At the end of The Sand Pebbles, Steve McQueen in his role as Jake Holman yells out in frustration, confusion, and abandonment: "What the Hell Happened?!" He has made his choices by following the direction and promises of his culture for simple security: a professional position in a large highly ordered bureaucracy. He now lays dying after repeatedly trying to do the morally responsible and trying to do his job the best he can.

There are few statements more deserved and less applicable for a chronically ill person than to be asked:

There will be some persons who have lived their lives as if intending to sabotage their health and simply challenging their genetics, common sense, and God --- to give them a hard time. Often as a result of energy block imposed addictive behaviors, these persons constantly overdrink, smoke, overdrug, overeat, underexercise, deny illness symptoms, ignore precautions, and invite hazard.

Yes, there are even those who have no imposing energy blocks to justify these behaviors and they knowingly choose to follow the same, often out of destructive imprinting which promises them they will be accepted and respected for such involvements. Perhaps as many as almost 40% of chronically ill persons fit one of these two patterns.

For those of you who are not yet chronically ill, or, have forgotten what it was like and how you got there, I represent the majority of chronically ill persons who knowingly did there best to maintain and improve their health. Before you react to the severity of the condition of another person, consider the possibilities, both above, and following.

Most of my life I have been above average in physical activity.
From age 8 to 18, I worked daily part-time or full-time on a mixed farm. With jobs then taken off the farm, there was regular exercise in the duties involved or I walked daily to and from work. Later, when driving became a significant part of my work role, I spent much of my spare time doing construction projects, fixing my car, swimming, diving, canoeing, and hiking. Some people might even have criticized me for not relaxing enough.

My weight, from an age of about 17 to 46 never wavered more than 1 or 2 pounds above 145. Then, as a result of being put on a mood altering prescription drug by my medical physician, I added 20 pounds in 2 months. Regardless of exercise, diet, and lifestyle, that weight increase was impervious to change until I fasted for 3 weeks in my mid-50's and lost it.

Beginning several years later, an undiagnosed exposure to mercury toxicity, for a 3rd time in 6 years, and lasting 4 years ... led to an increase in weight again by 25 pounds. Much of this increase was the result of fatigue and thyroid, adrenal, and other organ dysfunctions resulting from the poisoning. This was frustrated by the added energy demands and assimilation losses from parasites encouraged by the mercury depression of my immune system.

Prescription drug use was complicated over the first 50 years of my life. When I was younger, the cultural imprinting was to go to doctors for acute problems and follow their instructions without question. Non-prescription drugs were used at an early age to control extreme allergies. No effective herbal combinations were available to me. Antibiotics were prescribed numerous times to cope with tonsillitis. They were seldom safely taken as the doctors and pharmacists provided neither caution or usage directions until after 1992.

Natural source health care and nutrition became an extension of my desire for self-sufficiency, self-direction, and self-awareness, and, my family imprinting to consider alternative therapeutic approaches whenever possible and available. Before my teens I had been to a chiropractor and an herbalist and my mother had purchased supplements and juiced vegetables and fruits. I was an early adopter of yoga, meditation, chiropractic, herbalism, touch for health kinesiology, organic farming, illness prevention, Tai Chi, and acupuncture.

Much of my food when young had come from my parent's garden. I later had my own massive garden. Before and after my garden, I had a well balanced diet with many fruits and vegetables and a minimum of manufactured or prepared foods. They were cheaper, less disappointing, and healthier than the alternatives. I did not smoke, avoided alcohol, and was never part of the casual drugs scene. I was too active and too intent on saving.

Where did I go wrong?

I never knew what good health was until I had recovered from my second exposure to severe toxic metal exposure from dental mercury amalgams, in 1999, in my mid-50's. As noted elsewhere on this site, I was born without an expectation of living, survived a near fatal virus a short time later, and lived with severe allergies from age 3 to age 48. I didn't ask for or invite these experiences.

Accidents happen.
They result in acute injuries but seldom in chronic illnesses. Many arise from ignorance, poor mentoring or supervision, or inadequate or destructive training. And some, happen from the intentions and incompetencies of other people who choose to interact with you, whether you have invited them to or not. Like most children, I had scrapes, burns, and cuts and fingers pinched in doors. When a small bonfire exploded in my face and almost took my sight at age 8, I was unaware that someone has put dynamite caps underneath it to get rid of them.

In 1975, I was also not prepared or expecting an accident when a driver, dazed by marihuana, wrote off my car and I ended up in the hospital in a coma for 3 days. I wasn't expected to survive, but I did. Then I had to cope with a severe whiplash for 7 years and the anarchy and injustice of the legal system. Every job has the potential for accidents if your work is physically active and you work long hours. That fit, and I did have a lower back lifting accident.

Even if you drive defensively, other drivers have the choice to drive drunk, when sleepy, while mixing prescription drugs, while angry and stressed, or while allowing oneself to be distracted. A lapse of attention for a few seconds at a moderate speed can result in someone hitting you. I was struck from behind on two occasions while stopped to wait for traffic or to yield to traffic. Another and later time, I was struck by a car while going through an intersection.

There were a number of chronic injuries and these did take some time to recover from. I made an effort beyond what the medical industry and alternative health care practitioners offered and recovered in months or years, unlike many others. If you drive a car regularly, there is a good chance that you will be in a bad accident as often as every 7 years.

Abuse happens.
For all of our superiority strutting to the rest of the world, North Americans do not have an enviable statistical heritage for the past 90 years. 50% of all marriages fail. As many as 50% of our children are said to have experienced incest from a parent, adult relative, brother, or sister. As many as 8 of 10 spouses are subject to emotional and verbal abuse. As many as 3 of every 10 spouses have experienced physical abuse. Child sexual abuse has been discovered to have been a norm in many church operated schools and orphanages. Abusive communication is almost a norm in most authoritarian organizations.

In my pre-teens and throughout my teens, I was frequently abandoned and emotionally and spiritually abused, with the added dimensions of sexual abuse, and physical abuse. It was difficult to understand at the time and even more difficult to cope with for there was no one to trust in a social environment which seemed to support the abuse norms. I didn't invite it and I learned to live beyond and away from it. Eventually, I found a way to understand the experiences and release their negativity. This opened a door for me to help others.

All I wanted as a young adult was to hold a longer-term job and do it as good as I could so that others would be served well and I would be respected and able to afford a moderate lifestyle. I left banking to avoid immorality. I left computer science to avoid abuse and injustice. I sought security but often found that the price was my soul, so I also left several marriages. My culture promised a reality that was little more than illusion. When I accepted the reality, I tore it apart, defined it, and found alternatives. Denial only conceals the freedom of choice that can bring happiness and health.

Emotional instability and addictive destructive behaviors do mandate chronic attitudes and behaviors which place stress on one's health, yet, they do not, by themselves, result in chronic illnesses.

Toxic chemical and heavy metal exposures:

Severe chronic illnesses develop when one is exposed to something which so weakens their immune system that it becomes very difficult to either maintain or recover one's health. A severe virus (like Epstein Barr), a severe bacteria (like pneumonia or tuberculosis), a systemic fungal involvement, a severe intestinal worm infestation, and a severe amoebic infection ... can all be life threatening and energy draining. A heavy metals toxicity can encourage the development of any or all of the above. Consider what may happen when you have several or more of these.

With the politically cheap and procedure stringent practices of North American medicine, whatever cannot be diagnosed in 10 seconds or a minute, goes untreated. There is no time for a medical history, multiple symptoms, or cross-discipline problems. IF you don't have a cut, broken bone, emotional depression or sore throat, you must be fine. These are not relevant to the chronically ill person.

At worst, a chronically ill person takes the abuse of the physician who abandons them with denials of their sickness and either a request for them not to worry and it will go away, or, just take this prescription .. and goes home, numbs out, becomes distrustful of doctors and in despair becomes involved in distractions. Going downhill slowly, they eventually die. Adding insult to incompetence, the patient is usually pronounced dead of natural causes ... because the medical industry has sanctioned their death.

Alternative health care practitioners hold a greater prospect of hope for the chronically ill person, yet, they also are often of little more help in the long-term. Yes, they have many answers and options, many of which are remedial and few which lead to health. They also have a tendency to blame the chronically ill person for not getting better when their inadequate diagnoses, favored supplements, and treatments --- fail. If you can find a truly holistic practitioner who treats you as an individual and tests and confirms their suggestions with your body ... you are favored.

Doing my job and expecting the government to set relevant safety standards resulted in my using a freon propelled degreasing agent for cleaning electronics and electrical contacts. It was a nearly daily occurrence, in a closed environment, with no protective gear ... because it was supposed to be harmless. Years after leaving the industry, I heard from an associate that many people were then dying in their 40's and 50's of heart disease brought on by ... freon propellants. No known remedy. No compensation. No recognition until you died.

A lack of mentoring in constructive coping skills and exposure to abuses, accidents, toxic materials, and energy blocks eventually led me to the health position of the overachiever who has destructive institutions supporting and deceiving them. I became Environmentally Hypersensitive. I was told that no one recovered, but I found the way out and have helped others ever since.

Looking after my dental health and expecting that the government actually had some relevant safety standards in this area, and would pay attention to scientific studies conducted by their own scientists as well as those around the world, was another mistake. I had some dental knowledge but until the early 1990's the only fillings I knew of were silver-mercury amalgams and the necessity to replace them when they broke or fell out. Over the years, most of the several dozen dentists I went to could not locate my nerves to freeze so I frequently ended up with multiple doses of freezing.

Finding out that most countries in Europe had disallowed the use of deadly mercury amalgams by the mid-1990's yet the Province of Ontario had actually mandated its use, was a real eye opener. When I toyed with mercury poisoning the first few times, I had filled molars removed that were giving problems when I was not feeling well. Immediately afterwards, my health improved. Financially hard times arrived and planned for replacement of the remaining amalgams had to wait.

While working towards building resources for a major dental work upgrading, individuals in each of two major contractors in different parts of the USA, for whom I had completed work, embezzled all of the monies they owed me together with thousands of other people. I was a major witness in one of the cases and provided what was termed the best evidence they had ever had, yet, after 2 years, the case was dropped. The USA government had diverted their resources to cases involving embezzlements of banks and huge companies. Individuals be damned. Justice is relevant to power.

Getting aging mercury amalgams changed, or out, when you have restricted funds is near impossible. Replacement costs 4 to 5 times more than extraction so one has to go with extraction and homelessness, or wait. If you wait too long, as I did, you end up with a great job, delayed income, and sudden health changes like fast progressing cancers, fungal infections, or intestinal parasites. Going from 14 hour work days to 14 hour sleep periods in a matter of days, can be a shock. Feeling too weak and tired to stand most of the time is not funny. I had a few amalgams and teeth removed and took huge amounts of supplements before and after to dump the toxins.

With a Canadian company I had been working for unable to raise my back pay due to financial misrepresentation by a financial services company, I again fell into amalgams beginning to rapidly deteriorate. After being homeless for a number of weeks, I got an excellent job working in electronic assembly. Good job, company, and working conditions. I was coming up for a most unusual early promotion because of the quality of my work when I suddenly began to have extreme muscle aches and joint pains together with sudden bouts of extreme fatigue. Work attendance fell into unpredictability. I lost the job. I was sleeping 16 hours a day!

Mercury amalgam poisoning was the conclusion I finally arrived at after almost 3 months of hanging on. I made arrangements, with great difficulty and persistence to have the last 4 large amalgams removed, two at a time. After the removal of each set, my health immediately and dramatically improved, without expectation. With more chelation supplements, I was in the best health of my life in 6 weeks. I began an active job which, with commuting time took me out to work for 16 hours a day, to start, no problem.

Several years later, my work and meagre finances first made it necessary to live in a basement with some fungal problems, and then it became necessary to take some transpacific flights. The changes in elevation during the flight aggravated my health and eventually I discovered, 4 years later, that dental mercury amalgams from under gold crowns had been poisoning me persistently for 4 years. With such a compromised immune system, I had developed mutated forms of bacteria, virus, fungus, and, intestinal worms. Building my physical strength without expanding the healthier parasite populations was almost impossible. Getting rid of them without damaging my own system was almost impossible also.

How did I get here?
I did the following mistakes and benefits:

1. I believed the government set relevant safety standards.
2. I believed that doctors were not to do more harm than good.
3. I believed that lawyers were to facilitate the justice system.
4. I believed that alternative health therapists had solutions.

5. I was innovative, persistent, and aggressive.
6. I developed a holistic perspective of considering the whole.
7. I challenged every authoritarian limitation that said I could not recover.

8. I learned how the immune system and human brain worked.
9. I developed access to Spiritually Guided knowledge.
10. I found answers to survive where many had died.