Linus Reminds Us What Christmas Is Really All About
It remains dark out here in the desert.
It is Christmas Eve and I am barely able to function. I was not able to write my usual news articles last week and cannot this week either. Both of my editors at The Algemeiner and RealClearInvestigations have been deeply understanding as the Thanksgiving Micscarriage has put me in a perpetual state of “brain fog,” unable to concentrate on anything.
The journalism will just have to wait.
I can’t even focus enough to read the piles of books all over the place. The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’s Hyperarousal symptom is the holiday guest this year.
Here is the passage Linus reads from the Gospel of Luke in the classic Charlie Brown Christmas special, via my Bible that I’ve cherished since I received it in third grade:
Want to know something hilarious?
The doctors at the emergency room affirmed that prayer and spiritual practice are what I should be doing to treat what they correctly diagnosed as Anxiety.
When they discharged me on Monday and gave me a bus pass to get back down the road, they handed me this page in particular from my discharge paperwork. I have decided to take photographs of their advice because I endorse it for everyone.
This is not just advice for PTSD patients like me. It’s for everyone. These are universal goods here that everyone should be doing:
I hope some of this can be helpful for you as you navigate the holidays this year.
So just to be perfectly clear about what happened here: I went to the Emergency Room because the paramedics were so worried about my heart. The doctors there determined there was absolutely nothing wrong with me physically and that the anxiety was all in my head, that I needed to do calming things like music therapy, mindfulness-based meditation, centering prayer, deep breathing, self-talk, muscle relaxation.
And they turned me loose telling me to continue doing the same PTSD routine that I’ve been doing for years now: call on God for help.
So I’m going to have to do that again now. Last year I wrote about performing this ceremonial magick ritual to invoke Jesus, inspired by a graphic novel co-authored by Alan Moore, the author I’ve probably obsessed over the most this year:
It turned into a mystical experience of experiencing Christ’s crucifixion from a first person perspective.
I have not wanted to do the ritual again but now it appears I have no choice and the encouragement of actual emergency room doctors that I’m on the right track in going God-first in treatment.
What’s the best way to treat trauma, anxiety, and fear?
For some reason Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” seems to have a lot to do with this and I really have no idea why, or rather I do, but remain somewhat embarrassed about it all...
take care, friend.