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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 10 of 10. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by paxvox on October 26, 2001, at 16:33:47
People, people, please settle. All is well, relax, calm down, it will be OK, there's light at the end of the tunnel, look for the sunny side, there's always a silver lining,it's always darkest before the dawn, to have loved and lost is better than to never have loved at all.
OK, now for my real message.
It's OK to open your mail. You don't have to wash your hands afterwards. Almost 800,000 Postal workers are your friends family or neighbors. 20,000 people will die of influenza this coming flu season, 3 have died of anthrax. It's not a pretty thing, terror, but it is worse when we become its pawn.
PAX
Posted by susan C on October 26, 2001, at 17:28:35
In reply to Of Wars and Rumors of Wars, posted by paxvox on October 26, 2001, at 16:33:47
Hi,
Ya must a made it through the gauntlet of drdashbob...I agree about what you say...50,000 people die every year, every year, from automobile accidents...OK EVERYBODY...STOP DRIVING!!!!
mouse dazed by oncoming lights
> People, people, please settle. All is well, relax, calm down, it will be OK, there's light at the end of the tunnel, look for the sunny side, there's always a silver lining,it's always darkest before the dawn, to have loved and lost is better than to never have loved at all.
>
> OK, now for my real message.
>
> It's OK to open your mail. You don't have to wash your hands afterwards. Almost 800,000 Postal workers are your friends family or neighbors. 20,000 people will die of influenza this coming flu season, 3 have died of anthrax. It's not a pretty thing, terror, but it is worse when we become its pawn.
>
> PAX
Posted by akc on October 27, 2001, at 7:32:46
In reply to Of Wars and Rumors of Wars, posted by paxvox on October 26, 2001, at 16:33:47
I go to group therapy, and we have talked on a fairly regular basis about all this stuff. Fear is a horrible thing. In our group, we all were horribly abused as children. It doesn't take much for us to be afraid, and even less to trust. While on one level, it may seem easy to think rationally that the risk is so remote as to be nil that I am going to get anthrax or be blown up by a terrorist, it is the case that I have a history that sometimes makes it hard for me to work rationally. Now personally, I am doing okay with this for the most part. But I am friends with some that are really struggling -- and the last thing that I see they need is patronizing words of get on with your life. While the fear may not be rational, the fear is still real to them. When your world has been about abuse (i.e., terror -- especially as a child), it is easy to get off-center -- and one must be gentle. One must listen, and help.
I know that even I have changed because of this -- irrational changes. I don't open junk mail -- well, I didn't open it before, but I always tore it up, so that someone else couldn't send it in for me. I don't do that anymore. I am fighting the start of a cold or my mild allergies are acting up -- I'm not sure which. But each time I cough, that irrational thought runs through my mind -- is this anthrax?
Fear is a horrible thing. Again, it may not be rational, but for some it is terribly real. And telling someone to pull themselves up by their boot-straps and get on with their lives -- I just wish you could know these women I have got to know in my group therapy. The progress they have made is so tremendous -- but the damage was great. We need gentleness, understanding, and not to be mocked when we obsessively wash our hands. This new world we live is really scary to us, and has knocked us off center.
akc
Posted by paxvox on October 27, 2001, at 16:20:43
In reply to Re: Of Wars and Rumors of Wars, posted by akc on October 27, 2001, at 7:32:46
akc,
As with my post on PB about anthrax (see Mitchell's excellent response), I clearly meant no denegration of those with anxiety-related disorders. Heck, I'm a poster boy for OCD and GAD myself! I guess it's just that this one, being related to my job as a Postal worker, has hit closer to the bone with me. I guess that it is the general lack of knowledge about what the US Postal Service does, and has done well, for hundreds of years. Add to this the current situation, and there comes the rub. I worry about stupid things that others would laugh about;I guess this is the cynical part of me lashing back, as it were. You are preaching to the converted. I sheath my sword.
PAX
on the sidelines
Posted by susan C on October 27, 2001, at 16:56:55
In reply to Re: Of Wars and Rumors of Wars, posted by akc on October 27, 2001, at 7:32:46
dear akc, my apologies, too, and too, perhaps, i was reacting, as I avoid the news, i suspiciously looked at our newly arrived copy of Saudi Arabian Magazine (which is a wonderful beautiful publication we have been getting since visiting the Saudi exhibit in the 1986 world's fair...it didn't have a line in front of it) and wondered and worry about paxvox and everybody else...and I reacted, what would you say, cynically, too quickly, too simply, crudely? Perhaps even talking to myself, trying to gain some some some kind of perspective.
a humbled mouse
susan C> I go to group therapy, and we have talked on a fairly regular basis about all this stuff. Fear is a horrible thing. In our group, we all were horribly abused as children. It doesn't take much for us to be afraid, and even less to trust. While on one level, it may seem easy to think rationally that the risk is so remote as to be nil that I am going to get anthrax or be blown up by a terrorist, it is the case that I have a history that sometimes makes it hard for me to work rationally. Now personally, I am doing okay with this for the most part. But I am friends with some that are really struggling -- and the last thing that I see they need is patronizing words of get on with your life. While the fear may not be rational, the fear is still real to them. When your world has been about abuse (i.e., terror -- especially as a child), it is easy to get off-center -- and one must be gentle. One must listen, and help.
>
> I know that even I have changed because of this -- irrational changes. I don't open junk mail -- well, I didn't open it before, but I always tore it up, so that someone else couldn't send it in for me. I don't do that anymore. I am fighting the start of a cold or my mild allergies are acting up -- I'm not sure which. But each time I cough, that irrational thought runs through my mind -- is this anthrax?
>
> Fear is a horrible thing. Again, it may not be rational, but for some it is terribly real. And telling someone to pull themselves up by their boot-straps and get on with their lives -- I just wish you could know these women I have got to know in my group therapy. The progress they have made is so tremendous -- but the damage was great. We need gentleness, understanding, and not to be mocked when we obsessively wash our hands. This new world we live is really scary to us, and has knocked us off center.
>
> akc
Posted by Kristi on October 27, 2001, at 20:40:18
In reply to Re: Of Wars and Rumors of Wars » akc, posted by paxvox on October 27, 2001, at 16:20:43
Hi....
Long time no post too. :-)
My boyfriend works for the postal service too. He's getting very frustrated..... when he delivers, he gets 20 questions from the customers, they want him to sometimes open the mail for them.... etc. His 8 hour days have turned into 12....
But.... fear is a given in this situation! Hoping your well, Kristi
> akc,
>
> As with my post on PB about anthrax (see Mitchell's excellent response), I clearly meant no denegration of those with anxiety-related disorders. Heck, I'm a poster boy for OCD and GAD myself! I guess it's just that this one, being related to my job as a Postal worker, has hit closer to the bone with me. I guess that it is the general lack of knowledge about what the US Postal Service does, and has done well, for hundreds of years. Add to this the current situation, and there comes the rub. I worry about stupid things that others would laugh about;I guess this is the cynical part of me lashing back, as it were. You are preaching to the converted. I sheath my sword.
>
> PAX
> on the sidelines
Posted by wendy b. on October 28, 2001, at 23:42:44
In reply to Re: Of Wars and Rumors of Wars » akc, posted by paxvox on October 27, 2001, at 16:20:43
> I guess it's just that this one, being related to my job as a Postal worker, has hit closer to the bone with me. I guess that it is the general lack of knowledge about what the US Postal Service does, and has done well, for hundreds of years.
What? Who has attributed any of this anthrax stuff to postal workers? I'm confused here... Who has knocked the U.S. Postal Service?? I think you're way off base here, and I don't know why you are taking it as some kind of personal jab... We had a discussion on another thread on the other (meds) Board, where a guy wrote in and asked if his very worrisome (to him) symptoms could be anthrax. Some idiot healthcare worker treating him spouted statistical chances and odds of him having it, and didn't give him the test he asked for, and which was his right. What would it have taken to set this patient's mind at ease, huh? I was one of the people who wrote back and told him to go back and get the test, if that would make him feel like he was doing everything he could to take care of his own health. So Pax has brought the issue over here to PSB for us to mull over some more (a context might have been helpful...)
>Add to this the current situation, and there comes the rub.
I don't understand what you're getting at here at all...I think AKC's response was wonderful and humane. People, like me, like you, who have lived in fear (anxiety) most of their lives, are feeling vulnerable and unstable. To mock them for their misunderstanding of statistical odds is really not the point... No need to get paranoid, but jesus... Who was looking out for those two (happened to be black) postal workers in D.C. who just up and died from anthrax? Congress closed down and went home, yet the postal station where the mail went through wasn't closed down, they didn't send those workers home... How can you feel so secure? The workers went to the hospital, one man twice, and were sent home. Nobody did anthrax tests on them. Why the hell not? Did anybody even ask them where they worked? Did anybody care? And yet you can be comfortable in assuring everybody that everything will be ok?
The system let them down twice - the federal government for not removing these workers, and the local healthcare system for not covering the proper epidemiological basics, in order to find out if these two people were at risk. But hey, don't worry, your chances are one in 5 billion, or whatever the hell. Tell that to the wives and children of the two postal workers who died.
I agree with AKC, I think these are patronizing attitudes toward people who are dealing with their own, private unknowns. And then add to this the instability of the world around us now. Asking us to "go about our daily lives" because it's good for the economy would be laughable, if it weren't so inane, and self-serving, on the part of the current administration. Having George Bush in the White House right now does nothing to calm >my< fears...
Wendy
Posted by paxvox on October 29, 2001, at 13:02:48
In reply to Re: Of Wars, etc.: another dissenting opinion, posted by wendy b. on October 28, 2001, at 23:42:44
Gee, Wendy, what do you REALLY think?
You must not read too many of my posts, or you WOULD understand the context and direction I come from. Yes, I can be crass and rude, but I never misrepresent the "truth" as it were.I am generally a very supportive person on this board, ask around. That doesn't mean I'm immune from posting a personal opinion now and again however trite it may seem.
Look at the whole picture, not just the frame.
PAX
Posted by wendy b. on October 29, 2001, at 15:18:36
In reply to Re: Of Wars, etc.: another dissenting opinion, posted by paxvox on October 29, 2001, at 13:02:48
> Gee, Wendy, what do you REALLY think?
OK, so I'm supposed to somehow tidy up what I think and guess at and present my thoughts in a way that's... what? Easier to digest? Sorry if I DO have an opinion that I'm not afraid to share.> You must not read too many of my posts, or you WOULD understand the context and direction I come from.
You must not read many of mine, ask Sar, I'm direct, at least... Call a spade a spade most of the time.
> Yes, I can be crass and rude, but I never misrepresent the "truth" as it were.
How did what I say make you infer that? What is the "Truth"?
>
> I am generally a very supportive person on this board, ask around.You are, which is why I'm saying, in a supportive way, I think: nobody's blaming the US mail for anything.... In fact, quite the opposite, that the workers aren't being protected by the feds well enough. That we should all re-think how comfortable we really are being protected by a group of federal agencies who don't seem to know what they're doing... That my fear IS perfectly rational.
>That doesn't mean I'm immune from posting a personal opinion now and again however trite it may seem.
Didn't say trite. Said: think again.
> Look at the whole picture, not just the frame.
>
> PAXI'm trying to, I usually think you're right on the money, but I think you might see that this advice applies to yourself as well.
None of my comments have been a personal attack, just a socially-conscious reminder, of sorts...
Not meaning to offend, but managing to anyway,
Wendy
Posted by paxvox on October 30, 2001, at 12:19:08
In reply to Re: Of Wars, etc.: another dissenting opinion, posted by wendy b. on October 29, 2001, at 15:18:36
OK, Wendy,
I'm ready to bury the hatchet. I guess we are all a bit on edge of late. I apologize for my shortness with you in my previous reply. I did take the time to read some of your old posts, and I conceed that you are in the group of folk that I would listen to, and seek advice from.
Again, I am sorry for any offense.
PAX
humbly
This is the end of the thread.
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