"Cult behavior is human behavior..."

8/20/2018
9:30 AM

Reading on Amazon.
The viewable sections in the Introduction to Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over by Janja Lalich & Karla McLaren.

I read a review of the book earlier today. Then went to Amazon to "look inside."

The little I read stirred feelings of value for my life, feelings of substance for what I've lived. Through my experiences I have gained knowledge and that yucky word "wisdom." What other word can I use besides "wisdom?" Hmmm ..."know-how?"... I like that better.

My Way years are becoming more chronologically distant, so I think about them less. But that does not mean those 28+ years are irrelevant. Those years are very relevant...even if I'd never joined The Way.

But I did.

The Way and its doctrine were a part of my very core through those decades. With every decision Way doctrine and its accompanying judgment were in my mind. The doctrine took precedence. It was the roadmap displaying the right route, even if the route felt not-right.

To me, that is the most distinguishing factor of a "cult" - doctrine over person.

If a person's experiences/observations/perceptions/intuitions/ideas don't line up with the doctrine, either the person is inherently wrong or has received wrong information. Correct information lines up with the doctrine. All information and experience must somehow fit within and/or be explained by the doctrine. The person cannot trust their own experiences/observations/perceptions/intuitions/ideas if they are contrary to the doctrine. Any questioning or thought or exploration is carried out within the confines - the borders and undergidings - of the doctrine.

This line from the Introduction is maybe the best way I've heard the word "cult" put into perspective:

Cult behavior is human behavior...

The context of that line is:

In fact, the behaviors, social pressures, and controlling structures that create cults exist (to some degree) in every human group. Cult behavior is human behavior--and by studying cults, we can learn remarkably useful things about the social world and our place in it.

So, does that mean, because of my experiences with cults of different flavors and especially my decades in The Way, that I know "remarkably useful things about the social world and [my] place in it"? Maybe I do. That's a thought.


~*~

Reading further through the Introduction, I came upon a definition of "cult" which, to me, is similar to my "most distinguishing factor." The attributes described in the definition below are derived from (or rationalized by) the doctrine.

Definition of cult, quoted from Lalich and McLaren:

A cult is a group or relationship that stifles individuality and critical thinking, requires intense commitment and obedience to a person and/or ideology, and restricts or eliminates personal autonomy in favor of the cult's worldview and the leader's wants and needs.

One of the books I found most helpful after leaving The Way was Dr. Lalich's book, Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults. It helped me understand more clearly the mechanisms, and thus behavior, undergirding true believerism. This new book, Escaping Utopia, sounds similar but broader and, I'd think, deeper in scope.

Bounded Choice was published in 2004. Escaping Utopia in 2018.

Chunks to Cairns

August 12, 2018

My personal life seems to be taking on some kind of organic organization. Of course, as soon as I write this, that may crumble and life is humdrum chaos again.

Humdrum chaos.
That's an oxymoron.
But that's how "it" feels.

Maybe that's a coping skill. The chaos is so overwhelming that it cycles into apathy, or humdrum. But one can't live like that on an ongoing basis. And if they do have to live "it" in order to survive, the price is high. It takes a toll, a chunk. Many chunks.

Perhaps one can then take the chunks and build a cairn.

My definition of cairn is: a rock stack marking a path or something significant.

Two Oxford Dictionary definitions are:
~a mound of rough stones built as a memorial or landmark, typically on a hilltop or skyline.
~a prehistoric burial mound made of stones.

So where was I?

Ahh, my personal life and the organic organizational feel to it. This is a good thing, if it is actually a thing and not a momentary perception. And if it is a thing, I think it stems from setting aside Wednesdays and arranging that day around the writing workshop at night. The priority isn't biking that day.

I love biking. It's become my full time job....

I'm getting off track because I'm starting to write to explain for a reader.
Stop it Carol.
Plus readers can come to their own conclusions with what is stated.
Their own applications.

It's time to type up my next "Help Map" and magnet it to my refrigerator. I type these up every 12 weeks, to help me make it to my next epidural. I put a check mark beside each week when that week's complete.

This is round #22.

~*~
Help Map:
August 6, 2018. thru October 29, 2018

I have value.
My experiences & knowledge count.

I am committed to self-care & emotional wellness.
I do not have to explain to anyone my lack of commitment to activities outside of self-care.
Even if I weren't disabled, there is no need to explain.
I do not need to apologize, though I'm sure I will.
With selfcare I am caring for others.

Listen to my soul & to my body.
Nothing else takes priority.
Pace. Rest. Movement.
Nutrition. Happiness. Writing.

Weather is always changing.
"It's wind man. It blows all over the place."

May I be present.
May I have ease of well being.
May I be peaceful.
May I embrace 10,000 sorrows & 10,000 joys.


Countdown:
Week 1: Completed M, 8/13/18
Week 2: Completed M, 8/20/18
Week 3: Completed M, 8/27/18 (BONIVA on Sa, 8/25/18)
Week 4: Completed M, 9/03/18

Week 5: Completed M, 9/10/18
Week 6: Completed Tu, 9/18/18 (neck shots)
Week 7: Completed Tu, 9/25/18
Week 8: Completed Tu, 10/02/18 (BONIVA on Sa, 9/29/18)

Week 9: Completed Tu, 10/09/18
Week 10: Completed Tu, 10/16/18
Week 11: Completed Tu, 10/23/18
Week 12: Completed M, 10/29/18 (BONIVA on Sa, 10/27/18 ~4 wks) (Epidural #23)

Carol Welch, CEO
~cyclist. explorer. overcomer.

~*~

Roots, no longers, healing springs...

In the last few years, I've said to Hubby, "I think I know what it feels like to be old." ("Old" meaning "elderly." But I didn't use the word "elderly" when talking to Hubby; I used "old.")

I've said that because of polyradiculitis and the hell it's been to live, including the side effects of long-term steroids.

The slowness of my body. The muscle atrophy. The thinning hair. The thinning, fragile skin. The bone loss. The heaviness. The trembles. The fatigue. The cognitive dysfunction. The isolation. The monitoring for diabetes, glaucoma, adrenal and heart dysfunction. The assistance I sometimes needed to bathe and dress. The assistance I still need to trim my fingernails and toenails.

The giving-up much of my 2D and 3D social life. The giving-up of walks and hiking and backpacking and my dream of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. The giving-up of cleaning the house, gardening, doing the laundry, meal prep, shopping...that kind of stuff. Though I do occasionally shop in short intervals, and can now sometimes even do laundry.

Then there are/have been the symptoms that typically aren't necessarily associated with aging. Iron deficiency. Vertigo. Migraines. Numbness and pain and tingling and bizarre sensations in my limbs. To name a few.

Poly means many or multiple.
Rad means root.
Itis means inflammation.
Multiple roots inflamed.
Nerve roots at my spinal cord, inflamed.

My whole body is affected. But the symptoms have become less severe since adding Charlotte's Web Hemp Extract to my regimen in 2015 and since my revision hip replacement surgery in 2016 to replace the recalled, defective, metal-leaching implant. Again slicing open my left thigh about six inches, downward from my hip. Cutting through layers of skin and muscle and tissue.

I have a scar there from my first hip replacement in August, 2008. I also have a deformity alongside the scar, a lump. It's supposedly fatty tissue that built up after the first surgery. I recently read that some lumps are caused by leaching metals. I wonder if that was the case for me. I'm not going to ask about that; there's nothing more to be done.

I saw the orthopedic surgeon last Thursday, August 2nd. I sometimes still have low level pain in that hip, and sometimes a catch...

And here I am. My mind going all over the place. This subject is so huge. Huge. Because I live with pain all over my body. Literally. The soles of my feet, the palms of my hands, my shins, my forearms, my biceps, my knees, my thighs, my left hip area where the scalpels have gouged and danced. And my low back. And migraines, which have mostly abated since I gave up cheese and yogurt and sauerkraut and pickles.

But, thankfully, I no longer suffer intense pain. The pain now is mainly tenderness. Sometimes an electric bolt. Most often a low ache, soreness. Occasional numbness in two of my fingers. My routine lumbar epidurals and neck shots give relief.

I no longer suffer the other bizarre symptoms inside my forearms. Feelings of heavy, wet sand moving around like mercury. And little Mario men all lined up on either side of my forearm bone, their feet pressed against my bone while they play tug-o-war pulling on my tendons, back and forth, back and forth. And the pins and needles in my wrists and hands and fingers and ankles and feet and toes. The numbness in my fingers and hands, like I was wearing boxing gloves.

I no longer have the severe weakness in my arms, so much so that I couldn't lift a soda can to my lips.

I no longer have pain in my neck and jaws. I occasionally still have weakness in my jaws, but not like it used to be.

I no longer feel the weight, like I have a dead body strapped to me. Or like my body is filled with slivers of iron and that Earth is trying to suck me into her magnetic core.

Those were such bizarre times. And it's only part of the story. It sounds unbelievable. It was a terrifying time.

I still have to move slowly, deliberately. I'm used to it now. It's my new normal.

But, my pace has picked up from the terrifying days. Hubby recently said I now move a little quicker than his mom. Or maybe it's that her pace has slowed down. For a few years, my pace was slower than hers. She's 83. I'm 59.

But when I'm riding my bike, I can move fast, for me. An observer wouldn't even know I'm disabled, until I dismount. Those wheels are my freedom.

I'm going to Virginia tomorrow to bike a section of the New River rail trail. As usual, I'm going solo. But I don't feel alone on the trail. Because of the trees and the birds and the deer and the cows and the river and the rocks...and the history. People once rode a train on that trail to get to the healing sulfur springs of Grayson County.

On my own...

From my journal, adapted.
~*~
Monday, August 6, 2018
10:35 AM

I don't know what to write. I need to write like no one is listening, and I need to write like everyone is listening. And that really makes no sense. It is a polar extreme, which may not be true to fact but is true to feel. And if that makes no sense, well then, it makes no sense. At least in this linear dimension of logic. The dimension where science is absolute.

But is that really true? Absolute science? Isn't science about discovery?

Well discovery is science, isn't it? At least part of it.

I don't think of discoveries as absolutes.

I'm not a scientist. I have no formal degree.

What is science? What is the etymology of the word?


From Online Etymology:

"mid-14c., "what is known, knowledge (of something) acquired by study; information;" also "assurance of knowledge, certitude, certainty," from Old French science "knowledge, learning, application; corpus of human knowledge" (12c.), from Latin scientia "knowledge, a knowing; expertness," from sciens (genitive scientis) "intelligent, skilled," present participle of scire "to know," probably originally "to separate one thing from another, to distinguish," related to scindere "to cut, divide," from PIE root *skei- "to cut, split" (source also of Greek skhizein "to split, rend, cleave," Gothic skaidan, Old English sceadan "to divide, separate").~

From late 14c. in English as "book-learning," also "a particular branch of knowledge or of learning;" also "skillfulness, cleverness; craftiness." From c. 1400 as "experiential knowledge;" also "a skill, handicraft; a trade." From late 14c. as "collective human knowledge" (especially that gained by systematic observation, experiment, and reasoning). Modern (restricted) sense of "body of regular or methodical observations or propositions concerning a particular subject or speculation" is attested from 1725; in 17c.-18c. this concept commonly was called philosophy. Sense of "non-arts studies" is attested from 1670s.

Science, since people must do it, is a socially embedded activity. It progresses by hunch, vision, and intuition. Much of its change through time does not record a closer approach to absolute truth, but the alteration of cultural contexts that influence it so strongly. Facts are not pure and unsullied bits of information; culture also influences what we see and how we see it. Theories, moreover, are not inexorable inductions from facts. The most creative theories are often imaginative visions imposed upon facts; the source of imagination is also strongly cultural. [Stephen Jay Gould, introduction to "The Mismeasure of Man," 1981]

In science you must not talk before you know. In art you must not talk before you do. In literature you must not talk before you think. [John Ruskin, "The Eagle's Nest," 1872]

The distinction is commonly understood as between theoretical truth (Greek episteme) and methods for effecting practical results (tekhne), but science sometimes is used for practical applications and art for applications of skill. To blind (someone) with science "confuse by the use of big words or complex explanations" is attested from 1937, originally noted as a phrase from Australia and New Zealand."

These are interesting lines:

probably originally 'to separate one thing from another, to distinguish,'...'to cut, divide,' … 'to cut, split' (source also of Greek skhizein "to split, rend, cleave," Gothic skaidan, Old English sceadan "to divide, separate").

Sounds like a cult: to separate, cut, split, cleave, divide.

~*~

I awoke crying this morning. I felt very alone in my misery. I get my epidural today. It's my 22nd epidural, or thereabouts. I got my first one in December, 2013.

Hubby used to go with me when I'd get my epidurals, or at least meet me at the doctor's office. I get epidurals every 12 weeks. He's not coming today. He didn't come last time. And, I'm pretty sure, he wasn't with me the time before. That's 36 weeks. Or is it 24?

Regardless, it hurts.

One reason he hasn't come, and maybe the only reason, is that his work commute is longer since he started working in Cornelius a year ago. A one-hour-and-twenty-minute commute, one way. More, depending on traffic.

What bothers me most though, is that he's made no offer to come or meet me, and he doesn't bring it up, even when I email and verbally tell him the upcoming pet sitting & epidural schedule. That's what really hurts. My feelings translate it into, I'm not a priority.

Which isn't true.

Hubby does a lot to help me manage. Living the hell of this disease would be even more horrible without his support. And I'd have to give up working with pets altogether if not for Hubby. And even though the pets are a lot of work, I feel their love and support. I feel their companionship. And, at the end of a pet client stay, I feel good about myself. That I've contributed to another's life. Not just the pet's humans, but the pets themselves. I've made their life happy for awhile, and they do the same for me.

I'm tired of writing for now. More later, maybe.

My epidural appointment is at 2:40 in King. I'll enjoy the drive.

~*~

Added note, beyond the story: Hubby and I discussed the epidural visits in more depth later. He'll probably go to my next one. He's a wonderful man. I don't want any readers to get the wrong impression. The above is how I felt at the time.

Watch & wait

I've felt disoriented lately.

Today, I've had to collect saliva throughout the day at five different designated times for an adrenal function test.

I also picked up my two dachshund friends, Greta and Otto, this morning. They are staying with us through Sunday.

And I am visiting some cat friends once a day through Saturday. Three cats in one home - Oliver, Sarabi, and LiLing.

Sarabi is new to the trio and keeps her distance from me for now and waits by her feeding spot checking me out. She knows, "The feeder is here."

Oliver is an adopted stray. He adopted Luci, his human, last year. Since Oliver was once a stray, Luci lets him in and out of the house whenever Oliver asks, for the most part. But for my first visit last year, Luci was concerned Oliver may not readily come back, since he didn't yet know me.

On that first day, Oliver avoided me and was skittish. Not unusual for a cat, or many an animal when they are first getting to know a human. I respect their space and simply hang out after doing my house and pet sitting duties. I don't try to get them to like me. But I try to let them know that they can trust me.

On the second day Oliver was standing on his hind legs, frantically pawing at the sliding glass door wanting to go outside. I obliged; he was too distraught. He came back after 20 minutes, and I let him back inside.

He was a changed cat, at least in our relationship. He rubbed against my legs, his purr box humming. I told him, "I get it Oliver. I'd go nuts if I couldn't visit the woods." He's not been skittish since.

Lucky, one of my previous cat clients before I had to downsize, would always hide from us pet sitters. I'd often find her under the bed hiding in the lightweight muslin-like material that sometimes covers the underside of box springs. She wasn't the only cat that had discovered how to make a hole in that material and then climb inside it like a secret hammock.

I'd lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, on my back, and turn my head to see Lucky under the bed at the other end in her hammock. Lucky would stare at me, checking me out.

After about 1-1/2 years, Lucky decided all was okay. One day I arrived, and she greeted me, purring and rubbing against my legs. From then on, she always greeted me with purrs.

I collect my last saliva sample tonight between 10PM and midnight. I'll swish my mouth with water for 30 seconds and then spit the water out. Then wait 3 to 5 minutes, wash my hands, put the one-inch cotton roll under my tongue for 20 minutes, and write my identification on the appropriate vial. After 20 minutes, with clean hands, I'll take the cotton roll out from under my tongue, put it in the vial, tightly cap the vial, and place it in the refrigerator with the other four vials which are in "the provided resealable bag with orange absorbent shipping pad." Tomorrow I'll put the sealed bag with the five vials in the provided box and mail it from the UPS store, after I visit the cat trio and before I visit the orthopedic surgeon.