Currently in Rotation: "So Glad" - David Lynch (2011)

 

Ahh, David Lynch.  Weirdo genius who gave us creepy gems like Eraserhead, "Twin Peaks," The Elephant Man & Mulholland Drive.  Casual fans might be surprised to learn he dropped some pretty dope music over the years as well, including 2 solo albums and multiple collaborative albums with artists like Chrystabell & Angelo Badalamenti.  The song here is from his 2011 solo album Crazy Clown Time which featured Karen O. on the opening track "Pinky's Dream" but was otherwise a totally solo effort.  

I dig "So Glad" for a couple reasons:  First is the beat, which is a head-nodder that stays true to his eerie, dark sound.  Second are the lyrics, which are serious yet sung in a comically off-key manner.  This combo of serious subject matter performed in an absurd, lighthearted way = the perfect recipe for a great track.  The lyrics reflect sentiments we've likely all felt at some point after shaking loose from an oppressive relationship, whether romantic or otherwise.  Here's a sample:


"So glad you're gone
I'm so glad you're gone
Free (free) in my house
Free (free) in my truck
Free (free) on the street
Free (free) at last"


 This track makes the perfect post-break up tune & is ideal for eliciting "Wtf?" reactions in general.  David Lynch was great at that.  Sadly, he exited this mortal coil due to emphysema earlier this year but he left behind tons of haunting & beautiful work for us to try & figure out, though that could take us the rest of OUR lives due to the complexity and depth of his art.

rest well, Mr. Lynch.  P.S. -  I'll always remember that time you "liked" my comment about transcendental meditation on your social media page.  🖤

False Positive Drug Tests Too Damn Common

I'm drug tested every few monts due to taking an ADHD medication (urinalysis via those 12-panel cup tests).  I don't mind this as it's just "one of those things"--a ridiculous hoop you have to jump through to receive treatment for an illness nobody asks for.  But what I DO mind is the fact that these in-office tests are wrong as often as they are right, giving false-positives for street drugs like MDMA that I've either never taken or haven't taken in decades.  This has happened a total of 5 times now.  FIVE FUCKING TIMES.  It happens every time I don't need to pee and my urine is not diluted to high hell.  Yet they claim that diluted urine is a sign of trying to "cheat" the test.  😡

Thankfully my doctor pays for the lab confirmation tests, which he has told me aren't cheap.  But people forced to take these tests for legal reasons (parole, probation, drug court, etc) often have to pay out of pocket and are punished in the meantime, which is absolutely disgusting and unfair.  I failed the first surprise drug test so I've been extremely careful not to mess up again, as that first one was my only "get out of jail free" card.  Any more screw-ups and my meds will be cut off.  So every time I get a false positive now, even though I know I didn't take Ecstasy or benzos or whatever, it still gives me anxiety because I take so many over-the-counter supplements.  What if one of them is adulterated?  It wouldn't be the first time.  Not only that, my mother has used these bunk drug tests as an excuse to call me a drug addict, which is always on the tip of her tongue anyway due to the Adderall.  All this amounts to more unnecessary stress I don't need.  (Again, my doctor is super chill and doesn't make me wait until the lab test comes back to go ahead and give me my meds so props to him for that.  It's a hoop HE has to jump through as well due to DEA bullshit so I don't blame him).  

And these bunk, useless tests don't even always find drugs that ARE in your system because I've had false NEGATIVES as well.  Barbiturates are one of the few drugs that stick around in your system for a month or more like THC, yet the 12-panel piss test failed to detect butalbital in my urine the morning after I took 1 pill containing 50mg the previous night, less than 10 hours prior.  This was one of the times where I popped false-positive for benzos, so maybe it mischaracterized the barb as a benzo, but that's not okay because I have a prescription for butalbital and not for benzos.  So it was yet another false positive that had to be sent off to the lab.

You sure about that?

Getting Rich Off a Faulty Product

The fact that the drug testing industry is a multi-billion dollar per year industry ($7.6 billion in 2023) is the killing part.  If these greedy bastards can't come up with a more scientifically accurate, reliable method of determining what substances are in your bodily fluids, they should hang it up and call it a day.  Why aren't these tests FDA regulated for accuracy?  Or does the FDA regulate them but just not care what the false-positive rate is & how the fallout affects those who are forced against their will to take these tests?  Sounds like the perfect setup for a class action lawsuit to me, at least if this country ever comes to its senses regarding drug laws.  These companies shouldn't be raking in billions when the product they push is faulty as fuck.  Last time I checked, there aren't any "black box warning" type disclaimers that warn users of the false-positive rate, or state that people taking multiple medications/supplements & have concentrated urine are likely to fail.  That needs to change if these tests are going to remain on the market.

Think of all the people who have lost jobs or never been hired, all the kids whose parents sent them off to torture camps or rehabs they didn't need, all the relationships ended on false pretenses... all the awful things that have happened to people due to inaccurate drug tests.  It's considered a mortal sin to falsely accuse someone of rape or other sex crimes, but to wrongly accuse them of abusing drugs--which is also a crime--and do so with the help of a pseudoscientific test is accepted as perfectly okay?  It's time to ask yourself why.  Why do we passively accept this unfair nonsense from our lawmakers, employers, judges, medical providers and others in power?  Why aren't more people lawyering up when they incur negative consequences as a result of faulty drug tests?  Where is the pushback?  

These 12-panel urinalysis tests are no more accurate than a polygraph or e-meter, yet they're used to discriminate against people in court, in the workplace and in medical settings all across this country every day.  If authorities want to violate our privacy by testing our bodily fluids for the presence of substances ingested in the privacy of our home, they can cough up the money to send them directly to a GCMS or LCMS/MS lab & do it the right way.  I can personally attest that these tests are wildly inaccurate and ONLY work when your urine is highly diluted if you take multiple medications and supplements.  That is to say, the only way to avoid a false positive for street drugs like MDMA or PCP is to drink enough water that your urine is clear or nearly clear & voluminous enough to fill up the test cup.  




Ever had a false-positive drug test result?  How did it get resolved, assuming it did?  Love to hear about it in the comments.  Shit's getting old over here and there aren't even any real consequences for me--I feel terrible for those who are punished for somebody else's mistake.  (Something I have experienced plenty in life, just not with this).

The Cold, Long Winter to Come

Winter time sucks as far as sickness goes.  You have colds, flu... the horror known as norovirus which has pretty much controlled my life forever.  (Thanks, emetophobia).  But the last couple of winters have been especially nasty.  Last year it was the "Tripledemic":  flu, strep and COVID (or flu/RSV/COVID in some areas).  Ignorant folk blamed "masking" for the increase in illness, though that was definitely not the case.  COVID simply out-performed these other bugs temporarily due to its insane infectiousness.  In many states we didn't wear masks or isolate long enough to have any effect. 

This year we're facing something much worse:  flu, COVID, (increasingly virulent) RSV, whooping cough(!), typical colds, strep, chickenpox and norovirus plus another old friend:  tuberculosis.  That's right friends, not only has pertussis made a dangerous comeback, our old pal consumption, aka TB is currently experiencing renewed popularity in the U.S.  In fact this is the largest documented outbreak in American history. 

Think about that for a moment.  All those years when TB killed masses of people from antiquity through the Middle Ages up until the mid-20th Century when real treatments and preventative methods came about and THIS is the biggest outbreak on record!  There is a vaccine for TB but it's not routinely offered in the U.S. for some stupid reason.  Not that it would be received any differently than all the other miraculous vaccines by our paranoid, science-allergic population, but at least those of us who wanted it could opt to get it.  

TB outbreak news report

None of this is surprising if you've been paying attention.  We're right on track to live out what scientists have termed The Pandemicene Era, a time when climate change, overpopulation, habitat destruction and other things like airplane travel will ensure a near-constant state of human disease due to infectious illness.  But how would climate change cause disease in humans? 

As the planet heats, ice caps melt, sea levels rise & weather patterns become more erratic, the planet will become less habitable overall leading to an increase in things like mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, parasites & other disease-carrying nasties.  And that's only ONE of the ways it can happen.  (See graphic below).  Scientists have predicted many paths by which human disease transmission may be altered/increased by climate change, but they're just that:  predictions.  Even their best educated guesses cannot foresee all the possible horrors to come.  

Some ways in which climate change increases disease transmission.

This is already happening in Florida, where aerial spraying in the winter is occurring to control the mosquito population in an attempt to stop Dengue Fever, a disease that was previously only a problem in tropical climates like S. Africa.  The disease was once eradicated in the U.S. but like malaria & others is making a comeback.  In coming decades, people will be forced to choose between two evils like pesticide exposure and disease-carrying insects, or medications with horrific side effects and certain death.  At least 2 of the meds prescribed to treat TB are known to cause depression in a high number of patients (see graphic below).  While we gasp at the old ads that read "No flies on me thanks to DDT," we're entering a period where we won't have the luxury of avoiding these types of chemical exposures anymore because we abused our health & good fortune to the point it's either 'use them chemicals' or 'die of insect-borne disease'. 

That's ironically one of the biggest downsides of vaccines and other effective public health measures:  they make society forget about the diseases they prevent, then society gets cocky & starts deciding it has no need for said preventative measures--that it knows more than public health experts, that herd immunity is somebody else's problem, etc.  And we end up right back where we started:  where a routine infection can end your life due to treatment-resistant bacteria and with new and deadly (or old and preventable) viruses (re)-emerging with a vengeance due to vaccine avoidance.

Some tuberculosis meds can cause or worsen depression, which often co-occurs with TB.

And COVID is not a virus to be underestimated.  So many of my own friends and family members have either died, had heart attacks, strokes or developed bizarre and disabling diseases since 2019 when the disease first came about that there's absolutely no denying its impact on the world around us.  My own health has gone straight into the shitter, with the only once-healthy parts of my body (skin, hair) becoming brittle, lifeless, falling out and breaking off/breaking out in weird rashes ever since this shit started.  And for me it started in SUMMER 2019, so I'm still of the opinion that COVID did not begin in Wuhan in the winter but in America in the summer. Just like the CCP claimed.  Read here for more on that.

Ft. Detrick lab mentioned in S. African article on COVID origins

But our government will never admit it.  We're currently tracking an outbreak of "Chinese" HMPV pneumonia in the midst of a ban of the "Chinese" app TikTok & battling a fentanyl overdose epidemic fueled by "Chinese" fentanyl, acting as if these people are our mortal enemy.  Never mind that they make probably 85-90% of all our goods, food, medications, textiles and other products.  Yes, let's insult them some more while supplying deadly weapons & billions we don't have to Israel, most hated state on the planet that has never given us a single goddamned thing.  It was just revealed that the Pentagon engaged in a disinformation campaign against the Chinese vaccine Sinovac at the height of the COVID pandemic in 2020 on Twitter, discouraging Filipinos from taking the shot, which was slightly less effective than Pfizer/Moderna's in the end but not dangerous like they claimed. 

This proves two things:  one, that our government has zero interest in facts and truth even when the stakes are incredibly high, and two:  they will stop at nothing to paint these people--the Chinese--in a negative light when they feel threatened.  It also goes to show that you should trust little of what you see on social media because no matter which country is behind the disinformation, a lot of it is just that:  bullshit scare tactics meant to keep you living in fear, sometimes at the cost of your own life.  While you SHOULD be afraid of deadly viruses, bacteria & diseases like cancer/heart disease/diabetes, you should be grateful for the innovations that come along to prevent and treat them (no matter which country they come from).  Not paranoid and skeptical... grateful.  The only issue with our medicine is the cost.   



An Unnecessary Evil

Don't be an agent of chaos.

Even in the Pandemicene, there is no excuse for some of these illnesses to be spreading right now.  There are vaccines for chickenpox, pertussis (whooping cough), influenza, COVID & RSV.  While you can still get the flu or COVID after being vaccinated, both shots greatly reduce the severity and duration of symptoms, which makes it far less likely you'll die or end up hospitalized.  Both of these must be administered annually to be effective as each virus mutates so rapidly.  A recent meta-analysis of millions of COVID shot recipients in the UK showed a massive reduction in heart attacks and strokes shortly after vaccination, with rates of (less deadly) myocarditis and pericarditis increasing slightly in certain demographics. There are flu shots for people both under and over 65 so choose the one that's right for you. 

It's not uncommon for adults to break rib bones or vomit blood when battling pertussis (hence the name "whooping cough"), which can drag on for weeks.  Babies and the elderly--both of whom have weak or non-existent immune function--are at especially great risk from this illness and should be both vaccinated and kept away from known sources of infection.  Adults should get a Tdap booster shot every 10 years according to the CDC, while babies must receive the full series of DTaP as infants to develop initial immunity as the virus is often deadly in babies.

RSV, a once-benign cold-like illness, is becoming more dangerous for reasons that aren't well understood, which means that the very young and very old are at risk of dying from it as with so many other viruses.  There are 3 RSV shots on the market for people 60 and over (Abrysvo, Arexvy & mResvia), one for pregnant women (apparently unnamed) and one for infants (Nirsevimab). This is a single-dose shot for adults while babies will be protected only for 2 RSV seasons, but ask your doctor for specifics as additional doses may not be needed once the child is old enough to fight infection.   

And chickenpox is more than just an inconvenience, it can leave the skin permanently pock-marked (or "pox-marked") and is dangerous when it occurs in adults or immunocompromised kids, but shingles is the bigger threat.  Everyone who's had chickenpox is at risk for shingles, which can cause eye damage if it decides to attack the eye as well as pneumonia, encephalitis (brain inflammation) and occasionally death.

And don't forget about other preventative measures such as ventilation and masking in indoor areas.  Crowded places and those likely to contain sick people such as a city bus, the waiting room of a doctor's office or hospital & large holiday parties are all great places to break out the N95 or well-fitting paper mask.  Other universal precautions like hand-washing and cleaning surfaces with bleach may help prevent norovirus and other fecal-oral diseases but are less effective with airborne ones like the respiratory ailments mentioned in this article.   

Autoimmune diseases triggered by viral infection

If your kid happens to get 2 or more of these illnesses at the same time, they could get VERY sick.  Ditto grandma or grandpa.  As someone who knows what it's like to come down with a routine respiratory illness and never come back UP again, I'll forever harp on the importance of prevention & common sense protective measures.  Autoimmune diseases like narcolepsy, Type I diabetes, CFS/ME & multiple sclerosis often begin with viral infections, which is a great fucking reason to limit your exposure to them. 

The excuse of "living life to the fullest/not living in fear" goes out the window when you consider the risk-benefit ratio of things like hand-washing, mask-wearing & vaccination.  Nobody's asking you to "live in fear," we're begging you to accept material reality & take reasonable measures to protect yourself & others at appropriate times.  Not year-round, just like 1-2 months per year. If everyone did that, our nation would not be plagued by illness, have to shut down schools/cancel ball games, have our hospitals overrun with sick people, close businesses & lose countless hours of productivity due to preventable unwellness every single winter.  More importantly, it would SAVE LIVES.  Living this way actually doesn't allow you to "live life to the fullest" if you stop and think about it. 

I've begun stocking up on necessities in advance of the Avian flu pandemic that I know is coming because that's gonna be an endgame scenario.  With science-denying Trump in power, it will be 10x worse than it needs to be too.  (For those unfamiliar, Avian aka "bird flu" was responsible for the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 that killed over 50 million people worldwide).  This virus kills in an upside down bell curve, taking out 20-50 year olds while sparing the very young and very old.  I've never been happier to be living tf ALONE in my life.  🏠 🧍🏻‍♀🚫 🦠 

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On What Hetero Women REALLY Want

 I think some women don't even want "a man" because they really want the man or the relationship itself, they just be wanting an accessory because they're so used to seeing other women--celebrities, high-profile politicians, wealthy elites & so on--with a man on their arm at black tie events, walking the red carpet or smiling for the paps.  The image is burnt into their shallow little brains;  they believe that's what they're SUPPOSED to want due to social conditioning.  They believe their "look" isn't complete without one... almost like a Hermès bag or high-priced pair of Louboutins. 

If you think I'm trying to be clever/cute or make some kind of coy pop culture analogy, think again.  That's exactly how superficial and vapid a lot of hetero women are these days; how desperate for acceptance into the imaginary Good Wives' Club they are, nothing deeper lying beneath the surface except maybe the crushing debt they've run up on their mealticke--excuse me, HUSBAND'S credit cards.  Their biggest fears in life, surprisingly, don't revolve around illness or poverty and destitution as long as they're not in charge of the hard scary math stuff, but "dying alone", aka without their pudgy unfaithful balding windba-- HANDBAGS by their side. 

These insufferable broads fear being single and "alone" not because they dislike solitude but because they fear being SEEN alone in public without their dumb hairy security blankets.  (Sorry, guys.  That one wasn't even clever, it was just rude).  The thought of going it alone "out on the town" without their most sentient accessory petrifies them, not because they crave the passion of sex with men, nor the intimacy & connection of 2-way conversations w/ them or sharing in their oh-so-enthralling manly hobbies--heavens no.  How many women do you know who like, really ENJOY restoring classic hotrod cars, woodworking, welding, hunting big game or, I dunno, fucking taxidermy? 

Plenty of women will claim to enjoy these pastimes in order to stand out from the pack or gain favor with the menfolk, but somehow the golf courses, wood and metalworking shops, skateparks, taxidermists & shooting ranges of this vast nation are always Sausage Fests IRL.  And as for women's hobbies (knitting, antiquing, pole dancing classes or wine & painting nights, for instance), men are even more reluctant-bordering-on-violently-unwilling to participate or feign any type of interest. Where does that leave hetero couples, then?  Actively repelled by each other's favorite hobbies and interests.  Not exactly an ideal place to be if you plan on sharing a living space with another person for the rest of your natural life.  In order to live harmoniously, you'd need to share similar interests and pastimes at a bare minimum, one would think. 

The sad fact that so many straight men in relationships cheat and verbally abuse their female partners is perhaps the biggest downside of all to entering these committed monogamous relationships, yet straight women persist, blaming the "homewrecking tramp" who has no allegiance or vows to her like clockwork when it all comes tumbling down.  In fact most women never even get to the point of really weighing the pros & cons of cohabiting, such as "Do we have the same major life goals?  Are our daily housekeeping & personality styles compatible?"  (Type A vs. Type B, perfectionistic neat freak vs. cluttered and laid back)  because they're too busy worrying whether he'll knock another woman up, stroll out on his family or turn into a toxic abuser at some point.  

Women also don't consider all the roles they'll be expected to pick up seamlessly without missing a beat like their hetero partner's mother likely did for his father or step-father:  unpaid therapist, sex doll, arm candy, mother figure to both him and their kids, maid, chef, chauffeur, travel planner, holiday gift buyer/party planner, secretary/bookkeeper...  all this ON TOP OF working a full- or part-time job outside the home to contribute to the income.  There was a time of course when a man's income could easily support a whole family sans a college degree--that's rare these days.  So marriage is far more beneficial for men at this point, who are now turning the tables and impregnating women to "trap" them like we were accused of doing back when men held the financial power.  Abortion laws are sealing the deal. 

Nothing about this is glamorous, ladies.  You're not fooling anybody.  So I ask you:  What IS the point of the nuclear family setup?  Of cohabiting, combining resources or, god forbid, making the fateful decision to enter a legally binding contract (marriage) that's known to end in divorce at least 50% of the time? 



1 Man + 1 Woman For Life = 1 Big Fail

A horror movie, not a how-to guide.   😒

Clearly this arrangement is not working.  Not for the couples, not for the kids and not for society.  Why not just enjoy the endorphin train while it lasts and then skip to the co-parenting part that we all KNOW is gonna be more peaceful and harmonious than forcing everyone to live under one roof?  I'm serious--really think about it. 

We treat people as if they're not "real adults" unless/until they enter marriage, buy a home they may not want and certainly can't afford with one lump sum down payment and bring innocent kids into the world amidst this chaos.  They usually have years, decades or a lifetime of student loans, medical bills or other debts to pay off by this point, so they're already starting out behind the eightball, unlike the Baby Boomer generation and those before them who got by with a free diploma & didn't have to worry about silly things like "credit scores". 

I have a theory that men actually prefer the company of other men and ditto women... not necessarily sexually or romantically (although some might if they gave it a shot).  I mean in terms of shared interests, senses of humor, topics of conversation, general ability to get along & work out their differences.  The whole Men = Mars, Women = Venus thing is unfortunately true in the general sense.  And instead of forcing square pegs in octagonal holes by creating these unnatural hetero nuclear families, we should fucking go with the flow.  Stop pressuring people to "grow up" and "settle down," whatever the fuck that means.  There is no one right way to live, love or raise a family (see:  the divorce rate, domestic abuse rates, child abuse/neglect rates, addiction/overdose rates, etc).  If something's not working, you try something else.  But not us.  Stupid Americans fear change so much we'd rather cling to the sinking Titanic than risk jumping on the lifeboat because at least we're familiar with life on the freezing, waterlogged, sinking ship.  

There is nothing wrong with living alone, continuing to live with your biological family that raised you, doing the "Friends" thing and living next door to your boo, living Golden-Girls style with your besties or any other living arrangement that makes you happy.  The same is true for relationships:  single, casual dating, online dating, marriage/kids, marriage/no kids, monogamous, polyamorous, hookups... it's all good as long as you're fulfilled.  Putting pressure on yourself to "settle down" (marry, move in together & have kids) by a certain age is the problem.  Wouldn't it make more sense to just NOT?  To either forego the first 2 divorces by waiting until you're in your 40s or 50s and truly ready to "settle down," or not ever marrying at all? 

And even if you do marry, who says you have to live in one shared space for the rest of eternity?  Why do people in hetero couples believe they have to give up their autonomy, personal space, privacy, independence & individuality when they enter a relationship?  Clearly because we're still living according to 1950s standards that didn't even serve the people back then.  It's entirely possible to be in a loving, monogamous and committed relationship with one person while not living up under each other like sardines in the same house or rushing to the courthouse to make it legal.  Wasting thousands of $$$ on ridiculous weddings only puts more pressure on couples to stay together when they should've separated years ago.  



The More Things Change...

Too many of y'all act this way by choice

Yet for hetero couples, the forecast is showing more playacting & escapism on the horizon with a strong chance of shamelessly imitating celebrities like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Russell Brand (barf), the Kardashians, Joe Rogan, Johnny Depp (again, vom), Andrew Tate (🤮) , the Royal Family of the UK and, I dunno, Nicki Minaj?  Whoever's "it" in the media at the moment, taking home the most Oscars/Tonys/Grammys/Billboard Awards or "dunking on" the opposing political party hardest.  Never mind their actual talent, character as a human being or anything of substance.  What matters is that they "tell it like it is" and appear in all the magazines and hashtags and ads for expensive couture clothing. 

In this setting, straight men serve as a prop in hetero women's delusional fantasy world where they're as famous as Ariana Grande or Marilyn Monroe, being made to hold their coat or taking their pic while they spend 20 minutes trying to get the perfect angle and lighting so they can change out their Insta PFP but without making it look too staged (you know exactly what I fucking mean - everyone hates those faux-candid shots these thirsty hoes be posting).  The rest of the "date" will be spent dreaming up super original hashtags & captions like "#datenite" or  "MamaBear 'n Hubby out on the Big Town!!1!!11"  🤢 Bottom line:  It's all about optics, not substance.  Because there is none in the vast majority of hetero relationships.

I said what I fuckin' said.

Read that again because I said "most" and "vast majority".  Not "all".  But the fact remains:  you all know exactly what I'm talking about and that I'm not lying.  If you take issue with it, fucking DO something to change it rather than projecting your misery onto me, a 0% hetero women who refuses to participate in the game of kicking my fellow female down the stairs with passive-aggressive digs and other forms of sabotage the second I feel the least bit threatened by her.  I couldn't give less of a shit if you're younger, thinner, cuter, more fertile or richer than me, or if you're soooo in love with your current partner.  In fact, I'll cheer you on as long as you're halfway respectful and decent to me.  The only way to win this game is to forfeit it and devote your attention to something worth your time:  Living a life that feels better to you than it looks to others.  

TL;DR - If women knew what was good for them individually and as a class, they would shun these archaic social impositions and do exactly what they wanted with their lives.  Date, fall in love, have casual sex, have children, coparent... whatever.  Just think long and hard about the legally binding parts like marriage or co-signing on a mortgage.  But more importantly, focus on your hobbies/interests, career, creativity, education, traveling, health, leisure and other things you want to do with your life.  Because it is YOUR life.  With egg-freezing and sperm banks, the biological clock is no longer the loud pressing issue it once was, at least not for those who can afford to put their dreams of a family on ice. 

If your partner doesn't make your life easier and more fun, what's the point of having one?  Have the courage to curate the life you want, not the one you're pressured into.  That was the point of feminism to begin with, and now that we actually have the means to be free of our biological imperatives to "settle down" if we want kids AND no longer benefit financially from marriage like we once did, it's high time we start behaving accordingly.  

The Not-So-Mysterious Link Between Heart Disease & Depression

 

Heart disease, even mild, is associated with major depression and cognitive issues.  Doctors & nurses who've worked in both cancer wards and cardiac hospitals universally agree that terminal cancer patients tend to be rays of sunshine compared to even mild heart disease patients, with their gloomy, Eeyore-like dispositions, short tempers & generally downbeat personalities.  This has long befuddled scientists, who often speak vaguely about the "rhythm of life," "two-way relationships" between the heart and brain as well as posing the question as "Well gee, how could depression cause heart disease?"

But in my feeble non-expert brain, the association probably works the other way around:  clogged arteries and small blood vessels caked with calcium deposits due to atherosclerosis impede the flow of blood--and thus oxygen and vital nutrients--to the brain, resulting in the hideous symptoms we refer to as depression:  fatigue, malaise, pessimism, dysphoria, suicidal thoughts, hopelessness, etc.  There's also a well-established link between inflammation and certain types of depression thanks to drugs like interferon, which almost universally causes severe depression in hepatitis patients via its effect on cytokines: an immune cell that mediates inflammation.  Foods high in sugar and saturated/trans fat (among other additives & unhealthy ingredients) are known to induce inflammation throughout the body. 

Finally, the brain has a sort of "clean-up" system known as the glymphatic system that helps remove debris when working properly.  It's comprised of cerebrospinal fluid and works similarly to the lymphatic system which doesn't extend to the brain.  It removes both excess proteins as well as wastes like lactate & carbon dioxide that are thought to contribute to the development of Alzheimer's disease over time when the glymphatic system is not working properly.  What keeps it working properly you ask?  Exercise, deep sleep & a diet high in polyunsaturated fats to name a few things.

All these things taken together likely account for the low mood, slowed thinking and general lack of vitality in heart disease patients if I had to guess.  The heart is the body's central pump within the cardiovascular system, but we can't overlook the other part:  the VASCULAR system.  This is made up of arteries, veins and small blood vessels that snake their way through every part of our bodies and brains, taking blood (i.e. oxygen and other vital nutrients) to and from them.  When this vital highway of life gets blocked by atherosclerotic plaques, our organs suffer.  This includes our brain, which is the largest and most complex organ of all.  Many people with heart disease also have high blood pressure and/or high blood glucose, both of which add to the destruction of the vascular system.  Eventually dementia, strokes & other neurological events occur.  This is no different than fatty liver leading to cirrhosis (scarring) or blindness caused by uncontrolled high blood sugar in that it's an organ (the brain) being damaged by ongoing conditions in the body (atherosclerosis/heart disease).


Close to Home

The type of depression from which my family suffers

Depression, bipolar disorder and other mood disorders are more than just a foul mood or a sign of childhood trauma--they're a biological warning that all is not right in the body.  And this is exactly what we've seen time and again in my family.

One side of my family is entirely saturated with mental illness:  mood disorders of both types (bipolar/unipolar) as well as every anxiety disorder you can imagine, from OCD to specific phobias, social & generalized anxiety.  Not one person unaffected regardless of age or economic background.  The rich private school Christian kids are as bad off as the children of drug addict deadbeats raised by their grannies, mentally speaking.  All have been hospitalized in psych wards at some point (most more than once), many have attempted suicide or have addictions on top of their primary diagnoses.  It's a mess. 

I include myself in this "mess".  The ancestor farthest back that I'm aware of slit her throat (unsuccessfully) in the midst of a paranoid panic.  Why?  She thought her husband, an alcoholic abuser, was cheating.  These were my grandmother's parents.  How these mental cases escaped Freeman's frontal lobe ice pick is a mystery to me--probably poverty.  People, especially women, were lobotomized for much less in those days.  (See:  Rosemary Kennedy).  My mother was offered electroconvulsive therapy while in the psych ward as a teen, but thankfully turned it down.

As an interesting aside, everyone on that side of the family died of cardiovascular casues--nearly all strokes.  I recall barrelling down the highway at 80 mph one day in the back of my (bipolar) grandma's car, her hands shaking due to the stress/anxiety of caring for her demented older husband as she said out of nowhere "I'm sure I'll die of a stroke.  All my brothers died of strokes."  Fuck, could you wait until we're parked to say that, G?  I tried to have the "stress kills" talk with her to no avail.  Like clockwork, she had a massive stroke--actually her 2nd--her 1st happened when I was 12 only a couple years after she attempted to take her own life in a rather bold and batshit manner.  In any case, she didn't recover from this second one and ended up in the nursing home.   

The most recent mental-illness-goes-neurological case in my family is my 50-something underweight, non-drug using cousin.  He's struggled with... some form of mental illness his whole life, taking no responsibility for his own misery and making it impossible to empathize, treating everyone in his orbit like absolute dirt.  Son he totally ignores?  Check.  Mom he verbally abused & uses for $$$?  Double check.  He currently receives home healthcare and disability, something he used to mock others for--mostly poor people and minorities because he's a racist bum.  He's so disabled from repeated strokes he can't put on his own blood pressure cuff.  His stroke happened less than a year after his mother, my aunt, had a stroke and drove herself to the hospital with her entire left side numb.  🤦🏻‍♀  They couldn't get her blood pressure down for 2 days afterward in the hospital which is a predictor of poor outcomes generally.  

Again, these particular family members aren't morbidly obese or drug abusers.  (Other family members do and are).  Speaking of which, as I write this another family member is awaiting open-heart surgery after brushing off his convulsion-inducing chest pain as "stomach issues".  For months.  Last time I saw him he was convinced he had prostate cancer.   Did I mention he DOES drink and smoke lots of pot?   He's also bipolar, has way too much $$$ and a grandson who looks up to him too damn much who's gonna inherit it all when he goes.  THAT little boy reminds me of a young Kurt Cobain, both in the looks department and in his hyperkinetic, sensitive nature that's headed for a hard crash in the very near future.  He's 12 and asked his grandma if she could "let him out on the highway so a car could hit him" out of nowhere one day when I was with them.


Confusing Symptoms with Disease Process

As for whether a person can "think" themselves into having 99% clogged arteries or a major aneurysm, I'm not ruling it out entirely.  The mind is a powerful thing.  We already know the effect emotional stress has on every cell of the body, and we have a term for the phenomenon in which a fake sugar pill produces noticeable symptom improvement in clinical trials--the placebo effect. 

That can't be good for the old Thinker.  🧠

But a more likely scenario is that it's something depressed people are doing/not doing that's leading to these outcomes.  Like loneliness/isolation, self-medicating with a personal smorgasbord of drugs--both licit and otherwise--alcohol, tobacco, food not fit for a hog trough & topping it all off with a dangerous lack of sleep and a lifestyle so sedentary it'd make Al Bundy look like an Olympic athlete.  Then when they do have worrying symptoms like pain radiating up one arm + nausea + fainting & busting face on the concrete (hi mom), they ignore it, opting to "stay home and take some more pills" for the symptoms rather than address the underlying disease process (most likely heart disease).  They live like this precisely BECAUSE THEIR JUDGMENT IS AFFECTED BY THE LACK OF CIRCULATION TO THEIR BRAINS.  

Yeah, maybe it's not such a 2-way relationship at all.  Maybe the brain insufficiency caused by a heart  smothered in fat and a body full of calcified arteries/veins is the sole cause in this scenario.  And maybe theres's a bit of an underlying genetic component to the heart disease, but it's mostly caused by our shitty American diet/lifestyle.  Nobody's saying a low mood improves or has no effect on disease outcomes, that'd be delusional.  But likewise, nobody ever cured their terminal cancer with positive thinking in the absence of evidnece-based treatments (radiation, chemo, surgery).  Further, insinuating that suffering from the highly heritable/genetic brain disorder of depression/bipolar disorder subtly puts the onus on the patient to "try harder" or have a more positive outlook.  If only they'd think positive, they'd catch fewer illnesses & be healthier!  Less heart disease, less missed days of work! 

Except that's impossible because you can't "think positive" when your brain is starved for nutrients, oxygen and neurotransmitters.  The "positive thinking" is to make those around you feel better because nobody likes a sad-sack.  Once again, y'all are confusing the chicken with the egg... the symptoms with the disease itself.  Negative thinking/pessimism is a SYMPTOM, not a cause of depression.

Magical thinking has no place in medicine or the "soft science" that is psychiatry & I'm tired of pretending it does.  This is also where the separation between "mental health" and "physical health" becomes dangerous.  The brain is not separate from the body and it's negligent to treat symptoms of brain dysfunction as if they all arise from a combination of past trauma, lack of coping skills and Zoloft deficiency.  That may be the case in situational depression, but when a person has felt under the weather mentally for decades, there's something deeper going on.

Me?  So far the only cardiovascular issue I have is high cholesterol, and I was able to lower it 33 points in 3 months just by giving up butter. 🤦🏻‍♀  I may go on statins at some point but am putting it off as long as possible because I already take a mountain of pills every day.  And I won't list my mental diagnoses here because this is already long enough.  One sibling (OCD, autism) is on meds for weight loss, high cholesterol AND blood pressure and is younger than me, so there's definitely a lifestyle factor.  And my other sibling (bipolar, anxiety) took a GLP1 drug for a while.  My dad (???) also takes a GLP1/blood pressure meds and my mom (bipolar, personality disorder?) from whom all this illness stems has been on cholesterol meds for decades & should be on GLP1's but refuses to see adequate medical care. 

On the Horrors of Immortality

Imagine living forever.  No, I mean really imagine it.  Sounds great at first, right?  No looming fear of death.  No wondering when or how you'll die.  None of that creepy mortality stuff... funerals, the Grim Reaper.  Ick.  But the alternative in my opinion would be far scarier. 

"Forever" is an unimaginable amount of time.  By about age 40, we start getting annoyed with younger people and their... let's just say, "made-up" lingo, problems and youth culture that involves things like shitty music, words like "skibidi toilet, rizz, cheugy, bussin'" and whatever "special" clever (not) things they dream up, including the Gender Identity cult.  By 50, we feel fully out of touch with it all and by 60, we're shaking our fists at the sky, just hoping for a day to pass without some body part going out on us.  By 75 it's "get off my lawn!" and Trump stickers.  You get the point.  The neurons harden off and life gets uglier, harsher and less pleasant.  Yet for some reason people want MORE of this?  😒

But aside from the health and cognitive issues, there's a bigger issue with immortality:  it takes away the meaning of life, the urgency.  Even if we could stop the clock in your peak years, I wouldn't.  In my belief, we're sent to this 3rd rate planet to learn and experience things.  Maybe to teach and help others... whatever you consider the "meaning of life" to be.  We have a limited time to do it which lights a fire under our ass.  It's like a video game with a time clock counting down (say Super Mario World)--you only have so long to complete each "world".  Sure, you might not have as much time as you'd like to hang around and explore all the cool hidden parts of each world, but you're also not going to waste time gathering coins, going on side adventures and fighting with pointless enemies because you have to hurry up and beat the clock by getting to the end.  Or at least one would hope you don't waste time doing that crap.  Otherwise you'll fuck around and die before the clock runs out.  




The Great Beyond

The white light is a recurring theme in NDEs

I happen to believe our consciousness does go on after death, not necessarily to a Heaven or Hell but in some form to some place, perhaps able to travel throughout time and space freely without the confines of a human body holding it down.  See here for more on that.  My belief is based on the law of conservation of mass and the law of conservation of energy.

After being diagnosed with brain cancer, psychedelic guru Terence McKenna reported feeling so overwhelmed at the beauty of a bug landing on a blade of grass that he was moved to tears.  This was in response to a question about having a limited time left on this Earth and how the small things become more meaningful in that context.  I try to remind myself that some people are dealing with terminal diagnoses or other horrific circumstances when I get inconvenienced about the small stuff daily.  The universe truly is a chaotic place in which things happen for no obvious reason at times.  You can do everything right--eat a raw vegan diet, jog 5 miles every day, sleep 8 hours every night--& be struck with terminal cancer as a reward.  Or you can drink, smoke & bang hookers daily & live to be 90.  Most of us fall somewhere in the middle but my point remains.

Life's not fair, which is yet another reason I wouldn't want to live forever.  Aside from those universal inequities, humans dish out things like sexism, racism, homophobia, classism and other ugly forms of unfairness all the time.  Wealth inequality is the big one.  And war.  Just look what's going on in Gaza, ffs.  While Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization, what did the women and children of Palestine do to deserve what's happening to them?  Fuckall.  Nothing more than being born in the wrong place at the wrong time in history, at least.

I find it interesting that the most devout Christians and religious folks tend to be the most afraid of death.  Why, when your holy book promises you great things beyond your mind's wildest imaginings if only you follow said holy book's rules?  Doesn't said book claim that this Earth is a dirty, evil place you wouldn't wanna become like anyway?  I tend to think it's the other way around:  people with an innate fear of death cling to organized religion BECAUSE they're so afraid of the uncertainty of death.  Religion promises them certainty, except none of us can truly know for sure what happens after death until it happens to us.  The closest we can come are the experiences of people who have died, flatlined, and been revived.  And across time and cultures, they tend to be very similar:  crushing blackness followed by a beautiful white light, maybe "looking down" at the scene below as rescue crews try to revive them, hearing conversations they shouldn't be able to hear, dead loved ones beckoning them forward toward the white light & ultimately being "sucked" back into their Earthly bodies. 

Some of these people reported hearing and seeing things in their homes miles away from hospitals where their physical bodies were--what their mom was cooking for dinner, what people were wearing and talking about.  Others saw things in odd places like the rooftop of the hospital.  These things were later confirmed by those involved.  That gives me hope that consciousness does go on after physical death because it's the most scientific thing we have to prove it.  Furthermore, these were almost universally ecstatic, glorious life-changing experiences that the survivors described as overwhelmingly positive.  Some of them were atheists before and became spiritually inclined afterward; others switched career paths.  The Wikipedia page on Near-Death Experiences is one big "Yeah, but..." that never successfully debunks or explains how these things happen.  Every possible "logical" theory about the brain just going haywire at the time of death is shot down.  See for yourself.  This may be the one area of science humans never truly crack, and I'm okay with that.  

Overcoming Thanatophobia

"Take my good hand"

If my anxiety disorder-riddled ass can be okay with the uncertainty of death, you should try a little harder to come to terms with it yourself.  And you can do that by making the most of your life starting right now, this instant.  Don't cling to life by focusing on longevity which is not something we control, but on QUALITY of life.  Make the moments count, do the things you've always wanted, tell people you love them, say you're sorry without reservation when you fuck up... just live with integrity and stop caring about superficial shit that doesn't matter. 

Break behavioral patterns that no longer serve you or you'll regret it.  (The #1 regret of patients in a hospice survey was living the life that was expected of them by society rather than having the courage to live the life they wanted.  That's incredibly sad to me because that's a huge fucking regret--it's like regretting your entire life in a sense).  Don't fall into the Sunk Cost Fallacy of "Well I've wasted so many years in this job/relationship/place that it's too late to start over now".  It's NEVER too late as long as you're breathing.

And keep in mind that this human experience we're having right now might not be the most meaningful or enjoyable one we get to have.  "Ashes to ashes and dust to dust" sounds scary, sure, but how do you know what it feels like to be dust?  Maybe it's absolutely euphoric and indescribable!  To be consumed by fungi and come back as flowers or grass may make this existence seem trivial by comparison.  And that's just the physical:  our consciousness that rises up out of the body at death and can move in any direction like a weightless beam of light... now that must be a trip.  No gravity, no bag of bones body holding it down.  All kids dream of being able to fly:  well baby, now you can. 🪽