Last night, for some unaccountable reason, I began watching Youtube vids of The F Word, one of Gordon Ramsay’s shows. I remember there was a time when I wanted to be a chef. Mother went back to school when I was 7 as an excuse to stop my modelling career, which was taking off and bringing in quite a bit of money. She went into a culinary arts program. She still can’t cook to save her fucking life, but I was able to watch a lot of her classes and was exposed to a professional kitchen. Neither mother nor my grandmother could cook – and both of them hated the task – so I began taking over the cooking when I was about 8. I was by then a pretty good cook, having watched Julia Child and The Galloping Gourmet, etc, religiously.
A little while ago, I started feeling… not the usual restlessness, and not even frustrated or anything, but just… sad. The phrase that occurred to me in my head was “I want your good opinions… but the truth is… that I don’t want them enough to change what I’m doing. I don’t want them enough to deny myself and take the ’safe’ path. I know I won’t keep any of you by taking the dangerous path… but I can’t care.”
The thing is, this isn’t true. And I know it isn’t.
Let’s be logical about this.
What would throwing everything up again and taking the “dangerous” or “exciting” path be for?
To make us happy.
But we know what adulation we get when we take that path, and from what kinds of people.
Yes.
We’ve met people who are on that path.
Yes.
We’ve even FUCKING COUNSELLED THEM, FOR GOD’S SAKE, TO GIVE IT THE FUCK UP!
Yes.
So… what’s it going to do for us now?
I hate this! I want to go travelling! I hate this! I hate being here! It’s like waiting to die! It’s the fucking picket fense mausoleum with golden retrievers and madras plaid shirts.
Do you believe that?
No.
Then why say these things?
AAAAAAAAAAA!
Howling void, why say these things.
Because I’m scared.
Of what?
Of trying to please these goddamned people. You’re not running after virtue, you fucker! You’re running after their good opinions only, and where the fuck has that ever gotten us?
If “these goddamned people” are virtuous, it cannot hurt to take their advice.
First off, how do we know they’re fucking virtuous? We’ve had a great track record of picking them lately.
That was YOU.
NO IT FUCKING WASN’T! That was ALL of us, motherfucker!
Fine. Fine. You said something else.
That it is WRONG to go into this less than wholeheartedly. I think we have to go lower.
Sink lower.
Yes.
Why?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
So your whole point is to destroy us a little more.
YES! You fucking dolt, you idiot!
And you think that by the time that happens we can’t come back. Once we’ve alienated these people too we’re not going to have much cause to go on, are we.
No.
So that’s your fucking point.
*smiles*
You know what, FUCK YOU. That pisses me the fuck off. You’re in here, and your whole point is to fucking ruin this for all of us.
Well, it snapped you out of your reverie.
Go on?
Well this is the first time you’ve felt anything lately. What the fuck have you been doing? Not much. Watching goddamned telly. Opiate of the goddamned masses. And you’re chasing… virtue? You can’t even turn the fucking tube off.
Well, you have a point.
Concentration broken.
Yeah.
By one of those fuckers who’s on that path.
Yes.
By the same fucker you conselled to GET SOME COUNSELLING and work out her shit.
Yes.
By the same fucker you counselled that she does this because she had a very tenuous and uncertain relationship with her mother and she wants to blow things up and hurt other people before they hurt her.
Yes.
And she agreed.
Yes.
And she said that your going to Russia reminded her of something she did, aged 21.
Yes.
WELL YOU SEE THE RESULTS, MOTHERFUCKER! HOW IS YOUR FUCKING SITUATION DIFFERENT?
I don’t think you want to destroy us at all. I think you’re trying to help me, asshole.
Yeah, that’s much worse, isn’t it.
DON’T help me.
Oh? YOU’RE the one who wants to rot, aren’t you.
We’re not good enough!
Go on?
We’ve never finished anything we’ve started.
Go on?
We’ve lied and shammed our entire lives to make people think we’re better than we are.
Go on?
This whole life has been one fucking punishment avoiding thing after another, and our going after this illusion of fucking “virtue” is to please those safe bastards now.
Is it?
Well.
See, now the tables are turned. Project much?
It doesn’t make logical sense.
Go on?
They’ve no power over us. Why should we want to please them?
Two things: either this quest for “virtue” is a complete reFOO and we should get therapy, or it’s not a complete reFOO and this quest is real and we should get therapy.
Don’t use their language.
Quelle autre langue est disponible?
Pffft. Fine, fuck off.
Well?
It’s so fucking difficult.
Well… yeah. But what would be more fucking difficult would be feeling like this for the rest of our lives.
We don’t want to be like that.
No, we don’t.
We secretly loathe what they are.
Why not loathe it openly?
We need them.
For what? You tell me – fine, no movie quotes. But for what?
Well, tomorrow.
Ok, and you couldn’t get that from the free market?
True.
What has she actually brought into your life.
It’s “my” life now – not “ours?”
That’s what I said.
I thought you said before it was all of us.
Heh. Hypocri-sea. Goooo ooonn?
Fine, “our” life. Nothing.
BS, come on then mate!
Fine. They’ve brought in an illusion.
What illusion.
They can be saved.
Do you actually believe they can?
Not for a minute.
But you try to assuage it by counselling them.
Yes.
And they want your counsel for the same reason.
Yes.
And… this is healthy?
No.
But you’re still going to give them that sanction.
Tomorrow I am, yes. And for the rest of tonight. I’ll even apologize to her for snapping at her for talking to me when she SAW by her own admission I was fucking intent on doing something, and not to bother me.
Oh, that’s a great position to be in.
I know it’s not, but what can I do.
Don’t give me that line of shit. You know right well.
But that would throw up my plans.
Um… no. It would make you more honest, is what it would make you.
But I won’t do it right now because it’s difficult.
That’s why you’ve failed, and will keep on failing. You don’t have to make this shit look easy any more. No one is going to punish you because it’s difficult. Not even me! Who are you trying to impress? People you don’t give a shit about anyway, and who don’t give a shit about you. How about trying to impress the people who matter, for once. Stef, Colleen, Jake, the Gregs, Rich, Christina, and the others. Even freaking Nathan for crying out loud.
If I tried to “impress” them, they’d scorn me.
For knowing it is fake.
Yes!
Well, now you’re freaking on to something. Anyone you’ve got to impress – or feel you’ve got to impress – isn’t worth impressing. Anyone you feel you’ve got to lie to isn’t someone you want in your life. Anyone you feel scared or apprehensive about meeting is a douchebag not worth your time. FLEE these fucking people. Have a sense of fucking self-preservation, for christ’s sake. Don’t go about abasing us in front of people we shouldn’t even be giving the goddamned time of day to. It’s embarrassing. YOU’RE – we’re – embarrassing when we do this. And everyone sees it. Everyone in here… and whatever remnant of true self amongst these other assholes, yeah? They don’t want to be abased to. If someone had fucking stood up to them at one time, it would have changed their entire goddamn miserable fucking lives. But it won’t make one bit of difference now. So just fuck off. Run the fuck AWAY whenever you see one. There’s no honor – no glory, no impressiveness – in “Saving” or “standing up to” these assholes. Just run away. Go away, and talk to better people
*sad*
No, I’m serious. The peoople whose good opinions you were thinking about earlier are these assholes. You got it wrong. The people you’re not keen on impressing are the people who demand it of you. The path you’re not willing to take is the one that will ruin your life and your – OUR – only one fucking chance of happiness for these cocksuckers who don’t give a shit about you or themselves or all the world. You LOVE us more than you love a single one of those cocksuckers because they don’t deserve it. WE deserve love, and your true friends deserve love, and you sell us all down the fucking river to get in your kicks and give a good show to the yokels. Yes, I’m fucking berating you, because this was what you wanted, wasn’t it. This was what you needed, wasn’t it! I’m fucking livid at THOSE FUCKING COCKSUCKERS, not at you! It’s THEM I hate with a fucking passion, and it’s THEM I would walk through fire to fucking tread on, so that you get to the people who actually matter. US internally, and the virtuous friends you’ve been fucking neglecting and cutting yourself off from.
*feeling lifted*
You know the fucking people you should ACTUALLY go and fucking apologize to for snapping at them? How about Jessen, yeah? How about Rich and Colleen, who were fucking scared to actually tell you that they felt like shit after you went to see them. How about Jake? How about freaking JC, and Nate, and Stef, and James and Greg who are scared to even talk to you? How about you take the actual sadness that you’re finally fucking feeling and DO something – not to manage it, but to finally fucking acknowledge it, and lay it to rest. Because this is the sadness you’re feeling from fucking THEM up, and fucking US up, and generally… fucking up. And I’m STILL not mad at you and I’m STILL fucking there for you… and I wouldn’t tell you any of this goddamned shit if I didn’t believe you could actually win through, and make your apologies REAL to us and to them, and work on going forward from here. I KNOW you can do this shit.
We.
WE, yes. Together.
Who’s first.
You’re first. THANK YOU for this. Thank you for the tension. Thank you for the sadness. Thank you for the restlessness. Thank you for the contempt, and the moroseness, and the anger, and the lowness, and for the anxiety, and for that sick pit in my stomach whenever I spoke to any of those assholes about the apartment. THANK YOU for the signs which I have ignored – “until now,” I want to say, but I can’t promise 100% in the future.
Of course you can’t. If it was as easy as saying “From now on,” then I WOULD be fucking pissed off at you.
Thank you for acknowledging that. And for pointing out my douchebaggery. And for still thinking enough of me, after 22 years of separation and of my not knowing you and acknowledging what you are, to effect this change. Or to give me – us – the chance to effect it. For still thinking enough of me to say you know I can do this. Even after the promises I’ve made and not kept, and my being afraid but not acknowledging it, and swanning off or pulling away… and all that.
Is in the past… at this moment.
Yes.
Because it’s only this moment. Acknowledging what’s past, and what brought us to this moment… but the only thing we can change is this second on.
Yes.
And no promises of perfection.
No.
As an aside, you’d not be thanking me if I demanded it.
No. But I forgot something.
What.
Thank you for protecting me. For protecting all of us. And if I’d let you come through and acknowledged your messages, I would have known when I – we – were in danger, or when we were endangering others.
You would have.
Well… I’m still feeling tension.
It’s the undone that is that weight on your neck. We can talk all day, but until you DO something – and not in the spirit of anxiety-avoidance, but in the spirit of actually acknowledging your own feelings and working to make things right – you’re going to feel it. And you’re going to feel it more till this is done. This is only the beginning.
I’m keen to start.
No you’re not because you’re making plans that start the day after tomorrow. A mutilated sacrifice.
We won’t talk in terms of sacrifices.
Won’t we? Do your best. It’s all I want.
Yes.
Filed under: FDR, self-work | Tags: FDR, friends, philosophizing, self-work
I’ve spent a great deal of time in my life apologizing for things. Sometimes I was in the wrong. Sometimes not. Usually, however – whether I was in the wrong or not – the apology stemmed, not from genuine remorse, but from anxiety. My mother, for example, (if I did not apologize to her for “provoking her” to do me wrong) would stop speaking with me. Sometimes for weeks. This was extremely anxiety-provoking.
I learned to apologize early and apologize often, whether I felt remorse or not, in order to avoid anxiety.
The reverse of the medal was also true. Many people have apologized to me for various things – whether they were in the wrong or not. Precious few of these apologies contained any genuine remorse. Precious few of these apologies came after the person had sat down and thought about what they’d done, and then taken steps to correct what precipitated the wrong in the first place. Apologies without due consideration first feel hollow. Feel false. To both the apologizer and the person who receives the apology.
Having been on both sides of an apology recently, I’ll give 2 cases in point.
Case one – in which I was the person giving the apology.
In this case, a dear friend (whose good opinion I value above almost all others) confronted me with some of the destructive behavior I had perpetrated. He mentioned that it made him feel extremely nervous to see what was going on in my life, because I seemed to be putting myself in extreme danger without realizing it, and without connecting at all to my emotions.
It hurt me extremely badly to hear this. Because what he said was true. It wounded me so much to know that I’d hurt him – and repaid his extreme generosity, his care for me, and his virtue with punishing him.
I can’t undo the hurt there. But we set down some ground rules – we’re not speaking for an indefinite amount of time, except to say “Hi” sometimes if we both happen to be in the chat room. We talked this out, and that conversation was the only time I’ve spoken with him since the beginning of the month – except for a short exchange which he initiated. This was extremely anxiety-provoking for me until I realized that he’s not doing it to punish me. He’s doing it to help me.
I haven’t apologized to my friend yet. I have taken steps to rectify the problem (come back to America, found a job, and will be finding a stable place to live and a therapist within the next 2 weeks), but the problem is not rectified yet. So I cannot apologize yet, and mean it. Even after I apologize, it will take some time to earn his trust back. By summer I hope to be speaking with him again. I have tears in my eyes writing this, since I’m so terribly sorry for hurting him… but it doesn’t mean anything until I actually fix the problem.
Case two – in which I was (initially) the person receiving the apology.
(I will admit my own hypocrisy out front in speaking about this publicly without consulting her, when one of the biggest problems I have with this person is her speaking about this publicly without consulting me. I don’t think I need repeat the parable about the goose and the gander.)
This began in the chat room the other night, before the call-in show. A number of people were in the chat room laughing and joking. One person in the chat was very obviously feeling insecure, and been constantly “joking” (in that way that is not joking but betrays huge unprocessed anxiety and neediness – I say this having done it often myself) about having people come long-distance to see her over Christmas. Someone made a joke about how doing so would cost about as much as everything he owned.
This person whispered to me (without telling the jokester) that she got very angry about that joke. I replied that she should leave the chat room for a while to think about that and process her anger, because I wasn’t sure that what she actually felt rage about was that joke. She replied saying something like “I just wanted to share my experience.” I replied that I was uncomfortable speaking about it when it was obviously unprocessed.
After the show, this person (having remained in the chat room for 2 more hours constantly laughing and joking and without talking about her anger at all) apologized to me for acting out. The apology felt hollow. I felt very tense and uncomfortable at seeing the apology, and left the chat room.
I woke to find a post on the FDR board from this person implying that “people” (no mention of herself) were being covert about their feelings and not processing their anxiety, and that she had stopped speaking to one person over it. I (not knowing that I was the person quasi-named) responded with an abbreviated version of the above, and asking her to talk about her feelings and what had happened. No reply – except for a snipe 2 posts down about how I had attacked and belittled her. (I ran my post by a couple of people, who saw no attacks whatever in it.) It was only then that I found out for certain she was not speaking to me.
I really want to help this person. However, I was quite angry at her actions – and the disconnect between her words and actions. I spent a good part of yesterday and today thinking about this situation, journalling, and processing it. Now, my feelings about the issue mainly center on sadness. This is what I did to Stef in May, frankly – projecting my problems onto him, and acting out at him, then apologizing only in order to get him to talk to me, then making snarky little recordings in my journal… and it’s sad. I don’t want to see anyone going through that.
It’s been fairly anxiety-provoking to have her not speaking to me – but it’s actually a good thing, in a way. I certainly can’t aid her from where I am now, and it’s a good thing, I think, to take a break. It’s also shown me that my uncomfortable-ness about my taking up this issue with her was quite justified.
It’s a sad situation, but if I had accepted the “apology” given, it would have been an even sadder one, and done more of a disservice to both of us.
Conclusion
Apologies are not anxiety-avoidance mechanisms. At least for me, they served that function in my chilhood. But as I’ve sort of progressed psychologically (to the degree that I have) I’ve realized that apologies can either serve to strengthen one’s relationship with others (in the case of apologies given after doing work to rectify the situation) or to undermine one’s relationships (in the case of the hollow apologies given to avoid anxiety). The former, because then one’s relationships are built on taking responsibility, on full knowledge and acceptance of one’s actions, and on mutual respect and trust. The latter, because then one’s relationships are built on fogging, obfuscation, pain- and anxiety-management, and (to be quite frank about it) lies and denial.
As a child, all of my relationships were the latter sort. That is precisely what I do NOT want in my adult life. I want relationships based on responsibility and trust. Building them is, to be even more frank about it, fucking difficult. Which is why those relationships are so damned valuable.
Filed under: FDR, self-work | Tags: deFOO, FDR, friends, languages, mother, self-work
That is “my hovercraft is full of eels” in Latin. (See YouTube clip below if you have no freaking clue where that comes from. Hilarious sketch!) Literally translated, it means “my ship that rests on the air abounds with eels.” Beautiful, wonderful language, is Latin.
But… languages. I’ve been not-so-dilligently working on my Russian. Finally tonight I found a website that teaches the Cyrillic alphabet as I learn best – by giving it in immediately-useable words that I can then sound out to figure out the letters, and then requiring me to re-type/write the words to make sure I can use both words and letters. Very helpful indeed!
Am not looking forward to learning Russian grammar. Admittedly it’s a lot like Latin grammar… except with a couple of extra tenses… and the fact that verbs have gender. What kind of a damned language has verbs that have a gender? Nouns having a gender = ok. I can understand that. But verbs?!
Oh well. Needs must. At the very least, I’ve got to learn the alphabet and some survival phrases. It’s not 100% certain that I’m going to Moscow yet, but it’s looking more and more likely. The big 3 contenders are Russia, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic. The Cyrillic alphabet will be useful in the first 2 countries anyway.
I actually would most like to go to the Czech Republic… but you never know. The winters are certainly milder in Prague than they are in Lviv or Moscow, and an ex-co-worker’s parents live there… so at least I have an introduction going on to some natives who speak English. I don’t want to spend 100% of my time with expats, even though I just know I’ll completely want to abandon everything and return home for about the first 2 weeks, and I’ll cling like mad to anyone who speaks even a word of English. After I’ve gotten the “ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod WTF have I DONE!!!!!!??????” week out of my system (that happens whenever I move – to Dallas, to NYC, to London, and in wherever I’m going next, no doubt it’ll be worse) I’ll want to make some native friends. And, of course… do things like eat, be able to get around, etc. Hence learning the language.
Mea vida adventuris abundat. (No, that’s not correct Latin.)
What else? Oh… a fellow at a kebab shop (what? I didn’t want to cook tonight) started hitting on me. Asked me for my number, and said he wanted to take me out for a drink. I should have lied and said I had a boyfriend, or – hey! here’s an idea! – just left sans diner and made a sandwich at home. I mean… I’m really not sure how to handle that. I’m totally unused to guys taking any sort of interest in me in that way. (No… really. I’m also horribly insecure about that, which leads me to all sorts of humiliating situations which y’all can no doubt think of an example of right off the bat.)
Thank you, FOO and certain gentlemen that I met in my formative years, for completely fucking me over in that area. Though I’ve thought about it a lot lately – and my thoughts in that area have been doubly renewed after a conversation last night with a friend – it’s hard to know how to proceed. I’m operating on the assumption that I only want what I can’t have (i.e. I want a stable, loving relationship with an upright, moral man – but I tell myself that I am absolutely, 100% in the dark as to how to accomplish that) but is that true? No, not entirely. I myself don’t even realize yet how untrue that is, I think.
I went for a run today. God, that was exhausting, but satisfying. Either running more or rock climbing tomorrow – my climbing soreness has gone away, and thanks to decent stretching I feel no bad effects from the run.
Another friend (I can call him a friend, no? It sounds… weird to my own ears when I term him “a friend”) sent me something to read, which I will start tomorrow. For right now, it’s listening to Jane Eyre in French, and re-reading my favorite parts of it in English. It’s amazing how much of the French I can get without having to re-translate in my head.
However… my sudden desire to re-read JE is a signal. It goes back to a certain period in my life – ca. 8-10 years old, when I felt almost more lonely and miserable than I did while living in mother’s house from 12-18. I’d like to talk to friends about that – not about JE, but what that sign portends. There are certain pieces of literature I go back to in certain moods. At least this one is not dire enough to warrant Hamlet. That’s the nihilism lit – or as close as I ever got to it. Hamlet betokens a really bad headspace. JE is only loneliness and wanting someone to love me. I swear to god, from 8-12 years old I couldn’t conceive of marrying a better man than Mr. Rochester, the Byronic hero of JE. Now I can. But that’s still many years off. I wish I had it all settled. I wish I knew what was going to happen – or not even 100%. I don’t need to know what, when, who… or anything like that. I only want a guarantee that I will be happy – someday. That’s what I wanted then, too. I would have given anything to see in my mind’s eye a possibility of ever being happy, when I was a child. That’s sort of where I am now – and why I sometimes do things like throwing myself after men that I know are bad for me. Just to get something settled. Just to… sigh. But there isn’t any guarantee.
Oh well. I can wait. In the interim, I’m doing (or supposedly doing) things which will bring me as close to a guarantee of happiness as I can get. There is an example before me of what I want – realized, living, reachable – but… I’m not there yet. Only another few years’ trek across the desert.
No… I won’t erase any of the above, but the tone doesn’t reflect what I feel. I feel sad, and sick, and tired. I feel as if I know there is a point to all of this, but I don’t want to see it right now. I feel as though I want to wallow in self-abandonment, lethargy, self-punition, and all of the other crap I saw mother do. “Woe is me, people have screwed me over, I’m hard done-by, it’s not my fault or responsibility…”
Except that’s not quite it. I have the “white knight” syndrome. Waiting for someone to sweep in on a white horse, pick me up, and carry me bodily to felicity – without my lifting a finger. Ain’t nobody coming but me. I do not want the fairy transport from A-Q through the jungle – or… I think I do, but in reality the white knight would do more damage than good, and I know it.
That’s right. Someone is going to lose the weight for me. Someone is going to come and clean my bedroom. Someone is going to learn Russian for me. Someone is going to find me a prince among men for a husband. Someone is going to do the work of repairing the damage I’ve done or contemplated amongst my friends. Someone is going to strengthen my relationships with them. Someone is going to pack up all my stuff and magically transport me abroad. Someone is going to pour money into my bank account if I spend it like water. Someone is going to pick up my financial arrangements where I left off and settle everything. Someone is going to read and comment on this new book my friend sent me. Someone is going to do all the little errands I’ve been neglecting. Someone is going to calculate the monies owed my landlord. Someone is going to find me a cheap ticket to Cancun this Christmas.
Well… no. Nobody is going to do any of these things. And when I sit here, and procrastinate, and begin to resent myself (and others who have absolutely nothing to do with what I’m doing to myself) for not doing anything, and wallow in my resentment rather than figure out what’s behind this… the only person I’m fundamentally hurting is myself. The friends I hold dear – if I wound them – can write me off and go happily live their own lives. There is no lasting negative impact on anyone but myself if I fail to sort out my problems. But I won’t take steps to help myself.
Am I not worthy, mother? Screw you. Am I hard done-by? No. I know the solutions. I know that there is light at the end of the tunnel – that all of this work is for a reason. Do I deserve such wonderful friends as I have? You know what, if I don’t, I can fix that. I can do everything in my power to be the sort of person I want to be, and that will earn me the kind of friends I want in my life. So you know what? I’m sick of these fucking habits that were ingrained in me. That YOU – all three of you – ingrained in me. But this isn’t about you guys any more. All three of you are dead – two in fact, and you, mother, in spirit. This time is about me, and getting out from under all this crap. So get off my back! I am going to get you, finally, off my back.
Filed under: self-work, voice blog | Tags: FDR, friends, self-work, voice blog
I’ve been suffering lately from an extreme bout of FOOgoo-related poisoning lately. They’re poisoning me, yeah, but… what they really go for are my relationships. My abilities to act like a sane, considerate, empathetic human being around you guys, therefore, have… suffered. To say the least.
Today it’s come to a bit of a head. I think I’ve been able to keep most of the shit from spraying over you guys, though there was one incident about an hour ago that… touched off a bit of introspection. Which (with the caveat, mind you, that the initial part of this is a lot of me crying and projecting) I post for you… just in case – or… no. I KNOW a lot of us have the same problems. Searching for the empathy, the regard, the unconditional love that our parents should have had for us in various more or less destructive ways.
I’ve actually been able to feel, tonight. I’m feeling… a wave of sadness now. I don’t want to act this out for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be stimulus response robot, or defense mechanism robot, or projection robot, or any sort of robot at all. Re-humanization.
You know, on the walk home I was thinking… what have I given up for truth? My family, old friends, hobbies, future career. Yes, all of that. But… that’s not a sacrifice. It’s a boon. Because… if I would never have found the truth… if I would have kept my family, old friends, hobbies, future career… I could not conceive of being anything better than vaguely unhappy for the rest of my life. Vague unhappiness would be the best I could hope to strive for – and it would have probably turned, in the end, to out and out misery. So it is not “giving up” anything to lose these things. For… in laying down those things – which were truly burdens, not boons – I leave my hands free to pick up joy wherever I may find it. That is no sacrifice.
If there is another thing I need to lay down – my training, defense mechanisms, grandeur, vanity, paranoia, victim mentality – in order to leave my hands free to grasp joy, and to grasp the loving hands of my friends… I will do it. That is no sacrifice. That is the best work I could conceive of.
So, my friends, this voice post is my attempt to lay down one of the flaming swords that bars me from elysium. I am sorry for having wanted you to be miserable for my sake.
Ne pas “Je reviens à zéro” mais “Je repars à zéro.” Not “I return to zero” but “I start out again from zero.”
I know not how to write what… it feels like I should say. Which is the point, isn’t it? I know not how to speak the full truth of my heart, without recourse to mother’s words and mother’s tricks. Yet this is not true either, and this is a further point. If my many problems include denial and mythology-making, I have done both in this first paragraph.
My grandiosity lately has been telling me how very far along I am, while my true self has been showing me – slowly at first, and then with increasing intensity and speed – just how wrong grandiosity is. Just how very far I have not come, and that the further along that braggart says I am, the further back I actually fall. For what evidence has there been of progress?
This evidence at least: that I can admit the above. And that I can say that – though there are several reasons I could name – I do not know the actual reason or reasons for my depression this morning. For the sadness which has been expressing itself in tears and ink on a page. 14 pages in 2 hours last night, and 2 more in an hour this morning. But volume says nothing, braggart. If I’ve not gotten far in 270 pages, another 14 or 16 makes no difference.
This morning, I must call and cancel my plane tickets to Toronto. And the thought of that makes me weep. Not for… having to cancel them. For what that means. Implies. For the fact is that Stef has asked me not to come, and… I cannot blame him. Not truly. It is not he that made the necessity. I feel sad. And angry. Not angry at Stef. No, for once the anger is directed at the proper source.
I feel like a leper. Or… not true. Mother would have me feel like a leper. She’d have me go away. Cut myself off from all my friends. Exile myself to the extreme, in bitterness and feelings of indignation and disgust and desolation and anger and pain. Not even to join LiMi – for there is a community of a sort there – but to go wander again. (If you think for an instant I’d join LiMi… you’re terribly wrong.) She would have me hate Stef, I think, and cut me off from your society, my friends. For I do need you all, so very much, now.
Give me your pardon, sir: I’ve done you wrong;
But pardon’t, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish’d
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness: if’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o’er the house,
And hurt my brother.
Right. But is that more mythology? Was it my madness that spoke, or me? I don’t know. I, at least, can say that. I don’t know whence these things come. I asked Castellan last night. He was reluctant to talk – for which I don’t blame him. He told me no Hamlet. No lugubrious Dane. For he acted right along with his programming.
What then, said I? Take it slowly, he said. Deliberately. Do not be so headlong. Think, for once, before you speak.
Ah, but what we do determine, oft we break. Let me break out of story-time.
The truth is that my grandiosity has always isolated me. This feeling that I am better or more intelligent or further along than people has always served to cut me off from people. I have not used my intelligence or knowledge to serve others – to ennoble them, to bring them up to where I am – but to set me on a pedestal removed from people. This served its purpose at the time, but it made me lonely and depressed and melancholy, it denied me friends, and access to aid, and… so many other things. Which, of course, suited my captors.
Now, it suits them still that I set myself apart from you all earlier in this week (and – let me not lie – all the time that I have been here, save a few occasions when I felt so gloriously happy) and that I did not ask for aid or for your opinions until after the fact, and even then in a roundabout way. It would suit them still more were I to release the post that I wrote last night – saying that my help is not here, and I must be silent for a long while.
But my help is here, for my friends and the people that I love are here. The people whose good opinions I desire and whose virtue I acknowledge and cherish are here. The people with the same problems, on the same path, amongst whom I am absolutely not unique or special and from whom I am not set apart (should I, as my programming would prevent me from doing, advance and ask your forgiveness and patience with me) are here.
Indeed, I need more help. I have a list of places I shall call on Monday for therapy. I don’t have a job yet. So what? I have money in the bank, and some gold. Price no object. The MEs have been begging for an ally, and I have been remiss in not taking all possible steps to get them one. It may be better to get my therapy underway whilst I am unemployed, as it will surely give me more time for self-work.
So, my friends, I must at once ask for your aid and your understanding. I need not belabor the point of how immensely difficult it is to act against programming. You need no lectures, as you know it well. We all have the same struggle. Let us not compare who had the worse childhood or who has the hardest road. It matters not. We each had a horrendous childhood and we each have a very difficult road.
I ask for your forgiveness, because I have not realized this. I have harbored grandiosity which has shot to the surface in bursts, but which always, always set me apart from you in my own mind. I have not sought your good counsel when I might – no, when I should – have done, after involving you in my struggles in everything except my final decision. This said – whether I believed it consciously or not – that I had a bad opinion of you, of your advice, and of your capacity to aid me. None of these things is true, but my actions said them eloquently. I have not (except for one time, last night, when I was so very gratified to hear my dear friend respond that – as I had my own current and very large issue – he would freely and fully excuse me for not being available to help him with his) been honest about the magnitude of my own issues and recused myself from conversations which took me away from my own issues – thus putting my friends in the position of impeding my progress, and even (I hope it is not so!) possibly giving bad advice, colored by my own denial and unprocessed ills. I have made my friends bear the brunt of my defenses, of my unprocessed emotions, and… I know not what else. I merely enumerate a list so that you may see I am not ignorant… for a blind apology is worse than no apology whatever.
I must also ask for your aid. Not to shoulder my burdens… which in fact I am not sure if it is possible for you to do, and… which – though I have asked you to shoulder them in the past – I must act against programming now and ensure you do not. I ask for your aid because… being vulnerable with people… well, I need not belabor the point of how hard that is. But one of my pathologies is to self-isolate. To cut myself off from help and… any and all relationships, really. I will not give you a story for why that is. And though I realize that I must be so cautious in what I do and say – as Castellan said… to take it slowly and to think – I… do not wish to go away. I, me myself… do not wish to go away. I am not sure how much I can give back to you right now, my friends. But I will requite your loves – now and in future.
This is a long way of saying… I’ve gone off the rails. But I realize – not fully, not yet, but am beginning to – the fact, and am going to work to make it right. For my friends, yes. But for me. I wish to act independently, for once – and not as a slave of programming.
Forgive me, my dear friends.
Filed under: attirance, self-work, vie quotidienne | Tags: friends, life story, love, MEcosystem, nucular holocaust, self-work
EDIT: I had some fine words last night about cultivating my lopin before going and throwing myself down in anyone else’s garden. I ignored that advice, and aye am paying. How many times do I need to hear and see each individual lesson? How long is it going to take? I’m… angry with myself now, and am going to go process that. But this is what I wrote before…
Filed under: attirance, self-work | Tags: friends, love, MEcosystem, music, self-work, youtube
Yes, this was both cowardly and passive aggressive. Which is the thought I’d come to by the end… and decided to post anyway. Nice.
Oh, and here’s a great song from 1928:
Filed under: self-work, vie quotidienne | Tags: friends, self-work, vie quotidienne
Feeling much better now after a lot of journaling and a discussion with that friend. About something almost completely different, mind… but yet it was related. It’s all interrelated. Because he’d sent me a message from someone else that vexed me before I’d even started talking with him about his birthday. And then… that was just more of the same. Managing things, or feeling like I had to. And that made me feel worse. A signal to get out. A symptom of that delicious pathology we share, but have been indulging in less and less as we’ve gone on.
And so we talked, then, and by the end – even though Joan was involved – I was feeling light. And happy. Because… he got it. And… I really didn’t ever need to “make” him. And then he said something which entirely delighted me. And… wow. I felt wonderful.
Later tonight, I’ll take you all on a little trip through my MEcosystem.
Filed under: self-work, vie quotidienne | Tags: friends, self-work, vie quotidienne
So that’s from a 13th century French pastorale called “Au tens pascor” for which I cannot find lyrics on teh internets. The part that I’m thinking of now is when Perrin – the hero – has just been roughed up by his friends because of a jealous quarrel. Though the rest of the song is merry, the merriment ceases before this verse, and Perrin has no desire to sing their song’s refrain: cibalala duriaus duriaus, cibalala durie.
I’ve no desire to sing a refrain this morning – though I was fine until about half an hour ago. The merriment ceased while talking with a friend about his birthday, though there was no jealous quarrel. I don’t know why I should be so low after that. It is not really sadness, nor frustration. Just… there is something that I can’t place. It’s odd, for I was hungry before, and now I’m not. Symptoms.
Of what?
Well… why am I writing, first? I felt I couldn’t tell him I was low because then he’d want to manage something. Am I writing this to spread the shit around? Hm… Is this a substitute for telling him? Telling – not only him, but everyone else as well? And getting everyone to manage my crap therefore? Well… if I’m second-guessing myself, let me go with the assumption that that’s right, and talk to the boys for a while.
N’a talen quil die cibalala duriaus…
Filed under: attirance, self-work, voice blog | Tags: books, friends, love, MEcosystem, self-work, voice blog
PLEASE listen to this two-parter, my dear friends. I think I’ve made a real breakthrough here as far as seeing some of the fucking evil, insidious templates that are at work within my own mind – and maybe yours as well. I wasn’t originally going to post this… but it’s powerful, and I want to share it. Take a look. The first part is what’s been cooking around in my mind from listening to Stef’s 5-part series on ambivalence – specifically the ambivalence I feel in one relationship in my life, and the origins of that feeling. The second part is what started cooking in my head after an extremely illuminating conversation I had with another friend. I realized – with his invaluable help – exactly what template was most contributing to this feeling of ambivalence, and just how fucking far down the rabbit hole of “love = anxiety management” goes.
Ambivalence and Anxiety Management – part 1
The Insidious Template – part 2
Part 2 also contains an excerpt from Jane Eyre. Actually, it’s a wonderful MEcosystem book. Jane’s “Conscience” and “Passion” voices speak to her often. This is the original MEcosystem, 1840s style. But there’s entirely too much god in the work. I only realized that a couple of months ago when I first re-read it with my atheist, rationalist, empiricist eyes. It was my favorite book when I was a kid. Meh. :)
