Sleeping on pills and some additional thoughts - thinking loudly…

from the Ballet Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov.

In the morning-news this morning they spoke about an increase in the use of sleeping drugs in young people (15 to 34 years). One of the experts, Sonja Wallbom (ordförande for RFHL, Riksförbundet för hjälp åt narkotika- och läkemedelsberoende, an association in Sweden for help for those suffering from narcotics and alcohol addictions) said that we ought to teach young people to handle their crisis instead of treating them with pills.

The networks with adults have got weaker or thinner, shown for instance in fewer grown ups in recreation centres, school health care, teachers have less time, as parents etc.

We have less time speaking with each other and then also as a consequence with children and young people.

Yesterday I also saw a program about meeting a new partner after divorce, where a psychologist thought that children are more tolerant than we believe when a parent has found a new partner… They are so used to getting contacts on the net easily themselves… And understand that parents can do too. And many children feel good seeing their parent being happy and smiling - again.

The speaker said something in this style in the beginning of the program:

“Thick, tired and ugly in the hair, desperate, disillusioned…”

And I have feelings I haven’t put in words yet on the differences between US and Sweden (the Scandinavian countries), let’s see if I manage doing this…

The Swedish society feels (now at least) more equal and as people have a fairly high material standard - in general. Maybe not so many who are tremendously rich here, but… So people don’t have had needs to use the system in really the same way as in the USA? But are we walking in that direction (forced or brainwashed by politicians and right-wing lobby-groups)?

Silently: But my trip to USA has been great, in all respects... I am so glad over it. And glad over all that happened.

Now a bike ride though. :-)

PS. Also see this photo-album (with ONLY four pictures, you don't believe me!).

So far away
So far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn't help to know that you're just time away

Long ago I reached for you and there you stood
Holding you again could only do me good
How I wish I could, but you're so far away

One more song about movin' along the highway
Can't say much of anything that's new
If I could only work this life out my way
I'd rather spend it bein' close to you

But you're so far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn't help to know you're so far away

Travelin' around sure gets me down and lonely
Nothin' else to do but close my mind
I sure hope the road don't come to own me
But there's so many dreams I've yet to find

But you're so far away
Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
And it doesn't help to know you're so far away

Corrina, Corrina
Corrina, Corrina,
Gal, where you been so long?
Corrina, Corrina, Gal, where you been so long?
I been worr'in' 'bout you, baby,
Baby, please come home.

I got a bird that whistles,
I got a bird that sings.
I got a bird that whistles,
I got a bird that sings.
But I ain' a-got Corrina,
Life don't mean a thing.

Corrina, Corrina,
Gal, you're on my mind.
Corrina, Corrina,
Gal, you're on my mind.
I'mma sittin down thinkin of you, baby,
I just can't keep from crying.

An excellent interpretation of "Money, money" (see the Swedish group ABBA) sung by Helen Sjöholm:

The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you'll be sorry someday

The thrill is gone
It's gone away from me
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away from me
Although I'll still live on
But so lonely I'll be

The thrill is gone
It's gone away for good
Oh, the thrill is gone baby
Baby its gone away for good
Someday I know I'll be over it all baby
Just like I know a man should

You know I'm free, free now baby
I'm free from your spell
I'm free, free now
I'm free from your spell
And now that it's over
All I can do is wish you well

From my trip home...

from Ronald Reagan National Airport, Washington.

See the album here.

Photos from my USA-trip...

White House gate.

Haven't had time until now writing. The trip has been filled with so much. But here, here, here, here and here are the albums with the pictures in reverse chronological order.

Trip to USA...

I am on my way making a 9 day long trip to USA... This became quite suddenly decided. Landing on the east coast, sightseeing there a little, and then going by car to the mid west (?), hopefully seeing a lot of the local culture. It's my first visit there, so this is really exciting. Got a very sweet invitation...

I look forward to this, but I have "fjärilar i magen" (translated exactly: "butterflies in my stomach"!), not least for the long flight over the the Atlantic Sea with what it means for me...

Let's see if I have time blogging during this period...

Pink Floyd The Wall Comfortably Numb…

Comfortably Numb

Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?

Come on, now.
I hear you're feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.

Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?


There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're sayin'.
When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I can't explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.

I have become comfortably numb.


Ok.
Just a little pinprick.
There'll be no more --Aaaaaahhhhh!
But you may feel a little sick.

Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working. Good.
That'll keep you going for the show.
Come on it's time to go.

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're sayin'.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

See this readers’ letter on Miller’s web. About Pink Floyd here and here. Pink Floyd and Renée Fleming got The Polar Music Prize this year…

Addition in the evening: the first video with Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, Sting…

All For Love

When it's love you give
(I'll be a man of good faith.)
Then in love you live.
(I'll make a stand. I won't break.)
I'll be the rock you can build on,
Be there when you're old,
To have and to hold.

When there's love inside
(I swear I'll always be strong.)
Then there's a reason why.
(I'll prove to you we belong.)
I'll be the wal that protects you
From the wind and the rain,
From the hurt and pain.

Let's make it all for one and all for love.
Let the one you hold be the one you want,
The one you need,
'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all.
When there's someone that should know
Then just let your feelings show
And make it all for one and all for love.

When it's love you make
(I'll be the fire in your night.)
Then it's love you take.
(I will defend, I will fight.)
I'll be there when you need me.
When honor's at stake,
This vow I will make:

That it's all for one and all for love.
Let the one be the one you want,
The one you need,
'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all.
When there's someone that should know
Then just let your feelings show
And make it all for one and all for love.

Don't lay our love to rest
'Cause we could stand up to you test.
We got everything and more than we had planned,
More than the rivers that run the land.
We've got it all in our hands.

Now it's all for one and all for love.
(It's all for love.)
Let the one you hold be the one you want,
The one you need,
'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all.
(It's one for all.)
When there's someone that should know
Then just let your feelings show.
When there's someone that you want,
When there's someone that you need
Let's make it all, all for one and all for love.

Can Self – But Need to Have Other People…

”…the needs of realizing the individual’s responsibility for her/his own situation and her/his relation.”

Sounds quite moralizing…

I read a blogposting which made me smile and my eyes glitter, the quotations in the beginning comes from that posting. Written by a female Swedish blogger Jenny W. (whose postings I have written about earlier). She is so angry, sarcastic, and ironic or how I shall express it. Rebellious? Questioning? So refreshingly! She points to contradictions in the society I think…

Her posting has the title “Can Self – But Need to Have Others…”

She writes apropos texts, written by two female writers, Anne Heberlein and Isobel Hadley Kapmtz, on the question of personal responsibility, which she on the one hand thinks has a “fresh strike” and on the other are at risk of simplifying all that is difficult… From a bitter complaining to the dashing cheering on oneself and others, the two poles or opposites. Yes, it was this with the “positive thinking”!! Which awakes applauses everywhere. The clever girl (boy)!!

She writes that she should want to embroider things about the importance of understanding the weight and meaning of “institutions” (in this case the institution which the family is, and preferably the nuclear, with mum, dad and children. One shall not live alone or two men/women together. And definitely NOT two people of the same sex WITH children. And two grown ups of different gender without children are suspicious too for many. But she also reflects over other sorts of “institutions”, but this posting is mainly about the family though).

An understanding of the weight of institutions she thinks is entirely absent in both the texts, and also in a remarkable way in the Swedish understanding generally. If I interpret her right she thinks (with my words) that we speak quite moralizing about that we are slaves under psychic ill health (exhaustions, burnout etc.) and sex-addictions!!

But she wonders (quite ironically in my interpretation) why we don’t question phenomena like when we hear people saying they want to get married ”to have a really fun party”??

“But no! Fuck all that ridiculous talk about such things. It’s bullshit that one can believe in a thousand year old and more tradition and doing a nice party of it, while one miraculously are spared from all depressive cultural duties.”

Quietly: No, that sort of superficiality we hardly question!

She thinks that the weight of these long traditions (the deep cultural representations as she describes or expresses them) we live in and have around us has to become problematized at the same time as we discuss personal responsibility. Messages many people probably feel the weight of, and at least need to get relieved from to some extent. She thinks that if one doesn’t have any feeling for this weight one is more tone-deaf than would be acceptable… Yes, this is very, very insensitive. What’s the problem if nobody is harmed??

A pretty dangerous quality (this insensitivity) in other circumstances she thinks.

She wonders upon the vehement, furious trend of family-living which rolls over the world, as she writes.

“Yes, why is it so damn popular managing things on ones own at the same time as we obviously need to have people tightly around us – i.e. [having] the family [around us].”

She writes about the talk, in the debate about the own success managing or making things, and the question of the family as a poof of “how simple it is in fact”! But in it she can at least discern (skönja) a climate which doesn’t further (or promote) women’s will and possibilities talking about their troubles in their relations (and men also loose on this!! As their children; not least seen to what sort of models those parents and their marriages and all other relations and ideas they have are. But also to live in such families. The hypocrisy I grew up with too, maybe a bit different, but in many ways still there. Yes, it is this with painting things rosy, not talking openly about how things in fact are and how we maybe can change and handle them better and more constructively without harming anyone. No matter what gender. Just talking more openly about them would mean a lot).

She also mentions all life-style magazines and fitting-up-stuff (all make over programs of different sorts. See Thomas Johansson here in Sweden for instance and his ”Make over mania”! See earlier posting "The Pursuit of Harmony...") and wonders how many she has to mention and point to to prove what she is trying to say.

Things are described or brought forward as measures worth striving for (living in a certain way and after certain patterns, not outspoken “rules,” and here it is a backlash again, my comment) while they at the same time are institutions which have been created during millennia for the continued existence of the society – and that continued existence has not leant on an overwhelming interest for the women’s need, have they, however? But of course, pairing and making children gives one something, especially as the human species is a flock-animal. And life isn’t in first hand about lots of injury-minimizing measures, but one has to be allowed to try even if the odds are low, so to speak, as she writes. You must be allowed to fail she means. Without getting judged, rejected or moralized over, yes.

“But jeeez, how many men there are walking around I wouldn’t want to share responsibility or every day life with, however.

Then we come to another aspect I would want to write about too: the tendency that all those debates are starting to be about glorifying oneself and not least the finest we have here in the equal Sweden: our equal men.”

In a book (grounded on a dissertation??) they established that one of the biggest threats to the freedom and peace of women seem to be the normative notion in women themselves that equal lives are finer and better then unequal.

And she writes:

“At the same time it’s always you yourself who has to live your life [in some way or another, and try to manage it the best one is capable!!] and that one has to dare being bothersome, hard as stone and hard-working to reach ones goals, if it’s what’s demanded. Here is a whole Swedish culture one has to do something about. Anyhow, I haven’t got more time. The society and my duties are calling. My family, or the group [son and ‘husband’] as I use to call it, is in another town doing other things. For them, for me and for the country and the world: now I have to work.”

In a PS. she writes about the admirable in divorcing. Her apprehension is that the one divorcing is a truly successful person seen from a self-realizing point of view. Because it is very heavy things we are playing with when one gets married. Getting divorced is therefore damn hard core.

Yes, I think this Jenny doesn’t want to moralize over people’s struggles and troubles… On the contrary…

Ingmar Bergman and his father and mother…

In an article about Ingmar Bergman and his self-biographical book ”Laterna magica” or "The Magic Lantern" it stands about

“…the father’s capricious temper [lynniga temperament]. Sometimes his temper was good the whole day, sometimes the demons caught him up and he became taciturn [fåordig], turned away and irritable./…/

…the enclosed, dogmatic father.”

About Bergman:

“…on the one side overprotected, on the other defenceless, on the border to abandoned.”

“Ingmar Bergman spent his childhood summers in a big, beautiful house, built 1909, on a hill along the Dala river, between Gagnef and Borlänge. /…/

Karin Bergman [Ingmar Bergman’s mum] sold the summer-house Våroms [“Ours” in English] 1956. The son Ingmar seemed to have wanted to buy it, but the mother said no. It’s possible this is a loss he never came over.”

A person in the neighbourhood said that Ingmar as child was looked for by a nursemaid and seemed to have been very hard held at home.

Våroms lies on a hill called Gims klack in Duvnäs.

Read ”The Demon-lover” by John Lahr in The New Yorker.

Articles in Swedish here. And about what Magic Lantern is here.

A frustrated therapist...

who went to monasteries - and why?

Read Alice Miller's conversation with a frustrated therapist here and here, about a small boy the therapist has as client/patient, beaten by his parents; thrashed so there are big red welts on his buttocks:

"...when he goes to other people, men, women teachers, parents, therapists, to try and get some help, some information, something of the truth to help him clear his confusion, the message he gets is that its his fault if his beatings upset him, its his fault because of the way he took his beatings, his parents are not to be blamed, its no-ones' fault, it was not wrong of them to beat him because the law allowed it. So he doesn't go to therapists any more. They just abuse him.

AM: Why don't you tell him that nobody has the right to hit and mistreat him and that you will talk to his parents and tell them that what they are doing is a crime. It is your duty to protect this boy from the lies he has been taught and to tell him the truth. Otherwise a so-called therapy is a farce.

JR: Oh, I tried that, believe me. They have full support in their abusive behaviour from his headmaster, his headmistress, all his teachers, the police, the vicar, the priest, the imam, the counsellor, and the doctor. They all assure his parents that their son is evil, it is a kindness to correct him. And then, there are all my professionalist colleagues who will insist, to his parents and to everyone else that it is not their job to say what is right or wrong, that people are entitled to their opinions, it is an issue of difference and that it might well be the way he has taken his beatings that is causing his problems. His parents feel very strongly that I am a commie beatnik and they did in fact threaten to call the police if I didn't quit their premises immediately."

Communication and communicating...

a peaceful place I visited during my journey last week.

In the magazine MåBra (or FeelWell) a woman wanted an advice and asked, the heading to the question was "Now I want to have children - but he doesn't":

“Since some time I live with a man older than I am. All the time he has been clear with that he can’t give me any children. He feels too old he thinks and has children since earlier.

I have been satisfied with that as I haven’t wanted any children either. But the last time my feelings have started to change. I love the man I live with and want to live with him, but the realisation I will never become mother has started to gnaw in me. However, I don’t dare to talk to him about this; it feels as if I desert him. What shall I do?”

The adviser answers, this is only part of the answer and true for other things too it felt:

“You have changed your mind about having children. Who knows, maybe he also has. If you don’t ask him you will perhaps never get to know. Explain to him how you feel and ask him how he feels confronted with your changed mind. And how he feels about the thought of getting children together.

You are failing him if you don’t tell him what you feel inside. Being honest, sincere and talking about your dreams, fears and other important things is not to desert, on the contrary. This is what brings one nearer, both nearer oneself and the other part in a relation.”

Yes, this is true for a lot of other things in a relation too? And - it is a VERY tricky thing? Many times one thinks one is very open and communicating everything, but one isn’t to that degree as one thinks?

Instead one interprets and imagines what the other part thinks, wants, and feels (or doesn't even reflect)? Mind reads, and the other part maybe also demands mind reading, i.e. that you shall know what he (she) feels, wants, thinks, how she (he) reacts etc.!? This causes misinterpretations and misunderstandings… And broken relations, both necessary and unnecessary…

Miller writes about the wish and/or quest for open, genuine communication (a longing which also contains fear, why it is so difficult?)…

The therapists Jenson and Bosch thinks there exists a defence they call False power denial of needs… By denying one has needs one gets a false sense of power, and if you have no needs you can't get hurt. The opposite/other side of the coin is that we never get close or near neither to ourselves (really) nor to other people? We never get real contact with our true selves?

But we have probably reasons not to open up… Afraid of showing our Achilles heals, maybe with good reasons sometimes too, but more seldom than we think and believe?

Are you a "clever" girl?

Bréne Brown.

One of the books in one of my book-club this month made me interested and stirred my thoughts and imagination, namely “I Thought it Was Just Me” by Bréne Brown, that has come in Swedish, here called “Kvinnor och skam –hur vi kan förändra vårt sätt att leva.” Searched on the author and found her home site and an interview with her.

In my book-club they write about the book as follows (my quick amateur-translation):

“Women are often valued for their ability to please and adapt. This gives self-confidence to a certain form of achievement; one becomes ‘clever’ girl. And vice versa: if the achievement doesn't come off the woman easily gets shame-feelings.

These shame-feelings can influence many aspects of our lives: work-life, sexuality, our relation to a partner, children and friends.

Brown punctures the myth about the emancipated western human being - and shows that we instead can get far with increased insight."

On her home site it stands about what this book contains it looks:

"The quest for perfection is exhausting and unrelenting. We spend too much precious time and energy managing perception and creating carefully edited versions of ourselves to show to the world. As hard as we try, we can’t seem to turn off the tapes that fill our heads with messages like, Never good enough! and What will people think?

Why? What fuels this unattainable need to look like we always have it all together? At first glance we might think it’s because we admire perfection, but that’s not the case. We are actually the most attracted to people we consider to be authentic and down-to-earth. We love people who are real – we’re drawn to those who both embrace their imperfections and radiate self-acceptance.

There is a constant barrage of social expectations that teach us that being imperfect is synonymous with being inadequate. Everywhere we turn, there are messages that tell us who, what and how we’re supposed to be. So, we learn to hide our struggles and protect ourselves from shame, judgment, criticism and blame by seeking safety in pretending and perfection./…/

We need our lives back. It’s time to reclaim the gifts of imperfection – the courage to be real, the compassion we need to love ourselves and others, and the connection that gives true purpose and meaning to life. These are the gifts that bring love, laughter, gratitude, empathy and joy into our lives.”

Where have we learned this and why? Are people really of equal value? Aren't some worth more? Wondering like this brings feelings in my body and tears in the eyes...

See earlier postings on the topic shame. We also keep silent of shame...

Travelling home...

the Alvastra Monastery.

the Vadstena Abbey Church.

On my way home I made stops at the ruins of the Alvastra Monastery and Vadstena Abbey Church... I have been in seven of Sweden's counties today!! :-) Started my journey this morning in Skåne and passed Halland (a miss!!! Was speaking in my mobile phone and missed the road north! And it isn't the easiest thing to just go back on a motor high way!), passed Småland, Östergötland, Närke, Västmanland and Dalarna... I have been driving 1500 km on this trip south since Monday...

Even more vacation activities..

"What's she shouting at??"

Yesterday we went bathing in the sea... But Ajax and I started the morning (after I had saved some photos, been to the store to buy some food etc.) with some relaxation in the garden, lying there reading, writing, just relaxing... And we (the husband in the house and I) finished it with watching "Midsomer Murders", which H., the husband in the house, had recorded. While A., the wife in the house, took a jogging-tour! Totally exhausted after so much fresh air and bathing (I bathed in fact!!!) H. and I almost fell asleep there at the TV! :-) While A., the wife in the house came home with blushing cheeks (looking very healthy:-)) after HER jogging-tour, alert and with a lot of energy! She has another daily rhythm than we! :-) Sleeping 5-6 hours longer in the morning than we do! So it wasn't only we who were lazy! I hope! :-)

More vacation activities...

in the morning I visited a cousin just outside Lund and we took a walk at the seashore there.

the entrance to Kulturen i Lund (more pictures here). The Lund Cathedral.

Yesterday we (A. and I) visited Kulturen i Lund and the Lund Cathedral (also see here).

I have labeled this posting with relaxation, but I don't know if it has been relaxation, at least not for my feet, walking in shoes not made for long or lots of walks!! :-)

Vacation activities...

pictures from the journey here.

more pictures here.

From 700 km journey by car and a walk in the botanic garden in Lund...