Someone touched on this earlier, but I still wanted to add this.
Starting about a year or two ago I started having... well, panic attacks just prior to falling asleep. I'd flash on how, sometime, maybe soon, I'd die. Unfortunately, at those times late at night, my "demi-fundamental" upbringing would crawl out of the back of my reptile mind -that since I was gay I'd go to hell, and there was AB-SO-LUTELY nothing I could do about it. (The first time this DIDN'T happen was the first night that Bill - my boyfriend, who's now living in Las Vegas - spent the night. Odd, how the presence of another person, can effect one...)
Anywho, last Feb. I started seeing a connection the panic attacks & my reaching the same age my father was when he died. At the same time I recalled how the Death card in the Tarot could also mean change, and maybe that's what I was afraid of. (There may have been some hormonal issues kickin' in as well. Last Sept. I had a physical, and one of the things that my doctor noted was -geez, am I really talking about this?- my prostate was slightly enlarged. Doing a little research I found out that at a certain age men's bodies start processing testosterone differently, and the excess goes to the prostate. "Oh," I thought, "Suddenly it all makes sense - I've hit 'guyapause'") I began to see the next couple of years as *very* critical, that there was some change on the horizon that I couldn't stop. I could affect how I changed, however, and that's what kicked me back to my 12 step group.
Which may explain why, having been laid off of work, I'm surprisingly not all that worried about the future. (Plus, having a Buddist for a sponsor helps. Ask me sometime about he's going all "Zen" on me...)
Sorry about rambling, but just wanted to point out that sometimes "Death = Change" I'm not sure if it stands that "Change = Silence", however...
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Books 'n Death
Date: 2004-06-26 10:18 am (UTC)Starting about a year or two ago I started having... well, panic attacks just prior to falling asleep. I'd flash on how, sometime, maybe soon, I'd die. Unfortunately, at those times late at night, my "demi-fundamental" upbringing would crawl out of the back of my reptile mind -that since I was gay I'd go to hell, and there was AB-SO-LUTELY nothing I could do about it. (The first time this DIDN'T happen was the first night that Bill - my boyfriend, who's now living in Las Vegas - spent the night. Odd, how the presence of another person, can effect one...)
Anywho, last Feb. I started seeing a connection the panic attacks & my reaching the same age my father was when he died. At the same time I recalled how the Death card in the Tarot could also mean change, and maybe that's what I was afraid of. (There may have been some hormonal issues kickin' in as well. Last Sept. I had a physical, and one of the things that my doctor noted was -geez, am I really talking about this?- my prostate was slightly enlarged. Doing a little research I found out that at a certain age men's bodies start processing testosterone differently, and the excess goes to the prostate. "Oh," I thought, "Suddenly it all makes sense - I've hit 'guyapause'") I began to see the next couple of years as *very* critical, that there was some change on the horizon that I couldn't stop. I could affect how I changed, however, and that's what kicked me back to my 12 step group.
Which may explain why, having been laid off of work, I'm surprisingly not all that worried about the future. (Plus, having a Buddist for a sponsor helps. Ask me sometime about he's going all "Zen" on me...)
Sorry about rambling, but just wanted to point out that sometimes "Death = Change" I'm not sure if it stands that "Change = Silence", however...
David Cummer
huladavid@aol.com