Last week I spent three days in bed with a nasty viral infection, leaving me this week with little enthusiasm to tackle a daily blog post or even edit what I “churn” out. With Christmas fast approaching and my youngest due home from college in three days, you will be hearing less and less from me for a while. The flu that held me in his vice-like grippe for three days made me feel like I had been dragged through the seven gates of hell and back.
There is not much to report on the holistic recovery front. I was dismayed to see the article in the New York Times about the drugging of children on Medicaid. When did primary school performance (primary school no less!) become so important? Makes you wonder who the insane folks really are. The saddest part of the article for me was the mother who somehow had allowed herself seven years ago to be talked into believing that her three year old son was mentally disturbed. Now she has a ten year old son with adult health problems and still seems to feel that she has chosen the right course of action.
I remember the ease with which young parents bought into Ritalin when my own children were small. As girls gained political ascendancy in the school system boys became more and more viewed as a nuisance factor. They were expected to take on the characteristics of girls, not to be valued for their own characteristics of fearlessness, civil disobedience, curiosity, and physical strength.
Since undergoing sound therapy, I am much more aware that my dreams are a bridge to somewhere else in me. The dreams haven’t changed, but something in me has changed about my relationship to them.
It is easier for me to see sound therapy’s effect on Chris. After his first session he started a daily jogging routine. His body moves with more fluidity. I am noticing less and less of those awkward mechanical moves.
Ian and I had insisted at our last meeting with Dr. Stern that the Serdolect be eliminated completely. Chris’s medication is finally starting to be lowered. Chris has been extraordinarily tired, which signals to me that the sound therapy is helping him get better by reducing the need for the medication. The “need” for the medication lasting beyond the initial crisis period is the view of the psychiatrists at the hospital, not mine.
Glad you’re feeling better from that viral infection, and that Chris has been tired.
Sometimes tired is healthy!
About the feminisation of boys, I could not say better. I would say that it started to happen five years ago.
Have also read the New York Times article and the commentaries on it from people I trust.
Me, I have been enjoying reading about Forced Migration, a magazine I was looking for for 11 years. (It comes from the Refugee Centre in the University of Oxford).
Thanks for sharing what you are reading. Another reason for me to reach for “the google,” as George Bush would say.
Who reads FMR?
FMR is read in print and online throughout the research and international humanitarian communities. Each issue of FMR is distributed to at least 18,000 organisations and individuals in more than 175 countries: relief and development NGOs, UN agencies, Red Cross/Crescent offices, refugee/IDP camps, refugee associations, donors, research institutes, human rights agencies, foreign and interior ministries, libraries, the media and members of the public.