Hi, all, Daniel-of-2019, here.
After much consideration and consultation, I've decided to go ahead and tell you why I've missed several posts over the last few months (and could miss others going forward):
Sarah Kelly, Steve Bees wife, has relapsed--you may recall she has schizophrenia. She had been having problems with the side effects of her meds, and since she was doing very well, she and her doctors decided to try transitioning off anti-psychotic meds. That works, sometimes. They say that about half of all schizophrenics who go off meds relapse, but the other way to look at it is that half do just fine--and some people who stay on meds relapse anyway. For a while Sarah was alright--and then suddenly she wasn't.
And this time she has fought going back on the meds.
The scary thing is that a sizable minority of people who relapse don't respond to further treatment, and some who do respond never get back to where they were before the relapse. Acute episodes appear to make the disease worse.
Steve is beside himself, of course, but he's using what I taught him during his candidacy, maintaining his connection to the natural world, and it seems to help him stay calmer and better focused. What I taught him isn't all of it, he has other resources, too, but it's part of the package.
But it's not that the peace and serenity of nature help him de-stress. Not exactly. See, the thing is, while many people feel peaceful and serene out of doors among green, living things, that's not the same as nature itself being peaceful and serene. The living world itself is often ugly and unfair and indifferent. Most of what we think is its value for mental health is actually something projected onto it by humans.
Real nature provides no answer; it just asks better questions.
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