Grief Takes Many Forms

For the past two years I have experienced my severest depression of all time, praying for my own death, beseeching my dead father to “come and get me.”  Today there was a slight break in the clouds and a small ray of sunshine came through.

I took a three hour nap and when I woke up I felt better.  Then I realized my death wish was simply borne of my grief for my two brothers who died in less than a year of each other.  Grief takes many forms and mine has resulted in a feeling that I want to join my brothers on the other side.

I’ll be with them in time.   No need to be impatient.  Meanwhile I need to seek a reason and a purpose for remaining in this realm, to be happy.  I’ll work on that.

A Pox on the Years 2019 & 2020: I Lose Both My Brothers

Nothing makes you more aware of your mortality than the deaths of friends and relatives, and I have lost several of each during the past two years.  My older brother Ted died at age 76 and 31 days on April 5, 2019, of congestive heart failure.  He sometimes commented on this blog as "Bro."  My younger brother Dennis followed him on February 27, 2020, of Alzheimer's Disease.  Dennis was 72.

I turned 76 last month and this week passed my older brother in longevity.  I do not fear death and often find myself welcoming it.  Old age, aches and pains, the recent loss of our democratic republic to the fraud and ruthlessness of Democrats, is discouraging.  Facing another four years of Democrat gross mismanagement of the economy, the military and the border is very depressing.  

I am in very good health for my age, according to my doctors, but a year ago I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, which I keep closely controlled with medications and diet.

Dying of old age is not a tragedy, it is a fact of life and a part of nature.  Nevertheless, I don't have to like it.

Above Photo, Circa 1966:  From left to right, my father on steel guitar, me on bass guitar, Ted on guitar, Dennis on drums.

Off My Meds! Horrors!

I have two major goals for 2013: (1) to optimize and better manage my mental state and (2) to increase my energy level to increase personal productivity.

Three days ago I went off Zoloft cold turkey. After 15 years on this drug, I am tired of feeling drunk, dizzy, medicated and anesthetized. I'll take my chances with depression, and if I have to return to an SSRI, I'll try a different one. Right now I feel as dizzy as ever, because my body hasn't acclimated. I do not, however, feel depressed.

The reason why so many people quit their meds is for this reason: they don't like the unnatural feeling of being medicated. For the seriously disturbed, this is dangerous. My wife's best friend has a son who is schizophrenic, went off his meds, and is now in jail. I, however, pose no such danger, even to myself. I was a voluntary partaker of Zoloft. I just don't like the side effects: lethargy, dizziness, the irresistible compulsion to stockpile automatic weapons and ammunition. Okay, that last one was a joke.

Or WAS it? Spooky music: doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo! (Think Twighlight Zone.)

Work Cures My Depression

I have been working for a well-known, nationwide tax company (yes, that one).  This is my second tax season with them.  The pay is terrible -- minimum wage -- but I am not working there for the money.  I am working there to increase my knowledge of individual income taxes and for the pleasure of doing something productive.

I like working with the clients, meeting the people, helping them to solve tax problems and to minimize their taxes and take advantage of deductions and credits that may be available to them.  However, this week I was hired for the busy season by another CPA, a good friend with whom I worked as a corporate consultant for several years (making a bundle in the process).  I will be working out of town on weekdays, but working at the tax agency on weekends.  I will be quite busy through April of this year, and making some decent (though not great) money for a change.  My friend, the other CPA, without an income for many months due to the recession, bought an audit practice near San Francisco so he would have an income again.  He asked me to work for him through the busy season, and I agreed.  The pay is a lot better than at the tax agency.

I have been largely without work for three years, all the years of the Obama Administration.  Now Obama didn't cause this horrible recession, but his party did -- and Obama has done everything possible to prolong and deepen the recession, whether intentional or not.  For three years my only activities have been blogging and band practice.  The band practice came to an end in August when I told the band leader that his singing was simply awful.  (This, only after months of subtle hints and tactful suggestions on singing lessons.) He did not appreciate my honesty at finally saying what everyone else knew.

In any case, I have been depressed since Obama came to power.  Now I know what old people in old folks' homes feel like, unproductive, unneeded, unchallenged, with no purpose in life and nothing but death to look forward to.  I spent a lot of the day feeling sleepy and took marathon naps throughout the week.  No energy, no ambition.  For some time, I have wished that the dark angel would tap me on the shoulder and get me out of a useless existence.  This isn't surprising.  I read that the suicide rate in places like Greece is soaring since the economy there crashed.

This past week, though, my friend asked me to work for him and I have been very popular with clients at the tax agency.  Suddenly I am busy, needed, productive, and challenged.  My sleepiness has disappeared and my depression is 90% gone.  I have energy and, holy mackerel, my libido isn't as dead as I thought.  It too is showing signs of life.  I wouldn't have thought this turn-around in my mental attitude was possible.  Work does this for a man.  Work is life, purpose and meaning.  It is, for me anyway, the greatest cure for depression.

Cheerful Video of America's Coming Economic Collapse

Last night after work I watched a video by Stansberry Investment Research.  It was about the economic collapse that is already underway in the United States.  A lot of the video made sense.

Right now, the U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency, which means other nations have to use dollars to buy food and oil and settle international debts.  However, the U.S. Treasury is now printing trillions of dollars, which has the effect of lowering the purchasing power of dollars already in circulation.  According to Stansberry, this causes other nations to experience rising prices for fuel and food and is a major factor in the revolutions we are now seeing throughout the Middle East.  Basically, by printing more dollars, we steal the purchasing power, not only of Americans, but of other countries as well.  This causes prices to rise, and those prices are rising sharply.

The insane level of borrowing by the Dems is already so out of control that the US is unable to pay even the principal on the debt, and soon will be unable to even pay the interest.  So they will print more dollars and repay the debt with dollars that are worth less.  This is dishonest -- it is just a way for the U.S. to cheat the international financial system.

This is also the major reason China is slowly divesting itself of U.S. Treasuries and buying hard assets throughout the world to protect its wealth.  Hyperinflation in the U.S. will occur and lead to the replacement of the dollar as the world's reserve currency (and this is already in progress), which in turn will reduce the U.S. standard of living about 25%, almost overnight.  Expect food riots.

If you think Stansberry is crazy, just look at the Drudge Report news items for this morning.  Already major nations are holding meetings to replace the dollar with other currencies.

When the government gets desperate enough for cash to meet its mounting debt, it will then begin appropriating private pension funds (there goes your 401k) and put everyone on a "government pension."  That means your current pension funds will be replaced by a government IOU, to be repaid in dollars that are worth substantially less as time goes on.  This is already happening in Europe and there is already talk among American statists about doing it here.

Watch the Stansberry video here

When our shaky economy crumbles further, don't count on the American people to kick the socialists out of office.  The left and their propaganda outlets in the mainstream media will blame "the evil rich," capitalism, Republicans and Wall Street.  The Democrats will blame the private sector for what is actually governmental malfeasance, and many Americans will continue voting for the authors of their own destruction.

The Coming Fiscal Ruin of the Western World

Cheery news today, thanks to you Hopen-Changers.

The Fiscal Ruin of the Western World is foretold by the UK Telegraph:

Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the US, and Japan are in varying states of fiscal ruin, and those tipping into demographic decline (unlike young Ireland) have an underlying cancer that is even more deadly. The West cannot support its gold-plated state structures from an aging workforce and depleted tax base.

Ah yes, the fruits of leftism are to deplete both the economy and the tax base (i.e. productive, living human beings) simultaneously, which works to increase human misery, poverty and want. Way to go, Lefties. Four more years!

Bout of Nasty Depression Flattens Blogger

I haven't posted anything in a couple of weeks. I was undergoing a rather nasty bout of chronic depression. Several years ago, when the depression first hit me, I got medication for it and it has been in remission every since. Except for the last couple of weeks. When it hits you, you don't feel like blogging. Every waking moment is one of pain.

In any case, the clouds seem to be lifting. I'll post more later.