense. Okay, I just called the investigator on my "case," and the recording confirmed that the EEOC is closed for business until further notice (as of 10/3/2013). I have no idea what this means in terms of that time limit. It may mean that the complaint is dead in the water. I don't know, and I can't effect it one way or another. I do know that since I filed that complaint, DCFS has done some backpedaling. So it, perhaps, made a difference. And, I have no way of knowing what effect my resignation had on the cases I had or might have been assigned. On the one hand, this makes me very sad. On the other hand, I know the people who remain part of that program and know they all have, at heart, the best interests of their charges. I cannot ask for anything more. I'm learning to let go of that part of my identity, too.

On 9/30/2013, my private practice in hypnotherapy and my office where I practiced closed down. In mid-September, I took the bus to my then office and began the process of closing it. I already had and understood the message of Stop Fighting Out. Nevertheless, the process of closing down something I truly enjoyed, hurt which made me angry, my default. When I was done for that day, I walked back to the bus station to go home. As I walked, feeling royally pissed, I kept to the right of the sidewalk just as we do while driving in the U.S. to give plenty of room to people walking the opposite direction. I first noticed this guy walking in my direction when he was about 100 yards away. He was, perhaps, half my age, two or three inches taller (which means, in our culture, that he was a short man), shaved head, and buff. I also noticed that, initially he began to move out of my path, then veered back and squared himself directly into my path as we approached eachother. This little game of "walking chicken" brought my anger to full steam though I showed none of it. I purposely kept my face impassive and maintained my path. He couldn't know what was in my mind, that my intention was, if he bumped me in any substantial way, he would end up on his ass before he could say, "Whoa." At the last possible second, he veered to his right (and my left) his seemingly empty backpack just grazing my arm. I kept walking, never saying a word and not looking back. I don't know what he did except that he never said a word either. I initially felt powerful and good that I focussed the energy of my anger to "stand my ground."

When I thought about this event later, it occurred to me this was a lost opportunity to not fight out, that I was absolutely stupid in doing what I did. While he couldn't know what was on my mind, neither could I know what was on his mind. I couldn't know if he had a gun or a knife or was an MMA fighter. I put my life in jeopardy for a "right." I was reminded of an epitaph written on a tombstone somewhere in New England, "This is the grave of Mike O' Day who died defending his right of way. His way was right, and his will was strong. But, he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong." Holy crap! I knew then that I still had a ways to go in this new process.

Finally, in the last week of September, 2013, I found myself ruminating about the dysfunction of DCFS as run by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and decided to write it out in an effort to discharge the negative energy. I did some research on Google about the history of DCFS and its many directors. I found an interesting piece on how the ACLU was successful suing the BOS over problems DCFS had in its abusive process at Mac Laren Children's Center. Mac, as we called it, was temporary housing for dependent minors awaiting appropropriate placement in foster care or with relatives. The ACLU's success in the Katie A. case caused the BOS to precipitously close down Mac without any provisions to replace it much like then California Governor, Ronald Reagan did when he closed down most of California's mental hospitals. While the outcome of closing down Mac brought about many more problems that I believe the ACLU couldn't have foreseen, I decided to focus only on their success. I turned my writing into a letter addressed to the Children's Rights department of the ACLU recommending they sue the BOS over the right to place on the ballot a change to the County Charter changing a political appointment of Director of DCFS to an elected position. I sent off the letter with the intent that this would be my last attempt to encourage a change for the positive in the DCFS culture. I don't know if this will do anything and, quite frankly, will not follow it further. The fact that I found the information so easily including the address of the local chapter of the ACLU suggested to me this was not an incident of fighting out as long as I commit to no further demonstration.

This last sentence might sound odd or slightly superstitious, but this is part of what I've noticed in my process of late. I already explained what happens when I try something I think may be beneficial to me and experience a stumbling block. I walk away believing it an opportunity to stop fighting out. This last effort regarding DCFS only benefits me as a way of discharging remnants of frustration and anger. Sending it off to the ACLU is a sign of hope for our future. Continuing that fight is nothing but an effort to hold onto the frustration and anger. And who needs that? Well, some people might say that anger and frustration are a little better than depression and melancholy. Frustration and anger represent more energy and less entropy. There's truth in that statement, and the changes some might see in my behavior might look like depression to some. I am not depressed or melancholic. Depression is marked by a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. That is one hole I'm not in right now! For those who are, I agree with the witicism of Will Rogers (no, not Trigger's cowboy!) who said, "When you find yourself in a hole, the thing to do is stop diggin'." And, from that hole, getting "royally pissed" can be the first step out of it as long as the energy is focussed outwardly and positively. Facing off against some short, angry stranger on the street, not a good example!

Many years ago, in my most stupid mid-twenties, I got myself into a relationship with a married man. Not my proudest moment, I know, I know. When it became clear that he was using this situation to play me off against his wife, I, initially felt helpless. My therapist asked a simple, but very important question, "Where's your anger?" Because I was wrong to be in such a relationship in the first place, I didn't believe I had any right to anger. When I finally got in touch with my anger, I wrote him a letter (starting to see the pattern?). I accused him of pretending to be a prince gathering a harem of water lillies when in reality, he was just a frog. And frogs don't know how to treat water lillies. All they do is sit on them, shit on them and move on to another. I sent off the letter and let him go. Then, I focussed that energy into getting an education and getting on with my life. I never again involved myself with him or any other married man. This is a good example of digging out of the hole of depression.

In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene` Brown lists several of the "great unravelings" of life, a time "when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and embrace who you are." Her list includes mid-life, marriage, divorce, becoming a parent, recovery, moving, an empty nest, retirement, experiencing loss or trauma and working in a soul-sucking job! This last one made me wonder if she knows about DCFS. She goes on to say, "The universe is not short on wake-up calls. We're just quick to hit the snooze button." Amen to that!

Now, I am beginning to exhale!