germy brought up Jordan Peterson in the comments of the last post. According to Peterson’s daughter, he’s being treated for addiction to a benzodiazepene, apparently clonazepam (trade name Klonopin) in Russia. The source for this is his daughter’s post on YouTube announcing it. Benzo addiction is terrible, withdrawal has to be managed carefully, and it sounds like that didn’t happen in Peterson’s case, who is said to have been near death multiple times. His daughter’s representation that only Russian doctors “have the guts” to do a medical detox for benzos, and the further fact that she is a proponent of meat diets to treat depression, makes me think that the grifter apple didn’t fall far from the con man tree.
Paul Campos has a post about this at LGM, where he includes Peterson’s 12 rules for living, rule 6 being “Set your house in order before you criticize the world.” It is the height of irony that a clinical psychologist who made his living lecturing incels on how to be better men is addicted to benzos, but it won’t be the first time that a medical professional thought he could handle something that he’d never recommend to his patients. (Long-term use of benzos to manage chronic anxiety is absolutely not the current standard of care, I’ve been told by a professional I know.)
I’ve read a few articles about Peterson but I don’t know a hell of a lot about his self-help grift. He’s full of libertarian shit, as far as I can tell, so the fact that a bunch of red pill incels thought he was the Daddy they never had is pretty unsurprising. Maybe he helped some of them, or at least provided a diversion that kept a few of them from murdering women who denied them their god-given right to have sex with any female in the vicinity.
That all said, best wishes for a speedy recovery and getting a fucking clue about life to Peterson. Sounds like he’ll need it.
Jane2
What a grifting fraud – speedy recovery indeed. Who goes to Russia for detox? And the daughter with her meat diet – they need the publicity to keep those sweet donations rolling in.
Roger Moore
Wasn’t she the one who was regularly cheating on her meat diet?
ziggy
I don’t know anything about Jordan Peterson, (now I’m curious), but I am very familiar with benzo withdrawal. Sounds like his WD was completely botched, these things should never be hurried. He will probably have lifelong issues because of it. Why are so many psychologists completely messed up? Seems to be the rule rather than the exception.
Stevie
@Jane2: I agree. He’s never going to get a clue when being wrong i so profitable.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I don’t know who this man is.
schrodingers_cat
How are Peterson’s friends like David Frum and Steven Pinker reacting?
LarrytheRed
@Jane2: My reaction, too. Just another grift by a low-rent Ivanka lookalike and her father).
waspuppet
That’s not meant as a deterrent to criticizing the world. It’s a to-do list. And “set your house in order” means “cut all the pushy bitches in your life loose.”
A Ghost To Most
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Me either, but then my bullshit detector still works.
Emma from FL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I am SOOO glad I’m not the only one!
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I updated the post to include a link to his Wikipedia page
Visit it if you’re curious. That said, consider your ignorance, in this case, bliss.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Me either.
jonas
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He’s basically the current guru of libertarian dudebro-ism. Men are from Mars. Feminism is a crock. Identity politics is a crock. Except for identity politics centered on white men because white and male are just normal, not an identity.
You get the idea.
Major Major Major Major
Jordan Peterson is boring old reactionary Protestantism dressed up for the atheist incel crowd. They’re ripe for indoctrination into religious fundamentalism. He’s also very obviously bipolar, based on the interviews and profiles I’ve read. And now he’s addicted to a very dangerous drug because he’s been treating it wrong, probably thinking he knows better than the dastardly medical consensus that thinks things like “trans people exist.”
It’s sad, and his daughter sounds insane too. I’ve seen managed benzo withdraw! They probably even offer it in his homeland of Canada.
I wish him a non-fatal recovery and actual treatment for his true problems. He’s no Rush Limbaugh.
MattF
In the vein of people who should follow the advice they are handing out, here (via Rick Wilson) is Fallwell on Romney.
There’s a lot of ‘irony is dead’ commentary on this, but it’s much worse than that, IMO. How do you recognize evil, Jerry?
Anya
Bringing this from the previous thread
I find everything about this story incredible. Jorden Peterson wrote a book about prescribing “rules for life” then seems to have followed his daughter’s insane all-beef diet (+ apple cider vingrette) and now he’s in a critical condition in some Russian detox gulag supposedly because of a botched Benzo withdrawals. Seems like his daughter has some sort of power of attorney over him. The guy is a complete asshole who became famous for delegitimizing and disrespecting people on some quest to be “politically incorrect” but I still wish him well. No one deserves to lose their control over their health.
Shalimar
@waspuppet: You have to give him credit then. A month in a coma in Russia is a great way to get away from your life.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Hm. I think I’ll stay ignorant. I don’t need more appalling people in my head.
pluky
A personal PSA I usually only give in meetings, but seems apropos here: whereas opiate withdrawal renders one as sick as the proverbial dog, acute withdrawal from benzos and ethanol (especially if one is a long time heavy abuser) can kill. If at all possible, get to a competent detox facility!
Major Major Major Major
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Absolutely no reason to pollute your headspace with the man.
debbie
@MattF:
It is much worse than “irony is dead.” Self-awareness has been sucked out of these guys’ heads. This is like DTJr slamming Hunter Biden for nepotism.
Maybe the answer is to kidnap these people, graft mirrors to the insides of their eyelids, and release them back into the world.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The rest of us envy your ignorance.
Ohio Mom
If it’s easy to google what happens if you go off your psychotropic drug cold turkey,
and your doctors reinforce this and offer instead an evidence-based protocol,
and you are reasonably cognitively “all there,”
and you still go against their advice, I am not going to spend a moment on you.
I might feel sorry for your family, if they are innocent bystanders (in this case, at least the daughter is clearly not).
Maybe the most useful thing Peterson will ever do is serve as a cautionary tale.
Eric U.
Your familiarity with Jordan Peterson is proportional to how many men you associate with that think white males are a discriminated against class. He might not be as bad as his followers, but his followers range from awful to truly horrible. Too bad his previously announced treatment didn’t work. I was thinking that might be the case, but his daughter sound like she made failure inevitable.
My wife is a psychiatrist and I told her about the all-beef diet to treat depression. Don’t think she’s considering it for her patients though.
JAFD
In other diet news…
An AI researcher unleashed a neural net on a dataset of crowd-sourced jellocentric recipes
https://twitter.com/JanelleCShane/status/1225826027475128321
If that distracteth you not from your troubles…
Anya
@pluky: He was at a good detox but wanted to go cold turkey so his daughter took him to Russia. In this case, she doesn’t seem all that well and she seems to be in charge of his treatment and is making decisions on his behalf.
randal m sexton
Also, the 12 rules, as best I can remember:
Also: * Stand up straight with your shoulders back *Treat youself like a cat on the street. * Do not let you children skateboard meaningfully *Eat only red meat, specially for breakfast *Take Benzos *Go have a coma in Russia – I am not sure I remembered those exactly, and, hmm, that is less than 12.
smedley the uncertain
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Me neither. Why should I care?
Major Major Major Major
@JAFD: Shane is great. I was thinking of writing up this newest ‘experiment’. These ones are my favorites, especially the bottom one.
Ohio Mom
I went over to LGM to read the post. It strikes me that as a blog by academics, they are particularly offended and incensed when other academics (e,.g., Peterson) sully the good name of their profession.
wenchacha
A couple times I have been truly concerned to see college-age friends embrace the likes of Peterson or Ron Paul. In both cases, these are really fine young men, and I don’t know what speaks to them that I can’t see.
MattF
@JAFD: Also, note this Language Log post. The post starts out with the recent xkcd tax return joke, but goes on to note that Google Translate has continuing problems with the Hawaiian language.
Shakti
I never really read Jordan Peterson (just briefly picked up his book at Barnes & Noble and put it down), but I never understood why people followed him. He was a semi regular feature on We Hunted The Mammoth, which tracks MRAs and incels. He isn’t just your garden variety asshole, he is barking nuts. I saw the one video of him where he’s talking about his all meat diet and getting fucked up by apple cider and… if I saw that guy in a room, I’d be smiling and looking for the exits post haste.
Somehow it doesn’t surprise me he fought a benzo addiction. But going to Russia for drug addiction sounds… lmao.
And OT, because I don’t know if anyone is on keto but um… a blogger I read claims she gets meat euphorias when she’s on it.[“Waves of intense wellbeing.” Which sounds drug-like to me. And not normal for any kind of diet.] Coincidentally she’s gone from supporting Hillary in 2016 to posting all the time about the border and freaking out about trans rights. It’s effin’ weird.
Just One More Canuck
I thought the rule was ‘never get high on your own supply ‘
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
It’s only a cautionary tale for those who would never go down this path in the first place.
The people like him make the assumption that they are better and can do things like take bennies and wash it down with alcohol and in this case a steak, and stop whenever they want, because they are better than every other human on the planet. I also notice that while he should have decent healthcare in Canada he went to Russia to be treated? What is with the demented that they think Russia has the answers that the rest of the world doesn’t have? How did Russia become the lynch pin of crazy? OK that one may have an easy answer……
Spanky
@JAFD: Why did you do this to me?
et cetera
Ramiah Ariya
True story: When I was in the US many years back, I had terrible fear of flying. It got so much that I decided to come back to India and never fly again. But, I had to take the final flight back – and I asked someone at work, and they said I could get a medicine to manage my anxiety. So, I went to a psychologist in the UPenn and got a small prescription for Klonopin. She told me to take half the tablet – and never take it again, because it was addictive.
I sat in the airport, waiting for the flight to be called, when I took one full tablet. Then, fearing it wouldn’t work, I took another.
I must have taken the flight fine, switched flights in Paris and ended up in India, because the medicine had somehow wiped out all memory of those flights and a day after that!
I became frightened when I realized what had happened – and threw away the remaining medicine with me – and since then have not gone near it. Instead, I have managed to control my fear of flying mostly by thinking it through.
zhena gogolia
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Sigh. Me either. How about Graham announcing on national tv today that now Giuliani has a direct channel to Barr for the slander of Biden?
Hungry Joe
Because I know that my wishing well, or ill, or whatever for whomever, means nothing to anyone but me, I feel free to wish the worst for anyone I, in my High Castle, disapprove of. So I’m fine with sending negative vibes — which don’t exist — in the direction of Jordan P. and his ilk.
( I was surprised to learn that “ilk” has no pejorative connotation, because it sure sounds like it does. Can’t imagine writing, for example, “Nelson Mandela and his ilk.”)
zhena gogolia
eclare
I have never heard of this person.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Waste of their time. The prior thread convinced me that the anti-Biden propaganda has already done it’s kob with our voters.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@wenchacha:
Probably the stuff that is intended to take advantage of their secret insecurities.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Baud:
Butter emailsButhis HunterBaud
@Baud: kob=job
LC
@Hungry Joe: I think “Ilk” does have a negative connotation. Not directly, but in the sense that you use it to describe an entire group and usually that is a negative.
(“You know how it is with reporters of his kind” works the same way.)
I don’t think I have ever seen “Ilk” deployed in a way that was neutral or positive.
Citizen Alan
The most interesting (and somewhat disturbing) thing to me about this is that I’m on Klonopin myself right now, so stories about the dangers of withdrawal are concerning. When Obama was president, I took one Klonopin wafer on average every other month for anxiety attacks. Now, in the Age of Trump, I usually take one a day and occasionally two. Of course, the actual prescription says to take 2 every day but I’ve never done that with any regularity precisely because I remember what it was like to wean myself off Celexa when I was misprescribed that almost 20 years ago.
Roger Moore
@Shakti:
Because at some level he’s telling them what they want to hear. Basically, his followers are men who are confused and threatened by the decline of male dominance, and he’s telling them that traditional masculinity is just fine.
trollhattan
Signs you may already be Jordan Peterson:
Roger Moore
@Spanky:
…
5. Put on your best sailor’s outfit and hope the weather cooperates.
The one where it decided to create a new Pokemon instead of a new recipe was also pretty special.
download my app in the app store mistermix
@Citizen Alan: Just to be clear, what I said above was the result of a short discussion with someone I know that was in no way medical advice. Whatever you and your health care team have decided is right for your condition is far more important. Also, I wish you the best, anxiety is no fun.
Roger Moore
@zhena gogolia:
The thing that gets me is Barr announcing that any investigation of political campaigns would require his personal approval. IOW, DOJ is now an official arm of the Trump campaign.
trollhattan
@Hungry Joe:
When I once visited Estes Park, CO the place was overrun with ilk. They even took over the lawn of our rental place.
PJ
@wenchacha:
There are always awkward young men with difficulty making connections to other people who are attracted to movements with rhetoric that emphasizes “self-empowerment” at the same time as it demonizes an “other” which they see as unjustly dominant in society. Often this other is anyone who doesn’t buy into the movement (“normies” in current internet-speak), but, at it’s worst, the other is a minority group, or women. These movements gratify the ego and are soothing at the same time because the newcomer is embraced in the community of believers. The person who buys into the movement (i.e., the mark) never has to acknowledge that they are, like everyone else, an idiosyncratic, emotional, and fallible human being who depends on family, friends, and society for their well-being.
Thus, the number of former Ron Paul supporters who are now Bernie Bros.
Ruckus
@wenchacha:
Thank whom/what ever you do that you can’t see this stuff.
The world can suck, life can suck, and if you think there must be something wrong with you because of that, because your life isn’t going exactly to plan or you aren’t getting all the expected whatevers with just breathing you are going to look for answers, be it alcohol, bennies, all meat diets, a bible thumper, whatever you can find. A lot of people get caught up in woe is me but there really isn’t an answer other than life happens. But they have been misinformed or uninformed about how to deal with this “fun” part of life. Life comes at you every day, some days easy, some days not. Do you roll with it or do you only wonder why this only happens to you? My answer is of the last few years, come with me to the VA hospital, I’ll show you lots of people for whom life has come at them very hard and often they didn’t ask for it in any way. And they are the lucky ones, they get help. What about those street encampments of people who life has crapped on and they can’t get anything? Or the people who have walked hundreds of miles to hopefully find a better life, where they can work and eat and provide for their kids, only to have their kids kidnapped by the government of the country they thought might provide them with a new start. Yeah that’s us. Life in this country can be a lot better than many places but it actually takes wanting to make it better for someone other than yourself. trump is not that person, he is the epitome of someone who thinks the world owes him everything and owes everyone else shit. And because neither of those things are true, and he’s too stupid to understand that, he is a complete asshole, in every way possible. Other assholes seem to like him though……..
Hungry Joe
@LC: “Yes, “ilk” — in its current (and relatively recent) usage — is definitely pejorative. But the three dictIonaries I’ve consulted make no mention of that: “ilk” is simply defined as type or kind. But the meaning has changed/is changing, and dictionaries — some of them, anyway — simply haven’t caught up.
WaterGirl
@Baud: If we can’t be smarter than that here at Balloon Juice, then we are all in a heap of trouble.
You know how all the research / conventional wisdom says that conservatives are more fearful overall, and that makes them more susceptible to the lies and the fear-mongering?
Well, I think maybe 2016 has made a lot of us more fearful, and that may explain why/how even some of us smart peeps on BJ can end up being swayed by anti-whichever-candidate propaganda.
Seriously, Dems have pretty much become convinced that there is something terribly wrong and “un-win-able” about all our candidates.
Give us another 45 minutes, and we’ll all be saying “hey, that rich pretty-much-a-republican-Bloomberg” doesn’t look so bad.
Roger Moore
@PJ:
IOW, they’re basically cults, except they teach social practices instead of religious ones.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
This is what happens when you ban God in public schools.
Omnes Omnibus
A bunch of people have gone there already. I think I am going to go do something less like tilting at windmills.
Shakti
@Roger Moore: Of course. But there are scores of MRA grifters saying the basically the same things who don’t give off the same aura of crazy in person.
If someone was saying things I completely agree with and they came off like that, I would be qualifying their statements (“just because they suffer from x, doesn’t mean they’re wrong…etc.”) Or find someone else saying the same things who… wasn’t nuts.
Citizen Alan
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
Well, the thing is, my “health team” consists of exactly 1 GP who I believe was too free about prescribing anti-depressants when I first started seeing him 20 years ago and 1 therapist who recommended I switch to Klonopin and Wellbutrin after five session, and that same GP signed off on it without a second thought. That said, I generally take 0.5 to 1 mg a day, and Google indicates that’s nowhere near the maximum recommended dose. But it still bothers me that my anxiety levels have increased so dramatically because of something I can’t control (like having a goddamned fascist for a president).
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
“Imagine a world”….
In which Term 2 Trump puts Barr on the Supreme Court.
PJ
@Baud: Personally, I blame the internet (and TV and radio before it.) Of course, Lyndon LaRouche made do with pamphlets.
LC
@Hungry Joe:
I am dubious even of those dictionaries then. I’d probably have to grab something like OED that has early usage, but I don’t know if it didn’t have a slightly dismissive connotation from way back.
(Now I am curious.)
SFAW
Rule 6? As Professor Bruce of the Philosophy Department of the University of Wooloomooloo could tell you, there is NO Rule 6.
As opposed to the AG, who has only one rule: Do his Fuehrer‘s bidding, whatever it takes to destroy der Fuehrer‘s enemies. Can we please impeach THAT mofo already?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I learned yesterday that Bloomberg is paying influencers for good coverage, so I expect some Juicers will make a pretty penny off the deal.
MattF
@LC: I looked at the OED entry and didn’t see anything obvious. Note, btw, that on-line OED access is offered by many local libraries.
JaySinWA
Um that won’t happen unless he can find someone at least as bad as Barr to be his personal assault weapon.
LC
@LC: Quick check shows I am completely wrong. Seems to have been legitimately neutral for a stretch and may still be so in Scotland.
ThresherK
@Shakti: Upvote for We Hunted the Mammoth, where Dave Furtrelle slogs through some really nasty crap and manages to keep his humanity intact.
MomSense
Who is Peterson and why should I care? Life is short.
Ann Marie
@WaterGirl: My manicurist, who hates Trump, was all “what about Bloomberg” on Saturday. I told her I liked his anti-Trump ads, but then did my best to sell her on Warren. The idea that we don’t have good candidates left is crazy, but some people are going there already, and I bet the press is happy to help that idea along.
Roger Moore
@Shakti:
There are? I thought all MRA types gave off an air of crazy.
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan: That would be disturbing. Maybe talk to your doctor?
ziggy
@Citizen Alan:
I hate to break it to you, but you probably have a dependency. You can develop that on any dose, even a small one, and sometimes after a relatively short period of time. Unfortunately you are probably feeling increased anxiety (more than you normally would) during interdose periods. It’s not anything to panic about, but you might want to talk with your provider about getting off. The last thing you want is to be cut off completely without a prescription to taper with (if necessary), as some doctors are prone to do.
trollhattan
@JaySinWA:
Jayzuz, don’t ever issue a challenge like that to Trump!
WaterGirl
@Ann Marie: Maybe talk about all the republicans Bloomberg helped to elect, like the guy who killed the unions in his state and the guy who was governor while the horrifying situation of undrinkable water was going on in Michigan. (still going on)
Barbara
I wonder how he got the Benzos. My father self-medicated with benzos that were prescribed (incorrectly even back then) for anxiety and insomnia. He took more than he was supposed to, I still don’t like to think where he got more, and when, finally, his source dried up he went into withdrawal. I think he must have been trying to ration them already once he realized he couldn’t sustain his level of use, so the withdrawal wasn’t as bad as it might have been. There isn’t really a lot of current accepted medical use for these drugs. I don’t have sympathy for Peterson. He is wealthy, educated and well-connected. I am very tired of the endless claims for sympathy but especially by someone who basically hates people like me.
Ruckus
@Citizen Alan:
Some drugs are over prescribed because really there aren’t a lot of other answers. I have tremors and have been prescribed every neurological med available for this and none of them worked for me and none of them were free of some pretty not good side effects. And a few of the docs have taken offense that I deemed it my responsibility to tell them the issues and just not take the drugs. When drugs work it can be very helpful, but they can easily hurt as much as help, as many have found out the hard way.
JR
I remember an oncologist who used to show up to work high as fuck. He obsessed over his clothes but couldn’t keep his shit together. Unsurprisingly his marriage fell apart, but his career took longer. He’s landed on his feet, moving over to the sales side of things.
taumaturgo
@PJ: Nah. It is Bernie’s pledge to legalize weed. You got to admit that having support from those who support Ron Paul who is diametrically opposed to Bernie policy-wise, is a stroke of political genius.
ziggy
@Baud:
Yep, it looks like Biden has already been well kobbed.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I know you didn’t expect anything less, did you?
Kay
My youngest, who is now a Bernie guy, had me watch Peterson on you tube maybe year before last? He streams it the tv because while I’m interested in what he’s listening to I’m not going to peer at his phone.
Anyway, it was worrying, but he didn’t wholly buy it and since has abandoned it, thank God.
marv
@trollhattan: I’ve herd they will do that.
Mo MacArbie
I’m surprised, but thanks all the same for challenging my notions of ilk communication.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Isn’t more that the religious cults are doing the same thing, they have just been doing it far longer, finding an excuse as to why life, specifically one life isn’t what some put it up to be? Don’t most religions sell the story that you will be better with the religion, because we can’t make it better here but you will be better after you die because of the religion you believe?
Turner Hedenkoff
My first thought when I saw this was, “There is NO … Rule 6.”
JWR
@zhena gogolia:
I just watched that interview, and right after that little gem, Brennen asked a question about Ukraine that sent Graham into a tizzy. He started with something like, “oh, the media is so in the tank for this stuff”, and this tight after making “the Ukraine” central to his previous position on Ukraine. (And he always calls it “the Ukraine”.) Oh, and lots of talk about our FISA system. “We gotta get to the bottom of this FISA mess!” He looked a bit drugged, maybe, which made the words coming out of his facehole all the more distressingly depressing.
JanieM
@JAFD: I’m laughing so hard I’m crying. What a great thread, and what a great way to poke some fun at the notion that AIs are going to take over everything any day now.
Also, a great distraction from undergoing the prep for a colonscopy….. ;-)
SFAW
@JWR:
Every time Graham feels his place on the tumbrels list starts dropping, he takes his game up a notch.
I hope I survive long enough to see all these traitorous/treasonous bastards pay for their crimes.
MattF
@JWR: Graham has sunk to unexpected, and, to me, unexplained, depths. And I think Collins is on that path. There’s a report that she was in a group of R Senators who complained to Trump about firing the impeachment witnesses. Needless to say, he blew them off.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Depends on the listener.
And I’d bet you are just a bit skeptical – I have it on good authority……. IOW as you know there is a difference between listening and thinking and listening and believing.
WaterGirl
@MattF: I was disgusted on the Lawfare podcast to hear Benjamin Wittes say that Mitch McConnell should be admired for his skill in getting the non-trial trial that he wanted, and being able to come up with the votes to do it.
UGH!
I would have been mildly okay with him admiring McConnell skill at being evil, but he did not follow up with the fact that the man violated his oath and has no moral principles.
Mai naem mobile
@Dorothy A. Winsor: lol.my initial reaction to this post was who the fuck is Jordan Petersen? Don’t want to know. Don’t care. These are like a bunch of people who trend on Twitter and I am like ‘Who? What?’ and move on. Most of them seem to be from some version of reality teevee, YouTube/TikTok celebrities.
WaterGirl
@MattF: I hope Collins is a sinking stone.
JanieM
@MattF:
Agreed. I don’t think Collins was ever really the mavericky moderate she got a lot of press for being, but now she seems to have deteriorated into nothing but a bag of resentful “in your face” sneers in relation to a huge swath of the people who crossed party lines to vote for her (she had 68% of the vote last time).
The Kavanagh speech was the epitome of this attitude, in harmony with her whining about the fund that was set up for her opponent in the event that she voted to confirm Kavanagh. Her speech about K was so outrageous, I wondered if she had been put under an Imperius curse. Because I do think she wasn’t always what she is today.
I’m actually surprised she’s even running…..but that’s a separate conversation.
Ruckus
@JanieM:
I kept putting mine off because I was a bit worried but it proved to be totally not a big deal. Because they put me to sleep – and changed the prep drink to something palatable, rather than what seems to be a replacement for battery acid. If you get the newer, and much better product, it really isn’t a big deal, it just seems like it should be.
JanieM
@Ruckus:
I’ve been there. You’re just supposed to shut up and take pills.
marv
@Ruckus: Thought I would reply because after 50 years of unrepentant apostasy, I’ve been going to the churches radiating outward from my home each Sunday (6) this year. Several reasons not the least of which is want to find out a little about how the Christian community can be the bedrock of support for the most unjesuslike person I’ve ever seen anywhere, let alone in public life. It’s been interesting but to the point: No, that is not the sense I’ve gotten from being in six small Christian churches this year.
JanieM
@Ruckus: Oh yeah, I found the procedure itself to be no big deal (although I suppose it’s not so benign for people who go away with something other than “everything looks okay”). I had one ten years ago and a sigmoidoscopy some years before that and they were completely uneventful. For the latter, they didn’t even put me under, and I got to watch my insides on the screen. It was quite interesting! For the former, yes, they put me out, so it was as if it never happened.
It’s the prep that I remember as horrible, although I’ve had a different prep each of these three times. Maybe this gunk I have to drink tonight won’t be as bad as last time….. Hopefully!
Llelldorin
@Barbara: It’s also hard to feel sorry for someone who is having trouble precisely because the ethos he’s most famous for supporting is so very spectacularly wrong. When a prime apostle of toxic masculinity tries to tough his way off of benzos much too quickly because he’s just too manly for a mollycoddling (or, as anyone else would call it, sane) detox schedule, my sympathy somehow gets lost behind the eye-rolling.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
IT IS SO INFURIATING! Don’t they realize they’re going to do it to each frontrunner in turn?
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: There will be something wrong with each frontrunner, and if there wasn’t, they would make something up.
I really prefer that we don’t do Republican’s/Trump’s/Putin’s work for them. They are nearly indistinguishable at this point.
Shakti
@Roger Moore: Yes… But extreme misogyny in itself isn’t recognized as a mental illness in our society.
LeftCoastYankee
Hateful grifter escapes consequences of hypocrisy exposure by fleeing to Russia… shocking!
May he be the first of many….
Ohio Mom
Citizen Alan@62: I hope you are still here. I am about to give you somewhat unhelpful advice.
You very much need to see a psychiatrist, who will know more about brain chemistry and psychotropic pharmacology than your GP and therapist combined times ten. He/she will know how to treat your anxiety with the most effective and safest meds, that is what they do.
What is unhelpful about this advice is, psychiatrists can have waiting lists and usually do not take insurance; they tend to be cash only (as in hundreds of dollars an appointment unfortunately).
The exceptions will probably be psychiatrists associated with a medical school or public hospital. A lot will depend on where you live. Once the right combo of meds has been established, you will probably only need to come in once or twice a year.
Anxiety is no different from any other medical condition in that you must advocate for yourself. I consider every one of my doctors — most of whom I am personally fond of — to be on eternal probation.
Good luck and keep us posted!
EthylEster
You are probably incurably fucked up if you decide that a great strategy for getting off a bad drug is to go to Russia for medical treatment. This couldn’t have happen to a bigger dipshit.
MoxieM
I’m in month 5 of my benzo withdrawal taper. I was off them for a number of years but [highly traumatic life events + medical stuff] my psych meds doc put me back on. I’m about half-way there and am self managing.
But–I’ve done this before; I am highly motivated; I don’t take street drugs or anything; and, I’m doing it in consultation with various docs. And I’m going s-l-o-w-l-y. I give myself permission to backtrack a little now and then if necessary. Oh, and I only ever took/take them at night.
They are a ball and chain, and I don’t ever want to be near the stuff again.
James E Powell
@WaterGirl:
I know I am and I am having a hell of a time clearing it from my thinking.
MoxieM
@OhioMom 108– Yes indeed that is true. I’ve been under the wonderful care of the same psychiatrist for depression and anxiety for 21 years. Alas, he retires this coming June. So I need to find somebody else. My current-soon to be-former doc was truly old school, in the sense that he cared about patients as people, he wasn’t just a prescription pad. He talked to you. I’ll miss him but I believe he’s past 80. Also, an office visit only cost $135 in cash–this is in the Greater Boston area!. He used to take some insurances, but I’ve moved out of state so I don’t know any more. I expect to be paying at least $350 or more for whoever I find.
JAFD
Dear Spanky,
(re comment #36)
Because I am evil, degenerate, and depraved.
Miss Bianca
@JAFD: OK, I am now weeping with laughter. Thank you for this
ETA: See, this is why I check in on threads even when I don’t know what or who the ostensible subject. (Jordan Peterson? Da hell?). For stuff like AI-generated jello recipes.
WaterGirl
@MoxieM: Good for you! That’s got to be tough.
MoxieM
@WaterGirl: thanks! the good thing about going so slowly is that it really isn’t hard. But you have to want to quit. They really suck, but they also do what’s advertised.