captaincliff

Dedicated to my friends who love me…no matter what

Let’s face it. I’m no David Bowie. He was a true artist (and cultural icon) in every sense of the word. In contrast, my blogs, random musings, “peace pipes”and writing represent the collected “body of work” of a singular 62 year old Jewish psychologist with GERD, hair loss and bad gas. My web posts are often so self-directed as to leave uninitiated readers lost in translation. I write about obscure topics and Adderall fueled notions that result in just about everyone except my family and those I went to school with scratching their heads. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that many of them dont know what the fuck I’m talking about or where the oft promised “sardonic humor” was hiding ….in plain sight.

Here’s the thing: we all live our lives in ways that seem rather vivid, dramatic, and worthy of a “Lord of the Rings” feature film (including prequels and sequels). In reality, like every dog, donkey and department store assistant manager we manage to scratch out an existence that has some exhilarating highs and painful lows but remains legendary solely unto ourselves. Not exactly a narcissist’s dream come true but more a heaping-sized serving of humble pie ala mode. Believe it or not it wasn’t until recently that I realized that I, Cliff Mazer, aka, Captain Cliff am more of an “acquired taste” (both as a human being and writer-artist-provocateur) rather than some sought after viral sensation or cultural delicacy…. unless you happen to be a hungry grizzly bear with a yen for psychological yiddishe kopf. Regardless, like Tim Treadwell the bipolar bear enthusiast,  I probably just taste like chicken (see photo above).

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not implying that realizing such a simple truth is a bad thing especially at my age when ones testicles begin to sag in the general direction of ones aching knees. It probably also says something that my favorite Hanukkah gift this year was an self-articulating  electric back shaver. In fact, there is a valuable lesson learned in coming to terms with the limited frame of reference that borders ones existing self-portrait , ie., (personal identity) and self-concept (how much you like yourself). When we’re young we tend to dream big, live “large” and “act-react-do” (even if later it’s seen as crazy or reckless). Don’t ask me about the heavenly pasture of magic mushrooms in Palenque, Mexico and the jungle “Garden of Eden” I discovered at age 20 just before realizing that my entire body was covered in ginormous “African Queen” leeches and blood sucking ticks feeding on my flesh and blood. The world back then, the so called “olden days” of our youth was a blank canvas and our only “job” was to fill that space with magnificent experiences using broad strokes and a full palette of living colors. Everything was”far out”or “groovy” just like now it’s totally “awesome”. It’s only later in life that we learn to slow down, pause, reconsider, think through, reflect and consciously ponder. In my business they call it “introspection”.  With time, experience, and maturity we are eventually inspired to sculpt, paint, write or act out the story of our lives with far more insight, texture and possibly even greater subtlety. We also grow to understand and appreciate different vocabulary words or phrases such as “nuance”,”perspective”as well as “ointment”, “dietary restriction”, and “bowel softener”.

I know you cant get the average teenager to believe this but the personal saga that is a single lifespan on Earth is enriched by our abject failures as well as our greatest achievements.  Furthermore, times of robust physical and mental health are better appreciated if one has also experienced a chronic illness or had previous bouts of deep depression.  Like the Velveteen Rabbit’s fur, the human ego is stripped away over time by arthritis, psoriasis, gastritis, and phlebitis along with painful life experiences and disappointments involving shattered dreams, bursting seams, or misplaced trust in a neighbor’s Ponzi scheme. According to Margery Williams even those things dont really matter in the end as long as one becomes “real” (authentic) as a result of having been loved.  Now that I think of it I’ve been rather obsessed with the whole idea of becoming “real” ever since I first watched the Disney movie Pinocchio when I was a little kid. Pleasure Island sounded great but I was petrified by the very thought of getting turned into a braying donkey.

Bottomline: Once you realize your head is as bald as the tires on your 2001 Lexus (the “good car”) and your memoirs have a 99% chance of being self-published, there is a unique opportunity presented to all of us in regards to the time we have left. I’m not just talking about a trip to Ibiza, social security checks or the senior discount at IHOP, (altho I’ve used the latter multiple times).  We can work on working less, putting our ego-driven desires aside and spending more time enjoying those whom we love and those who truly love us. We can choose to recognize all the various forms of beauty and artistry that exists that we might have missed when we were so busy climbing corporate ladders and attempting to “prove” ourselves. We can resolve to care less about the cat hair and dog poop and pee-pee on the carpet when ones son or daughter visits or “desperately” needs a pet sitter for several days (that later feels like a decade). We can ease ourselves into a more realistic looking self portrait that looks less like a slick ad for the Men’s Club circa 1985 and more like Nikita Khrushchev after taking his third or fourth vodka shot and gravity bong. In my case I don’t necessarily believe I need to completely hang up my CaptCliff pirate pen or fold up my creativity pup tent. I just need to feel grateful for what I still have to give rather than dwell on all the things that have been lost on the long perilous ocean voyage. My sometime muse and Aussie friend Deb sent me this creative/inspirational video as one example.  Figure and ground. Ground and figure. Body of work indeed!

https://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/watch/30527517/back-hair-turned-into-art/#page1

I admit to being obsessed with the subject of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Post-traumatic illness could teach us a lot about how humans function and cope or dysfunction and become essentially demoralized under extraordinary stress. From the biopsychosocial perspective PTSD may very well help us to understand what happens to our brains when “critical mass” is reached and our tolerance for trauma is exceeded. Furthermore, PTSD may be a psychiatric harbinger of the toll that trauma and excessive stress is taking on society and how certain vulnerable individuals, much like childhood survivors of physical and sexual abuse, can end up becoming both self-perpetuating victims and perpetrators.

While we are right to be concerned about the economic cost associated with running a large first world country and waging various wars (on drugs, on terrorism, ISIS, etc.) shouldn’t we be equally concerned with the psychological and physical costs and consequences resulting from what government officials euphemistically call unavoidable “collateral damage”? Such military speak doesn’t begin to do justice to the actual reality of those thousands of civilians killed and wounded, families displaced from their homes and ancestral homelands, and the mounting number of returning soldiers with severe physical injuries and PTSD. Sure there is a lot of lip service paid to helping and supporting our courageous “wounded warriors” but all the parades, handshakes, brain scans, robotic arms and Starship Trooper prosthetics in the world will not adequately repair the damaged psyches of combat veterans with deep psychological wounds and moral injuries at the soul level.

What we know about trauma and PTSD is still far exceeded by uncertainty about how best to treat them. What we know is this:  individuals can fall into a prolonged state of anxiety, depression, pessimism and despair after having exposure to experiences perceived to be either life threatening or serious enough to shatter their belief that the world is safe and sensible (sense of meaning and coherence). Put another way, certain people whether on the battlefield in Iraq, following a nasty prolonged divorce/custody battle, or a particularly horrific automobile accident can lose their fundamental sense of security and their belief that their daily existence is not one of continual threat and that their current situation in life lacks sufficient hope, purpose, positive meaning, and what researchers now call “narrative coherence.” Consider an insecure deeply depressed or suicidal teen who has not only failed to reach sexual, physical or psychological maturity but also views their own life as hopeless and therefore represents a failed “life story” with no redeeming value. Sometimes psychological trauma can result from an acute catastrophic incident, but more often it is an accumulation of these types of “self” shattering experiences that have reached their tipping point.

In addition, such an extreme breakdown of perceived safety, integrated sensorium and personal sensibility is accompanied by the  inability to “work through”  (ie., mentally and emotionally process) the traumatic event(s) necessary for long term adaptation and recovery. PTSD sufferers are essentially stuck in a mental movie theater randomly replaying the horrific memories, stress arousing stimuli and sensory triggers associated with their initial trauma.

On a neurobiological (brain) level there is growing evidence of a persistent dysregulation in the HPA Axis stress response. Instead of returning to a baseline level of physiologic arousal, PTSD leaves the body-mind in a tense state of hypervigilance and hypofunctioning. To be stuck in a physical and emotional state of “fight or flight” is essentially hell on earth and somewhat similar to what it feels like to be having panic attacks and extreme anxiety 24/7. Unlike previous models explaining the normative stages of grief, loss, and recovery, ie. Kubler-Ross, etc., those with PTSD are often unable to reconcile conflicting thoughts and feelings about their traumatic experience(s)and have not managed to achieve a final state of understanding and acceptance.

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