From: Amethyst Area: Mundane To: Jess Buckley 10 Nov 94 02:15:48 Subject: Re: Doctors and Respect UpdReq JB> Exactly. Doctors in general need to be educated about women's needs in JB> all areas. How many women are still diagnosed as hysterical, or JB> crazy just because a doctor can't name what's wrong with them. How JB> many women were labelled crazy before chronic fatigue syndrome was JB> recognised? This is so stupid. I'm with you, we have to stand up JB> to the doctors when they aren't taking us seriously, and that applies JB> equally to men as well. Doctors aren't going to change unless its JB> cost effective to do so. Where I live, chronic fatigue syndrome still isn't recognized. I'm sure I've had it for nearly 4 years. The first time a doctor here gave it some credibility, she was a rheumatologist and I went to her for what I thought was arthritis...she diagnosed me with fibromyagia. But then, less than a month later she was suddenly leaving the province. I asked her for a referral for my FM, and she said that it isn't accepted by other doctors here and to just forget it! That was less than a year ago. I'd been walking around for 3 years, being told I was nuts, sent to psychiatrists, put on medications that screwed up my health more (one, Prozac, made me suddenly suicidal after I was on it for 6 months...I can't believe people call it "the happy pill," after ending up in an ER for taking an overdose when everything in my otherwise satisfying life suddenly became so black I wanted to die! It had never really worked for me in the first place...my life just became more bearable). One doctor told me that he had tested me for everything and I must either be a hypochondriac of have CFS, and since he didn't believe in CFS, he referred me to a shrink! Now I'm in limbo. I believe that's what I have, but until I find a doctor that is willing to formally diagnose it, I'm stuck with no one believing I'm sick. I've seen the list of symptoms for CFS, and there's no mistaking it for me...I have almost all of them. I can remember the 3 week virus that started it in May of 1991, and how I never really recovered from it. I've got the swollen lymph nodes, fatigue, fibromyalgia, headaches, trouble concentrating,short-term memory problems, frequent recurring throat and respiratory infections, etc. But there isn't a doctor that I can find in Saskatchewan that will say, "yes, that's what's wrong with you...you're not crazy at all!" Sometimes, I think this is my karma. Before I got this and I heard of people getting it, I thought they were just lazy and looking for an excuse to not work. I figured they made up this "chronic Epstein-Barr virus" or "yuppie flu" as they called it. Then I got it. Now I know it's real. I found that out the hard way. I'd give anything to be "me" again. I still have the same determination to do things that I used to have, but my body doesn't have the strength or energy to accomplish them. I'm nearly 31 and I feel like I'm 70! I should feel like my life is beginning, but I feel like it's nearly over! JB> I've been through a number of doctors in the past JB> few years, between the JB> way they behave and the way they charge you and don't warn you about JB> the fees even when you ask...its driving me crazy. Also, I have JB> a very chronic problem for which the prescribed medicine is considered JB> narcotic. Now, I arrange things so that I take this stuff for a couple JB> of weeks so I can get my voice back, then I go as long as I can stand JB> until I can barely talk before I ask for more. Now I don't think that JB> sounds like an addict, do you? Anyway, almost no doctors will prescribe JB> the stuff. It drives me crazy trying to get my medicine. JB> JB> Not to mention the fact that they have never been able to figure out JB> whats wrong with me. Or cure it. Or even provide me with a different JB> medicine that works. Go figure. I'm lucky in one sense...I don't have to worry about the fees because of our health care plan up here. My family doctor is a really good, caring, decent person, but he is too quick to pull out that prescription pad and prescribe antibiotics. Quite often, he will automatically prescribe something for the inevitable yeast infection that I get as a result. Monistat just became available up here without a prescription this past week. It's scary when the people who are supposed be the experts can't tell you what's wrong with you, let alone treat it! I've come to the point of buying health drinks and stuff...right now I'm trying Lifestyles Intra...I don't know what else to do...I've just about given up on conventional medicine. If it weren't for my family doctor being as caring as he is, I would have given up completely on it long ago. It's hard to do that when you have kids, too. I just can't believe that less than 2 decades ago, we were almost totally ignorant consumers when it came to medical professionals. We trusted them without question. And now we know just how much we've been cheated. Thank Goddess we've come to our senses enough to learn and question them...I can't imagine being a parent with all the health problems I've had while being as ignornant and naive about medicine as my mother was! BB -=Amethyst=- 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Amethyst Area: Mundane To: Aladrisa 10 Nov 94 17:09:48 Subject: Toxic parenting UpdReq A> DO you see your mother at all and does she see the kids A> (I'll die if you say A> what I think you will say and that will mean we are the same in alot of A> ways)?? Don't forget that someday you may have to A> explain this all to your A> kiddies.... Not at all since last December. She and my father suddenly came out here one Thursday without telling us they were coming. I found out when the school secretary called and told me my parents were there to pick up my daughters. Then they made a point of spending the entire weekend insulting me (and not jokingly) in front of my kids. I tried so hard to just keep my mouth shut and not get into an argument in front of the kids, but the tension got so bad that Erinn was in tears by Saturday night. When I tried to comfort her, my mother insisted on taking over and then promised Erinn that she would send her a plane ticket to Toronto so she could visit them by herself (not bloody likely, especially when you don't ask me first!). I know full well that she would just spoil her rotten with all sorts of shopping trips and turn her against me the way my aunt did with me. My mother has always felt that the best way to win a child's affections is with material things and that's all she ever did with my kids. That's what she did with me every Christmas and it never worked for long...she always went back to her old ways on Boxing day. When my step-father called from the hotel earlier on Saturday, to ask me if I was going to put up the big tree this year and I told him I had no room for it, he said that there were a few things on the card table in the corner I could burn to make room for it...that card table happens to be my altar! When I came to the hotel later that day, and we went up to their room to get the presents they had bought for the girls and hide them in the van (while my mother kept them busy with the video games in the lobby), he said "You're into that satanist crap again, aren't you?" I said "It's not satanism." And he asked "So what is it then?" I briefly explained Wicca to him and I thought he was listening. Then when my mother got together with my husband (we were separated at the time), she told him *I* was the one getting *them* upset all weekend by going at them, trying to start a fight...I was mostly sitting at every meal table in public restaurants with my head bowed trying to say nothing at all, despite the fact that they were really pissing me off. Fortunately, my husband knows better and we were still on very good terms (unbeknownst to my mother, obviously) so her little ploy to get Greg on her side didn't work! So on Sunday morning, they came over without letting us know when...my husband called to warn me and the friend who was here for the weekend, and I got him to pack up the kids and take them to visit Greg immediately (this friend is a friend of Greg's too, not a romantic involvement or anything like that) so they wouldn't be here when I confronted my parents. When they got here, I calmly said that I didn't appreciate the insults all weekend and the way she had tried to turn Greg against me and they started screaming at me. They got into swearing and name calling...along with "satanist," I got called "bitch," "lying bitch (when I said I wasn't a satanist again...guess my father hadn't been listening to me the day before)," "slut," "tramp," and my home got referred to as a "garbage can," along with the insults about my parenting in general (which as I said are completely invalid coming from my mother). They then repeated their ultimate insult of our friend David, which is that he must molest children because no man would want to be around someone else's children for any other reason (this man is now an intern and will be doing his residency in pediatric respirology...he loves all children and I would know after 3 years if he had done anything to hurt one of them...they wouldn't be rushing into his arms excitedly every time he walks through the door if he had vicitmized them like that...and as far as I'm concerned, when my parents insult my friends, they insult me, and I take that very personally). The final insult was when my mother raised her hand to physically assault me...I almost wish she had so I could put her through the humiliation of being arrested 2000 kms away from home in another province. I would have actually enjoyed that after what she has put me through! Maybe she would have finally learned in no uncertain terms that I won't take her crap anymore. Since all this, 2 of my daughters' birthdays have passed and the third is coming up in less then 2 weeks. I don't expect to hear from them again, and I really wouldn't want to. I don't have to subject myself or my children to all that crap for anyone who treats me like that! And as for my kids, they already know it all...I've kept nothing from them...they have a right to know the truth. And if anything happens to Greg and me, our wills give guardianship to David...he's the only person we know that would take care of them and love them as much as we do. Even if something happens to just one of us, he has vowed to help the other carry on the job. David has been more supportive to my family than my mother ever could be. So it's no loss to us. Sure, I cried right after they left, and I felt pretty bad for a few days, but I've done a lot of growing since then that could never take place if she were still in my life making me miserable. A> Did I mention that I have a civil suit going against my parents? No, you didn't. And I'm dying to hear what that's about. A> Same here! But you should remind her as I often used to, that a roof and A> clothes are fuck all compared to love and respect. I A> dumped my folks, and my A> sibs. I was always the one who wanted to notice the A> things that were wrong A> instead of putting them under a rock and pretending A> that they didnt exist, one A> day I got tired of it all and just knew it was my time A> to move on. My kids A> have a better life than I had but I manage to keep a A> perspective on the whole A> thing as to not go over board. One of these days Am A> (and I know actions speak A> louder than words) you are going to have to look the A> bull in the face and say A> "F*ck You...I take back all my personal power from you A> NOW and I want you out A> of my life." I never had a problem with that. Once I figured out what the A> scoop was at 17, I told her she was a f*ck. I don't have any siblings for her to turn against me, but she has done a good job of turning her sisters and my cousins against me. I really don't care though. That whole family is bad news and I prefer not to be a part of it. They were always stabbing each other in the back and picked a new scapegoat everytime they made amends with the old one. My grandmother was one when she died...my aunts couldn't even be bothered showing their faces at her funeral,and one of them hadn't spoken to her for 15 years over something her husband did when he got drunk while she was sick in the hospital. My grandmother was a lot like me...she believed in exposing the truth about her family, no matter how ugly it was. Sure, she made mistakes with my mother and my aunts, but she could only parent the way she was taught and when she refused to do that and realized that she had only married my grandfather to escape an abusive home,she ran off with another man to keep from doing her daughters what her parents had done to her. She told me about the physical abuse she grew up with, and she was the one who finally told me the truth about my father when no one else would. I know how far it all went back in my family...long before there was such a thing as child abuse. My grandmother died with many regrets over the 2 daughters she had alienated by leaving their father, but they never gave her a chance to apologize before she died. And because all they ever wanted to do was sweep everything under the rug, they will never realize that she didn't leave them because she hated them...she left them because she loved them. But back in those days, there was no one to turn to for help and my grandfather refused to accept that there was a problem, let alone that my grandmother needed help for it. A> HA! People still heap sympathy on the mother figure A> here. Its so easy when you A> paly victim, so that everyone believes you- but in the A> end when she is old and A> gray and rocking in the big lonely rocking chair all A> ALONE, they will wonder A> where her kids are. ANd when she realizes that she A> wants us, it will all be A> too late. SUre Am, I can forgive, I can semi forget but A> I cant allow someone A> to continually treat me like shit and in front of my A> family. What did she say A> when you changed your name???? Mine are about to find out in court. She still doesn't know. With all the other crap flying around here when they were here, I didn't bother to bring it up. She still has my number and my address, but I don't think I will exactly welcome her back into my life if she or her husband ever call here. Certainly not just so that she can treat me like that again. If I ever accept her into my life again, it will be on my terms. She will apologize for the way she has treated me in the past, she will no longer use guilt to manipulate me and she will treat me with respect at all times...and the same goes for her husband. If they can't agree to all that, they spend the rest of their lives wondering about us all. I have often thought if that image of my mother rocking away alone when she's old and gray, and you know something? I don't even feel sorry for her. It's her karma and she has to learn to accept it. The stress of her past, that she refuses to deal with (but would rather blame me for even though it began long before I was ever born), began to make her physically sick a long time ago. She's forever having "nervous trouble" and headaches and being put on tranquilizers. I used to buy into all that being my fault, but now I know better. This is her choice. This is how she wants to live her life...alone and sick. I didn't choose that life for her, she chose it for herself. I can't make her come to her senses...she has to be the one to do that. It's up to her and she has to face the karma that comes along with it. I can't change her, I can only change me, and unlike her, I love my children enough to do that, which is why, despite all the bad experiences I've had with doctors and counsellors, I haven't given up yet. I know that it could take the rest of my life to heal from it, if I ever do, but in the meantime, I have to keep dealing with what did this to me so I can make a conscious effort to stop myself when I start doing it to my kids. I have to keep trying to get help when I need it. I know I can't do it alone, but at least I'm willing to do it at all and at least I can admit when I've made a mistake. I admit it to my girls, too. They keep telling me that I'm the best mom in the whole world, and I keep telling that I'm not, but I'm working on it. I don't want them to think I'm perfect, like my mother wanted me to think she was. I was really disappointed when I realized the truth about her...I don't want my kids to put me up on some pedestal, only to be let down later. I'd rather they see me in an honest light and learn from my mistakes when they become parents. I don't think for a moment that generations of child abuse can be healed in just one, but it takes for one determined parent in one generation to start the process, and I decided a long time ago that in my family, it starts with me. Little by little it will get better now instead of getting worse, and my great-grandchildren will be a lot better off for it. I have to believe that. It's what keeps me going. BB -=Amethyst=- 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Amethyst Area: Mundane To: Aladrisa 10 Nov 94 16:46:04 Subject: accomplishments UpdReq A> Geez, I should adopt you. I never had a sister..... If A> what we did in our past A> lives makes our life what it is today we must have been A> REAL LIVE HELLIONS!!! A> WHat have you accomplished in your life? Hell A> woman...you've already made 3 or A> 4 that I know of...Your alive arent you? You survived! A> Second, you have those A> beautiful kids and they are thriving. Third, your in a A> good relationship, yeah A> it aint perfect but its good. ANd fourth, you did not A> sit back and let people A> sterotype you, you went out and gave the truth. It A> doesnt seem like much but to us it is ALOT!!! I know it's a lot. I just wish I had something that powerful and meaningful that I could put on a resume and make money with. Maybe I have to get all this sorted out first, but that's going to take a long time. I keep looking at all the possibilities and realizing how strong a fighter I am. That also keeps me going. That's my sanity right now...to look at the stuff that's good about me. I still see a lot of the failures, but at least I don't completely wallow in them like I used to. There was a time I couldn't say one positive thing about myself, and it wasn't so very long ago. A> Sailing? I wish! I wonder if the fire will ever dim out A> when I become older... Judging by my grandmother and her younger sister, both of whom I was very close to and a lot alike...no way! Those 2 fought to the very end. Especially my great-aunt Anne (I named my second eldest after her...it fits). That woman was as fiery as the colour of her hair! She battled cancer for 10 years...she refused to give up and die until she had nothing left. She was only in her early sixties when she passed away, but she looked like she was in her late 90's because she held out much longer than most people would. She was a staunch Catholic and because of that, took a lot of mistreatment from her husband when she was sick, but that was because she was determined to go to heaven (and no priest would deny she's there, because it takes a saint to endure what she did) with a clear conscience. We'll be kicking until the day we die...and probably after that! BB -=Amethyst=- 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Ariovistus Area: Mundane To: Frank Mertus 11 Nov 94 09:16:00 Subject: DC light bulb circuit UpdReq A>Also, incandescent light bulbs last much longer using DC rather than AC. A>It is very easy to make a DC converter, but light bulb companies don't make A>them, because they would put themselves out of business. (Does anyone want A>to know how to make one?) FM>How much longer will a bulb last? I would be interested in seeing the FM>converter, and perhaps experimenting with it. Please do post the FM>schematic. I can't post a schematic because my BBS tries to redo my margins and word-wrap formatting. Besides, it would be difficult to represent the symbols using ASCII characters. But this is simple enough to describe. First, a disclaimer. I do not claim any responsibility for anything that happens if this isn't built correctly. If you do not know enough basic electronics to put this together safely, then find someone who does. Keep in mind that this is for incandescent bulbs ONLY. I really would not try this with fluorescent bulbs (or your TV, etc.) This is a full-wave circuit, so it is better than some commercially available half-wave inserts which have an unpleasant flicker. I do not know how much this will extend the lifetime of a light bulb, but the light bulb companies do not build this circuit into their bulbs, because they would put themselves out of business. The basic parts are pretty cheap. Here is what you will need: -- a lamp -- a plastic project box -- a full wave rectifier bridge -- a capacitor, .01 mfd or higher -- electrical tape -- a soldering iron and rosin core solder Important: make sure that all of the components are rated for AT LEAST 125 volts and however many watts you are putting through the circuit. (Amps = watts / volts.) If you get parts rated for greater voltage and wattage, that is even better. If you live outside the US, then adjust as necessary. Unplug the lamp, and cut the power cord approximately a foot away from the lamp. Strip about half an inch of insulation from the wires and knot the cords a few inches back. Take the cord going to the power plug, and solder the wires onto the AC input leads of the full wave rectifier bridge. Then solder the capacitor and the wires going to the lamp onto the DC output leads of the full wave rectifier bridge. Some capacitors are polarized, so you should make sure the positive end of the capacitor goes onto the positive output lead of the full wave rectifier bridge. Also keep in mind that rectifiers and many capacitors are heat sensitive, so use the soldering iron quickly and effectively. You can hold needle nosed pliers with plastic handles on the leads between the soldering iron and the components to diffuse the heat. Also, toothpaste (!) makes an effective heat dam. When you are done assembling the components, wrap the exposed leads in electrical tape, so that none of the wires are visible or are touching any other wires. If you do not do this, then you are asking for a short. Then set it inside the project box, so that the knots in the cords will keep them from being yanked out. Choose your box well. It must be ventilated, because the components will give off heat. It must be secure so that children or pets cannot get into it. It must be placed somewhere that liquids won't get into it. Fiat lvx. 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Aladrisa Area: Mundane To: Jess Buckley 9 Nov 94 20:26:54 Subject: Re: Doctors and Respect UpdReq JB> Exactly. Doctors in general need to be educated about women's needs in JB> all areas. How many women are still diagnosed as hysterical, or JB> crazy just because a doctor can't name what's wrong with them. How JB> many women were labelled crazy before chronic fatigue syndrome was JB> recognised? This is so stupid. I'm with you, we have to stand up JB> to the doctors when they aren't taking us seriously, and that applies JB> equally to men as well. Doctors aren't going to change unless its Yeah BUT lets make sure we fully communicate with them first off before we go on a witch hunt. If they dont listen after that, by all means go stomping. al 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718