Mind-altering substances: worshipfully and otherwise

RantWoman is glad her body is safely home from Annual Session but is not so sure her mind has completely made the trip. Plus RantWoman always travels with the queries what am I bringing along and what am I bringing back?

As a point of departure consider closing worship.

Give oneself the option of stopping NOW and just holding in the Light.

If you are brave enough to continue...

Closing worship at #NPYM2014 was a wild ride.
1. A young adult Friend opened resolutely:" dear parental generation. Things WILL be different. They just will. God will be there, and things WILL be different. Okay RantWoman is maybe not transmitting 100%  accurately. For instance RantWoman is pretty sure global warming wandered into the message somewhere. But RantWoman definitely got the WILL BE DIFFERENT part.

2. RantWoman is aware of conversations and emotional upheavals about addiction both during and after Annual Session. Odd form of communion, that.

3. At closing worship, there were MANY references to mind-altering substances, pharmaceutical and otherwise, addiction, experimentation, self-medication. There were other strands of messages but they have receded behind the label "Buckets and buckets of popcorn." RantWoman THINKS it is well that messages on her heart are not quite ripe to make it out of her mouth in worship. But RantWoman IS clear to leave this post in the tangled state it is emerging from her fingers as well.

RantWoman did tell the presiding clerk that if worship had gone on one second longer, several dead bodies and some horses and zebras were going to show up too.

--The dead bodies are lots of RantWoman loved ones' death anniversaries in the month, and some big year anniversaries. Two of them had already shown up somewhere in worship at Annual Session, Bonnie Tinker and Mr. Nasturtiums in Salad Friend, the timid voice who first persuaded RantWoman to sign up for something from the Quaker roster and then had the misfortune to decamp to other realms on RantWoman's birthday. Sigh. To the extent that love is an addiction and one relapses from one's coping mechanisms for different reasons, RantWoman could PROBABLY fit the dead bodies into the meme of the day but for now is clear to relegate to the blogosphere.

--Likewise the horses and zebras. The basic point: RantWoman spends a lot of time around lots of zebras in her life. RantWoman also sees badly, and hit a 10-year-anniversary for seeing especially badly due to DNA lotto and midlife vision meltdown.  Even if something really is just a horse, there is a decent chance RantWoman will be finding its inner zebra. Hold that problem in the Light.

Also hold the language problem in the Light: the horses and zebras showed up when RantWoman is not under the influence of anything but her daily blood pressure meds. But readers are forgiven for wondering what the hell RantWoman is talking about.  RantWoman is not going to try to precisely specify where the quote she has in mind came from. It's about looking at horses and seeing zebras.

But back to shared mind-altering in worship. One Friend spoke of abstaining from alcohol because that is safest for a brother who has a problem with it. At one point RantWoman's mind wandered away from a long and naturally uncentered message featuring both pharmaceuticals and psychedelic self-medicating. When RantWoman's mind wandered back after a message of considerable length, much of the room was standing and the Friend with the long message finally subsided.
And RantWoman is feeling blunt:

Earth to RantWoman: you know how you recently suggested that someone who shares DNA with someone who benefits from pharmaceuticals might also benefit. Um, have you considered taking your own advice?

Earth to RantWoman: Consider your siblings. Consider how many times you exclaim, "Would someone please prescribe (RantMom) valium on my behalf?" How is it possible you have evaded ... so far...? Have you ever considered that maybe possibly....?

Um, have I considered...? Self-medicating has NO appeal; RantWoman has more than sufficient experience...; most of the time even alcohol just puts RantWoman to sleep.
RantWoman has nothing to say, not even any fresh email about RantBrother who RantWoman HOPES is still maintaining comparatively recently-found sobriety.. He appears to be alive and working and recently phoning RantMom from MT, but ...Sigh.

RantWoman definitely has a big giant "I am way better off than Little sister" thing going on. Little Sister takes a whole terminologically mind-boggling pharmacy of long-acting, short-acting, anti-anxiety, antidepressant, muscle-relaxing, anti-inflammatory and RantWoman has no clue what all else chemistry. RantWoman is, perhaps understandably, terrified of winding up in the same boat.

Even RantWoman and needed pain meds is a zone of trepidation, though a time or two when RantWoman has gotten the directions right or made strategic decisions even about over the counter options, RantWoman has felt MUCH better. Sigh.

RantWoman can definitely attest that, after a years-long schlep to get there,  appropriate use of pharmaceuticals means Little Sister's life is way more functional than without pharmaceuticals; RantWoman also notes the motivating and even insisting help from RantMom and Brother-in-Law. 

By "more functional," RantWoman means for instance the following: recently Little sister unintentionally conducted one of her endless gravity revalidation experiments. The latest one involved old wheelchair, failing seatbelt, gravity, the sidewalk near a bus stop, lots and lots of soft tissue damage and yet more distress for an already distressed body. And RantWoman will TRY not to digress about collecting data among all the zebras around her about long, long, hassle-prone efforts to replace totally worn out wheelchairs.

Little Sister wound up spending several days in the hospital, with discharge and extra dollops of chatter about delivery of long-delayed new wheelchair and hospital bed issues brilliantly timed also to take up RantWoman's birthday! Reflecting now, though,  RantWoman thinks it is remarkable how lucid and grounded Little Sister was most of the time. RantWoman considers it important that at one key point Little Sister's version of her status and issues lined up VERY well with what RantMom said. Sometimes this has not been the case. Blame the drugs?
So far, here is RantWoman's Light on the issue of medication for herself:
RantWoman has considered one category of such chemical help. Someone asked RantWoman whether she has a diagnosis; if anyone is to get paid for the mental health services RantWoman is getting, RantWoman has to have a diagnosis and is guessing what it is.The first category of chemical help would be consistent with that diagnosis.  RantWoman has to be careful because of compatibility issues with absolutely necessary eye meds. SO FAR, RantWoman manages stress with lots of walking and exercise, regular worship, vast capacity to pray at all hours and in all circumstances on the bus, occasional infusions of music and even pipe orgrans, never mind that God clearly did not talk to George Fox through pipe organs. In other words,RantWoman still has not gotten clear to research in more detail.
In the shoe store of common reasons for mind altering prescriptions, RantWoman has been mentally testing two other diagnosis options. By testing, RantWoman means kind of like shoes, testing against the compost heap in her head. RantWoman has a sense of needing to pay better attention to what her body is doing and feeling at certain points. RantWoman in meditating about the what is body doing issue realized that supplying mental health practitioner data would be on point. Still neither of the labels tested seem to RantWoman anything like a clear fit.
But RantWoman continues to massage the question, to talk to people she knows have experience with such help, and to pray. Especially Pray. And do morning stretches. And try to figure out a space for yoga and ....
Sooner or later, RantWoman's briain also better get back to town. Sigh.