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Post by tapati on Jul 21, 2009 12:20:33 GMT -5
I will be back to address any questions and participate in this fascinating discussion later. It looks like a migraine day for me. I'm going back to bed after I take some meds.
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Post by pandapaws on Jul 21, 2009 17:06:28 GMT -5
I can't say I was ever "love bombed" in Iskcon. Maybe it happened to some people but it didn't to me. It felt like home to me because I loved the Deity worship, the incense, the chanting, kirtan, the food...it just felt right. Unfortunately many devotees could be kind of cold, especially at the location I joined in. But others, (in different locations) were some of the best people you could ever meet.
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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jul 21, 2009 19:55:37 GMT -5
I will be back to address any questions and participate in this fascinating discussion later. It looks like a migraine day for me. I'm going back to bed after I take some meds. Tapati ~ so sorry about the terrible headache Hope you are feeling much better soon. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences as a guest blogger on NLQ ~ it's so interesting to me to see the similarities ~ and it makes me feel so ripped off to realize that all the peculiar practices we adopted as a quiverfull family ~ practices which we believed were particular to the bible and the true practice of Christianity ~ those whom we would have considered "cultic" practice the same things! We thought we were being "biblical" and following the True God ~ but in reality ~ we were merely being fundamentalist and following Patriarchy ~ male-centered religion. Ugh.
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Post by grandmalou on Jul 21, 2009 20:02:13 GMT -5
I will be back to address any questions and participate in this fascinating discussion later. It looks like a migraine day for me. I'm going back to bed after I take some meds. Tapati, I can almost feel your pain, having had migraines most of my life. Sure do hope you're feeling much better this evening. (((HUGS)))
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Post by krwordgazer on Jul 22, 2009 1:03:37 GMT -5
Krwordgazer what does it mean that intensity is a sign of codependency? I had not heard that before but it rings a lot of bells. I think of friends of mine who went from one super intense christian experience to the next and would never find any contentment in a mundane church life, and whose romantic relationships ran a parallel course. Arietty, here's a link to an explanation of how codependent relationships work: www.marriage-relationships.com/codependency_in_relationships.htmlThe main idea is that codependent people are desperate. Desperate for affirmation, affection and love, their relationships are marked by an obsessive intensity. It's difficult for them to simply relax and be casual, because their sense of self-worth is tied up in how much affirmation and positive feedback they are receiving from the other person. They never feel secure in a relationship and so can never just let things flow. That's the way I was, and the way I can slip back into being when something happens that triggers those old patterns. Maranatha fed my need for intensity-- they encouraged obsession with their group and the group's goals. Obsessive people tended to be the ones that joined-- and then we fed one another's intensity. Rosa, I appreciate the link to Wikipedia-- it's a pretty accurate summary of what Maranatha was. Tapati, I hope your migraine goes away soon!
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Post by tapati on Jul 22, 2009 15:49:03 GMT -5
I can't say I was ever "love bombed" in Iskcon. Maybe it happened to some people but it didn't to me. It felt like home to me because I loved the Deity worship, the incense, the chanting, kirtan, the food...it just felt right. Unfortunately many devotees could be kind of cold, especially at the location I joined in. But others, (in different locations) were some of the best people you could ever meet. I think the "love bombing" quotient in ISKCON varied greatly by temple and perhaps also be era (since we joined at very different points in ISKCON's history). The women in St. Louis and Chicago were very welcoming. In L.A.? Not as much, they were all scattered out in their households (except for the few brahmacarinis) and into their own family thing. There were cliques...it was very high school. There was also a clear class stratification in L.A. I also loved the kirtans and the Deities. I had to learn to love the food but I really do now. I was one of those picky eaters who was alarmed by this food that had multiple ingredients that you couldn't easily understand.
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Post by tapati on Jul 22, 2009 15:54:49 GMT -5
Tapati - Sadly, Buddhism is much more beautiful as a philosophy than a religion. As a religion it has all the nasty sides of any other religion. I mean even Christianity is supposed to be based on loving kindness. I still admire Buddhism a lot but don't want to be in any system. There are many flavors of Buddhism. A Pureland congregation might even remind one of a Christian church, just with different images and rituals. But it still has that congregational feeling and people want salvation. A Tibetan temple would feel very different. A Zen Buddhist temple different still. Buddhism still came out of an era where women were second class, and like Hinduism also has a lot of restrictions on things like sex and other sensual pleasures. But I think there are lots of beautiful concepts that can be pulled out of the tradition and utilized in one's life. I also deeply appreciate the stories about Kuan Yin, Mother of Mercy. I, personally, don't want to join groups these days, though I like the concept of Unitarian Universalism and have visited one of their churches.
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Post by tapati on Jul 22, 2009 16:06:56 GMT -5
Tapati ~ so sorry about the terrible headache Hope you are feeling much better soon. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences as a guest blogger on NLQ ~ it's so interesting to me to see the similarities ~ and it makes me feel so ripped off to realize that all the peculiar practices we adopted as a quiverfull family ~ practices which we believed were particular to the bible and the true practice of Christianity ~ those whom we would have considered "cultic" practice the same things! We thought we were being "biblical" and following the True God ~ but in reality ~ we were merely being fundamentalist and following Patriarchy ~ male-centered religion. Ugh. You know, I think it's easy for members of one "cult" to spot another cult in the same way that it's easy for one battered wife to see that her battered friend ought to just leave her husband! I remember sitting in the foyer of the St. Louis temple while a guest at the Sunday Feast told us about what a scam Scientology had been in their life, how much money they charged for each "level" of learning etc. We were all shocked and condemned them as being a cult and called them cheaters, etc. ISKCON ended up being a cult-like organization, but the original tradition, Gaudiya Vaishnavism, isn't a cult in India. It is practiced by people as an organic part of their lives, not something they all leave their homes and move into a temple to do. I suspect that our founder had thought that the only way to really enable Westerners to take up this practice (which he saw as difficult for us) was to have us live together at least in the beginning so we could have moral support in doing so. I don't think he had a clue about the social dynamics. We policed each other and helped create the cult dynamic. Our own fanaticism insured that we tried to follow his every word to the letter, sometimes more strictly than even he wanted. Men tried to ban the use of the Govinda recording because it was sung by a woman and that might sexually agitate the brahmacaris and sannyasis, for example, and Bhaktivedanta over-ruled them. Others forbid women to lead classes or kirtans and again, that was counter to Bhaktivedanta's practice when he was starting the first temple. I also don't think Bhaktivedanta imagined how the two cultures would interact. He thought he'd just override our culture with his superior Vedic culture (in much the same way the British may have tried to do around the world) but what happens is the two blend and create a new hybrid. Bhaktivedanta always expected that there would be a congregational component to the movement--he didn't expect everyone to move to a temple. That was for the core of his movement, the priestly class. But the fanaticism of his new converts made them insist that if you didn't leave school, your family, etc. and join a temple you were in maya. That is what I was told, and I was expected to pass on that message to others. We had contempt for the "fringies" who lived outside the temple. Turns out, they were the smart ones. I think we felt if we had to do all that austerity, everybody else had better do it too!
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Post by tapati on Jul 22, 2009 16:09:24 GMT -5
Tapati, I can almost feel your pain, having had migraines most of my life. Sure do hope you're feeling much better this evening. (((HUGS))) Thank you, Grandmalou (and everybody else)! I hear that for some they go away after menopause. Did that happen for you? I never thought I'd look forward to menopause, but it can't come soon enough if it takes the migraines with it!
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Post by grandmalou on Jul 23, 2009 7:17:33 GMT -5
Tapati, I can almost feel your pain, having had migraines most of my life. Sure do hope you're feeling much better this evening. (((HUGS))) Thank you, Grandmalou (and everybody else)! I hear that for some they go away after menopause. Did that happen for you? I never thought I'd look forward to menopause, but it can't come soon enough if it takes the migraines with it! Tapati, they do seem to lessen with age...but what really helped me is finally being diagnosed with something that had impaired my circulation to my head for all my life when I was 44? The chiropractor who told me this said I should do whatever I could do to improve the circulation, and a dear friend suggested using capsicum. The real test of this came one day when I was driving from one city to another for a meeting, and a migraine hit...also at lunch time, and the others with me saw a Mexican restaurant. We went in, and I headed straight for the salsa bar and scarfed down some HOT pico de gallo...YUM! Within fifteen minutes the headache was gone. So I began to use encapsulated cayenne (capsicum) on a daily basis, and now when I do get a migraine it usually lasts maybe half a day? instead of the sometimes eight days it used to last. WHEW! Also began a program of supplements which would ensure daily internal cleansing, to flush out toxins and that has helped tremendously. It may not happen overnight, as it takes us all these many years to get our bodies in sad shape...but the capsicum thing is for real. My daughter-in-law, who is from Honduras, taught me to eat 'chiles' with sour cream or a little milk, or some limes or lime jello to offset the fire. Works very nicely.
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Post by tapati on Jul 24, 2009 17:01:36 GMT -5
Thanks for the tip, Grandmalou! I'm already taking feverfew, magnesium, and riboflavin to reduce the frequency. I'd considered also trying Butterbur, which I hear is good. I'll add capsicum to the list.
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Post by tapati on Jul 24, 2009 17:04:50 GMT -5
Later in my story I'll be talking about my first husband and his efforts to introduce polygamy into our marriage (which was historically allowed in Vedic times but was not encouraged for ISKCON members). His second attempt at this came during the year we were physically separated and I was supposed to be joining him out west (I was in Iowa near my family) but I was rethinking our marriage. He got this lady, a daughter of a close friend of his mom who he had always referred to as his cousin, pregnant. I ended the marriage in August by letter and her first child with him was born in December of 1983. In any event, her initiated name is Krishnapriya and here is a pic of her on the left: www.sevaashram.org/images/galleries/2009/deity-installation-anniversary-090526/big/deity-installation-anniversary-090526-11.jpg
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Post by grandmalou on Jul 24, 2009 17:24:05 GMT -5
Thanks for the tip, Grandmalou! I'm already taking feverfew, magnesium, and riboflavin to reduce the frequency. I'd considered also trying Butterbur, which I hear is good. I'll add capsicum to the list. Tapati, you are definitely on the right track with the supplements you mentioned. White willow bark might be a good thing too, which is the forerunner of aspirin. Used by my native ancestors for centuries, for pain relief. It will not hurt you to double up on most of these when you are in the throes of an episode, with the exception of the mag. Might want to go easy on that one. Do you take the feverfew on a daily, preventative basis? Oh...just remembered what my chiropractor told me many years ago...there are basically two types of headache. One is caused by too much blood to the brain, the other is caused by not enough. So here's what I do often, and it helps...if I feel the pound, pound, pound, of too much, I get a pan of comfortably hot water and put my feet in it. Or wash dishes and either way, it pulls the blood to the hands or feet, and away from my poor brain. Lobelia tincture is good too, as it is a cooling herb. I have not studied Butterbur...now you got me curious.
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Post by tapati on Jul 25, 2009 5:16:00 GMT -5
I apologize to others for the off topic-ness here. You are right, Grandmalou (as you often are), there are different causes of headache. Tension headaches are caused by constricted arteries in your head. Migraines (which are a neurological event that happens to also have pain as one phase) happen when the arteries are dilated and even a bit inflamed. The latest research seems to indicate that those who are prone to frequent migraines have a brain that is too reactive to stimuli, and the chemical signals that result from that hyper-alertness lead to migraines. There are many triggers for migraines, air pressure changes, lack of sleep, missing meals, hormones, certain foods, stress, and so on. (I've spent a lot of time reading about them! Paula Kamen has a good book: All In My Head.) www.paulakamen.com/It does make sense to draw blood flow elsewhere. I also use ice packs to selectively constrict the arteries in my head. I take feverfew in a formula called Migrelief that I get from the Vitamin Shoppe but you can find it in other places. It has the magnesium and the riboflavin too. I've read about butterbur in several places. Here's one: www.butterburresearch.org/I sometimes hesitate to keep adding herbs because they can interact with other meds and I am on a number of things for my heart health. (St. John's Wort interacts with a lot of drugs and is not recommended for someone like me who takes multiple pharmacy meds.) As always I try to balance the best of herbal and conventional medicine and given my serious heart disease, I don't want to take chances with abandoning the meds that have kept me going since my diagnosis in 2001. Sometimes my heart health and my migraine health conflict--such as not being able to take medicine like imitrex, which constricts the arteries. It's not good to have my coronary arteries constricted! I kept my ovaries for my heart health but I'm kind of regretting it now. The last consideration for migraine treatment is not to use painkillers too often. You can trigger rebound headache, which is like having a nonstop migraine for...as long as you keep taking the painkillers, usually you have to be off at least two weeks. I don't use painkillers more than 2-3 times a week for that reason. (The brain gets used to the painkiller and goes crazy when it's taken away, basically.)
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Post by grandmalou on Jul 25, 2009 6:04:20 GMT -5
I apologize to others for the off topic-ness here. You are right, Grandmalou (as you often are), there are different causes of headache. Tension headaches are caused by constricted arteries in your head. Migraines (which are a neurological event that happens to also have pain as one phase) happen when the arteries are dilated and even a bit inflamed. The latest research seems to indicate that those who are prone to frequent migraines have a brain that is too reactive to stimuli, and the chemical signals that result from that hyper-alertness lead to migraines. There are many triggers for migraines, air pressure changes, lack of sleep, missing meals, hormones, certain foods, stress, and so on. (I've spent a lot of time reading about them! Paula Kamen has a good book: All In My Head.) www.paulakamen.com/It does make sense to draw blood flow elsewhere. I also use ice packs to selectively constrict the arteries in my head. I take feverfew in a formula called Migrelief that I get from the Vitamin Shoppe but you can find it in other places. It has the magnesium and the riboflavin too. I've read about butterbur in several places. Here's one: www.butterburresearch.org/I sometimes hesitate to keep adding herbs because they can interact with other meds and I am on a number of things for my heart health. (St. John's Wort interacts with a lot of drugs and is not recommended for someone like me who takes multiple pharmacy meds.) As always I try to balance the best of herbal and conventional medicine and given my serious heart disease, I don't want to take chances with abandoning the meds that have kept me going since my diagnosis in 2001. Sometimes my heart health and my migraine health conflict--such as not being able to take medicine like imitrex, which constricts the arteries. It's not good to have my coronary arteries constricted! I kept my ovaries for my heart health but I'm kind of regretting it now. The last consideration for migraine treatment is not to use painkillers too often. You can trigger rebound headache, which is like having a nonstop migraine for...as long as you keep taking the painkillers, usually you have to be off at least two weeks. I don't use painkillers more than 2-3 times a week for that reason. (The brain gets used to the painkiller and goes crazy when it's taken away, basically.) Tapati, thank you so much for all of this additional good advice and information. I also apologize for this being sort of off-topic, but...IMO this is not off topic at all. In this material world we live in, stress is an ever present enemy of our well-being. I bet we would both be surprised at the number of people right here on this forum who have migraines...Vyckie is one of them. And no wonder, with all that most of us have been through! And there is a "magic bullet" or pill for absolutely everything, isn't there? Oh, do I know about those rebound headaches! I sort of lived on pain pills of one kind or another from 1964 to about 1991 just so I could get through another day. Funny thing is the pain relief was NOT there...I still hurt...I just didn't CARE that I hurt, and off to work I went. One day in 1991, I realized this, and flushed every pill I had down the toilet. I AM NOT recommending this for anybody else...but for me that was the starting point of my better health. ;D ;D
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Post by jemand on Jul 25, 2009 10:21:13 GMT -5
it's kinda odd... while I think women most often have migraines, the only people I know in real life suffering from them have been men. Go figure.
And quick environmental note-- it's no longer recommended to flush medication because it gets into the water supply, if you have a cat, it's recommended to put the pills in with the litter as you toss it, if you don't have cats, find something else to put the pills in the trash with so people will not try to use them not knowing what they are and hoping to get high... Oh, and the same method is good with ripped up old bills and such to reduce identity theft...
I can't imagine having week-long migraines, most of the time when I feel pain I try to disassociate "myself" from the point of pain to psychologically downplay it, but that doesn't work with headaches. Do either of you use any sort of meditation practice or focusing practice to reduce feeling pain?
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Post by grandmalou on Jul 25, 2009 11:29:13 GMT -5
it's kinda odd... while I think women most often have migraines, the only people I know in real life suffering from them have been men. Go figure. And quick environmental note-- it's no longer recommended to flush medication because it gets into the water supply, if you have a cat, it's recommended to put the pills in with the litter as you toss it, if you don't have cats, find something else to put the pills in the trash with so people will not try to use them not knowing what they are and hoping to get high... Oh, and the same method is good with ripped up old bills and such to reduce identity theft... I can't imagine having week-long migraines, most of the time when I feel pain I try to disassociate "myself" from the point of pain to psychologically downplay it, but that doesn't work with headaches. Do either of you use any sort of meditation practice or focusing practice to reduce feeling pain? I agree, Jemand, about the flushing pills. Had I known then... Thanks for the suggestion of better, more enviro-friendly ideas for disposing of them. I also have fibromyalgia, and it too has diminished greatly with age, maybe, and also maybe due to dietary changes, supplements I now use...but there used to be days when all I wanted to do was crawl in a dark, quiet hole and die. At those times I would lie there and pray for everyone I could think of who was having difficulties in life too, and that would allow me to relax, and rest, which usually got me "out of myself" and hasten my recovery. Or at least it seemed that way to me.
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Post by coleslaw on Jul 25, 2009 16:02:52 GMT -5
I brought my leftover pills to the pharmacy I use for them to dispose of.
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Post by rosa on Jul 25, 2009 20:27:46 GMT -5
Here in the states? Our pharmacy won't take them because they have to pay to dispose of them properly. Our trash is incinerated anyway, so I don't worry about tosisng them. The plastic bottles they come in, I do worry about, though.
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Post by barbaraw on Jul 26, 2009 18:54:18 GMT -5
The plastic bottles they come in, I do worry about, though. My pharmacy uses recyclable pill bottles (the number in the triangle is 5) and labels that are really easy to peel off. So I peel off the label and stick it in the garbage, then rinse out the pill bottle and put it in the recycle bin.
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