David Foster's Divorce--Encountering Bad Faith for the First Time

It's Mother's Day. I chose not to have children, and I believe both my wives agreed over the years. Neither of them complained, but since my second wife never complained about anyone within their earshot, I wouldn't know with her. Here's something I do know. If my ex had had a daughter, she would have. Web a mother exactly like her mother, Pam. My ex-wife would have: • complained about her daughter to everyone • talked over her daughter •assumed she was smarter and more attractive than her daughter •been absolutely certain that her daughter is way better than your boring daughter, and, when she couldn't crush her daughter's talents, •competed with her daughter until she her daughter abandoned her talent and began a lifetime in therapy.

The events of the last 2-3 years have come home to roost.  My physical health is OK, though I'm weak.  But my mental health has collapsed, and I'm not working almost full time to try to get myself out of the trauma-induced depression.   I spent a year and a half on Wellbutrin.  In my opinion, this drug is a bandaid.  It may have covered the wound during that period.  It does not appear to have affected any healing, and it may or may not have increased the anxiety that resulted from my initial PTSD.  I do not think I'd be any better or worse now than if I had skipped antidepressants. (Most people experiment with various SSRI treatments before they find the right one…I stuck with my first effort, moving up from 150 mg doses to 350 mg.  I didn't realize how much neural and emotional damage had occurred—so I very well may have made my own situation worse.  Still, I don't think a lifetime on Wellbutrin is a "cure.")   The result, in any case, is

It's a relevant question. One is domestic and the other is political. Both are a form of rape. Shame shame shame. Your children will pay for your decayed morality.

One of the hardest things about this divorce is being forced to confront the chronic failures that could be ignored in the flow of a normal adult life.   I got no support for 30 years.  Everything I accomplished occurred in spite of my wife.  She neither engaged, participated, or praised my successes.  From the outside, and looking at the way she rejected others who she could not match or bring down, I assume she was competing with me rather than loving me.    No wonder you dropped out.  You stopped racing when you couldn't win.  You stopped law when you failed to get accolades.  You left me when I finally expressed my own value and the huge gap between us.  You could not match anything I stand for, and you never will—you'll just keep moving the goalposts to the next empty field and play there by yourself until someone comes along and beats you at your next game.   Those goalposts are heavy, friend.  Eventually you're going to have to start living your li

I just finished a five-part ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) series. My powerful guided integration sessions borrowed liberally from Jungian stuff, Internal Family Systems' parts work, maybe some ERDM or whatever that tapping/eye-movement thing is, a dose of somatic Buddhism , and lots of frontal cortex stimulation .   And a plush blanket, beautiful happy ketamine music, and a very comfortable reclining chair! How far we jointly traveled, friends. Knowing a trusted psychonaut friend waited in the mountain parking lot, ready to lend a shoulder or hand or hug, to receive me and my evolving puzzle. Ketamine and my traumatized self are the stars o f my current, sad story, though. Trauma turns one inward in a destructive, hopeless way.  I had become my own only story.  Boring—and lonely.  All the elements contribute to and energize the ketamine experience. Health care professionals who are leaving anti-depressants and traditional trauma treatments need our c

I'm sitting in a Bond Street coffee shop, reading the FT this morning.    Dozens of women and children will die today in refugee camps US college students are getting beaten by cops (and the NY Times is blaming it all on a 63-year old career civil disobedience trainer—those gullible kids who are swayed by peace signs!). Shame on you, trustees! Your job is to protect education, unless you're on the Columbia University Investment Committee.  In which case you probably think the FT is worth reading while you're flying to Omaha.  Yes, I'm talking to YOU in seat 3A. The five major arms exporting countries are adding eternal debt to the balance sheets of the other 177 countries—debt that won't be paid off for nearly 100 years, if ever. Citizens of the globe: You are working for the rest of your lives to pay for weapons…in South America, Africa, South Asia, Baltimore. Trump is money laundering right in our faces—using the NYC market and the IPO liquidity sc