Anyone with common sense knows that if I am a decent person, I won't post all Michelle's business in this blog. In fact, she's incredibly tolerant (and even enjoys it, dare I say) of the amount of information that I do share, but it's a fine line to walk. Seeing as how we're hardly speaking today, which is largely my prerogative, I thought I would share a couple recent events that are of concern to us both, and hopefully will be discussed further at a later date.
First of all, what really is the difference between psychosis and imagination? Like, if you catch someone talking to an imaginary friend, and they claim they were fully aware that it was only imaginary, might they be lying (primarily to themselves? Especially if they're one of those types who knows all the DSM lingo and what should and should not be occurring)? What if you catch them in the act several times in a row?
For instance, the weekend before last, Michelle stayed over. As I was coming home, I heard her having an animated telephone conversation with someone- she sounded quite angry, in fact she was yelling at someone. When I unlocked and opened the apartment door, there she stood, alone, and not on the phone at all. I said, "Who were you talking to?" And she said, "I was just venting about you." Never mind that it was supposedly about me... I decided to put it out of my mind. The next day we were in our bedroom and I left for a few minutes to do something. As I was coming back, again, I heard her engaged in animated conversation, but this time it sounded light and happy. I thought, "Is she talking to someone on the street through the window?" I heard her say, "Okay girl! I gotta go... talk to you later!" I came into the room and once again asked, "Who were you just talking to?" This time she responded in a much more confused manner, citing the name of someone I didn't know. She initially said she had been on the phone, but then began to admit that she had only been pretending to be on the phone, and not only that, but talking to someone she had made up in her own mind, based on a name she heard at work. "Like an imaginary friend?" I asked. And she assented. At that point, I asked straight out if she were having psychotic episodes, and she said no, somewhat bashfully, as if embarrassed, yet smiling. "I'm not psychotic," she said, "I'm just lonely." Ok, ok. So later in the day, I heard her outside our bedroom window by the garbage cans... I watched her through the window, mumbling angrily, then swearing and talking loudly about how the garbage wasn't organized right, etc., energetically throwing things into the can and slamming things around. Is she just releasing some long-repressed rage? IDK.
Yesterday morning, she texted me that she saw a ghost during the night, and upon waking, couldn't shake the image from her mind. She said that she had addressed the ghost, "What are you doing here?" or some question like that. She said, when I asked, that it was a dark woman, just staring at her from a corner of the room. She said she supposed that it wasn't really a ghost, but an image seen in a half-awake-half-dreaming state. And I thought to myself, "Or, it's an indication of psychosis," and said nothing.
This morning I received an email from her (dated yesterday) saying she had almost fallen into the 14th street subway tracks (why? how? I didn't ask). In the past, I would have emailed back something like, "Oh my goodness! Be more careful next time," but I'm only human, and there's only so much I can worry over losing the one I love. At a certain point, the heart just wants to protect itself and nothing else.
Which is why, when she texted me yesterday asking, "Can do a load of laundry with anything besides detergent?" (???) and wrote that she had taken the day off work, I responded saying, "Nice. Good. I'm thinking of having a sexual affair." To which she responded, "Wtf?" etc. and called me up right away. She said, "It isn't fair," and I said, "I know, I know." But I wasn't sure what else to say. I won't really do it. It's wrong, and I love her. The very fact that I told her about it as soon as I began to consider it is a sign that I won't cheat, but it must be a sign of something else too. "In general," I told her, "This is not what I signed up for." I have been talking with a lot of people who are in relationships (of some kind or another) with an addict, and the stories are all the same, the addicts are all the same, it all has the same ending: if you're lucky, you detach and move on.
That said, I still love her. I miss her. I want the whole thing to work out. Whoa, just got first text of the day from her... let's see what the fuck she's up to now.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
respectable, yet demented
Remember that freak who made a comment about her dreams the other day? Well, she obviously caused me to have some similar dreams! Okay, so last night I dreamed the following: my ex., E., lived below the apartment that Michelle and I lived in. I went downstairs holding some papers from my journal and a small blue journal that belonged to M. When I saw E., I was totally shocked and happily surprised! What are the chances that we would end up living in the same building! So we embraced, etc., and she was even tinier than her normal size. Then I realized my papers and little blue book were missing. I started to freak out, but E. didn't realize or admit the seriousness of the problem. I told her that I absolutely could not go home without Michelle's journal, and furthermore, I couldn't remember what I had written on those papers, and must find them! After a frantic but fruitless search, we went upstairs and I introduced E. to M., meanwhile contemplating how to break the news of the journal loss. Suddenly a bunch of E's friends showed up in our apartment and started taking over. They were users of hard drugs, to my horror. Before I knew it, Mich was high as a kite and telling me that I had to stay on the one side of the apartment for the next few weeks. I protested, since she gave me the side with no windows and two large TVs, and I don't even like to watch TV. But she was totally gone at this point, speaking to me rudely and implying a breakup if I had a problem with anything she said or did. I tried to get all the guests out of our apartment and lock all the windows and doors, but primarily I realized that I needed to change my myspace password. Of course, like in many of my dreams, the websites weren't working properly, and my goal was thwarted repeatedly. Then I was trying to take a shower and something about dyeing my hair brown or cutting it... I don't know... and finally I ended up in a bar with friends. I had a surge of great happiness, and I turned to my (unknown) friend and said, "I'm so proud of us, we didn't even smoke any weed!" And she said, "Yes, but let's still celebrate," and we turned to the bar to order drinks. Then I felt tired, and depressed. Suddenly, I was in the passenger seat of a car, being driven by a man, and he pulled up alongside a dark parking lot where my unknown friend was with another man and surrounding them, other people. My driver backed up and repositioned our view so that I could see this was no ordinary group of people but an obscure, writhing orgy. My friend was facing a wall and the man was behind her, pulling out his very large member and preparing to insert it. I also saw a woman in squatting position, bouncing up and down with a man behind her, and I realized I could hear the moaning and other sexual noises of all these people, and I rolled down my window just a little bit to hear it more clearly... then I woke up.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
yr a hot mess, girlfriend
So... I don't know if people appreciate the type of post I did yesterday- a copy and paste of information. I don't know how many people will even read it, or see themselves in all that, but when I read it (on www.soberrecovery.com), I just started crying. I have never really identified with the "codependent" term, but when I read about "counterdependency," I saw my name in neon, blinking lights. Especially when I read that counterdependent people don't like to identify or see themselves in codependency. Because yo, we just are not weak and needy like that! Yeah, fuck that! And fuck everyone... etc. Then I read how counterdependents often fall for people who are even MORE counterdependent, and act out the codependent role, and I can totally relate to that. Like, experiencing codependent feelings (in my mind=love) when rejected. Interestingly, however, in my 28th year of life, I choose Michelle, who is quite the codependent little damsel (in my opinion), to marry. Right away, I knew I could commit to her, and that our relationship could last. Why? Perhaps because she's a "wounded healer," so to speak, like my mother- A natural caretaker who struggles with addiction and other mental illnesses- who is, therefore, highly unstable (and unavailable) in significant ways! How nice, how safe. How familiar. No need to worry about an addict getting too close and consequently smothering/annhiliating me.
Realizations... la la la. Stuff I kind of already knew. But the counterdependency thing, that's a new concept for me. And I get it: I've set myself up for failure! Aaaackkk! Phtoey! (That's me spitting).
I'm still living alone (with my pit bulls). The move-back-in date for Michelle has been pushed into mid-July due to violations of our agreement. I miss her very much. I'm trying to be strong and make the right decisions and hold my ground though. It certainly doesn't help that I'm extremely worried about Tati right now (my cat). She apparently developed such a severe case of constipation that it became *obstipation* ... she had to go to the hospital last weekend to get the poo digged out and receive fluids and enemas and the whole 9 yards... which came to 14 motherfucking hundred dollars. I had to spend money that I had saved up for when I have to quit my job and start student teaching. Of course I didn't have pet insurance (how many people do?), and now the whole "pre-existing condition" is an evil reality for us (we're fucked).
The worst part is that since coming home on Monday afternoon, she still hasn't pooed. I've been feeding her the special W/D food, with lactulose and fish oil and water mixed in... doesn't seem to be working. The vet says, "Bring her right back in or take her to the hospital again!"
But the PRICES ARE OUTRAGEOUS. SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS. Where do they get off? I can't pay for any more treatment at this point. She's only 6 years old, otherwise healthy, but now she might die! I feel that I have failed her, as a mother, due to my own ignorance. What, am I going to just watch my cat/caughter die? It's so awful. Why do they make it financially impossible to treat an animal? It's a fucking cat!!!! Jesus. I'm so mad about it. So I guess I'm going to order these *kitty enemas* from Pet RX online and try to care for her myself.
Al-anon and Nar-anon are all about surrendering to your higher power (god, whatever), but I feel super mad at god right now, and like there is no god, so what's the point. I can submit to these realities in my life, but it doesn't bring me joy or peace. I feel instead like I am submitting to the evil bullshit of the world, and it feels like an inevitable giving up.
Nobody hardly ever comments to me on here, but you know, you can. If you disagree or whatever, it's totally fine. I probably won't curse you out, unless you say something particularly offensive or stupid. But again, if you're someone who knows me, just post anonymously so I don't become obsessed with whether or not I might have offended you in particular or gotten someone in trouble. I'm an open book, you know. (Because I feel like I have no real self. But I do. I do!)
Realizations... la la la. Stuff I kind of already knew. But the counterdependency thing, that's a new concept for me. And I get it: I've set myself up for failure! Aaaackkk! Phtoey! (That's me spitting).
I'm still living alone (with my pit bulls). The move-back-in date for Michelle has been pushed into mid-July due to violations of our agreement. I miss her very much. I'm trying to be strong and make the right decisions and hold my ground though. It certainly doesn't help that I'm extremely worried about Tati right now (my cat). She apparently developed such a severe case of constipation that it became *obstipation* ... she had to go to the hospital last weekend to get the poo digged out and receive fluids and enemas and the whole 9 yards... which came to 14 motherfucking hundred dollars. I had to spend money that I had saved up for when I have to quit my job and start student teaching. Of course I didn't have pet insurance (how many people do?), and now the whole "pre-existing condition" is an evil reality for us (we're fucked).
The worst part is that since coming home on Monday afternoon, she still hasn't pooed. I've been feeding her the special W/D food, with lactulose and fish oil and water mixed in... doesn't seem to be working. The vet says, "Bring her right back in or take her to the hospital again!"
But the PRICES ARE OUTRAGEOUS. SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS. Where do they get off? I can't pay for any more treatment at this point. She's only 6 years old, otherwise healthy, but now she might die! I feel that I have failed her, as a mother, due to my own ignorance. What, am I going to just watch my cat/caughter die? It's so awful. Why do they make it financially impossible to treat an animal? It's a fucking cat!!!! Jesus. I'm so mad about it. So I guess I'm going to order these *kitty enemas* from Pet RX online and try to care for her myself.
Al-anon and Nar-anon are all about surrendering to your higher power (god, whatever), but I feel super mad at god right now, and like there is no god, so what's the point. I can submit to these realities in my life, but it doesn't bring me joy or peace. I feel instead like I am submitting to the evil bullshit of the world, and it feels like an inevitable giving up.
Nobody hardly ever comments to me on here, but you know, you can. If you disagree or whatever, it's totally fine. I probably won't curse you out, unless you say something particularly offensive or stupid. But again, if you're someone who knows me, just post anonymously so I don't become obsessed with whether or not I might have offended you in particular or gotten someone in trouble. I'm an open book, you know. (Because I feel like I have no real self. But I do. I do!)
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
OMG, me
Codependent & Counterdependent
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Dysfunctional Relationships Dynamics part 1 - Power Struggle
By Robert Burney
In our disease defense system we build up huge walls to protect ourselves and then - as soon as we meet someone who will help us to repeat our patterns of abuse, abandonment, betrayal, and/or deprivation - we lower the drawbridge and invite them in. We, in our Codependence, have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will 'push our buttons.' This happens because those people feel familiar. Unfortunately in childhood the people whom we trusted the most - were the most familiar - hurt us the most. So the effect is that we keep repeating our patterns and being given the reminder that it is not safe to trust ourselves or other people.
Once we begin healing we can see that the Truth is that it is not safe to trust as long as we are reacting out of the emotional wounds and attitudes of our childhoods. Once we start Recovering, then we can begin to see that on a Spiritual level these repeating behavior patterns are opportunities to heal the childhood wounds.
Codependence is an emotional defense system that is set up to protect the wounded inner child within us from the shame of being exposed as unlovable and unworthy, as stupid and weak, as a loser and failure, as whatever it was that we got the message was the worst thing to be. We were taught to evaluate whether we had worth in comparison to others. Smarter than, prettier than, faster than, richer than, more successful than, thinner than, stronger than, etc., etc. In a codependent society the only way to feel good about self is to look down on someone else. So we learned to judge (just like our role models did) others in order to feel good about ourselves. Being "right" was one of the most important ways to know that we had worth.
When a codependent feels attacked - which is any time it seems as if someone is judging us - it can be with a look or a tone of voice or just that someone doesn't say something, let alone when someone actually says something to us that could be interpreted as meaning that we weren't doing something right - the choices we are faced with are to blame them or blame ourselves. Either they are right - in which case it proves that we are the stupid loser that the critical parent voice in our head tells us we are - or they are wrong in which case it is time to attack them and prove to them the error of their ways.
In most relationships where the people have been together for a few years they have already established entrenched battle lines around painful emotional scars where they push each others buttons. All one person has to do is use a certain tone of voice or have a certain look on their face and the other person pulls out and loads the big guns. One person is readying their answer in their head to what they "know" the other is going to say before the other even has a chance to say it. The battle begins and neither one of them actually listens to what the other is saying. They start pulling out their lists of past hurts to prove their point of how each other is "doing" horrible things to them. The battle is on to see who is right and who is wrong.
And that is not even the right question.
The type of questions we need to be asking are: "What button just got pushed?" "Why am I reacting so strongly to this?" "How old do I feel right now?" "In what way does what is happening feel like something that happened in my childhood?" "How does this remind me of the way my parents acted or treated me?"
We attract into our lives those people who will perfectly push our buttons for us. Who fit our particular issues exactly. When we are looking at life as a growth process then we can learn from these lessons. If both people in a relationship are willing to look at what is underneath the dynamics that are happening - then some magical, wonderful intimacy can result. As long as we are reacting unconsciously to the past, then we will blame and argue about who is right and who is wrong.
A relationship is a partnership, an alliance, not some game with winners and losers. When the interaction in a relationship becomes a power struggle about who is right and who is wrong then there are no winners.
Codependent Relationships Dynamics part 2 - Dysfunctional Definition of Love
As long as we believe that someone else has the power to make us happy then we are setting ourselves up to be victims.
One of the biggest problems with relationships in this society is that the context we approach them from is too small. We were taught that getting the relationship is the goal.
It starts in early childhood with Fairy Tales where the Prince and the Princess live happily-ever-after. It continues in movies and books where "boy meets girl" "boy loses girl" "boy gets girl back" - the music swells and the happy couple ride off into the sunset. The songs that say "I can't smile without you" "I can't live without you" "You are my everything" describe the type of love we learned about growing up - toxic love - an addiction with the other person as our drug of choice, as our Higher Power.
Any time we set another human being up to be our Higher Power we are going to experience failure in whatever we are trying to accomplish. We will end up feeling victimized by the other person or by our self - and even when we feel victimized by the other person we blame our self for the choices we made. We are set up to fail to get our needs met in Romantic Relationships because of the belief system we were taught in childhood and the messages we got from our society growing up.
There is no goal to reach that will bring us to happily-ever after. We are not incomplete until we find out soul mate. We are not halves that cannot be whole without a relationship.
True Love is not a painful obsession. It is not taking a hostage or being a hostage. It is not all-consuming, isolating, or constricting. Believing we can't be whole or happy without a relationship is unhealthy and leads us to accept deprivation and abuse, and to engage in manipulation, dishonesty, and power struggles. The type of love we learned about growing up is an addiction, a form of toxic love.
Here is a short list of the characteristics of Love vs. toxic love (compiled with the help of the work of Melody Beattie & Terence Gorski.)
1. Love - Development of self first priority.
Toxic love - Obsession with relationship.
2. Love - Room to grow, expand; desire for other to grow.
Toxic love - Security, comfort in sameness; intensity of need seen as proof of love (may really be fear, insecurity, loneliness)
3. Love - Separate interests; other friends; maintain other meaningful relationships.
Toxic love - Total involvement; limited social life; neglect old friends, interests.
4. Love - Encouragement of each other's expanding; secure in own worth.
Toxic love - Preoccupation with other's behavior; fear of other changing.
5. Love - Appropriate Trust (i.e. trusting partner to behave according to fundamental nature.)
Toxic love - Jealousy; possessiveness; fear of competition; protects "supply."
6. Love - Compromise, negotiation or taking turns at leading. Problem solving together.
Toxic love - Power plays for control; blaming; passive or aggressive manipulation.
7. Love - Embracing of each other's individuality.
Toxic love - Trying to change other to own image.
8. Love - Relationship deals with all aspects of reality.
Toxic love - Relationship is based on delusion and avoidance of the unpleasant.
9. Love - Self-care by both partners; emotional state not dependent on other's mood.
Toxic love - Expectation that one partner will fix and rescue the other.
10. Love - Loving detachment (healthy concern about partner, while letting go.)
Toxic love - Fusion (being obsessed with each other's problems and feelings.)
11. Love - Sex is free choice growing out of caring & friendship.
Toxic love - Pressure around sex due to insecurity, fear & need for immediate gratification.
12. Love - Ability to enjoy being alone.
Toxic love - Unable to endure separation; clinging.
13. Love - Cycle of comfort and contentment.
Toxic love - Cycle of pain and despair.
Love is not supposed to be painful. There is pain involved in any relationship but if it is painful most of the time then something is not working. There is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship - it is natural and healthy. There is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship that will last forever - expecting it to last forever is what is dysfunctional. Expectations set us up to be a victim - and cause to abandon ourselves in search of our goal.
If we can start seeing relationships not as the goal but as opportunities for growth then we can start having more functional relationships. A relationship that ends is not a failure or a punishment - it is a lesson.
As long as our definition of a successful relationship is one that lasts forever - we are set up to fail. As long as we believe that we have to have the other in our life to be happy, we are really just an addict trying to protect our supply - using another person as our drug of choice. That is not True Love - nor is it Loving.
Codependent Relationships Dynamics part 3 - Codependent & Counterdependent Behavior
Attempts to control are a reaction to fear. It is what we do to try to protect ourselves emotionally. Some of us (classic codependent behavior) tried to control through people pleasing, being a chameleon, wearing a mask, dancing to other people's tunes. Some of us (classic counterdependent behavior) protected ourselves/tried to be in control by pretending that we didnít need other people. Either way we were living life in reaction to our childhood wounds - we were not making clear, conscious choices. (If our choice is to be in an abusive relationship or not to be in a relationship at all, that is not a choice - that is reacting between two extremes that are symptoms of our childhood wounds.)
Both classic codependent and classic counterdependent behaviors are part of the condition/disease of codependency in my definition. They are just two different extremes in the spectrum of behavioral defense systems that the ego adapts in early childhood. The ways in which we got hurt the most in childhood felt to our egos like a threat to survival, and it built up defenses to protect us.
While the classic codependent had their sense of self crushed (it is 'self' destroying to feel that love is conditional on pleasing others, living up to the expectations of others - even if our parents never raised their voices to us) in childhood to the extent that confrontation (owning anger, setting boundaries, taking the chance of hurting someone, etc.) feels life threatening, so the classic counterdependent feels like vulnerability (intimacy, getting close to/being dependent on other people) is life threatening.
Both the classic counterdependent and codependent patterns are reactive codependent traits that are out of balance and dysfunctional. We do need other people - but to allow our self worth to be determined in reaction to other people is giving power away and setting ourselves up to be victims. It is very important to own that we have worth as the unique, special being that each of us is - not dependent on how other people react to us.
This is a very difficult process for those of us who have classic 'codependent' patterns of trying very hard to get other people to like us, of feeling that we are defined by how others think of us and treat us, of being people pleasers and martyrs. Classic codependent behavior involves focusing completely on the other (when a codependent dies someone else's life passes in review.) Having no self except as defined in relationship to the other. This is dishonest and dysfunctional. It sets us up to be victims - and causes one to not only be unable to get one's needs met, but to not even be aware that it is right to have needs.
A classically codependent person, when asked about themselves, will reply by talking about the other. Obviously, before someone with this type of behavioral defense can experience any self-growth, they have to first start opening up to the idea that they have a self. The process of owning self is frustrating and confusing. The concept of having boundaries is foreign and bewildering. It is an ongoing process that takes years. It unfolds in stages. There is always another level of the onion to peel. So, for someone whose primary pattern is classically codependent, the next level of growth will always involve owning self on some deeper level. A very important part of this process is owning the right to be angry about the way otherís behavior has impacted our lives - starting in childhood.
Classic counterdependent behavior focuses completely on the self and builds huge walls to keep others out. It is hard for those of us who exhibit classically 'counterdependent' behavior patterns to even consider that we may be codependent. We have lived our lives trying to prove that we don't need others, that we are independent and strong. The counterdependent is the other extreme of the spectrum. If our behavior patterns have been primarily counterdependent it means that we were wounded so badly in childhood that in order to survive we had to convince ourselves that we don't need other people, that it is never safe to get close to other people.
Each of us has our own spectrum of behavioral defenses to protect us from being hurt emotionally. We can be codependent in one relationship and counterdependent in another - or we can swing from co to counter - within the same relationship. Often, someone who is primarily counterdependent will get involved with someone who is even more counterdependent and then will act out the codependent role in that particular relationship - the same can happen with two people with primarily codependent patterns.
Both the classic codependent patterns and the classic counterdependent patterns are behavioral defenses, strategies, design to protect us from being abandoned. One tries to protect against abandonment by avoiding confrontation and pleasing the other - while the second tries to avoid abandonment by pretending we donít need anyone else. Both are dysfunctional and dishonest.
And both are at their core a Spiritual wound caused by the illusion that we have been abandoned by our creator.
Codependent Relationships Dynamics part 4 - Come Here, Go Away
We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional. When someone "pushes your buttons," he/she is activating that stored, pressurized grief energy. She/he is gouging the old wounds, and all of the newer wounds that are piled on top of those original wounds by our repeating behavior patterns.
We, in our Codependence, have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will 'push our buttons.'
As long as we have not healed our childhood wounds then there are a lot more than two people involved in our relationships. There may only be two people in the room - but the room is also full of the ghosts of all of our past emotional wounds. Until we start clearing our emotional process of the buttons/triggers that throw us into the past, we are not capable of being honest in the now. When we react in the now out of old wounds and old tapes we are being emotionally dishonest with ourselves and our partners.
The way the dynamic in a dysfunctional relationship works is in a "come here" - "go away" cycle. When one person is available the other tends to pull away. If the first person becomes unavailable the other comes back and pleads to be let back in. When the first becomes available again then the other eventually starts pulling away again. It happens because our relationship with self is not healed. As long as I do not love myself then there must be something wrong with someone who loves me - and if someone doesn't love me than I have to prove I am worthy by winning that person back. On some level we are trying to earn the love of our unavailable parent(s) to prove to ourselves that we are worthy and lovable.
What is normal and natural in romantic relationships in this society is for a person whose primary fear is abandonment to get involved with someone whose primary fear is being smothered/losing self. The person with abandonment fears reacts to shows of independence on the part of the other as if the other were abandoning them. That causes them to become more needy and clinging - which causes the other person to pull away - which causes the first person to cling more - which causes the other to pull away more. Eventually the person with abandonment fears gets angry and disgusted and pulls back into themselves - which to the other makes it safe to come back and plead to be let back in. And after a short honeymoon period the dance can start all over again.
"Wait a minute!" you are probably saying if you read my last article in this series (codependent & counterdependent behaviors), "you said at the end of your last article, that both the codependent and counterdependent types of behavior were reactions to fear of abandonment."
That is true. The codependent type of behavior is an attempt to overcome the core belief that we are unworthy and unlovable by working real hard to earn love from another. The more a classic codependent feels they are being abandoned the harder they work.
The counterdependent is someone who is so convinced of their core unworthiness that their defense is to not open themselves up enough to admit they need another because they are sure they will be abandoned if anyone else sees who they really are (I used to feel if I ever truly opened up to someone, they would run away screaming in horror at my shameful being.) So, they abandon before they can be abandoned (this includes abandoning themselves by being attracted to people who are unavailable - saves them from taking the risk.)
Both types of behavior are dysfunctional and self defeating. Codependents are drawn to people who will abandon them (this abandonment does not have to be physical - it can be emotional so that the relationship continues but the codependent person has to settle for crumbs instead of truly getting their needs met.) Counterdependents let down their guard once every 5 years or so and let in someone who will perfectly betray and abandon them in order to prove that they were right in the first place to not open up to people.
It is very boring and incredibly painful to keep repeating dysfunctional relationship patterns. The way to stop repeating those patterns is to start healing the wounds that we suffered in childhood. A big part of this process is awakening to the reality that it is not our fault that our relationships haven't worked out. We were set up to fail to get our needs met in relationships by the unhealthy environments we grew up in, by the dysfunctional and dishonest definitions and role modeling that we experienced. We were powerless to do things any differently than we did them until we started to examine our patterns and discover the ways in which our childhood experiences have been running our lives.
One of the most important steps in learning what Love really is - in starting to Love ourselves in healthy ways - is to start working on forgiving ourselves for being little kids who were wounded by being raised by people who were wounded when they were little kids.
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Dysfunctional Relationships Dynamics part 1 - Power Struggle
By Robert Burney
In our disease defense system we build up huge walls to protect ourselves and then - as soon as we meet someone who will help us to repeat our patterns of abuse, abandonment, betrayal, and/or deprivation - we lower the drawbridge and invite them in. We, in our Codependence, have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will 'push our buttons.' This happens because those people feel familiar. Unfortunately in childhood the people whom we trusted the most - were the most familiar - hurt us the most. So the effect is that we keep repeating our patterns and being given the reminder that it is not safe to trust ourselves or other people.
Once we begin healing we can see that the Truth is that it is not safe to trust as long as we are reacting out of the emotional wounds and attitudes of our childhoods. Once we start Recovering, then we can begin to see that on a Spiritual level these repeating behavior patterns are opportunities to heal the childhood wounds.
Codependence is an emotional defense system that is set up to protect the wounded inner child within us from the shame of being exposed as unlovable and unworthy, as stupid and weak, as a loser and failure, as whatever it was that we got the message was the worst thing to be. We were taught to evaluate whether we had worth in comparison to others. Smarter than, prettier than, faster than, richer than, more successful than, thinner than, stronger than, etc., etc. In a codependent society the only way to feel good about self is to look down on someone else. So we learned to judge (just like our role models did) others in order to feel good about ourselves. Being "right" was one of the most important ways to know that we had worth.
When a codependent feels attacked - which is any time it seems as if someone is judging us - it can be with a look or a tone of voice or just that someone doesn't say something, let alone when someone actually says something to us that could be interpreted as meaning that we weren't doing something right - the choices we are faced with are to blame them or blame ourselves. Either they are right - in which case it proves that we are the stupid loser that the critical parent voice in our head tells us we are - or they are wrong in which case it is time to attack them and prove to them the error of their ways.
In most relationships where the people have been together for a few years they have already established entrenched battle lines around painful emotional scars where they push each others buttons. All one person has to do is use a certain tone of voice or have a certain look on their face and the other person pulls out and loads the big guns. One person is readying their answer in their head to what they "know" the other is going to say before the other even has a chance to say it. The battle begins and neither one of them actually listens to what the other is saying. They start pulling out their lists of past hurts to prove their point of how each other is "doing" horrible things to them. The battle is on to see who is right and who is wrong.
And that is not even the right question.
The type of questions we need to be asking are: "What button just got pushed?" "Why am I reacting so strongly to this?" "How old do I feel right now?" "In what way does what is happening feel like something that happened in my childhood?" "How does this remind me of the way my parents acted or treated me?"
We attract into our lives those people who will perfectly push our buttons for us. Who fit our particular issues exactly. When we are looking at life as a growth process then we can learn from these lessons. If both people in a relationship are willing to look at what is underneath the dynamics that are happening - then some magical, wonderful intimacy can result. As long as we are reacting unconsciously to the past, then we will blame and argue about who is right and who is wrong.
A relationship is a partnership, an alliance, not some game with winners and losers. When the interaction in a relationship becomes a power struggle about who is right and who is wrong then there are no winners.
Codependent Relationships Dynamics part 2 - Dysfunctional Definition of Love
As long as we believe that someone else has the power to make us happy then we are setting ourselves up to be victims.
One of the biggest problems with relationships in this society is that the context we approach them from is too small. We were taught that getting the relationship is the goal.
It starts in early childhood with Fairy Tales where the Prince and the Princess live happily-ever-after. It continues in movies and books where "boy meets girl" "boy loses girl" "boy gets girl back" - the music swells and the happy couple ride off into the sunset. The songs that say "I can't smile without you" "I can't live without you" "You are my everything" describe the type of love we learned about growing up - toxic love - an addiction with the other person as our drug of choice, as our Higher Power.
Any time we set another human being up to be our Higher Power we are going to experience failure in whatever we are trying to accomplish. We will end up feeling victimized by the other person or by our self - and even when we feel victimized by the other person we blame our self for the choices we made. We are set up to fail to get our needs met in Romantic Relationships because of the belief system we were taught in childhood and the messages we got from our society growing up.
There is no goal to reach that will bring us to happily-ever after. We are not incomplete until we find out soul mate. We are not halves that cannot be whole without a relationship.
True Love is not a painful obsession. It is not taking a hostage or being a hostage. It is not all-consuming, isolating, or constricting. Believing we can't be whole or happy without a relationship is unhealthy and leads us to accept deprivation and abuse, and to engage in manipulation, dishonesty, and power struggles. The type of love we learned about growing up is an addiction, a form of toxic love.
Here is a short list of the characteristics of Love vs. toxic love (compiled with the help of the work of Melody Beattie & Terence Gorski.)
1. Love - Development of self first priority.
Toxic love - Obsession with relationship.
2. Love - Room to grow, expand; desire for other to grow.
Toxic love - Security, comfort in sameness; intensity of need seen as proof of love (may really be fear, insecurity, loneliness)
3. Love - Separate interests; other friends; maintain other meaningful relationships.
Toxic love - Total involvement; limited social life; neglect old friends, interests.
4. Love - Encouragement of each other's expanding; secure in own worth.
Toxic love - Preoccupation with other's behavior; fear of other changing.
5. Love - Appropriate Trust (i.e. trusting partner to behave according to fundamental nature.)
Toxic love - Jealousy; possessiveness; fear of competition; protects "supply."
6. Love - Compromise, negotiation or taking turns at leading. Problem solving together.
Toxic love - Power plays for control; blaming; passive or aggressive manipulation.
7. Love - Embracing of each other's individuality.
Toxic love - Trying to change other to own image.
8. Love - Relationship deals with all aspects of reality.
Toxic love - Relationship is based on delusion and avoidance of the unpleasant.
9. Love - Self-care by both partners; emotional state not dependent on other's mood.
Toxic love - Expectation that one partner will fix and rescue the other.
10. Love - Loving detachment (healthy concern about partner, while letting go.)
Toxic love - Fusion (being obsessed with each other's problems and feelings.)
11. Love - Sex is free choice growing out of caring & friendship.
Toxic love - Pressure around sex due to insecurity, fear & need for immediate gratification.
12. Love - Ability to enjoy being alone.
Toxic love - Unable to endure separation; clinging.
13. Love - Cycle of comfort and contentment.
Toxic love - Cycle of pain and despair.
Love is not supposed to be painful. There is pain involved in any relationship but if it is painful most of the time then something is not working. There is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship - it is natural and healthy. There is nothing wrong with wanting a relationship that will last forever - expecting it to last forever is what is dysfunctional. Expectations set us up to be a victim - and cause to abandon ourselves in search of our goal.
If we can start seeing relationships not as the goal but as opportunities for growth then we can start having more functional relationships. A relationship that ends is not a failure or a punishment - it is a lesson.
As long as our definition of a successful relationship is one that lasts forever - we are set up to fail. As long as we believe that we have to have the other in our life to be happy, we are really just an addict trying to protect our supply - using another person as our drug of choice. That is not True Love - nor is it Loving.
Codependent Relationships Dynamics part 3 - Codependent & Counterdependent Behavior
Attempts to control are a reaction to fear. It is what we do to try to protect ourselves emotionally. Some of us (classic codependent behavior) tried to control through people pleasing, being a chameleon, wearing a mask, dancing to other people's tunes. Some of us (classic counterdependent behavior) protected ourselves/tried to be in control by pretending that we didnít need other people. Either way we were living life in reaction to our childhood wounds - we were not making clear, conscious choices. (If our choice is to be in an abusive relationship or not to be in a relationship at all, that is not a choice - that is reacting between two extremes that are symptoms of our childhood wounds.)
Both classic codependent and classic counterdependent behaviors are part of the condition/disease of codependency in my definition. They are just two different extremes in the spectrum of behavioral defense systems that the ego adapts in early childhood. The ways in which we got hurt the most in childhood felt to our egos like a threat to survival, and it built up defenses to protect us.
While the classic codependent had their sense of self crushed (it is 'self' destroying to feel that love is conditional on pleasing others, living up to the expectations of others - even if our parents never raised their voices to us) in childhood to the extent that confrontation (owning anger, setting boundaries, taking the chance of hurting someone, etc.) feels life threatening, so the classic counterdependent feels like vulnerability (intimacy, getting close to/being dependent on other people) is life threatening.
Both the classic counterdependent and codependent patterns are reactive codependent traits that are out of balance and dysfunctional. We do need other people - but to allow our self worth to be determined in reaction to other people is giving power away and setting ourselves up to be victims. It is very important to own that we have worth as the unique, special being that each of us is - not dependent on how other people react to us.
This is a very difficult process for those of us who have classic 'codependent' patterns of trying very hard to get other people to like us, of feeling that we are defined by how others think of us and treat us, of being people pleasers and martyrs. Classic codependent behavior involves focusing completely on the other (when a codependent dies someone else's life passes in review.) Having no self except as defined in relationship to the other. This is dishonest and dysfunctional. It sets us up to be victims - and causes one to not only be unable to get one's needs met, but to not even be aware that it is right to have needs.
A classically codependent person, when asked about themselves, will reply by talking about the other. Obviously, before someone with this type of behavioral defense can experience any self-growth, they have to first start opening up to the idea that they have a self. The process of owning self is frustrating and confusing. The concept of having boundaries is foreign and bewildering. It is an ongoing process that takes years. It unfolds in stages. There is always another level of the onion to peel. So, for someone whose primary pattern is classically codependent, the next level of growth will always involve owning self on some deeper level. A very important part of this process is owning the right to be angry about the way otherís behavior has impacted our lives - starting in childhood.
Classic counterdependent behavior focuses completely on the self and builds huge walls to keep others out. It is hard for those of us who exhibit classically 'counterdependent' behavior patterns to even consider that we may be codependent. We have lived our lives trying to prove that we don't need others, that we are independent and strong. The counterdependent is the other extreme of the spectrum. If our behavior patterns have been primarily counterdependent it means that we were wounded so badly in childhood that in order to survive we had to convince ourselves that we don't need other people, that it is never safe to get close to other people.
Each of us has our own spectrum of behavioral defenses to protect us from being hurt emotionally. We can be codependent in one relationship and counterdependent in another - or we can swing from co to counter - within the same relationship. Often, someone who is primarily counterdependent will get involved with someone who is even more counterdependent and then will act out the codependent role in that particular relationship - the same can happen with two people with primarily codependent patterns.
Both the classic codependent patterns and the classic counterdependent patterns are behavioral defenses, strategies, design to protect us from being abandoned. One tries to protect against abandonment by avoiding confrontation and pleasing the other - while the second tries to avoid abandonment by pretending we donít need anyone else. Both are dysfunctional and dishonest.
And both are at their core a Spiritual wound caused by the illusion that we have been abandoned by our creator.
Codependent Relationships Dynamics part 4 - Come Here, Go Away
We are all carrying around repressed pain, terror, shame, and rage energy from our childhoods, whether it was twenty years ago or fifty years ago. We have this grief energy within us even if we came from a relatively healthy family, because this society is emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional. When someone "pushes your buttons," he/she is activating that stored, pressurized grief energy. She/he is gouging the old wounds, and all of the newer wounds that are piled on top of those original wounds by our repeating behavior patterns.
We, in our Codependence, have radar systems which cause us to be attracted to, and attract to us, the people, who for us personally, are exactly the most untrustworthy (or unavailable or smothering or abusive or whatever we need to repeat our patterns) individuals - exactly the ones who will 'push our buttons.'
As long as we have not healed our childhood wounds then there are a lot more than two people involved in our relationships. There may only be two people in the room - but the room is also full of the ghosts of all of our past emotional wounds. Until we start clearing our emotional process of the buttons/triggers that throw us into the past, we are not capable of being honest in the now. When we react in the now out of old wounds and old tapes we are being emotionally dishonest with ourselves and our partners.
The way the dynamic in a dysfunctional relationship works is in a "come here" - "go away" cycle. When one person is available the other tends to pull away. If the first person becomes unavailable the other comes back and pleads to be let back in. When the first becomes available again then the other eventually starts pulling away again. It happens because our relationship with self is not healed. As long as I do not love myself then there must be something wrong with someone who loves me - and if someone doesn't love me than I have to prove I am worthy by winning that person back. On some level we are trying to earn the love of our unavailable parent(s) to prove to ourselves that we are worthy and lovable.
What is normal and natural in romantic relationships in this society is for a person whose primary fear is abandonment to get involved with someone whose primary fear is being smothered/losing self. The person with abandonment fears reacts to shows of independence on the part of the other as if the other were abandoning them. That causes them to become more needy and clinging - which causes the other person to pull away - which causes the first person to cling more - which causes the other to pull away more. Eventually the person with abandonment fears gets angry and disgusted and pulls back into themselves - which to the other makes it safe to come back and plead to be let back in. And after a short honeymoon period the dance can start all over again.
"Wait a minute!" you are probably saying if you read my last article in this series (codependent & counterdependent behaviors), "you said at the end of your last article, that both the codependent and counterdependent types of behavior were reactions to fear of abandonment."
That is true. The codependent type of behavior is an attempt to overcome the core belief that we are unworthy and unlovable by working real hard to earn love from another. The more a classic codependent feels they are being abandoned the harder they work.
The counterdependent is someone who is so convinced of their core unworthiness that their defense is to not open themselves up enough to admit they need another because they are sure they will be abandoned if anyone else sees who they really are (I used to feel if I ever truly opened up to someone, they would run away screaming in horror at my shameful being.) So, they abandon before they can be abandoned (this includes abandoning themselves by being attracted to people who are unavailable - saves them from taking the risk.)
Both types of behavior are dysfunctional and self defeating. Codependents are drawn to people who will abandon them (this abandonment does not have to be physical - it can be emotional so that the relationship continues but the codependent person has to settle for crumbs instead of truly getting their needs met.) Counterdependents let down their guard once every 5 years or so and let in someone who will perfectly betray and abandon them in order to prove that they were right in the first place to not open up to people.
It is very boring and incredibly painful to keep repeating dysfunctional relationship patterns. The way to stop repeating those patterns is to start healing the wounds that we suffered in childhood. A big part of this process is awakening to the reality that it is not our fault that our relationships haven't worked out. We were set up to fail to get our needs met in relationships by the unhealthy environments we grew up in, by the dysfunctional and dishonest definitions and role modeling that we experienced. We were powerless to do things any differently than we did them until we started to examine our patterns and discover the ways in which our childhood experiences have been running our lives.
One of the most important steps in learning what Love really is - in starting to Love ourselves in healthy ways - is to start working on forgiving ourselves for being little kids who were wounded by being raised by people who were wounded when they were little kids.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Driving / Biking etiquette
Yesterday something highly unpleasant happened to me as I was biking back from Prospect Park along 9th street. I was in the bike lane and approaching 8th avenue, which had a green light. As I approached, I let one car in the oncoming traffic turn left and then I wasn't going to let the next one turn because I had the right of way. If I was in a car I would definitely have had the right of way. and as a pedestrian, no doubt, the turning cars have to wait for ppl to cross the street on the green light. Anyways, this fucking bitch in a white van rushed it, making me slam on my breaks and flip over the front of my bike into the street. This was undignified, and when I got up I was full of rage. And the driver, an overweight Latina, says to me, "Don't you watch where you're going?" I thought I would explode with wrath. I walked up to her at her car window, "You could have killed me, I had the right of way, you have to yield, it was a green light!" And she stupidly says, "Exactly, it's a green light so I can go," as if she never completed drivers training at all. We argued like this for a bit and she kept asking, "Are you serious? Are you serious?" The argument quickly deteriorated into me screaming, "Fuck you, fuck you! You stupid fucking bitch!" at the top of my lungs. She looked surprised, and I felt no fear. I understood then how people get into fist fights or shoot each other over traffic altercations. But our fight was cut short as she sped off and yells out the window, "Fuck you, dyke!"
How did she even know I'm a dyke? I was wearing a helmet so she couldn't see my hair, and my jeans were tight, I wasn't dressed manly at all! Whatever. Maybe I should have got her license plate number and reported it to someone official (as if anyone would really care). Thank god I didn't break or sprain anything, I just got the skin scraped off my elbow and hand, a bruise on my shin, and a bruise on my hip.
Michelle spent the night last night. She is moving back in on the 26th. In the meantime, I continue to work on my own happiness: fish oil, probiotics, exercise, acupuncture, orthotics on the way, castor oil compresses... chronic pain management.
How did she even know I'm a dyke? I was wearing a helmet so she couldn't see my hair, and my jeans were tight, I wasn't dressed manly at all! Whatever. Maybe I should have got her license plate number and reported it to someone official (as if anyone would really care). Thank god I didn't break or sprain anything, I just got the skin scraped off my elbow and hand, a bruise on my shin, and a bruise on my hip.
Michelle spent the night last night. She is moving back in on the 26th. In the meantime, I continue to work on my own happiness: fish oil, probiotics, exercise, acupuncture, orthotics on the way, castor oil compresses... chronic pain management.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Good Things
1. sunshine, finally
2. off to Minnesota tomorrow! i get to see my family, including my lil baby nephew and lots of lil baby second-cousins. plus, 4 days off work next week!
3. Maggie offered to kittysit for Tatiana, a total relief. i was so worried about her being alone for six days. people say cats can't tell time, why? you can't know unless you are one. Tati knows when i get home every day and she acts all needy when we've been gone 24-48 hours (and sometimes tears up the apt. or poops on the rug), so clearly she's aware of time.
4. Michelle joined the group and got her special key chain. it says, "Welcome" and "Just For Today"
5. i love that my wife has the same first name as Michelle Obama, because everyone knows M.O. is the bomb. i love our president and his wife. they are so great. i'm so... yes! proud to be an American
6. incidentally, i found out that Maggie's ancestors are also from the Ukraine, near Hungary. so this fact contributes to my theory that we instinctively re-manifest historical facts- to repeat and solve and re-connect, including the idea of past lives- does that make any sense to you?? it makes total sense to me. like, our ancestors were pals (me and Mags), at least, they went through similar oppression at the same time, in the same part of the world. the difference is, her ancestors were Jewish and mine were Mennonites. this has to be one reason why we connect(ed) and stay together as friends. she was my first friend in New York and is my longest standing friend here. in addition to our ancestoral commonalities, this might be because of her delightful, dominant personality... i love ladies who are dominant. my Michelle is totally dominant (so is my mother). in fact, she's at a social workers conference right now, dominating, as she just texted me. she said she's dominating with smarts, and i know it's true.
7. on my lunch break, i'm going to take a walk down to the little park on 29th and the Hudson and lay on a bench or on the pier. i love it.
SEVEN is a good place to stop, on a list.
2. off to Minnesota tomorrow! i get to see my family, including my lil baby nephew and lots of lil baby second-cousins. plus, 4 days off work next week!
3. Maggie offered to kittysit for Tatiana, a total relief. i was so worried about her being alone for six days. people say cats can't tell time, why? you can't know unless you are one. Tati knows when i get home every day and she acts all needy when we've been gone 24-48 hours (and sometimes tears up the apt. or poops on the rug), so clearly she's aware of time.
4. Michelle joined the group and got her special key chain. it says, "Welcome" and "Just For Today"
5. i love that my wife has the same first name as Michelle Obama, because everyone knows M.O. is the bomb. i love our president and his wife. they are so great. i'm so... yes! proud to be an American
6. incidentally, i found out that Maggie's ancestors are also from the Ukraine, near Hungary. so this fact contributes to my theory that we instinctively re-manifest historical facts- to repeat and solve and re-connect, including the idea of past lives- does that make any sense to you?? it makes total sense to me. like, our ancestors were pals (me and Mags), at least, they went through similar oppression at the same time, in the same part of the world. the difference is, her ancestors were Jewish and mine were Mennonites. this has to be one reason why we connect(ed) and stay together as friends. she was my first friend in New York and is my longest standing friend here. in addition to our ancestoral commonalities, this might be because of her delightful, dominant personality... i love ladies who are dominant. my Michelle is totally dominant (so is my mother). in fact, she's at a social workers conference right now, dominating, as she just texted me. she said she's dominating with smarts, and i know it's true.
7. on my lunch break, i'm going to take a walk down to the little park on 29th and the Hudson and lay on a bench or on the pier. i love it.
SEVEN is a good place to stop, on a list.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
DEMONS
it's really just very frightening and depressing to love someone who has only got one foot in this world. well, it may be more than one foot but it's certainly, still, less than two solid feet. and it's not her fault, fault is irrelevant. i have not lost any respect for her, if anything, i have more. addiction is a disease. would you marry someone with HIV? i mean, if they were your true love! last summer, i began to look at it like that. there are times i think (and maybe i'm being melodramatic) that it's my fate only to suffer terrible loss and always be alone, and that i make choices in that direction. but more grounded people remind me that i don't know what the future holds, and must try to have hope and faith no matter what. basically, it's back to taking things day by day, and ignoring fear, and trying to live in the moment. but i do make some choices toward being alone, that much is true. i have lived alone here in NYC (Brooklyn) for almost 10 years! and my family lives in MN and PA. but i do not want to be without Michelle. i want her to live with me and to thrive. i want her to realize all her dreams and goals. and i know she wants the same for me.
i re-read The Master and Margarita last week, by Bulgakov. this week i've started DEMONS, by Dostoevsky, my favorite writer of all time.
what else have i have to say? not much, i guess. just wanted you to know that i did not (in this order) deny god's existence, kill myself, and go straight to hell in a hand basket. :)
ps. new coping strategy when feelings about landfills and pollution become overwhelming: imagine that in landfills, unbeknownst to humankind, plastic will serve a special chemical function where it will one day cause everything to explode and form new planets with life on them while ours (Earth) expires. also, sending mental messages to each component of my trash, like, "I'm sorry you carrot tops have to be encased in a plastic bag, but eventually you will become melded with the other kinds of trash in this bag and will, in total, be transformed into a solid nugget of bagged energy. However, i know you feel like you're choking on the plastic and that you would prefer to be in a garden compost, so I'm really, truly sorry. And you were such good carrots. And thank you for your nutrients and thank you for existing." these kind of thoughts and messages help me deal with my guilt and my distress over the ongoing and relatively rapid death of our planet Earth.
pps. the other day, i found this book online called, "The Mennonite Martyrs," and was immediately interested because those are my ancestors, and apparently they were martyred in Russia! the thing is, for many years i've been interested in Russia, Russian literature, exile, camps, (it started with an interest in the Holocaust), etc. - but i didn't know why i'm so interested, except for morbid reasons. (i read books about these subjects independently, not in school.) then last year, my dad told me that our own ancestors were among those persecuted during the Bolshevik Revolution, and that's why they came to America. i don't know why nobody really mentioned this to me before, or if i just wasn't paying attention. Anyways, I previewed the book on google and saw that there is even one martyr in the book with my last name, Wiens! and also one with my grandmother's maiden last name, Wall... i bought the book right away and it was delivered to me at work, yesterday.
my grandfather was named Henry Peter Wiens and his father was Peter Wiens. i think they were both ministers/pastors, at least my grandpa definitely was one, just like the martyrs in this book. he died in Mountain Lake, MN., about 20 years ago. finding out these connections between my interests and my actual ancestry makes me wonder about instincts... like, what and who we are instinctively attracted to...
most Americans have no idea about their ancestors. This is not just true for descedents of slaves, although that's the most obvious case, but for so-called white people too. You're lucky if you even know something basic like, "Well, I'm German, or Irish." I always thought I was German too, and apparently I am, but it's more complicated than that. I don't exactly understand. My mother's side is just *German*, that's all I know about it. I don't know when or why they came to America. My dad's side is the Mennonite side, and they were also German, at least they spoke German (my grandma still does) and eat German food. But it's a fact that for several generations, at least, they lived in Russia / The Ukraine / Siberia / somewhere around there... I guess no one can really explain the whole story to me. I'm sure my ancestors could not imagine a modern gal like me, although perhaps some great, great, great aunt or uncle looked just like me, or felt like I do. I wish I could continue the bloodline. Hopefully, I will bequeath something else to this world other than flesh and blood.
i re-read The Master and Margarita last week, by Bulgakov. this week i've started DEMONS, by Dostoevsky, my favorite writer of all time.
what else have i have to say? not much, i guess. just wanted you to know that i did not (in this order) deny god's existence, kill myself, and go straight to hell in a hand basket. :)
ps. new coping strategy when feelings about landfills and pollution become overwhelming: imagine that in landfills, unbeknownst to humankind, plastic will serve a special chemical function where it will one day cause everything to explode and form new planets with life on them while ours (Earth) expires. also, sending mental messages to each component of my trash, like, "I'm sorry you carrot tops have to be encased in a plastic bag, but eventually you will become melded with the other kinds of trash in this bag and will, in total, be transformed into a solid nugget of bagged energy. However, i know you feel like you're choking on the plastic and that you would prefer to be in a garden compost, so I'm really, truly sorry. And you were such good carrots. And thank you for your nutrients and thank you for existing." these kind of thoughts and messages help me deal with my guilt and my distress over the ongoing and relatively rapid death of our planet Earth.
pps. the other day, i found this book online called, "The Mennonite Martyrs," and was immediately interested because those are my ancestors, and apparently they were martyred in Russia! the thing is, for many years i've been interested in Russia, Russian literature, exile, camps, (it started with an interest in the Holocaust), etc. - but i didn't know why i'm so interested, except for morbid reasons. (i read books about these subjects independently, not in school.) then last year, my dad told me that our own ancestors were among those persecuted during the Bolshevik Revolution, and that's why they came to America. i don't know why nobody really mentioned this to me before, or if i just wasn't paying attention. Anyways, I previewed the book on google and saw that there is even one martyr in the book with my last name, Wiens! and also one with my grandmother's maiden last name, Wall... i bought the book right away and it was delivered to me at work, yesterday.
my grandfather was named Henry Peter Wiens and his father was Peter Wiens. i think they were both ministers/pastors, at least my grandpa definitely was one, just like the martyrs in this book. he died in Mountain Lake, MN., about 20 years ago. finding out these connections between my interests and my actual ancestry makes me wonder about instincts... like, what and who we are instinctively attracted to...
most Americans have no idea about their ancestors. This is not just true for descedents of slaves, although that's the most obvious case, but for so-called white people too. You're lucky if you even know something basic like, "Well, I'm German, or Irish." I always thought I was German too, and apparently I am, but it's more complicated than that. I don't exactly understand. My mother's side is just *German*, that's all I know about it. I don't know when or why they came to America. My dad's side is the Mennonite side, and they were also German, at least they spoke German (my grandma still does) and eat German food. But it's a fact that for several generations, at least, they lived in Russia / The Ukraine / Siberia / somewhere around there... I guess no one can really explain the whole story to me. I'm sure my ancestors could not imagine a modern gal like me, although perhaps some great, great, great aunt or uncle looked just like me, or felt like I do. I wish I could continue the bloodline. Hopefully, I will bequeath something else to this world other than flesh and blood.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
dancing with myself?
...had a sobbing session last night, ending up quite cozy on the bathroom floor with the door closed and the lights off. meditating on loss and death. meditating on loss and death, why? it seemed like the only reality there is. listening to the addict, lying. imagining her love, when she's healthy. a lot of snot came out, but it didn't clear anything up. so many things have already been lost. they're over and done. only a faint memory remains. so much waste. i'm thinking of my dad's face. i can barely think about him or anyone that i love because it seems they're already gone or will be, too soon. right now, when i imagine my life as a trajectory, it seems like a straight line headed for tragedy. all my romantic choices leading up to funerals. unless god intervenes, which, as we all know there is no god.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Nicorette, la la la
I am happy to report that my lesson went awesome last night. Everyone seemed to love the activity and the professor said she plans on stealing my idea, which is great. You know, I had them describe prints of paintings and photographs, then switch descriptions with a partner, and try to draw/color what the partner described. I totally DO want to be a real teacher. I like everything about it, except the long hours. I love speaking in the imperative form, like, do this or don't do that, etc. Michelle and I communicate it that way, especially when we're bike riding. We compromise a lot though too, it's like a constant compromise between two imperative figures. But usually we want the same things, so it works. People who hang out with us say it's like we operate as one person.
One thing I noticed that ruins the flow is when the gal is manic (I finally understand the term and am using it consciously and literally here. per therapist). She won't let me get a word in edgewise! Also, her compulsive coughing and throat-clearing habit becomes very pronounced. For several months, Michelle didn't believe that the coughing and throat-clearing were compulsions, but I knew it because my older sister used to do stuff like that. Lately, Mich has been trying to tone it down, for my sake, because "agitating/loud noise" is so high on my List of Intolerables. She probably won't be able to stop altogether though, without the right meds. That's what my sister said, anyway (she's a psychologist now).
Speaking of meds, last night I confronted one of my peers, this guy who's always nodding off during class. I said, "Excuse me," and he said, "Yes?" I said, "I want to ask you a personal question, and I don't mean to be rude," and he said, "Okay." I said, "Are you a heroin user?" He looked confused (but high) and said no, but then our conversation got interrupted. Later, he said, "About your question... I'm on some anti psychotic meds and some meds for anxiety," and I said, "Okay well I'm glad to hear that. Stay on your meds," and I smiled at him. He said, "Sometimes when I don't eat enough or something I may look out of it." Then he said, "Thanks for your concern." After that, I thought about reporting him to the teacher because I feel 97% sure that he's lying and it angers me, for some reason. But I decided not to, because what can the professor really do? I know my comments to him probably won't help at all because when you're hooked, nothing else really matters, but hopefully he'll realize that his appearance and behavior are, in fact, identifiable, to someone who knows, whereas he probably thought no one could tell. And if it's really just prescription meds, he's obviously overdoing it.
I hate drugs. I quit smoking today.
Whatever.
I can't seem to stop gaining weight, and I don't eat a lot!?
I eat very healthy.
Today sucks, the fucking weather- everything. I'm so ungrateful. I'm so unenlightened. Goddamn the fucking rain though!!! Enough! I'm just bored of life. How am I going to survive without my smokes? Am I ready? How do you quit if you're not "ready?" What if you never feel ready?
One thing I noticed that ruins the flow is when the gal is manic (I finally understand the term and am using it consciously and literally here. per therapist). She won't let me get a word in edgewise! Also, her compulsive coughing and throat-clearing habit becomes very pronounced. For several months, Michelle didn't believe that the coughing and throat-clearing were compulsions, but I knew it because my older sister used to do stuff like that. Lately, Mich has been trying to tone it down, for my sake, because "agitating/loud noise" is so high on my List of Intolerables. She probably won't be able to stop altogether though, without the right meds. That's what my sister said, anyway (she's a psychologist now).
Speaking of meds, last night I confronted one of my peers, this guy who's always nodding off during class. I said, "Excuse me," and he said, "Yes?" I said, "I want to ask you a personal question, and I don't mean to be rude," and he said, "Okay." I said, "Are you a heroin user?" He looked confused (but high) and said no, but then our conversation got interrupted. Later, he said, "About your question... I'm on some anti psychotic meds and some meds for anxiety," and I said, "Okay well I'm glad to hear that. Stay on your meds," and I smiled at him. He said, "Sometimes when I don't eat enough or something I may look out of it." Then he said, "Thanks for your concern." After that, I thought about reporting him to the teacher because I feel 97% sure that he's lying and it angers me, for some reason. But I decided not to, because what can the professor really do? I know my comments to him probably won't help at all because when you're hooked, nothing else really matters, but hopefully he'll realize that his appearance and behavior are, in fact, identifiable, to someone who knows, whereas he probably thought no one could tell. And if it's really just prescription meds, he's obviously overdoing it.
I hate drugs. I quit smoking today.
Whatever.
I can't seem to stop gaining weight, and I don't eat a lot!?
I eat very healthy.
Today sucks, the fucking weather- everything. I'm so ungrateful. I'm so unenlightened. Goddamn the fucking rain though!!! Enough! I'm just bored of life. How am I going to survive without my smokes? Am I ready? How do you quit if you're not "ready?" What if you never feel ready?
Friday, May 1, 2009
Sasha, Artist/Revolutionary in Nikes
So... while waiting for the F train to close its doors and move along at 4th Ave. this morning, a large family came rushing up the stairs and made it in time. I do not intend the following description as anything creepy, more so the beauty of this child seemed like a special sign. At first I thought the kid was annoying and spoiled, as if through Michelle's eyes, who doesn't like happy, smart and attractive looking White children, for some reason. Anyways, Sasha got herself a seat in between two random adults, and she goes, "Daddy I want to color!" At first I thought she said, "Daddy I want to cuddle!" which is weird, but her Daddy said, "Not right now, Sasha. The train is moving too much and you might lose your markers." It's so sad when parents respond to their kids like, "Sit down and shut up!" I hate that. You don't want to make eye contact either and be told to mind your own business. Well, Sasha had a nice dad, and he finally agreed to give her her coloring book and markers. She then tried to put her Hello Kitty backpack on her lap as a little table, but she couldn't get it in the right position, and I watched her struggle for some time. While concentrating, she was doing a light tap tap tap with her front top and bottom teeth, which I also do. This little gal had huge blue eyes and shortish, wavy brown hair. She was probably about five or six years old? Then she put Hello Kitty on the train floor, sat on it, and started to color by people's feet until her dad suggested using the train seat as a table. I work for the company that makes Hello Kitty backpacks, by the way. In fact, I felt like we had a lot in common, but she barely looked at me. I wanted to say, "Hey look! I'm you, but all grown up!" I liked her outfit. Sasha wore silver and pink Nikes, pink cotton pants with buttons on the side, and a little red raincoat with black polka dots. Her coloring book had Hebrew on the cover and inside were all these mathematical, geometric designs. Awesome coloring book idea! She worked on a design that had many large triangles divided up into smaller ones, like a simple kaleidoscope. She was coloring big triangular chunks in pink and purple. My favorite colors, as miniature me! It kind of hurt my feelings that she didn't smile at me or anything, but oh well.
Michelle didn't get home from the ER until 8 am, this morning. She's staying home from work today.
Do you think you can be a revolutionary and still wear Nikes? I hope so. I actually work for an importing company- shoes (and backpacks!) made in Chinese factories, shipped, accruing costs in energy, not recycling, etc. etc. technically against my ethical beliefs... but I actually love my job and hate to think about moving on (to start teaching). Sometimes, I really think I might not become a teacher afterall, despite getting my masters degree.
Michelle didn't get home from the ER until 8 am, this morning. She's staying home from work today.
Do you think you can be a revolutionary and still wear Nikes? I hope so. I actually work for an importing company- shoes (and backpacks!) made in Chinese factories, shipped, accruing costs in energy, not recycling, etc. etc. technically against my ethical beliefs... but I actually love my job and hate to think about moving on (to start teaching). Sometimes, I really think I might not become a teacher afterall, despite getting my masters degree.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
< 24 hrour post
Well, my gal is in the ER right now. To any family or friends of her who may be perusing here, she is okay. I stayed for a couple hours.
I was getting her texts earlier in the evening, while working with Mark (playing on a drum kit (!)), and the gravity of the situation took a while to dawn on me. Had been in the cloud all day. When I got home, she called from someone else's cell phone on the train because her battery died and said she'd been advised to go to Methodist. I stupidly asked, "Do you want me to meet you there?" Then I biked there as fast as I could, in the light rain, wearing all black, sans helmet, and when I arrived Michelle said, "I just thought you might want to be here when I died." I felt so sorry for the gal, but I was tired and high (just weed, folks), and my back was hurting so I left around midnight. The important thing is, she's alright, and I won't say much more about tonight than that. I picked up some Baskin Robbins ice cream for her on the way home.
I was getting her texts earlier in the evening, while working with Mark (playing on a drum kit (!)), and the gravity of the situation took a while to dawn on me. Had been in the cloud all day. When I got home, she called from someone else's cell phone on the train because her battery died and said she'd been advised to go to Methodist. I stupidly asked, "Do you want me to meet you there?" Then I biked there as fast as I could, in the light rain, wearing all black, sans helmet, and when I arrived Michelle said, "I just thought you might want to be here when I died." I felt so sorry for the gal, but I was tired and high (just weed, folks), and my back was hurting so I left around midnight. The important thing is, she's alright, and I won't say much more about tonight than that. I picked up some Baskin Robbins ice cream for her on the way home.
All the signs that a user is using (know them)
Believe it or not, this photo is a view my work neighborhood, taken the year I was born. I don't like to think about change but I do like to imagine that I'm something concrete or stable that would stay in one place over the years, like a building or a tree, and how it must feel to watch everything and everyone come and go. I bet it feels good! I just finished scanning and printing all the pictures for my upcoming "art and literacy" lesson. The lemon picture (below) is pretty, isn't it?
Tonight I'm going to Mark's house to work on music, but I won't be singing because I've been abusing my voice nonstop for weeks now (smoking), but I hope to just make up some new stuff. However, I'm really tired... like physically tired and also tired of dealing with certain things, like addiction (not mine). It really is a fucking disease!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
battered wife syndrome
You know what's the worst? When you have a friend who is dating or married to a total asshole, and she refuses to fend for herself in any real way. It would not be so bad if she would just say honestly, "I'm dating a very cold and selfish person who enjoys controlling, insulting, or humiliating me, but I think I'm worthless so I better just stay put." What do you say to your friend? Do you tell your friend when their hubby cheats on them or talks shit about them behind their back, like says their not smart or thin enough? I did not share the information, but was dumped nonetheless, simply for KNOWING what was said and not finding it funny.
See, I wasn't even mad about this anymore until Michelle stirred it up this weekend by contacting Jessica and saying that Alicia owes me (me!) an apology. I'm not the type to hold grudges AT ALL. Seriously, it takes like an earthquake level conflict to keep me from patching things up whenever possible. But this, this shit is crazy. There is only one other grudge I have and it is against someone just like Alicia, who seems cute and sweet and quirky and smart... and inside is just rotten. This type of person usually picks a partner who is insecure or who craves an authority figure to validate them in some way. And this type shows the world (and their wife) a persona who is NOT their entire, real self. The real self has no friends, and whenever it comes out, it drives more friends away. Yet the girlfriend or wife feels really proud of herself because, "He may have hurt other gals, but he's good to me. He must have changed for me, yay!!" Jessica said Alicia treats her LIKE A PRINCESS now. If Alicia manages to ACT that way meanwhile her real, miserable personality is hidden and submerged... it's really a testament to her intelligence, which is indisputable. Although it's easier to hide things when your girlfriend/wife doesn't want to know the truth, and they usually don't! They usually just want to be taken care of.
Jessica should have appreciated the way I stuck up for her to Alicia, who was trashing her behind her back and for no reason! I basically sacrificed my friendship with Alicia for her! I asked myself, what kind of person is this, who trashes her own wife? That's not funny, that's mean and pathetic. And now these two are happy as can be, and somehow Jessica thinks that I owe Alicia an apology!? For what... confronting Alicia about her own statements, privately???! I didn't even share the insulting and humiliating info with Jess until NOW, months later! And actually, Michelle shared it, not me! Yet, I'm dumped. Nice, right?
I curse Alicia DiPietro, and if I ever get a good chance to teach her a lesson in any way that's legal and reasonable, I will! It is not enough for me to know that her world of happiness is fake! But for now, I'm putting it on a shelf in my mind, to collect a bit of dust.
To reiterate: I have no love for cheaters and liars. Or for the spineless wives that defend them and overlook their "indiscretions." Consider this, when a man is a serial rapist or pedophile or other horrible thing, don't you think his wife knows? Don't you think, if she does not know, that she is choosing to not know? The same is true if the spouse is gay. YOU KNOW IT. If you stick your head in the sand, "for the children's sake," or any other bullshit reason, you are also responsible for the pain that is caused. And you cause your own pain. I get angry about this because people never want to take responsibility. And we are responsible for what we know and what we don't know. And why should someone treat one girlfriend heinously and another girlfriend nicely? Say your husband is nice to you but goes out on Friday nights, picks up sex workers, and beats them? Do you say, "Well it's the whores' fault for being whores?" No! It's your husband's fault for being sadistic and misogynistic, and by staying with him you condone both the cheating and the beating! So if you think you're lucky to have snagged the guy that abandons or hurts other women, or has in the past, your turn is coming and you are really stupid! I want to see you realize that. Because now I'm all angry and worked up. You think it means you're valuable or that you have some power, so you'll stay with him forever and live like a sleep-walker! Because yeah, it could still make a nice photo op and you could put it online?
The only move that cheaters and liars like Alicia DiPietro can make, once confronted, is to "never talk to you again." And they mean it. That's one committment they can really make. It's like a vampire trying to hide their identity to survive in civilization. But they should not have become friends with me in the first place because they should have known that I carry the message. I have to deliver it, that's my purpose, that's what I do.
See, I wasn't even mad about this anymore until Michelle stirred it up this weekend by contacting Jessica and saying that Alicia owes me (me!) an apology. I'm not the type to hold grudges AT ALL. Seriously, it takes like an earthquake level conflict to keep me from patching things up whenever possible. But this, this shit is crazy. There is only one other grudge I have and it is against someone just like Alicia, who seems cute and sweet and quirky and smart... and inside is just rotten. This type of person usually picks a partner who is insecure or who craves an authority figure to validate them in some way. And this type shows the world (and their wife) a persona who is NOT their entire, real self. The real self has no friends, and whenever it comes out, it drives more friends away. Yet the girlfriend or wife feels really proud of herself because, "He may have hurt other gals, but he's good to me. He must have changed for me, yay!!" Jessica said Alicia treats her LIKE A PRINCESS now. If Alicia manages to ACT that way meanwhile her real, miserable personality is hidden and submerged... it's really a testament to her intelligence, which is indisputable. Although it's easier to hide things when your girlfriend/wife doesn't want to know the truth, and they usually don't! They usually just want to be taken care of.
Jessica should have appreciated the way I stuck up for her to Alicia, who was trashing her behind her back and for no reason! I basically sacrificed my friendship with Alicia for her! I asked myself, what kind of person is this, who trashes her own wife? That's not funny, that's mean and pathetic. And now these two are happy as can be, and somehow Jessica thinks that I owe Alicia an apology!? For what... confronting Alicia about her own statements, privately???! I didn't even share the insulting and humiliating info with Jess until NOW, months later! And actually, Michelle shared it, not me! Yet, I'm dumped. Nice, right?
I curse Alicia DiPietro, and if I ever get a good chance to teach her a lesson in any way that's legal and reasonable, I will! It is not enough for me to know that her world of happiness is fake! But for now, I'm putting it on a shelf in my mind, to collect a bit of dust.
To reiterate: I have no love for cheaters and liars. Or for the spineless wives that defend them and overlook their "indiscretions." Consider this, when a man is a serial rapist or pedophile or other horrible thing, don't you think his wife knows? Don't you think, if she does not know, that she is choosing to not know? The same is true if the spouse is gay. YOU KNOW IT. If you stick your head in the sand, "for the children's sake," or any other bullshit reason, you are also responsible for the pain that is caused. And you cause your own pain. I get angry about this because people never want to take responsibility. And we are responsible for what we know and what we don't know. And why should someone treat one girlfriend heinously and another girlfriend nicely? Say your husband is nice to you but goes out on Friday nights, picks up sex workers, and beats them? Do you say, "Well it's the whores' fault for being whores?" No! It's your husband's fault for being sadistic and misogynistic, and by staying with him you condone both the cheating and the beating! So if you think you're lucky to have snagged the guy that abandons or hurts other women, or has in the past, your turn is coming and you are really stupid! I want to see you realize that. Because now I'm all angry and worked up. You think it means you're valuable or that you have some power, so you'll stay with him forever and live like a sleep-walker! Because yeah, it could still make a nice photo op and you could put it online?
The only move that cheaters and liars like Alicia DiPietro can make, once confronted, is to "never talk to you again." And they mean it. That's one committment they can really make. It's like a vampire trying to hide their identity to survive in civilization. But they should not have become friends with me in the first place because they should have known that I carry the message. I have to deliver it, that's my purpose, that's what I do.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Men
Yesterday I was watching this French movie called "Fat Girl" with Michelle, and it's all about these two sisters on vacation and the older sister "loses," so to speak, her virginity to an older college student. She's 16 and her younger sister is 14. The 14 year old is the chubby one, whereas the older sister is flirting with the college man and making her sister tag along for all of their "dates." I became very upset, because I could definitely identify with what happened, and it's so typical and so pathetic. The girl wanted to be loved and desired, and didn't want the man to be mad at her, which he was, when she refused to have sex. So she's all, "Are you mad at me?" and trying to do everything but have sex, but in the end, of course, the guy wins. It just disgusted me. Because WHY do men enjoy having sex with someone who is not aroused, to say the least? In my mind, that is the sickest thing about men, period. That they derive pleasure from sex when the other person is not having any pleasure or even feels pain and fear. It seems like rapists generally just pretend that the girl wants it, and maybe that's the case with your average guy on a mission, too. He just tells himself that the girl wants it as much as he does, or that she's just pretending to have reservations.
So, considering the report I read in college Sociology class, where frighteningly high percentages of men said they would rape if they knew they wouldn't get caught, and the statistics stating that 1/4 women have been, and considering the people I know personally who have been molested or assaulted, I have to conclude that men are, overall, morally and spiritually inferior to women. Ironically, the major religions have done everything they can to exclude women. In fact, supposedly the Buddha himself did not want to have female monks join his group and he denied admission to his own mother-in-law three times in a row before someone else convinced him to let the women join. I just read that in a book. Which makes me think that either his followers made that up because they were not true Aharants, or else the Buddha was not fully awake as he claimed to be. Because if he were really free of worldly consciousness, once and for all, he would no longer be constrained by the gender roles of his culture. Personally, I think the world would be WAY better off if only 10% of the men remained and were quarantined for reproductive purposes.
No, I don't really think that. I'm just disgusted by how easy and natural it is for men to enjoy sex regardless of the other person's feelings. Like, even with sex workers. How is that hot for the buyer who knows the worker wouldn't do it for free, and probably hates him and thinks he's gross? It's not right. But my main point has to do with the ubiquitous case of guys manipulating their teenage girlfriends into having sex. Because most people agree that rape is wrong, and sex work is dark, whereas it's supposed to be natural for your first boyfriend to pressure you into having sex. Like, they will do anything to get it, and they never give up. I totally regret my first experiences. I wish to God I would have realized that I had nothing to lose by refusing, and everything to gain. Why did I care if he was mad at me, or dumped me? I could've just been single and let the teenage boys (and grown men) sweat me and want me but not be able to have me. Much better for my self esteems. But I felt really trapped, like I was doomed because all my friends were giving up their old plans to "wait for marriage," and I didn't think anyone would be willing or able to wait for me.
I contacted my first boyfriend in 2002, and he was like, "Oh, I think it's really special that we were each other's firsts." And I said, "Oh do you? Well that's nice, or whatever..." totally shocked. Him being my first is not special to me!! I did not enjoy it, it didn't feel good at all, and I became almost suicidally depressed for years as a result! But he's just a simple, regular dude. Thinks it was cute. Can't even imagine what it was actually like for me. Sex minus arousal and minus lubricant! But we are so used to thinking of everything through the male perspective, who feels the pleasure, who dominates through coercion and force.
(PS. I know that some women also lack compassion in their sexuality (sadists, etc.), but I think they are the exception to the rule, and there is usually a reasonable explanation for it, like having been abused as a child and being a sociopath, which makes them different from men who are generally, naturally, able to enjoy sex with someone who is not enjoying it.)
(PPS. I wish there was some way to reach young girls on this issue. Because I think it's traumatic for girls even if they pretend to be tough or pretend that they like sex. That's a total coping mechanism. Because if you wanted it, then you weren't a victim. I never wanted to be a victim.)
So, considering the report I read in college Sociology class, where frighteningly high percentages of men said they would rape if they knew they wouldn't get caught, and the statistics stating that 1/4 women have been, and considering the people I know personally who have been molested or assaulted, I have to conclude that men are, overall, morally and spiritually inferior to women. Ironically, the major religions have done everything they can to exclude women. In fact, supposedly the Buddha himself did not want to have female monks join his group and he denied admission to his own mother-in-law three times in a row before someone else convinced him to let the women join. I just read that in a book. Which makes me think that either his followers made that up because they were not true Aharants, or else the Buddha was not fully awake as he claimed to be. Because if he were really free of worldly consciousness, once and for all, he would no longer be constrained by the gender roles of his culture. Personally, I think the world would be WAY better off if only 10% of the men remained and were quarantined for reproductive purposes.
No, I don't really think that. I'm just disgusted by how easy and natural it is for men to enjoy sex regardless of the other person's feelings. Like, even with sex workers. How is that hot for the buyer who knows the worker wouldn't do it for free, and probably hates him and thinks he's gross? It's not right. But my main point has to do with the ubiquitous case of guys manipulating their teenage girlfriends into having sex. Because most people agree that rape is wrong, and sex work is dark, whereas it's supposed to be natural for your first boyfriend to pressure you into having sex. Like, they will do anything to get it, and they never give up. I totally regret my first experiences. I wish to God I would have realized that I had nothing to lose by refusing, and everything to gain. Why did I care if he was mad at me, or dumped me? I could've just been single and let the teenage boys (and grown men) sweat me and want me but not be able to have me. Much better for my self esteems. But I felt really trapped, like I was doomed because all my friends were giving up their old plans to "wait for marriage," and I didn't think anyone would be willing or able to wait for me.
I contacted my first boyfriend in 2002, and he was like, "Oh, I think it's really special that we were each other's firsts." And I said, "Oh do you? Well that's nice, or whatever..." totally shocked. Him being my first is not special to me!! I did not enjoy it, it didn't feel good at all, and I became almost suicidally depressed for years as a result! But he's just a simple, regular dude. Thinks it was cute. Can't even imagine what it was actually like for me. Sex minus arousal and minus lubricant! But we are so used to thinking of everything through the male perspective, who feels the pleasure, who dominates through coercion and force.
(PS. I know that some women also lack compassion in their sexuality (sadists, etc.), but I think they are the exception to the rule, and there is usually a reasonable explanation for it, like having been abused as a child and being a sociopath, which makes them different from men who are generally, naturally, able to enjoy sex with someone who is not enjoying it.)
(PPS. I wish there was some way to reach young girls on this issue. Because I think it's traumatic for girls even if they pretend to be tough or pretend that they like sex. That's a total coping mechanism. Because if you wanted it, then you weren't a victim. I never wanted to be a victim.)
Thursday, April 9, 2009
escaping slavery
no work today or tomorrow! i'm sitting in bed, sipping a delicious coffee with cream and weeds, and preparing for a bike ride / photo project. i'm a bit scared to bike through red hook on my own since i may get lost (michelle generally led in my other trips). but on a bike, you can make up for a wrong turn much easier. i love bike riding. it is so freeing. when i'm walking, i'm constantly aware of the effort and pain. my foot has improved but that whole side is messed up. every step, i just want to sit down. like an old person. and i'm aware of my womanly weight and how i look to others while walking. so a bike is way better. i put the weed in my coffee because last night i started to really contemplate the way resin builds up in my old hitter, and to consider that the same thing is happening to my lungs. and how stupid can you be, if you want to sing on recordings, to mess with your throat and lungs? i'm down to like three cigarettes a day, and i can't do anything more with that right now. tonight i am going to mark's house to work on musical things. this summer i'm hoping to focus on music since hunter college isn't offering a course that i can take, with my work schedule. anyways, maybe i should go to coney island today, instead?
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
the perfect social life
ML was recently telling me why she enjoys having her dinner at a bar and watching the bar TV. she said it's the perfect social interaction - other ppl are around - but she doesn't have to talk to anyone. for me, being in a bar is not as relaxing because i feel self conscious and i'm scared someone might talk to me. my most comfortable, social place is just riding the train. i feel like everyone in the car has a bond and is communicating silently, and if something terrible happened we would be totally bonded... so just knowing that, and standing so closely to everyone and observing them discreetly, makes me feel not alone. i also like how people follow the rules on the train- you know, which seats to sit in first, how to give others optimal personal space, how to get on and off the train, rules about eye contact, etc. it's comforting. when there is a crazy person saying a sermon or something, it creates an even stronger bond between us, because we are all listening, we are all aware, we are all going to work.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
But I am the knight in shining armor-
Last night I dreamed there were these two gang/mob leaders who were performing a ritual. One of them was riding a horse-lion, some sort of animal that doesn't exist. He had swords and he reached under and pierced the beast from below, and it kept moving and going up on its rear legs. Then the man lit a fire underneath it, to cook and eat it. While it was burning, I saw the head of another horse-lion sitting on the ground nearby. Then some police came to arrest the men, and I said "nooo nooo!" because the horse-lions would go to waste. I didn't want them to have been killed for nothing.
Kathleen is a lady I dreamed about Monday night. She had long, dark hair and a thin but somewhat flabby/weak body. I saw her from the back. She had one of those bottoms that is pretty flat and where the crack starts really low. I knew I was in love with her and I was watching her dance. I asked her, "Do you prefer to go out or stay inside?" And she said, "I like to stay inside, in front of the mirror, to fantasize." Then there was another gal whom I loved. She was miniature, childlike, and crippled, but very cute. Her name was Maritza. I saw her up in a tree on a flat piece of paper like an ornament and I said, "Mitzy! Mitzy!" Then I called her on the phone and said even though we were long distance, I would find ways to visit.
So last night I dreamed about Maritza again. I wanted to call her from the hospital, where I was taken by my parents after sustaining a serious head injury. Actually I sustained two head injuries. The one I remember was where I was up on this wooden structure in a grocery store type place. My cousin or friend was scrambling ahead and climbing down, but suddenly I realized the structure was crumbling and I was falling. The next thing I know I was with my family and they said I had fallen on my head and I thought of Natasha Richardson and how she thought she was fine at first. I was walking and suddenly I felt confused and dizzy and sick and I just fell down. My parents didn't call an ambulance, they just started dragging me to the hospital. I was out of it, but I know my body was sliding all around and knocked into a pedestrian standing in front of the hospital.
Later on, me, my sister Jo, and my sister Care were laying on our backs on the ground. Jo started propping herself up on me and Care, like her elbows were pressing into us on either side of her. She was pressing me too hard, and I said stop, I have a head injury already, but she pressed harder. Then I hit her, and she hit me back, harder. And I felt very weak, but I kept trying to protest because I might die or something, and I was yelling for my mom to help and finally she pulled Joanna off of us. Then Joanna said she only did that because she was uncomfortable with a question my parents asked her about puberty, like about facial hair or something.
Then we were at a water slide, and it looked like fun at first. I got in the water wearing all these clothes and a nice, new sweatshirt. But the water slide turned out to be made of cement and it was rough going down. At the bottom the water poured into these canals, where the water was really dirty and gross. It was slimy and there were scary chunks at the bottom, so we got out of the water and tried to rinse ourselves in this fountain. It looked like there was thick algae all over me.
There was a bunch of other dreams too... but I can't remember.
... Yesterday evening when I got home from work, I immediately noted signs that all was not right in the apartment or with my wife. I was correct, and in such a way that I felt quite overwhelmed. I did not think I could manage my reaction! However, I just lay down on the couch for a couple hours with a blanket and pillow over my face and listened to a mix CD of some really good songs. Then I got up and ate macaroni and cheese and finally went into the TV room to continue the conversation with Michelle or to just go to sleep because I wasn't mad anymore. But we were both pretty confused and at a loss. To finally admit a reality that has been systematically repressed and denied! This scary thing felt like a fire-breathing dragon with a thousand mini-dragons inside, waiting to be birthed.
Kathleen is a lady I dreamed about Monday night. She had long, dark hair and a thin but somewhat flabby/weak body. I saw her from the back. She had one of those bottoms that is pretty flat and where the crack starts really low. I knew I was in love with her and I was watching her dance. I asked her, "Do you prefer to go out or stay inside?" And she said, "I like to stay inside, in front of the mirror, to fantasize." Then there was another gal whom I loved. She was miniature, childlike, and crippled, but very cute. Her name was Maritza. I saw her up in a tree on a flat piece of paper like an ornament and I said, "Mitzy! Mitzy!" Then I called her on the phone and said even though we were long distance, I would find ways to visit.
So last night I dreamed about Maritza again. I wanted to call her from the hospital, where I was taken by my parents after sustaining a serious head injury. Actually I sustained two head injuries. The one I remember was where I was up on this wooden structure in a grocery store type place. My cousin or friend was scrambling ahead and climbing down, but suddenly I realized the structure was crumbling and I was falling. The next thing I know I was with my family and they said I had fallen on my head and I thought of Natasha Richardson and how she thought she was fine at first. I was walking and suddenly I felt confused and dizzy and sick and I just fell down. My parents didn't call an ambulance, they just started dragging me to the hospital. I was out of it, but I know my body was sliding all around and knocked into a pedestrian standing in front of the hospital.
Later on, me, my sister Jo, and my sister Care were laying on our backs on the ground. Jo started propping herself up on me and Care, like her elbows were pressing into us on either side of her. She was pressing me too hard, and I said stop, I have a head injury already, but she pressed harder. Then I hit her, and she hit me back, harder. And I felt very weak, but I kept trying to protest because I might die or something, and I was yelling for my mom to help and finally she pulled Joanna off of us. Then Joanna said she only did that because she was uncomfortable with a question my parents asked her about puberty, like about facial hair or something.
Then we were at a water slide, and it looked like fun at first. I got in the water wearing all these clothes and a nice, new sweatshirt. But the water slide turned out to be made of cement and it was rough going down. At the bottom the water poured into these canals, where the water was really dirty and gross. It was slimy and there were scary chunks at the bottom, so we got out of the water and tried to rinse ourselves in this fountain. It looked like there was thick algae all over me.
There was a bunch of other dreams too... but I can't remember.
... Yesterday evening when I got home from work, I immediately noted signs that all was not right in the apartment or with my wife. I was correct, and in such a way that I felt quite overwhelmed. I did not think I could manage my reaction! However, I just lay down on the couch for a couple hours with a blanket and pillow over my face and listened to a mix CD of some really good songs. Then I got up and ate macaroni and cheese and finally went into the TV room to continue the conversation with Michelle or to just go to sleep because I wasn't mad anymore. But we were both pretty confused and at a loss. To finally admit a reality that has been systematically repressed and denied! This scary thing felt like a fire-breathing dragon with a thousand mini-dragons inside, waiting to be birthed.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Chivalry
One thing I really don't understand is what can you do if a feeling keeps building and building toward actions that you know are unhealthy or that you will regret? It seems like the only way to make that feeling go away is to give in and act on it, and then you feel relief, regret, remorse, but primarily relief. For a time, anyway, and then the cycle starts all over again. I really don't know what people are supposed to do about things like this. Must discuss with therapist.
I titled this blog "Chivalry" because of an altercation that occurred between myself and a man who were vying for a cab on the LES on Saturday night. Michelle and I were trying to decide whether to get one or not, then we saw one pull up and let some people out, so I said let's go. As the people were getting out, this guy came up to me, a regular button-up shirt and jeans, straight-type guy, and goes, "I was actually waiting for that cab." I said, "Yeah? So were we." And he said, "That's like really ignorant of you though, because I was waiting first." And I said, "Whatever dude!" And we hopped in the cab. Then, quite suprisingly, the guy smashed his fist against our window! What an asshole.
It's actually kind of nice to be at work this morning. It's very safe here.
I titled this blog "Chivalry" because of an altercation that occurred between myself and a man who were vying for a cab on the LES on Saturday night. Michelle and I were trying to decide whether to get one or not, then we saw one pull up and let some people out, so I said let's go. As the people were getting out, this guy came up to me, a regular button-up shirt and jeans, straight-type guy, and goes, "I was actually waiting for that cab." I said, "Yeah? So were we." And he said, "That's like really ignorant of you though, because I was waiting first." And I said, "Whatever dude!" And we hopped in the cab. Then, quite suprisingly, the guy smashed his fist against our window! What an asshole.
It's actually kind of nice to be at work this morning. It's very safe here.
Friday, March 27, 2009
I love Pathmark in the morning
I have taken a sort of "weed pill" and am waiting to feel some effect, but so far, nothing. You probably have to take more than one, which I don't have. Oh well.
This morning on the way to the clinic, Michelle and I were asked for like the tenth time if we're twins. The man asked, "You two sister?" and we said no and he said, "You look like twin!" We were holding hands. What kind of sisters hold hands? Besides that, I couldn't think about much besides my physical pains all morning. My foot is killing me (thank god, acupuncture tomorrow) and lower back too. It's hard to walk. It's almost impossible to walk and talk.
Me and Val actually talked about my fam last night. Val asked me, "Do you want to let go of the past?" and I wasn't sure how to answer. I said, "I have no idea what that would even look like." I said, "Yes I would, because I would probably feel more like real person with a real past." Then I said, "But no, I would not, because maybe they don't deserve it?" Then Val said, "It's not about them though." I said, "Okay, but I'm confused," because I know how to do this- you're supposed to realize: oh, they were incapable of meeting my needs, but now I forgive them and let it go. But nothing feels different. I know that now my folks are just sweet, harmless parents. But "letting go" is like nirvana- no can really explain how to do it. Then Val said, "It's not something you can do with your rationale mind." So I'm just going to forget about it for now. At the end of our session, Val gave me a kiss on the cheek! We hug every week, but this was new. Hmm... I kind of liked it. It's hard to imagine her creating false memories by hypnotising people, because she never suggested hypnotising me or going into the unreachable recesses of my memory to dig something out. If she was interested in getting me to think my dad molested me or something, yesterday was a perfect opportunity to suggest hypnotism. I was practically asking for it. But no, she asked if I want to let go of it... the rage or disappointment or whatever.
I signed up for twitter. It's not that fun. My work will probably block it soon anyway.
This morning on the way to the clinic, Michelle and I were asked for like the tenth time if we're twins. The man asked, "You two sister?" and we said no and he said, "You look like twin!" We were holding hands. What kind of sisters hold hands? Besides that, I couldn't think about much besides my physical pains all morning. My foot is killing me (thank god, acupuncture tomorrow) and lower back too. It's hard to walk. It's almost impossible to walk and talk.
Me and Val actually talked about my fam last night. Val asked me, "Do you want to let go of the past?" and I wasn't sure how to answer. I said, "I have no idea what that would even look like." I said, "Yes I would, because I would probably feel more like real person with a real past." Then I said, "But no, I would not, because maybe they don't deserve it?" Then Val said, "It's not about them though." I said, "Okay, but I'm confused," because I know how to do this- you're supposed to realize: oh, they were incapable of meeting my needs, but now I forgive them and let it go. But nothing feels different. I know that now my folks are just sweet, harmless parents. But "letting go" is like nirvana- no can really explain how to do it. Then Val said, "It's not something you can do with your rationale mind." So I'm just going to forget about it for now. At the end of our session, Val gave me a kiss on the cheek! We hug every week, but this was new. Hmm... I kind of liked it. It's hard to imagine her creating false memories by hypnotising people, because she never suggested hypnotising me or going into the unreachable recesses of my memory to dig something out. If she was interested in getting me to think my dad molested me or something, yesterday was a perfect opportunity to suggest hypnotism. I was practically asking for it. But no, she asked if I want to let go of it... the rage or disappointment or whatever.
I signed up for twitter. It's not that fun. My work will probably block it soon anyway.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Thursdays 4 Therapy
Gosh, I almost forgot how much I love writing in my blog... I swear to never forget again. Last night I had the following dreams:
I entered the church sanctuary on Christmas Eve and saw my family sitting together. For unknown reasons, I was sickened by the sight of my father. I planned to sit next to one of my sisters, with at least two sisters in between me and either parent. Then, my traitorous mother got up and switched seats, so that I would be forced to sit either next to a parent or with only one sister between us. I opted to sit in another row. I thought how I didn't even want my Christmas presents because I didn't want to be around my parents. Later on, my father tried to hug me. I said, "No, I'm not wanting hugs," or something to that effect and he looked very hurt. I thought my anger had something to do with sexuality, and so I told my parents that I would remain angry until they were happy about me being gay. It seemed that Lora supported me, and I felt better after I said it, but had a sense that there was more to the situation. There was some travelling bits that I don't remember, including watching a man jump into the subway tracks to catch a D train on the other platform. We all said, "Ohh!" Then, there was something with my ex gf Erin. Then, a bit where I gave Tatiana away to a friend or cousin because I thought she might be happier there, having a ferret friend and another kitten to play with. But after one night, I realized I couldn't live without her, and made arrangements to get her back. And I went to get her and had difficulty getting her into her cage. Then, I realized that all these people had given me presents: a new guitar, amp, this thing you attach that converts all jams into sheet music, and a recording system... and I started having the idea for this awesome song and was intent on getting home to play.
Then I woke up and realized I gave up on guitar and have no such equipment. And I haven't even worked on any music in a few weeks, and what the fucking fuck! I wonder if I got a guitar if I could just pick up where I left off. That's it, I'm buying one. A cheap one or something, I don't know.
Last night, other than watching The Wire and CSI, Michelle and I had an interesting theraputic breakthrough, led by me. One very standout thing about Michelle is her voice, which is quite high pitched and childlike, naturally. But then, at least 50% of the time, she also talks in baby-speak, like with kiddie words and such. So, last night I named that character. For whatever reason, I named her Rachel. Now, when Rachel is around, I simply call her Rachel.
NOW I AM GOING TO WRITE THIS ANNOYING PAPER. It's on young adult literature. Then I'm going to look for guitars on ebay, which is, probably, the stupidest place to buy one. But I am too shy to walk into a store.
I entered the church sanctuary on Christmas Eve and saw my family sitting together. For unknown reasons, I was sickened by the sight of my father. I planned to sit next to one of my sisters, with at least two sisters in between me and either parent. Then, my traitorous mother got up and switched seats, so that I would be forced to sit either next to a parent or with only one sister between us. I opted to sit in another row. I thought how I didn't even want my Christmas presents because I didn't want to be around my parents. Later on, my father tried to hug me. I said, "No, I'm not wanting hugs," or something to that effect and he looked very hurt. I thought my anger had something to do with sexuality, and so I told my parents that I would remain angry until they were happy about me being gay. It seemed that Lora supported me, and I felt better after I said it, but had a sense that there was more to the situation. There was some travelling bits that I don't remember, including watching a man jump into the subway tracks to catch a D train on the other platform. We all said, "Ohh!" Then, there was something with my ex gf Erin. Then, a bit where I gave Tatiana away to a friend or cousin because I thought she might be happier there, having a ferret friend and another kitten to play with. But after one night, I realized I couldn't live without her, and made arrangements to get her back. And I went to get her and had difficulty getting her into her cage. Then, I realized that all these people had given me presents: a new guitar, amp, this thing you attach that converts all jams into sheet music, and a recording system... and I started having the idea for this awesome song and was intent on getting home to play.
Then I woke up and realized I gave up on guitar and have no such equipment. And I haven't even worked on any music in a few weeks, and what the fucking fuck! I wonder if I got a guitar if I could just pick up where I left off. That's it, I'm buying one. A cheap one or something, I don't know.
Last night, other than watching The Wire and CSI, Michelle and I had an interesting theraputic breakthrough, led by me. One very standout thing about Michelle is her voice, which is quite high pitched and childlike, naturally. But then, at least 50% of the time, she also talks in baby-speak, like with kiddie words and such. So, last night I named that character. For whatever reason, I named her Rachel. Now, when Rachel is around, I simply call her Rachel.
NOW I AM GOING TO WRITE THIS ANNOYING PAPER. It's on young adult literature. Then I'm going to look for guitars on ebay, which is, probably, the stupidest place to buy one. But I am too shy to walk into a store.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
...if you're goin' way too hard...
well, it looks as though i will make it through the workday. i took a walk up 34th street to Citibank and listened to Dance Song six times in a row, fast forwarding the parts where my ipod makes it skip. i felt confident and attractive on my walk, for a change. maybe it's the fact that i'm wearing my favorite sweater today.
when i got back from my walk, yolanda told me to take another hour and so i went to do some filing in my cube. then i made the mistake of answering an unknown number on my cell, and it was the girl from my GYN's office, asking me if i'd received dr. mcdaniel's message about having my HIV test re-done, since the results were inconclusive. i said i had received the message but preferred not to re-do the test since i'm pretty sure what the results would be. the girl seemed unimpressed by my response and started talking me into it. so now i have to go there tomorrow and give more blood when they already took like 4 little bottles of it! all my other results were normal, i do not even have the Heps, any of them, and i was pretty sure i might. in a weird way, i feel disappointed that i'm so healthy. i feel like that means i haven't been anywhere or done much at all. i want some scars, you know? obviously i don't want anything fatal. i guess i'll have to be satisfied with oral herpes.
i just finished "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging." I truly had some LOLs at that book. it reminds me of Bridget Jones but it's better because the speaker is 14 years old. i am still avoiding my paper. ironically, the amount of blogging i did today is probably longer than the paper even has to be.
shall i leave off, then? let me just say this, that i hate going to the GYN more than anything, and that is one reason i refuse to reproduce. i just can't have people papping me and whatnot. plus during my last appointment dr. mcdaniels told me i smelled fishy and had DC and a longstanding infection, which was humiliating, especially after i told her that i thought everything was fine. and the doctor before dr. mcdaniels did an anal probe on me and then made me go home and do an enema and then come back for another probe. terrible. i don't even know if that was legit or if i was seriously assaulted! she was Asian, so i thought maybe they do things that way. anywho, that's what i get for being responsible and answering my phone.
when i got back from my walk, yolanda told me to take another hour and so i went to do some filing in my cube. then i made the mistake of answering an unknown number on my cell, and it was the girl from my GYN's office, asking me if i'd received dr. mcdaniel's message about having my HIV test re-done, since the results were inconclusive. i said i had received the message but preferred not to re-do the test since i'm pretty sure what the results would be. the girl seemed unimpressed by my response and started talking me into it. so now i have to go there tomorrow and give more blood when they already took like 4 little bottles of it! all my other results were normal, i do not even have the Heps, any of them, and i was pretty sure i might. in a weird way, i feel disappointed that i'm so healthy. i feel like that means i haven't been anywhere or done much at all. i want some scars, you know? obviously i don't want anything fatal. i guess i'll have to be satisfied with oral herpes.
i just finished "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging." I truly had some LOLs at that book. it reminds me of Bridget Jones but it's better because the speaker is 14 years old. i am still avoiding my paper. ironically, the amount of blogging i did today is probably longer than the paper even has to be.
shall i leave off, then? let me just say this, that i hate going to the GYN more than anything, and that is one reason i refuse to reproduce. i just can't have people papping me and whatnot. plus during my last appointment dr. mcdaniels told me i smelled fishy and had DC and a longstanding infection, which was humiliating, especially after i told her that i thought everything was fine. and the doctor before dr. mcdaniels did an anal probe on me and then made me go home and do an enema and then come back for another probe. terrible. i don't even know if that was legit or if i was seriously assaulted! she was Asian, so i thought maybe they do things that way. anywho, that's what i get for being responsible and answering my phone.
must stay sane
Damn, I'm just really bored and antsy today. Right now I'm having my regular lunch, peanut butter and jelly, yogurt, and banana (I also had an orange and an apple and carrots). I eat constantly at work, just for entertainment. I wonder if people think it's unprofessional, always having a mouth full of food or gum. I have almost thirty packs of sugarless gum in my drawer, quite a collection.
I have been pondering the phrase "floridly psychotic" for the last 45 minutes or so. I looked up several definitions and I truly appreciate the flower analogy. Psychosis in full bloom. I also found a site claiming that the whole DSM is a big conspiracy of liars, and they had a video to prove it but I didn't watch because I don't care. Their point is basically irrelevant. Yesterday I was walking home from work on 33rd street near 8th avenue and I observed a common site- a homeless man (appearing to be, anyways) having an animated conversation with himself. This is the flower in bloom. I thought, it's so strange, he's in a totally different reality. And we say his reality is not real, because we agree that our reality is really real and .... aaaah. I feel like running out of the office screaming! And why shouldn't I? What's stopping me? I feel like giving up the charade! I feel like breaking rules and doing drugs! I feel like going dancing! I feel like wrestling and running around in the nudicles!
Why can't that be my reality? And by the way, do you think I am the "hoarder with OCD" featured in my dream? My aunt is Schizophrenic and she is a hoarder. My mom had to help her clean out her apartment when she was evicted a couple months ago, and apparently it was a nightmare. The truth is, I am totally sane. It's actually a disappointment. Michelle, on the other hand, had BPD, has OCD, possibly Bipolar (according to her therapist, she is supposed to get tested for this) and all the other exciting disorders that just elude me. I am bored. I am so fucking bored and refuse to work on my paper. I really don't understand Bipolar at all. It's like the hardest one to understand the criteria. All I get is that you have to have manic episodes. I asked Michelle, "Do you think I'm manic when I am all set to write a novel and such?" And she said, "No, but you would think that." So I asked, "Well, what is it? And why does Ger think you have it? You don't have mania." But then I said, "Is a drug binge mania?" And she said she doesn't know, so I give up. And if Bipolars can be floridly psychotic, what's the difference from Schizophrenia? It seems like they all start to run together. But it's not a conspiracy, that's just stupid.
I didn't watch the president last night. He was talking about the economy. I'm sick of hearing about the fucking economy. Everything's a mess, the bad guy always wins and steals everything and what's the point of talking about it. Instead I watched a 20/20 special about this Latina girl who, with the help of her gangster boyfriend, beat her beautiful daughter to death. They showed pictures. It was so sick. I have a hard time wrapping my head around violence because it is just foreign to me. I don't get how anybody can do that. The girl was just some ignorant stupid girl who probably also had a shitty mom with a monster boyfriend. See, it's depressing. It never ends. It's pointless to punish people because they don't change and they don't even admit they are wrong. It's always someone else's fault in their mind. We didn't stay up to see if the girl was convicted, because it doesn't matter. The cutie is dead, age two.
I guess I'll go back to my book now. I'm reading, "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging." It's really funny. I don't like the title because the words are gross, but I like the book. It's a nice escape. It doesn't quell my desire for chaos, however... and unfortunately I am always depressed in the evenings. I find TV so very depressing, but I'm too lazy to do anything else. Plus this winter is lasting forever. So sick of winter!!!!!!!
I have been pondering the phrase "floridly psychotic" for the last 45 minutes or so. I looked up several definitions and I truly appreciate the flower analogy. Psychosis in full bloom. I also found a site claiming that the whole DSM is a big conspiracy of liars, and they had a video to prove it but I didn't watch because I don't care. Their point is basically irrelevant. Yesterday I was walking home from work on 33rd street near 8th avenue and I observed a common site- a homeless man (appearing to be, anyways) having an animated conversation with himself. This is the flower in bloom. I thought, it's so strange, he's in a totally different reality. And we say his reality is not real, because we agree that our reality is really real and .... aaaah. I feel like running out of the office screaming! And why shouldn't I? What's stopping me? I feel like giving up the charade! I feel like breaking rules and doing drugs! I feel like going dancing! I feel like wrestling and running around in the nudicles!
Why can't that be my reality? And by the way, do you think I am the "hoarder with OCD" featured in my dream? My aunt is Schizophrenic and she is a hoarder. My mom had to help her clean out her apartment when she was evicted a couple months ago, and apparently it was a nightmare. The truth is, I am totally sane. It's actually a disappointment. Michelle, on the other hand, had BPD, has OCD, possibly Bipolar (according to her therapist, she is supposed to get tested for this) and all the other exciting disorders that just elude me. I am bored. I am so fucking bored and refuse to work on my paper. I really don't understand Bipolar at all. It's like the hardest one to understand the criteria. All I get is that you have to have manic episodes. I asked Michelle, "Do you think I'm manic when I am all set to write a novel and such?" And she said, "No, but you would think that." So I asked, "Well, what is it? And why does Ger think you have it? You don't have mania." But then I said, "Is a drug binge mania?" And she said she doesn't know, so I give up. And if Bipolars can be floridly psychotic, what's the difference from Schizophrenia? It seems like they all start to run together. But it's not a conspiracy, that's just stupid.
I didn't watch the president last night. He was talking about the economy. I'm sick of hearing about the fucking economy. Everything's a mess, the bad guy always wins and steals everything and what's the point of talking about it. Instead I watched a 20/20 special about this Latina girl who, with the help of her gangster boyfriend, beat her beautiful daughter to death. They showed pictures. It was so sick. I have a hard time wrapping my head around violence because it is just foreign to me. I don't get how anybody can do that. The girl was just some ignorant stupid girl who probably also had a shitty mom with a monster boyfriend. See, it's depressing. It never ends. It's pointless to punish people because they don't change and they don't even admit they are wrong. It's always someone else's fault in their mind. We didn't stay up to see if the girl was convicted, because it doesn't matter. The cutie is dead, age two.
I guess I'll go back to my book now. I'm reading, "Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging." It's really funny. I don't like the title because the words are gross, but I like the book. It's a nice escape. It doesn't quell my desire for chaos, however... and unfortunately I am always depressed in the evenings. I find TV so very depressing, but I'm too lazy to do anything else. Plus this winter is lasting forever. So sick of winter!!!!!!!
When You Hate Your Clients
One of the funniest stories Michelle ever told me was from her old job at Pathways, where she had to make home visits to these clients (in the Bronx, mostly). One female client she visited was floridly psychotic, and she answered the door topless, in a diaper, with crack pipes scattered all over the floor, and she called Michelle a fucking bitch and every other insult and then tried to swing a punch at her. It's mostly funny because I can picture Michelle remaining absolutely calm and not blinking an eye at this lady, just saying something professional and respectful, whereas I don't know what the fuck I would do. At her new job she doesn't do home visits because the clients live there. Lately though, she has been complaining about this lady named Cathy, who basically abuses her verbally and I don't know why Michelle has trouble telling the lady to bugger off or whatever it is you tell crazy people to get them out of your office. Michelle said she thinks Cathy might try to hit her, so I advised having a plan. Michelle said her plan is to run because Cathy has the bug (all the clients are HIV pos). Anyways, Mich has to write up notes on her clients and yesterday she sent me the following notes, which made me laugh. Hopefully I've given enough background information so that you can at least picture the incident:
Subject: unbelievable
This morning writer attempted to telephone Cathy to remind her of this Friday's Step One Case Conference. Because she did not answer, writer left her a Voicemail message that left the date and time and the importance of her attending. Writer then typed her a letter that reminded her of the same and went to drop it off at her apartment. When she opened the door and was told that writer was there to remind her of the meeting, she instantaneously became agitated and shouted, "I told you I'm not going!" She went on to say that she didn't understand why writer was asking her again to attend. Writer explained that it was policy. Cathy then mentioned that she planned to pay rent tomorrow, as if to suggest there were no longer grounds for a Conference. She then slammed the door on writer.
About one hour later, while this writer was in a Staff Meeting with the rest of the Clover Hall team, Cathy disrupted the meeting when she opened the door and entered. She immediately began shouting at this writer, stating her belief that writer should not leave her any sort of messages on her phone and that she believed receiving a message was "harassment." Because Cathy refused to exit the room independently, Mr. Saint Victor had to physically walk to the door area and escort her out. During this disturbance, writer remained silent except for making one statement, which was that writer did not believe a message reminding her about a meeting was harassment.
Michelle Karam, LMSW
Case Manager
Subject: unbelievable
This morning writer attempted to telephone Cathy to remind her of this Friday's Step One Case Conference. Because she did not answer, writer left her a Voicemail message that left the date and time and the importance of her attending. Writer then typed her a letter that reminded her of the same and went to drop it off at her apartment. When she opened the door and was told that writer was there to remind her of the meeting, she instantaneously became agitated and shouted, "I told you I'm not going!" She went on to say that she didn't understand why writer was asking her again to attend. Writer explained that it was policy. Cathy then mentioned that she planned to pay rent tomorrow, as if to suggest there were no longer grounds for a Conference. She then slammed the door on writer.
About one hour later, while this writer was in a Staff Meeting with the rest of the Clover Hall team, Cathy disrupted the meeting when she opened the door and entered. She immediately began shouting at this writer, stating her belief that writer should not leave her any sort of messages on her phone and that she believed receiving a message was "harassment." Because Cathy refused to exit the room independently, Mr. Saint Victor had to physically walk to the door area and escort her out. During this disturbance, writer remained silent except for making one statement, which was that writer did not believe a message reminding her about a meeting was harassment.
Michelle Karam, LMSW
Case Manager
Kill Iraqi Killers... ?
Are these dreams just a bunch of jumbled nonsense or do they mean something? I was in this large, upstairs room. It was packed full of stuff, all kinds of household stuff, used, and somewhat organized. For instance, there were giant piles of dishes and silverware, including plastic utinsils, which were all separated, and clothes, and magazines, miscellaneous junk, all according to its type. It was as if a hoarder with OCD lived there. Well we needed to clear this space, and people from my old church were there helping, putting it into black plastic bags to be thrown away. I was somewhat in charge. I became upset because I thought a lot of it could be donated, including all these childrens clothes, such as boys sweaters. But I could tell it wasn't going to get donated because no one knew where to bring it. And it looked good getting the space cleared. The scratched and worn, wooden floor began to show. It was going to be the new work space. Then I called a cab and took at least one bag full of stuff downstairs to at least leave somewhere for people to pick through. Then me and Lora, my sister, were on bikes with the stuff, trying to find the intersection where the cab would be. But it was dark and there were threatening youths on the street, but they didn't bother us. We couldn't find the intersection at all. In another part of the dream, I was in my old church, in the doorway to the sanctuary. Across the hallway there were all these Iraqis in a room. I noticed they had written on the sanctuary doorway, "Kill Iraqi Killers," by which they meant to kill people who killed Iraqis, not Iraqis who killed others. It was written in red paint or blood. Then they came to the entrance, and I held the door open for them to enter the sanctuary, although I hoped no violence would ensue. It ended up being a peaceful protest.
Sorry... kinda boring. I wish they didn't block facebook at my work, although that was getting boring too. This leaves me no option but to work on my paper or to enter invoices and such. What about my "social" life? It suffers. It suffers especially since it seems that my one real friend is taking a break from me, once again. She sent me an amusingly borderline text on Monday saying that she can tell I don't love her, more or less, and didn't have a good time hanging out with her on Sunday, and she won't have me come over anymore. This is not the first time. I hope it doesn't last long, or escalate, because I need at least one real person in the world to hang out with. Michelle gets upset when this happens, but I take it in stride for the most part. So people are crazy, so what. What else? Nothing. Boring boring boring. I'm sorry. Although, why should I be sorry? No one writes in their blog for me! I have no role models. I am not entertained. Why should I do all the work?
Sorry... kinda boring. I wish they didn't block facebook at my work, although that was getting boring too. This leaves me no option but to work on my paper or to enter invoices and such. What about my "social" life? It suffers. It suffers especially since it seems that my one real friend is taking a break from me, once again. She sent me an amusingly borderline text on Monday saying that she can tell I don't love her, more or less, and didn't have a good time hanging out with her on Sunday, and she won't have me come over anymore. This is not the first time. I hope it doesn't last long, or escalate, because I need at least one real person in the world to hang out with. Michelle gets upset when this happens, but I take it in stride for the most part. So people are crazy, so what. What else? Nothing. Boring boring boring. I'm sorry. Although, why should I be sorry? No one writes in their blog for me! I have no role models. I am not entertained. Why should I do all the work?
Monday, March 23, 2009
huh?
...because i can't remember hardly anything. i can't remember my mom. or my dad or my sisters, especially my older sister. i have some pictures in my head attached to photos and flashes of recognition surrounding anecdotes that have been told over the years. like, a couple fights. a couple things i'm not sure if i remember or if someone else mentions so it feels like i remember. but i am really bothered by not remembering. i remember friends, but almost nothing from home or school. trying to be a teacher when i can't remember my teachers. maybe this goes according to what i paid attention to. clearly, not school, even though i did good. i want to be able to go into my memory like a movie and replay it. where is my sister, lora? she's not on the tape. there's no tape! why. I guess it probably doesn't matter. no need to be dramatic here.
but i tell myself, i'm ready to watch it, so let's have it, it can't be that bad. then i wonder, maybe i just don't watch it bc it's boring and there are more interesting things happening here and now? or maybe all the stuff on the tape is sweet and happy and i'm resisting bc it will make me sad that it's over? but either way, i should be able to watch if i want to. and that fact that i can't is upsetting. i try to start with happy little scraps of the neighborhood or my room or the house or smells that bring back the exciting feeling of summer or winter... stuff like that. i can totally go there. but that's it. is that weird? or is it normal? my mom said she is the same way. but her family was really crazy. like, schizophrenia and people starting religious cults and trying to perform miracles, people locking children in closets or beating them, or trying to cast demons out of them. what was my family? just a bit tense?
in this dream i had the other night, there was a wedding, and i was going to be in it. but then i freaked out and started screaming at everyone that it was bullshit, that the bride and groom didn't love each other and they would divorce soon, and the whole thing made me sick, and i was swearing at everyone and i stomped off. everyone was mad at me, including my mom. then one of my sisters came to me with michelle and michelle said, "i don't know if it's going to work out between us," and i couldn't believe it. i just stared at her, trying to accept the fact that she didn't have my back. then i said, "alrighty then, you can both fuck off." and i was thinking, "yeah i know i have some mental problems, i really do, but i can't stand for this shit and i won't." then my sister lora came and i was laying face down on the ground and she laid down on top of me. i don't know why this meant she had my back, maybe it's a literal pun? michelle is the person i trust the most, so this dream is really weird to me.
it's funny, i have "googled" my therapist and found out she was involved in all this *false memory* controversy back in the day. it would seem i'm in a vulnerable position because i really want some memories and i want them to put my weird feelings in perspective... but honestly we don't even talk about the past at all. we just talk about girls and drugs (and my so-called career plans). we've been talking about that stuff for like eight years now. somehow, it never gets old.
but i tell myself, i'm ready to watch it, so let's have it, it can't be that bad. then i wonder, maybe i just don't watch it bc it's boring and there are more interesting things happening here and now? or maybe all the stuff on the tape is sweet and happy and i'm resisting bc it will make me sad that it's over? but either way, i should be able to watch if i want to. and that fact that i can't is upsetting. i try to start with happy little scraps of the neighborhood or my room or the house or smells that bring back the exciting feeling of summer or winter... stuff like that. i can totally go there. but that's it. is that weird? or is it normal? my mom said she is the same way. but her family was really crazy. like, schizophrenia and people starting religious cults and trying to perform miracles, people locking children in closets or beating them, or trying to cast demons out of them. what was my family? just a bit tense?
in this dream i had the other night, there was a wedding, and i was going to be in it. but then i freaked out and started screaming at everyone that it was bullshit, that the bride and groom didn't love each other and they would divorce soon, and the whole thing made me sick, and i was swearing at everyone and i stomped off. everyone was mad at me, including my mom. then one of my sisters came to me with michelle and michelle said, "i don't know if it's going to work out between us," and i couldn't believe it. i just stared at her, trying to accept the fact that she didn't have my back. then i said, "alrighty then, you can both fuck off." and i was thinking, "yeah i know i have some mental problems, i really do, but i can't stand for this shit and i won't." then my sister lora came and i was laying face down on the ground and she laid down on top of me. i don't know why this meant she had my back, maybe it's a literal pun? michelle is the person i trust the most, so this dream is really weird to me.
it's funny, i have "googled" my therapist and found out she was involved in all this *false memory* controversy back in the day. it would seem i'm in a vulnerable position because i really want some memories and i want them to put my weird feelings in perspective... but honestly we don't even talk about the past at all. we just talk about girls and drugs (and my so-called career plans). we've been talking about that stuff for like eight years now. somehow, it never gets old.
a mi me odia las lunes
This weekend Michelle and I went over to see Mark's new place on 5th avenue. It is totally awesome and we are jealous. It's basically just a huge loftspace above the Asian bodega between 8th and 9th street. The front of the apartment looks out over 5th ave. and the entire wall is windows. It's so sweet. I was kind of disappointed to find out that Jen is pregnant though because what would have been the music room (Mark built walls and stuff) is now going to be the baby room. The music room is now going to be this tiny space in the back, doubling as a closet, with a drip coming from the ceiling. There is no stove in the apt. because it's not a legal residential rental. I'm not saying I don't love babies... I just don't understand how people can be willing to give up their own life for the baby. It seems to me like your independent life is pretty much over at that point.
I am still hating my bod, insofar as the weight I gained isn't going away, it's just sitting on my booty... but Michelle seems to like it, so I really shouldn't complain. If she likes it, then I'm happy. But I don't want to be at work right now. I don't want to study. I just spent a while reading about Bipolar disorder. Last night I had this weird convo with my mom where I was saying that I am into setting limits with responsiblities, such as saying that NOTHING is worth working on more than 50 hours a week, tops. Like, she is nuts, because she works long hours during the weekdays, and then spends 8 hours + doing paperwork on both Saturday and Sunday. And she has all the reasons as to why that is reasonable. And my point is just that nothing is worth that. There has to be a way to do things differently so that you can have the weekend off... I just don't get it. She seems very stubborn in her ways here, but then she has all these terrible migraines and other health problems, and she has to take all these meds. And then it's like, duh, anyone would have a headache if they did paperwork all weekend, literally. wtf. Anyways, that's why I say that even when (and if) I become I teacher, I fucking refuse to run myself into the ground. There are reasonable amounts of energy and time to expect for anyone in any given occupation, and I just REFUSE. I am totally willing to be a half-assed teacher if that's what it takes to have my evenings and weekends free. Besides the fact that I don't agree that teachers should bend over backwards for kids who don't give a fuck anyways. I still want to be their teacher, but I will be clear on the fact that it's their responsibility if they want to do something with their life, or if they want to try to be a thug and end up dead or in jail. This will not be a HBO movie, this right here. I don't think great lesson plans, etc., have a whole lot to do with anything. Certain individuals are stronger than the herd, and they will fight, but the majority of people are weak and pathetic. My personal worldview on this Monday morning.
Oh, btw, *someone* is 29 days free of crack and cocaine. Doing better than ever. As for me, I had my period this weekend so I had to treat that a bit. Now I've got natural seratonin moving around in my brain and I need to concentrate. I need to get shit done. I'm posting these photos to show off my new bangs, cut last night. I have class tonight, which sucks. I like to just go home.
PS. New York State just took back over half of the measley refund that they initially gave me. That is total bullshit! Why do I pay so much taxes in this city?
I am still hating my bod, insofar as the weight I gained isn't going away, it's just sitting on my booty... but Michelle seems to like it, so I really shouldn't complain. If she likes it, then I'm happy. But I don't want to be at work right now. I don't want to study. I just spent a while reading about Bipolar disorder. Last night I had this weird convo with my mom where I was saying that I am into setting limits with responsiblities, such as saying that NOTHING is worth working on more than 50 hours a week, tops. Like, she is nuts, because she works long hours during the weekdays, and then spends 8 hours + doing paperwork on both Saturday and Sunday. And she has all the reasons as to why that is reasonable. And my point is just that nothing is worth that. There has to be a way to do things differently so that you can have the weekend off... I just don't get it. She seems very stubborn in her ways here, but then she has all these terrible migraines and other health problems, and she has to take all these meds. And then it's like, duh, anyone would have a headache if they did paperwork all weekend, literally. wtf. Anyways, that's why I say that even when (and if) I become I teacher, I fucking refuse to run myself into the ground. There are reasonable amounts of energy and time to expect for anyone in any given occupation, and I just REFUSE. I am totally willing to be a half-assed teacher if that's what it takes to have my evenings and weekends free. Besides the fact that I don't agree that teachers should bend over backwards for kids who don't give a fuck anyways. I still want to be their teacher, but I will be clear on the fact that it's their responsibility if they want to do something with their life, or if they want to try to be a thug and end up dead or in jail. This will not be a HBO movie, this right here. I don't think great lesson plans, etc., have a whole lot to do with anything. Certain individuals are stronger than the herd, and they will fight, but the majority of people are weak and pathetic. My personal worldview on this Monday morning.
Oh, btw, *someone* is 29 days free of crack and cocaine. Doing better than ever. As for me, I had my period this weekend so I had to treat that a bit. Now I've got natural seratonin moving around in my brain and I need to concentrate. I need to get shit done. I'm posting these photos to show off my new bangs, cut last night. I have class tonight, which sucks. I like to just go home.
PS. New York State just took back over half of the measley refund that they initially gave me. That is total bullshit! Why do I pay so much taxes in this city?
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