I always love reading your thoughtful pieces, Bari, however on this one, the masking of our children should be of grave concern. And the testing of this vaccine on children and babies even more so. Just watch the video of the teenage athlete who passed out at the finish line while wearing a mask. I'm on Substack (started here this past m…
I always love reading your thoughtful pieces, Bari, however on this one, the masking of our children should be of grave concern. And the testing of this vaccine on children and babies even more so. Just watch the video of the teenage athlete who passed out at the finish line while wearing a mask. I'm on Substack (started here this past month) and I just wrote about this in my essay: https://khmezek.substack.com/p/happily-slipping-into-our-straightjackets. There are ill effects, mentally and physically, on children wearing masks. There are studies on this, but we shouldn't even need studies to logically figure this out. Children are wearing masks eight hours a day at school, including when they play outside. Personally, I don't think it's too drastic to call this child abuse. I had a grandmother tell me recently her twelve year old granddaughter is so terrified of breathing the air that even when she leaves school and is walking home with her grandmother with no one around, she refuses to take her mask off. She is already at the age when girls tend to suffer from self-doubt. I'm a grandmother myself and I am thankful my daughter and her husband will not mask or vaccinate their children. My daughter has been living in Slovenia for the past year and her boys who are in preschool run around mask free. They are moving back to Los Angeles and the only preschool they could find that didn't mask children was a private Christian one, so that is where they will send their kids. All the others say children must be masked until they are vaccinated.. I find this to be horrific. (And this is already too long to explain why but I do in my essay) In 1996 I founded a creative writing program for incarcerated youth in Los Angeles and worked with youth for many years both inside government facilities and within the community. I've devoted much of my writing to speaking out about the drugging of our children. In this piece that I just wrote I go into that history, how we have so easily succumbed to drugging our children and using them as scientific guinea pigs and how this has led to a passivity in simply believing what we are told by drug companies and government and handing our children over to them. Sorry for the lengthy comment but it's a subject I feel passionately about.
My 18 year old daughter recently started to see a therapist due to bouts of depression and what she has self diagnosed as hypomania. Was referred to a psychiatrist and together they have led her to believe (after only 4 meetings with psychiatrist) that her only option is to be medicated with mood stabilizers. I started doing research and refuse to allow her to get them filled. At 8 she could work around me, but I won’t pay for them or let her use my insurance to fill them. I’m going to fight it. Therapy needs to get to the root of the problem and work young people through whatever their distress is and not medicate as a frontline defense.
I'm not a doctor and I know there are cases where medication is needed so I won't presume to give an opinion on your daughter. But I will say I understand where you're coming from. The problem I've seen, as a layperson, is that these "mood stabilizers" might work for a time, but they are never an answer. Eventually we all have to face ourselves. I trained in martial arts and the fighting arts for over thirty years and it helped me overcome so much. No matter how I felt, I trained. I learned not to rely on feelings but on developing the habit of training. Because there is always a good reason to put if off. There is always a good reason to give in to depression, anxiety or self-doubt. Habits are formed so easily. But once formed are hard to break. I learned through meditation to look at the anxiety I felt (because I often have anxiety) like clouds passing through the sky. You acknowledge your feelings, don't try to suppress them, and then allow them to pass through you and go on their merry way. The same happens with good feelings. Nothing lasts forever. I would encourage your daughter to find some form of self-discipline, such as working out or painting, or whatever. Something she can do on a regular basis at a regular time of day, so that she does it no matter how she feels. She can start very simply. In fact, I think I might write about this next Saturday LOL. Again, this is my suggestion as a layperson and has nothing to do with a doctor's diagnosis. My own daughter went through a phase of severe anxiety and she refused to be medicated. It took time and self-discipline but she made it through. Good luck and I hope it works out for you both.
Thank you for the tips. She is actually a dancer so she does work out. I’m hoping that therapy, maturity and yes, self discipline will pull her through.
As for being a lay person, I you have to dig deep to find information counter to the psychiatric branding of “chemical imbalances” I read Dr Peter Breggin’s book Reclaiming Our Children when my kids were in elementary school. I read it because I couldn’t believe so many of their friends were on ADD and other meds. He is a psychiatrist with very strong opinions about psychotropic drugs. I also follow the Mad In America website. I’ve read that almost all of the kids in foster care are drugged. They don’t have a mom like me to advocate for them. They need people like you, so thank for for doing this important work. Sorry to get so off topic of Bari’s article.
Thanks for the suggestions for reading and the website. I will check it out. The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman has been a huge influence in my life. I read it a long time ago yet rings true today, as well as his brilliant book Amusing Ourselves to Death. I hope we didn't get too far off topic. It's an extension and an important one. As for your daughter, no one goes through life without ups and downs. That's wonderful that she's a dancer. It will hold her in good stead and help her through, she will be stronger for it. I have two sons who got heavily into drugs and I've written honestly about that, too, because it's important to share these stories. None of us should feel alone.
Teen girls are definitely falling to some sort of social contagion. The way this pandemic has been handled has not helped at all. I am encouraged by writers like Bari and those who comment on sub stack. Whether I agree with people’s commentary or not, it’s very apparent that there are still wise, critically thinking people in the world. We need to all keep pushing back
You might appreciate Dr. Leonard Sax' book Girls on the Edge. A pediatrician, he has fascinating info on both boys and girls that he writes about in separate books. He deals a great deal with anxiety in teen girls.
You are so right. As I say in my essay, it all started with a Faustian bargain between Big Pharma, Advertising and Government. In the first episode of that brilliant TV show, Mad Men, Don Draper lays it out clearly:
“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. You, feeling something, that’s what sells.”
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
This mantra is as American as apple pie. It is our right to be happy. If we aren’t, we are somehow failing.
This idea that we actually don't have to be happy is old school. It's interesting that one never hears Dr. Fauci talking about prevention, like practicing the four pillars of health as you say. We don't hear how the countries with worst obesity and eating habits have the highest death rate from COVID. The investment in the drug industry is too big. Even with masks, it's now a huge industry. Masks are never going away. There's too much money being made. Of course, there are good reasons to wear masks and take pills, it isn't one extreme or the other. Ultimately, though, it's not about the health and well-being of the common people, it's about control and power.
My only argument here would be ‘pursuit of happiness’ is not the same thing as ‘right to happiness’ The original phrase is beautiful as written and as intended. It has been co-opted as some sort of entitlement to happiness.
Yes, true. Although one could argue that the pursuit of happiness is not the best of.goals (in and of itself) and can never really be satisfied. But again, I get what you're saying, how it's been co-opted.
I always love reading your thoughtful pieces, Bari, however on this one, the masking of our children should be of grave concern. And the testing of this vaccine on children and babies even more so. Just watch the video of the teenage athlete who passed out at the finish line while wearing a mask. I'm on Substack (started here this past month) and I just wrote about this in my essay: https://khmezek.substack.com/p/happily-slipping-into-our-straightjackets. There are ill effects, mentally and physically, on children wearing masks. There are studies on this, but we shouldn't even need studies to logically figure this out. Children are wearing masks eight hours a day at school, including when they play outside. Personally, I don't think it's too drastic to call this child abuse. I had a grandmother tell me recently her twelve year old granddaughter is so terrified of breathing the air that even when she leaves school and is walking home with her grandmother with no one around, she refuses to take her mask off. She is already at the age when girls tend to suffer from self-doubt. I'm a grandmother myself and I am thankful my daughter and her husband will not mask or vaccinate their children. My daughter has been living in Slovenia for the past year and her boys who are in preschool run around mask free. They are moving back to Los Angeles and the only preschool they could find that didn't mask children was a private Christian one, so that is where they will send their kids. All the others say children must be masked until they are vaccinated.. I find this to be horrific. (And this is already too long to explain why but I do in my essay) In 1996 I founded a creative writing program for incarcerated youth in Los Angeles and worked with youth for many years both inside government facilities and within the community. I've devoted much of my writing to speaking out about the drugging of our children. In this piece that I just wrote I go into that history, how we have so easily succumbed to drugging our children and using them as scientific guinea pigs and how this has led to a passivity in simply believing what we are told by drug companies and government and handing our children over to them. Sorry for the lengthy comment but it's a subject I feel passionately about.
My 18 year old daughter recently started to see a therapist due to bouts of depression and what she has self diagnosed as hypomania. Was referred to a psychiatrist and together they have led her to believe (after only 4 meetings with psychiatrist) that her only option is to be medicated with mood stabilizers. I started doing research and refuse to allow her to get them filled. At 8 she could work around me, but I won’t pay for them or let her use my insurance to fill them. I’m going to fight it. Therapy needs to get to the root of the problem and work young people through whatever their distress is and not medicate as a frontline defense.
I'm not a doctor and I know there are cases where medication is needed so I won't presume to give an opinion on your daughter. But I will say I understand where you're coming from. The problem I've seen, as a layperson, is that these "mood stabilizers" might work for a time, but they are never an answer. Eventually we all have to face ourselves. I trained in martial arts and the fighting arts for over thirty years and it helped me overcome so much. No matter how I felt, I trained. I learned not to rely on feelings but on developing the habit of training. Because there is always a good reason to put if off. There is always a good reason to give in to depression, anxiety or self-doubt. Habits are formed so easily. But once formed are hard to break. I learned through meditation to look at the anxiety I felt (because I often have anxiety) like clouds passing through the sky. You acknowledge your feelings, don't try to suppress them, and then allow them to pass through you and go on their merry way. The same happens with good feelings. Nothing lasts forever. I would encourage your daughter to find some form of self-discipline, such as working out or painting, or whatever. Something she can do on a regular basis at a regular time of day, so that she does it no matter how she feels. She can start very simply. In fact, I think I might write about this next Saturday LOL. Again, this is my suggestion as a layperson and has nothing to do with a doctor's diagnosis. My own daughter went through a phase of severe anxiety and she refused to be medicated. It took time and self-discipline but she made it through. Good luck and I hope it works out for you both.
Thank you for the tips. She is actually a dancer so she does work out. I’m hoping that therapy, maturity and yes, self discipline will pull her through.
As for being a lay person, I you have to dig deep to find information counter to the psychiatric branding of “chemical imbalances” I read Dr Peter Breggin’s book Reclaiming Our Children when my kids were in elementary school. I read it because I couldn’t believe so many of their friends were on ADD and other meds. He is a psychiatrist with very strong opinions about psychotropic drugs. I also follow the Mad In America website. I’ve read that almost all of the kids in foster care are drugged. They don’t have a mom like me to advocate for them. They need people like you, so thank for for doing this important work. Sorry to get so off topic of Bari’s article.
Thanks for the suggestions for reading and the website. I will check it out. The Disappearance of Childhood by Neil Postman has been a huge influence in my life. I read it a long time ago yet rings true today, as well as his brilliant book Amusing Ourselves to Death. I hope we didn't get too far off topic. It's an extension and an important one. As for your daughter, no one goes through life without ups and downs. That's wonderful that she's a dancer. It will hold her in good stead and help her through, she will be stronger for it. I have two sons who got heavily into drugs and I've written honestly about that, too, because it's important to share these stories. None of us should feel alone.
This is such great advice. Thank you for sharing. I will be passing along to my kids.
I'm glad to hear it! I hope it helps.
It’s really terrible.
Teen girls are definitely falling to some sort of social contagion. The way this pandemic has been handled has not helped at all. I am encouraged by writers like Bari and those who comment on sub stack. Whether I agree with people’s commentary or not, it’s very apparent that there are still wise, critically thinking people in the world. We need to all keep pushing back
You might appreciate Dr. Leonard Sax' book Girls on the Edge. A pediatrician, he has fascinating info on both boys and girls that he writes about in separate books. He deals a great deal with anxiety in teen girls.
You are so right. As I say in my essay, it all started with a Faustian bargain between Big Pharma, Advertising and Government. In the first episode of that brilliant TV show, Mad Men, Don Draper lays it out clearly:
“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. You, feeling something, that’s what sells.”
“Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
This mantra is as American as apple pie. It is our right to be happy. If we aren’t, we are somehow failing.
This idea that we actually don't have to be happy is old school. It's interesting that one never hears Dr. Fauci talking about prevention, like practicing the four pillars of health as you say. We don't hear how the countries with worst obesity and eating habits have the highest death rate from COVID. The investment in the drug industry is too big. Even with masks, it's now a huge industry. Masks are never going away. There's too much money being made. Of course, there are good reasons to wear masks and take pills, it isn't one extreme or the other. Ultimately, though, it's not about the health and well-being of the common people, it's about control and power.
My only argument here would be ‘pursuit of happiness’ is not the same thing as ‘right to happiness’ The original phrase is beautiful as written and as intended. It has been co-opted as some sort of entitlement to happiness.
Yes, true. Although one could argue that the pursuit of happiness is not the best of.goals (in and of itself) and can never really be satisfied. But again, I get what you're saying, how it's been co-opted.
That’s definitely a good point.
Good looking substack Karen.
Thanks Eric, I'm really enjoying writing here.