Tarot reading for the Insane

Tarot reading for the insane; a users's guide. Part 1.

Hey, work with me here can'tcha? Yes rly - I've been taking the daily Little White Pill for a fortnight now. I am so sane that I only hear a few voices. Dozen, max.

What do I look for when depressed? One of those 'Ah ha!' moments (two of them in fact) came when I'm trying to read drug company research/ highly-trained egghead speculations about the inner space of humanity's thought.

Big in there. Don't take my word for it. But onto the rats. Yes, eggheads study rats when they want to do stuff that is really inhuman. Like hold a rat underwater until it stops struggling, then do it again to see if the rat gives up sooner. Yes. Its called "learned helplessness". Result of the study (apart from many drowned rats) is the theory that if a person experiences a trauma where they are helpless, (and it doesn't kill them), they learn helplessness.

The second "Ah-ha" is what the Transactional Analysis people call stinkin' thinkin'. All or nothing. If it doesn't work it never will. Don't pick yourself up and try again. I'm worthless and will fail.

Sound familiar? Story of your life? Penny has been reading my mail and tapping my phone?

Turns out the search for meaning and security is a universal human need. Bloke called Abraham Maslow puts it much better. And the search has casualties along its way. Which brings me back to my personal experience, and about seven years ago with 9/11. More personal disasters that year as well, but they all felt like one big disaster.

And because of my past, with learned helplessness and stinkin' thinkin', my coping skills were unable to handle all that.