Ornery Reviews: Ripcord Recovery

Genre: Nonfiction/Medicine/Alternative Medicine

Rating:
Four out of Four Stars for Online Book Club
Five out of Five Stars for Amazon

Disclosure:
I received a free copy of this book for review purposes.
The following is a duplicate of my review on Amazon.
If readers purchase a copy of the book through the preview link, I receive a small commission from Amazon.

Please read my exclusive Online Book Club review for this book here.

While some will dismiss this book as too controversial because it discusses the use of marijuana, the fact is that the track record for current methods of lowering the risk of relapse in cases of addiction to alcohol and opiates is shaky at best. Marijuana has been shown to have a myriad of medical benefits. While the author's method may not resonate with everyone, I believe that it is worth it to read about and consider it.

I have personally seen marijuana used effectively to lower the number and intensity of seizures in a patient that I took care of when I worked as a home care nurse. The patient was on numerous powerful pharmacological medications to control his frequent seizures. These medications made him extremely drowsy and he slept most of the time. When marijuana oil was introduced, he was able to wean off of all but two of these medications, was much more alert, and his seizures were well controlled.

I relate this anecdote because the author discusses the ways in which the brain is altered by the use of alcohol and opiates. Marijuana, when used as the author outlines, can help balance out these alterations in the brain and give the addict a fighting chance at staying clean. The book is short and gets directly to the point. I recommend it to anyone who is fighting addiction themselves or who wishes to help a loved one fighting addiction. 

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

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Ornery Reviews: Happy Healing and a Testimony

Genre:

Nonfiction/Health/Alternative Medicine

Rating:

Four out of Four Stars for Online Book Club

Disclosure:

I received a free copy of this book for review purposes.

If readers purchase a copy of the book through the above preview link, I earn a small commission from Amazon.

Click here to read my exclusive review for Online Book Club.

As I explain in my Online Book Club review, this book does not fall into the category of mysticism or metaphysics. Although the author occasionally suggests what might be interpreted as prayer, the techniques outlined in Happy Healing are self-hypnosis. Self-hypnosis is not a new treatment, but the approaches offered in the book are novel.

In my review, I offer a story of how the techniques in Happy Healing helped me come to peace with the injury which led to my being unable to continue working at my job delivering groceries and alcoholic beverages.

Two years ago, I worked for a company called GoPuff, which is a subsidiary of GrubHub. I advise that no-one work for any subsidiary of GrubHub because they do not care one iota about the well-being of either their employees or their contractors. They never had enough drivers on the schedule on weekend nights. They would have four managers in the warehouse. Three of the managers would switch over to driving, leaving one manager running around like a chicken with her head cut off. I have nothing bad to say about any of the onsite managers. They worked very hard. GrubHub, however, gets no love from me.

I started feeling tingling in my left hand, which I ignored. I was carrying very heavy loads, sometimes over distances of several blocks because the deliveries were often in the middle of downtown Denver and there was no place to park, sometimes up several flights of stairs in buildings where there were no elevators. One time I almost fell through a porch that had rotting wood. Many times, the stoners who would order from us wouldn't answer the door. After pounding on the door for several minutes, I would call the warehouse and the manager would call the customer. There were times when the manager couldn't reach the customer either. I liked those customers better than the ones who would cuss me out because the delivery was made several hours after they ordered it and GrubHub customer service couldn't be bothered to call and tell them it was going to be late.

There was no interim "this is getting worse" with my arm. It went from numbness and tingling in my hand to unbearable pain from shoulder to fingertips. At that point, I had no insurance. I had to quit working so I could get Medicaid back. I couldn't sit up for more than about 45 minutes before the pain in the arm became unbearable and I had to lie down on it to numb it. I have lived most of my life with chronic widespread low-grade to mid-grade pain due to fibromyalgia. Chronic severe pain is a different animal entirely. There were times when I very seriously considered suicide because the pain was so intense. I forced myself to wait until I had Medicaid so I could get physical therapy.

Although I was already sympathetic, I came to a personal realization of exactly how people in chronic pain become addicted to painkillers. When you are in chronic intense pain, the thing you want most is for the pain to stop, and you will do anything to achieve that. If you have never endured intense pain, imagine that someone was whacking your arm repeatedly with a hammer--hard. That's what chronic intense pain is like. Sufferers of chronic intense pain just want relief. How anyone can fail to understand that very simple idea is beyond me. Sanctimoniousness never helped anyone.

Back to my story. The physical therapy helped greatly. My arm went from being in constant severe pain to constant mid-grade pain with flares of severe pain to constant low-grade pain with flares of mid-grade pain to feeling like a lump of clay with flares of low-grade to mid-grade pain. Unfortunately, Medicaid only pays for twelve sessions of physical therapy per injury, so that was where things leveled out, and I was very grateful. Over time, the arm regained enough sensation that it no longer feels like a lump of clay. It is always slightly numb and I do not have a full range of motion in the shoulder area, but it is a vast improvement over being in constant intense pain which makes me consider suicide.

One of the exercises presented in Happy Healing involves giving the body part in pain a name and "talking" to that part. I named my arm Amelia. As I talked to Amelia, I realized that I was still angry with her for betraying me and making it so that I couldn't work physically demanding jobs such as delivering packages anymore. I also realized that Amelia had been trying to warn me that something was going wrong, and I ignored her to my detriment. I apologized to Amelia for blaming her for what happened and promised to listen to her (and the rest of my body) in the future.

As a result of reading and engaging in the exercises outlined in Happy Healing, I have a truce with my body and am no longer as prone to pushing myself to the point of collapse or injury. I appreciate this book and think that it was useful and helpful. The author's approach may seem a bit "goofy" to the more skeptical sorts, but I recommend trying the exercises. I didn't really think I'd get much from them when I started reading the book, but they turned out to be surprisingly beneficial.

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

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Fat Friday #16 + Real Cie Reviews: Breakwater

Genre: Fantasy Romance

Rating: Four out of Five Stars

Disclosure:
I received a free promotional copy of this book for review purposes.
If the book is purchased through the featured link, I earn a small commission.
This review appears on Amazon, Goodreads, and my review and writing blog, Horror Harridans Writing Sisterhood.

Breakwater is the second book in Errin Stevens’ Mer Chronicles series. Errin’s impressive storytelling skills make this book a fantastic, can’t-put-it-down read. Errin excels at world-building and character creation, and I really enjoyed getting to know more about the Sirens’ society. Breakwater deeper into the relationship between sirens and humans as well as into the Sirens’ archaic and sometimes draconian politics.

Breakwater offers plenty of mystery, intrigue, and surprises. I enjoyed learning more about some of the secondary characters. I had an affinity for Simon. As a “black sheep” in a Catholic family with strict ideas about right, wrong, and an individual’s “correct” role in life, I related to Simon’s distress at feeling that he was letting his family and community down as well as his resentment at being told what to do.

A startling revelation by Seneca throws the Blake family’s stable lives into upheaval, and a new, power-hungry antagonist is revealed, complete with nefarious ideals and a delightfully wicked demeanor. Duncan is a villain that readers will love to hate.

For those who enjoy intensity in their romance, Breakwater delivers. For my own part, I prefer the political intrigue aspect and find the romance to venture too far in the overly possessive direction. Although I like the sirens and found myself particularly resonating with Simon and his internal conflict, I find the male sirens’ interactions with human women controlling and coercive, more like a vampire compelling his victim than a would-be lover courting the object of his affections. Rather than cheering for the woman in the pair to get her man, I find myself thinking: “eek, no, run away!”

I really like Errin’s female characters, who are self-assured, driven, competent women. They are well-rounded, well-written, and realistic. Unfortunately, too much of their energy is spent dreaming of catching a man and lamenting not having a man to complete them.

Overall, the female characters are companionable and supportive of one another rather than being backstabbing and bitchy, a trope which is entertaining if one is watching reruns of Dynasty but tiresome otherwise. The women truly care about one another and embody what sisterhood means.

Breakwater is an exciting and inspiring story, and I truly wish I could give it five stars.

The main thing that stops me from doing so is the scene between the women at Sylvia’s café, where they discuss being “fat” (translate: pregnant), not wanting to “look like a beluga,” and other such unfortunate diatribe regarding any physique which is not slender and toned.

As a person who became bulimic at twelve due to fear of becoming fat, who developed a myriad of endocrine disorders which sealed the deal that I would become fat regardless of how much I restricted my food intake and engaged in orthorexia, and who spent the next 33 years trying to hate myself thin, I am well aware that this type of conversation takes place between millions of women every day. Women bond over size-shaming self-deprecation rather than encouraging one another regarding traits and skills unrelated to their physical appearance. The conversation is realistic, and it is horrible.

As a genuine, actual, bona fide fat person who fights to be at peace with my body multiple times a day every day, I can tell you that reading or hearing such a conversation is hurtful. What these conversations sound like to me is: “being fat is the very worst thing a person can possibly be. Being fat is ugly, disgusting, undesirable. Being YOU is the very worst thing a person could possibly be. I would do anything not to be like you.”

Writers, your larger readers, like all your readers, are looking for a moment of escape, not to be reminded that people see us as The Very Worst Thing A Person Can Possibly Be. We realize that we are unlikely to be portrayed as heroic and/or desirable in most stories but would appreciate not being represented as Things That Shouldn’t Be. Eating disorders are rampant. Let’s not waste our wonderful female characters reinforcing diet culture. Let’s let them be the amazing badasses they are, regardless of their size.

My other wish is that everyone would ditch the phrase “off their meds” immediately. Most people who live with mental health issues are not dangerous and do not stand out in any way. People with mental health issues tend to suffer in silence because of the unfortunate stigma surrounding mental illness. Nobody should be made to feel ashamed of whatever “meds” they take, whether their meds are for strictly physical or psychiatric conditions.

With those bones being picked, I rate Breakwater an overall compelling and well-written read and look forward to the next book in the series.

~Cie~

Real Cie Reviews + Hearth and Soul Link Party + Inspire Me Monday #246 + Promote Yourself Monday: Burn Zones

Genre:

Autobiography

(Subtopics: entrepreneurship)

Rating: 

Four out of Four stars at Online Book Club

Five out of Five stars on Amazon

Disclosure:

I received a free copy of this book for review purposes.

If you purchase a copy of the book through the above link, I will earn a small commission.

You can read my exclusive review for Burn Zones at Online Book Club here.

As a book reviewer, it makes me very happy when I can enthusiastically recommend a book.

Jorge Newberry's Burn Zones makes me very happy. 

Not only is this fascinating autobiography extremely well-written, through its pages I discovered a kind soul who truly cares about others. 

Jorge is the sort of person that this world needs more of. 

He takes it upon himself to understand the mindset of the people he encounters and to show compassion to those that society at large tends to judge harshly.

Like most power players, Jorge has an intense personality. But he understands that not everyone is wired the way he is. He is also uncompromising in his approach to himself, describing not only his strengths but his potential shortcomings.

Jorge Newberry has a humble, honest, personable style. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Burn Zones and recommend it without reservation. If you enjoy real-life stories and appreciate those who think of others before themselves, I believe that Burn Zones is a great choice for your next read.

~Cie~

Fat Friday #15 + Ornery Reviews: How To Define Yourself by Chuck Clifton

Yet Another Unoriginal Positive Thinking Tome Complete With Fat-Shaming Icing on the Unpalatable Cake

Rating: One out of Four Stars

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review purposes

You are welcome to read my exclusive review of this mess for the Online Book Club.

Main positive takeaway:

This book is brief. This means that you can get angry quickly. The more quickly you get angry, the sooner you can recover from being angry and focus on better things.

Main negative takeaway:

Pretty much everything about this book. It started out as a generic "Positive Thinking" tome and devolved into a body-shaming mess complete with a picture of a Headless Fatty wearing a shirt several sizes too small, a fat guy who apparently does not own any dish towels so he licks his plate to clean it, and the erroneous and asinine assumption that All Fat People Are Fat Because They Are Always Stuffing Their Fat Faces With Bad Food. Never mind that many larger people are food insecure or that there are big people who do EVERYTHING RIGHT and somehow are still fat, or that there are thin people who eat All The Wrong Stuff and lots of it and yet are still thin. 

I do not recommend this book to anyone, so I am not providing a link to it.

It isn't often that I find a book I hate so much that I give it a one-star review. This book is one of two that I've reviewed this year which earns that dubious distinction.

~Cie the Ornery Old Lady~

I recommend this book instead. It is the last diet book you will ever need.

The Ornery Old Lady's Reviews: Inspirience: Meditation Unbound

Please check out my exclusive Online Book Club review for Inspirience: Meditation Unbound by Richard L. Haight.

Rating: 
Four out of four stars for Online Book Club
Five out of five stars for Amazon and Audible

The above graphic leads to the Kindle version of the book. I reviewed the audiobook version, which I highly recommend as I find it helpful to listen to the author explaining the meditation techniques and leading the listener through the meditation process.

What I like best about this book:
This wonderful book offers meditation for everybody. One does not need to be an adherent of any particular religion or philosophy. There is no need to be an adept or have special knowledge. One does not need a special space for meditation. One does not need an altar or candles or any other trappings. One does not need to worry that he or she is doing meditation "wrong."

If you think you can't meditate, if you have become discouraged with meditation, let Richard Haight show you that you can meditate and it can be enjoyable and truly enlightening instead of frustrating.

This book has been one of my happiest discoveries this year.

The Real Cie

aka

The Ornery Old Lady

Fearless Thinking, Stress-Free Living Exercises: An Experiment

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review purposes.

I am currently reading the above book as a member of the Online Book Club review team and have decided to take part in some of the exercises and see if I find them helpful. I already like the book well enough that I feel confident in recommending that you preview it and see if you might benefit from it as well.

I have decided to participate in the first recommended exercise, which involves recording one's thoughts for a minute four times a day. I can't promise that I'll do this four times a day, but I can commit to doing it daily. I will sometimes share these thoughts.

This is not a writing exercise. It is not meant to be edited. It is a means of determining where the mind is currently focused. Here is my first entry.

Unedited thoughts, one minute

08/29/2019 16:12

The bandage on my finger is making me feel crazy.

Will this stupid wart dissolve?

My ankle hurts, my right foot hurts. 

It feels like there is something sticky on my fingers.

Will things be all right after we move?

Will we actually start eating better?

Why the hell can't I just finish packing? What's stopping me?

I'm worried about the move.

I'm not going to try to analyze this very much. Lots of worry and trepidation is the theme of the moment, and I can't say I'm surprised.

~Cie~

Real Cie Reviews: Tarot Coloring Book

This is a beautifully designed little book with wonderfully intricate pictures to color. Meditate on the archetypal images while relaxing, relieving stress, and allowing your subconscious to strengthen and expand. Coloring is a wonderful and soothing activity for adults and can be helpful for those working through trauma. The designs are innovative and will please those who collect and enjoy Tarot cards.

Print the pages from the e-book or purchase the physical book with the pages ready to go!

~Cie~

Real Cie Reviews: Wyrm's Warning

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

The following is a duplicate of my review on Amazon and Goodreads for this novelette.

The author really knows how to get inside his characters' heads and describe their motivation. Unlike many male authors writing a female character, he doesn't linger on unnecessary descriptions of her anatomy. Tala is an ordinary young woman who lives in a time and place where women are treated as objects to be done with as males see fit. She faces manhandling by the old woodsman whom she is attempting to assist, and worse from the realm's boorish prince and corrupt priest.

One night while leaving the old woodsman's cottage, Tala is attacked by an unknown creature and mysterious changes begin to take place in her life, subjecting her to moments of terror and rage as she tries to comprehend what is happening.

Tala is a brave and level-headed young woman who faces truly awful situations both from the supernatural realm and the natural world in which she resides. Although there are uncomfortable scenes in this story with regards to men's treatment of women and girls as sex objects to be used as a man sees fit, these scenes are never gratuitous or unnecessarily explicit. 

There are jokes about male authors writing women in an overly sexualized fashion. Michael J. Allen manages to avoid being on the receiving end of the joke by writing his female characters with empathy rather than salacity.

I finished this story in one afternoon. It is a compelling page-turner.

~Cie~

Real Cie Reviews: An Equally Worthy Child

Disclosure: 
I received a free copy of this book for review purposes.
This is a duplicate of my review of this product on Amazon.

This brief book gets right to the point in addressing a problem which is extremely prevalent in a society demanding a certain very specific variety of excellence and perfection from all its citizens. The author initially discusses her own feelings of being "less worthy" despite being a good student who was accepted by her peers and growing up in a stable household where she was treated well by her parents and her needs were provided for.

The age-old nature vs. nurture debate is addressed in the book. The author provides evidence that the nurture component is the one which plays a key role in whether or not a person feels worthy. Even individuals who grow up in impoverished circumstances may feel equally worthy if feelings of worth were modeled by their parents and passed on to them.

As someone who grew up in a household where accomplishments, a certain type of very narrowly defined physical attractiveness, and wealth were measures of success, I failed in every way. I learned at a very young age that I was a "bad" child and not worthy. My parents saw themselves as failures. As often happens in such a situation, there is one child who excels and one who constantly fails. My brother was an overachiever who pushed himself well beyond his limits constantly. Although he was not a stellar student, he excelled in other areas such as sports, and he was very popular. I was a B student who was physically uncoordinated, I was physically unattractive, and I was the target of bullying. I used drugs and alcohol to cope with the cruel way I was treated by my peers, with my parents' evident disappointment in me, and with my then-undiagnosed mental illness.

The author's revelations of her own struggles spoke to me, although her experiences were not the same as mine. This book is written in an easy-to-read fashion without talking down to its audience. It addresses a serious societal problem: the push to create a society populated by only the sorts of people who reach a very high bar in areas of perceived physical attractiveness and personal accomplishment. Anyone who falls below these ludicrously elevated standards is not only "less worthy," they "deserve" to be treated as less than human, not even afforded the common decency of being allowed to live their lives in peace and basic comfort. Those who do not measure up "deserve" to be dehumanized, ridiculed, and forced to live in poverty according to these twisted standards.

The author postulates that everyone has a place and that everyone deserves to be treated as having an equal measure of worth. It is fine to praise people for high accomplishments, but those who cannot or do not wish to strive for such accomplishments are no less worthy than those who are society's "high achievers." I quite agree with the author on this point. Our world would be a much better place if we treated all people as equally worthy, regardless of their perceived ambition, attractiveness, intellect, innovation, or ability to perform for an audience. I believe that people as a whole would be much happier and there would be far fewer deaths caused by stress-related illnesses, far less anxiety and depression due to perceived personal inadequacy, and, thus, a greatly reduced suicide rate.

My criticism regarding the book is minor. I too learned to use "he" as the default in writing about a person whose sex is unspecified. From my point of view, this is archaic and sets men and boys as the default and women and girls as an aberration or second-class person.

I would also like to see the term "overweight" disappear. Over what weight? If the person is large or heavy, refer to them as large or heavy. We have all been taught to "other" larger people, and terms like "overweight" and the even worse "obese" pathologize big folks. It is possible to point out society's prejudiced attitudes towards heavy people without othering those people.

Aside from these issues, I have nothing but praise for this book. It is a brief, thought-provoking read written in simple language. I recommend it to everyone who has ever felt "less worthy" or who has pushed themselves to the breaking point to prove their worth. A job well done by a bright, thoughtful, and fully worthy individual!

~Cie~

Inspire Me Monday #224 + Spread the Kindness #119: Real Cie Reviews: Eighth Grade

This post is a duplicate of my review of this product for Amazon.

4 out of 5 stars

Elsie Fisher does a marvelous job as the insecure, likable Kayla and Josh Hamilton plays his role as the sweet but sometimes irritatingly out-of-touch and overprotective dad perfectly. Kayla's high school mentor Olivia is adorable if a bit clueless. There is the eye-roll-inducing stereotypical pretty mean girl Kennedy, and Kayla's crush Aiden has all the personality of wallpaper paste.

The movie does a nice job of addressing sensitive subject matter such as Kayla's panic attacks. I was a teenager in the late seventies and early eighties, and was unable to discuss my psychological issues with anyone for fear of being placed on a psych ward or dismissed as "seeking attention" or being "overly dramatic." When I read about bipolar disorder (then called manic depression) in my junior year psychology class, I recognized myself in a lot of the symptoms. I approached the subject with the teacher and she told me I couldn't be manic depressive because manic depression was a psychosis and I wasn't psychotic. I would not be properly diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder until I was nearly 40 years old.  If nothing else, movies such as this one approach issues such as panic attacks without pathologizing the person suffering from them.

The movie also does a good job of addressing the pressure on teens, particularly teenage girls, to be sexy and sexually active. Olivia's creepy friend Riley attempts to pressure Kayla into removing her shirt during a game of Truth or Dare when they are alone in his car together, and Kayla's crush Aiden is rumored to have broken up with a previous girlfriend because she wouldn't send him nude photos.

The movie is appropriate for teenagers. Kayla is a relatable character, an ordinary and likable if socially awkward young woman. I found myself thinking that it was a shame for her to waste any time or energy on a shallow, self-absorbed twit like Kennedy or a limp dishrag like Aiden. 

Teens struggling with feeling like they don't fit in and those of us who used to be (and sometimes still are) the odd one out will feel a kinship with Kayla and be proud of her as she learns to stand up for herself.

~Cie~

Also sharing to the Spread the Kindness blog hop on Tuesday April 23, 2019.

Real Cie Reviews: The Wayne Dyer Material

Dr. Wayne Dyer

10 May 1940 - 29 August 2015

My dear writing sister Blooming Psycho was up early this morning, and she sent me links to videos of lectures by the late Dr. Wayne Dyer, a psychologist and motivational speaker. Dr. Dyer's works encouraged positive focus and meditation to clear the mind of negative fixations.
Although Dr. Dyer's work addresses Buddhist concepts, it is not necessary to be a Buddhist to benefit from his teachings. His later work had a more spiritual focus than his earlier books. Even if one rejects the spiritual aspects of his books, one can still benefit from the ideas of positive focus.
I'm glad that Bloomy reminded me of Dr. Dyer's work. I invite you to listen to the videos she shared with me and decide for yourself if his approach resonates with you.

Best Wishes,

Cie

Participating In:
Show-Off Tuesday
Spread the Kindness