Homesickness at 106

I’ve been so homesick lately.  It’s been almost four months since I moved into this new home, and I’m finally getting homesick.

Over the last few days, I’ve been looking around this home, and I realized that nothing about it feels like mine.  Nothing about it feels like the comfort of home.  I don’t see any of the useless trinkets that adorned my last home.  Instead, I see items that belonged to another person in another time.  The sugar bowls above my cabinets.  The ceramic that clutters my counter by the stove.  Inherited, ugly dishwear that we eat off of.  Foreign pots and pans that I prepare food on.

At first, it was like an exciting vacation home.  It was an escape from my ramshackle house that had strings like Pinocchio.  I was a puppet in my own home, and eventually, I was forcibly removed from that home with the final passive-aggressive jabs in a long, relentless series of them.  I had broken free of my failure to launch syndrome and was on the road to becoming a self-sufficient adult.

Now, I feel more helpless than ever before.  In my hometown, I could free myself of the bondage of my house whenever I felt like it.  There was a wealth of places I could go and see.  Here, I am trapped at the end of a beautiful, scenic private driveway in an idyllic little town.  To get off of this mountainous terrain, it’s a mile’s walk straight down a series of steep hills.  And even if I were to make it into town, there is nothing to do and nowhere to go.

I don’t miss the cramped nature of 511, with junk brimming from every tiny storage area there was.  But, now, I feel that there is no place of solace for me.  My bedroom was my bedroom.  All of my stuff was comforting, and my space was adorned with knicknacks of years past.  It was a representation of me.  I feel like this place is completely devoid of that.  This place feels devoid of me, and I’m beginning to feel lost.  I’m beginning to feel like I’m losing myself, instead of finding a place where I could discover myself once again.

There’s too many negative memories attached to that house.  So many, that they actually outweigh the positive ones.  In that house, I lived with Avi, without heat, in the most brutal winter I can recall.  I lived out of boxes, surrounded by piles of garbage and junk.  I was estranged from that house in warmer months as a means of escape.  I hit the bottom of the barrel with a miserable labor job, a serious drinking problem, and a completely hopeless future.

It was in that house that I was coerced into having immoral sex with Simon in a sick, twisted threesome.  I hardly remember it.  Most of what I can recall from the situation has a haze over it.

There were good things.  It was the place where Xan was partially unconscious in my lap on New Years’ Eve, and I fed him a special New Years’ Eve pretzel I made in the bakery at work.  It was the place where I first realized that I loved him.  That was the house where Xan and I first lived together as a couple.  It was the first place we made love.

That was the place where we started our life together.  It was the place we went back to after our wedding.  It was the house that our child was conceived in.  We brought our little bundle of joy home there, and slept on the living room floor next to his bassinet for the first month.  There, our son took his first steps, said his first words, and grew from a baby to a child.

Again, there was the bad and even the ugly.  Too much violence happened there, both physical, verbal, and self-inflicted.  It was a breeding ground for negativity.  Xan and I used to have these knock-down, no-hold-barred fights there.  I recall too many moments where I stormed up the stairs to escape him.  The whole last four months of our residence in that home was a complete disaster in our marriage.

In essence, I escaped that place.  But, is the devil you don’t know worse than the devil you do?

Positives.  Think of the positives.

This house has the potential to become my lifetime home.  Maybe I am just homesick because I spent six years in the last house, and only four months here.

This house is located in a safe area for my son, and provides a calm, free environment for him.  In addition, it has a better school district and provides better learning opportunities and support for him.

This house has additional space.  I don’t feel as cramped and caged, even if I do feel lonely and secluded.

Even though this house contains a lot of foreign items, it won’t forever.  I will acquire more items to replace the old ones that feel more like me.  It will become more familiar as time passes.

This house is not a money pit.  It is in good condition and was well built.  I do not spend a large amount of money on utilities, and there is hardly a threat that I will ever be without.

I will never be threatened to be evicted from this home.  There are no strings attached and the owner is very hands-off.  I will never find myself threatened or harassed over this house.

Xan and Beast are happy here.

It is easy to clean and requires little maintenance.  It might be a little more overwhelming, since it’s a bit bigger than the other house.  But, I don’t have to look at torn out walls and feel a sense of hopelessness and fear toward the condition.

I can be happy here.  I have been happy here.  Summers are far more temperate and beautiful here.  Autumn is gorgeous with all of the foliage.  Winter might even be nice with fresh white snow covering the yard and the woods.

It’s quiet.  I can think.

And one day, I’ll be able to get around on my own.  Even if there is really nowhere to go.  I’ll be less lost and I’ll understand the area a little better.

I’ll find my place here.  I know I will.  It’s just going to take some time.

Treasure

Today, my son taught me an important lesson on value and how we place it.

My son is a really special little guy. He has Pervasive Development Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified on the Autism Spectrum.  So, a lot of little things that would be be considered typical in other children are really significant for him.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a parent tell their four year old to shut up because the chatter became overbearingly annoying.  I always feel that twinge of sadness, fearing that my son may never speak enough for me to become aggravated at all.  Those moments are significant for me, too.

But, then there are those moments that are significant in an enlightening way.

I was sitting at the dining room table this morning with my wallet and what we call “The petty cash box”.  I was mindlessly dumping change into it when my son approached me.  When he speaks, I listen with all of my might to make out what he is saying.  It might be the only thing I ever put my full attention into.  He said, “Mommy, money!”  I was thrilled that he took an interest in what I was doing, and I allowed him to put the money in the box while supervised.

He happily put the money in, and presented me with a quarter saying, “Mommy, want quarter?”  I was delighted that he could identify it.  Suddenly, he grabbed the box and started to walk away.  I was about to chase him down just when he put it on the end table. He turned to me excitedly and shouted, “Look, Mommy! Treasure!”

He started to prattle on about being a pirate when my heart just melted. It was a brilliant observation. The little box kind of resembled a treasure chest, brimming with different colored coins. And that’s when it hit me. It wasn’t just about the likeness. It was about the whole interaction. And the whole thing had taken on an entirely different value.

I started to think about the things that I value. What do I cherish?

The realization hit me. Lately, I’ve been dwelling on the things that I want, but don’t have. My focus had been shifted onto the seemingly hopeless pursuit of these things. And I realized that those things are intangible idealizations that may never even have the possibility of becoming a reality. Those things had gained all of the value over the things I truly cherished and clouded my mind.

What do I value then?

Little, daily victories for my son. A few engaged words here and snippets of hopeful conversation there. His new discoveries and interests. And each beautiful little smile and giggle. All of those shining moments that give me hope for his development through Autism Spectrum Disorder.

But even more for him, I value him. Him, as he is. My 4 foot tall, 55lb, brown haired, green eyed little Beast.

I value my husband’s caresses. This morning, he unexpectedly turned over and actually spooned me. It was more than welcome. It was soothing, comforting, and all spontaneous. It was one of those rare, intuitive moments he had. I cherish those.

But, I value even more than those fleeting moments. It is bigger than that. I see what I have missed all along. Every action is an intuitive, invested action. Whether I know it or not, he’s taking care of my needs that I don’t even think about anymore. I was overlooking what was right there in front of me because I was too involved with what I considered to be neglected needs.

Finally, my eyes started to open up.

When I really thought about it, I found value in myself today. I have been so fixated on what I am not, and the things I thought I had lost, I lost sight of who I am and all of the things I have gained. I am a mother. I am a wife. I have been those things for longer than I have been anything else. I am those things above all else. And I don’t know how I came to value anything else.

I lack certain qualities, but that does not make me devoid of myself. There is plenty of me. I am not stable, but I am spirited. I am not entirely well right now, but I cannot expect to be well all of the time. I have Bipolar Disorder. I am not Bipolar. I am more than my illness and more than my symptoms.

Today, I connected with my husband without trying or wanting. I connected with a son I thought I was losing to Autism Spectrum Disorder. But more so, he connected with me. He reached out and connected me with the world again. And that was what made all of the difference.

A new dawn, a new day.

The Friday Confessional : Baby Weight

TRIGGER WARNING : This post contains material that may be a potential trigger for some.  It’s contents include talk of eating disorders and self-injury.  If you are sensitive to this material, please use your discretion before reading.

I am by no means a thin woman.  As a matter of fact, according to my BMI, I am actually slightly in the overweight range.  It’s not really unusual for a person who lives in the good ol’ US-of-A.  Obesity is considered an epidemic in this region of the world.

I have bad body image.  This started as a very young child when the other kids would pick on me for being overweight.  At that point, it wasn’t my fault.  I wasn’t responsible for my diet, and my family had terrible eating habits.  In fact, as I started to notice while my parents were watching my child, they encouraged recreational eating for lack of other engaging activities.  As a result, I ended up a fat, miserable kid.

I remember I stopped eating my lunch at one point.  A lunch aid came over and asked what was wrong.  I recall telling her, “I’m on a diet.”  She looked shocked and appalled.  Now that I’m an adult, it’s completely understandable.  I was eight, and I was confessing that I was unhappy because of my weight.  To her credit, she attempted to explain to me that I had a lot of years to grow into the weight, and it was unhealthy to deprive myself of food.

Essentially, she was trying to talk me out of developing an eating disorder.  Unfortunately, talk is too cheap when you’re eight.

Eventually, people close to me stopped mentioning my weight.  And I continued to grow.  By the time I was in the fifth grade, I was obese.  I was eleven, 4’8”, and weighed approximately what a fourteen year-old 5’1” teenager should have weight in a healthy weight range.  My clothes continued to shrink rapidly, and the only excuse my mother could come up with was that I was just “having a growth spurt”.

It wasn’t lost on my peers or teachers, though.  While I had the brains, I didn’t have the body.  And the outside was all that mattered.  Summer break came, and I was about to enter middle school.  It was at that time that I decided that I would shed my “baby weight”, as people were so eager to call it, and become a slender woman.

That was the summer where it all began.

The real secret is something I’ve hinted at throughout the last year, but could never bring myself to actually come out and say.  Even now, I find myself typing and retyping the sentence that will start to change everything.  It will change how people think of me, and how people treat me.  It will have people worry and watch me like a hawk.  And those are all things that I’ve tried to avoid over the years.

I have undiagnosed disordered eating.

As a child, it developed from recreational eating into comfort eating.  I would gorge myself far beyond bursting, to the point of where it felt like the contents of my stomach were backing up into my throat.  The act of eating was comforting and satisfying.  The sensation of fullness seemed to fill this hole inside of me.  It took away the emptiness that I had tried so hard to fill with accomplishment.  Even for a moment, I was full.  I was whole.

That led to another problem.  Childhood obesity.  And the lack of friends I had resulting from my obesity and the intimidation of my perfectionism and accomplishment created an even bigger hole.  What started out as a small snag in the woven fabric of my life started to unravel into a gaping hole, threatening to tear seam to seam.  Comfort eating turned into binge eating and created a cycle that continually fed into itself.

The summer before middle school, I decided to start dieting.  How absurd – an eleven year old on a diet.  I restricted my food intake to half of what I was eating.  I refused to eat between meals.  I started both biking and running once a day for at least an hour.  When my clothes started to become loose, it only served to encourage all of these behaviors.

I was a child on a mission.  I started only eating half of what I was eating, leaving me eating meals off of saucers.  I added running stairs onto my exercise regimen.  I would spend a half an hour each day running the basement stairs, as to not bother my parents.  My clothes became so loose that I became reduced to wearing my 90lb mother’s clothes.

I had done it.  In fact, I had done so well that most of my peers didn’t recognize me anymore.  Many people started referring to me as “the new girl”, as I didn’t have any friends to correct them.  And much to my surprise, those shallow little girls I had come to despise welcomed me to their clicks with open arms.  I was no longer intimidating or disgusting.

Throughout the years, my weight bounced up and down.  I would binge and then go on an exercise craze.  In my mid-teens, I discovered those ephedra pills that could be found at any gas station.  Friends and I would take handfuls of them and stay up, bouncing off of the walls, for 72 hours at a time.  I remember lying in bed just vibrating, desperately mentally exhausted, but completely wired.

My relationship with my first love, my high school sweetheart, started going south around the time that I was seventeen.  And the binging started once again.  I hated myself for it, and I watched myself grow out of my clothes once again.  I knew he had to have found me repulsive, and I knew he was eyeing other women.  But, it only served to make it worse.

I will never forget this.  I had my eighteenth birthday at my boyfriend’s place.  I was surrounded by many of my friends, and we ordered several pizzas that I paid for.  I watched all of the girls daintily eat one or two slices of pizza, when I realized that I had gorged myself on four.  I looked at their slender bodies with envy.  What a disgusting pig I am!  I thought.  No wonder I’m so fat!

I went to the bathroom and locked the door.  I leaned over and stared into the bowl.  I was about to do something that we all had accused and ridiculed thin cheerleaders for.  It was this, or being doomed to a life of obesity and loneliness.  I extended my index finger and pressed down on the back of my tongue.

The vomit came pouring out like a fountain into the bowl.  The taste was awful, like orange juice mixed with something foul.  But, the sensation was incredible.  I could feel the load lightening, and my stomach shrinking.  I did it again, this time making myself gag harder, almost to the point where I made an audible noise.  It felt like all of the awful feelings were just pouring out from inside of me.  It was almost like cutting, but without any noticeable tell-tale scars.

I purged until there was nothing left but stomach acid.  I sat against the door, breathing heavily and relishing in the hollow feeling in my belly.  There was something so beautiful about feeling that emptiness.  It ached, along with my raw throat, and the bitter aftertaste of vomit in my mouth.

This doesn’t happen regularly.  It only happens when I have a severely awful body image.  My clothes start to get tight, and automatically, my stomach starts to churn, as if it knows what’s about to come.  If I’ve eaten just before a fight with someone, I find myself getting queasy and running for a bathroom.  If I am rejected, I automatically assume it’s because I’m not attractive.  I find myself hell bent on getting back a body I once had.

But even worse is when I do it as a form of self-injury and control.  I binge, feeling the sensation of my belly swelling with all of the emotion I can’t experience.  The contents rise into my throat, without a place left to go.  I excuse myself and wrap myself in an awful embrace with that cold, unforgiving porcelain.  For a moment, just a brief shining moment, I stare into the bowl, trying to talk myself out of it.  There’s no other way.  I lean in, and the deed is done.

And each time, the whooshing of the flush brings shame to my already teary eyes.  I stare at the bloodshot eyes, ringed with raccoon eyes.  My face is red and looks exhausted.  All I can do is take to cleaning up the mess I created.

Just Snap Out of It

Society has developed some seriously bad attitudes toward mental illness.  It’s no surprise.  We see it attached to the stigma of it.  We’re treated like lepers, as if this were a terribly contagious thing.

Depression is no exception.  Today, a lot of people have been discussing the topic of the “Just Snap Out of It” phenomenon that occurs out there.  Honestly, there is a saying out there about how if a person hasn’t experienced it, then they can never truly know.  A person who hasn’t experienced clinical depression, either in the form of MDD or BP depression can never truly know it’s depth and breadth.  It is an all encompassing monster that claims every last bit of life and any possible joy that can come from it.

Having Bipolar Disorder, I am a person who naturally experiences some sometimes pretty obvious mood swings.  And the attitudes toward it are so completely off.  I have never had a person treat me poorly while I was in a manic episode.  Not one.  Not even when the plainly awful behaviors were showing.  Each person seemed to find it charming, amusing, or interesting.  Even when there were moments where I was so out of control that I was scared out of my wits, not a single person around me seemed to notice that there was something absolutely wrong with it.

No, my energy and spirits were high.  I would act impulsively, and people would take it as spontaneity.  I’d be overly, annoyingly chatty, and rudely interrupting others, but they took it as being outgoing.  Everyone seemed to think that was a sign that I wasn’t depressed anymore.  They seemed to think that it was some kind of miraculous recovery from “being like that”.

People only seem to take notice when I am depressed or mixed, like it’s some kind of disease that I choose to be afflicted with.  And the comments are absolutely endless, because everyone seems to have their own opinion about it.  It’s as if they consider themselves to be the authority on depression, anxiety and sadness in general. I will constantly hear phrases like, “Get over it” and “Get a grip” as if just snapping out of it were an option for me.

Meanwhile, people without mental health diagnoses start flinging clinical terms around, like they had some true application to their fleeting, shallow emotion.  For instance, “Oh, I’m so *bipolar* today”, instead of just saying that they are moody, or women arbitrarily making a comparison between PMS and Bipolar Disorder.   Or “I’ve just been so depressed lately”, to reference a little bit of discontent or sadness.

It’s not cute. It’s not funny. No one with those diagnoses thinks that it’s witty that someone is taking a serious clinical term with so much guilt and stigma that it could bring down a religion, and applying it to their BS, frivolous emotions!

It does everything it can to minimize those conditions.  It puts it in a light that we have some kind of real control over it.  As if it were something that a person can just “snap out of”.  It implies that a person chooses to be disordered.  It also puts a shameful connotation of attention seeking behavior.

Yeah, it’s the life, let me tell you. If I were doing anything for attention, it wouldn’t be this. It would probably be something more hilarious, like plastering myself with an obscenely worded banner and rollerblading through Downtown. Depression isn’t newsworthy, but that sure is.  Or maybe I’d be doing something a little more productive or noteworthy, like finding a cure for cancer.  But no, my depression is just that interesting that I would choose to gain that much needed attention from people I don’t even know or care about.

I have to wonder if the general public has to be so naive that they would actually be jealous over it.  So much emphasis is put on the “just get over it” ideals, as if that were possible. If I could will myself out of this state, don’t you think I would do it already? It would be more logical to think that I want to reclaim my life and be a productive person.  But no, according to others who are ignorant enough of mental illness, I am perfectly content to have disordered behaviors.   Sure, who doesn’t love ignoring their kid because the voices just got too loud? Personally, I love gripping my ears and screaming, “SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!!!”

And as a result of this blatant ignorance, I am really starting to believe that some are just plain jealous.  Because, they seem to think that those with disorder aren’t being responsible for their emotions and behaviors that result.  I certainly have quarrels with wanting to thrust a sense of selfishness and entitlement out there, because it’s what I have to do to take care of myself and my own in this world.  It’s those same people that shove themselves and their ideals down other people’s throats, only to make them feel bad. Misery loves company, and we’re perfect targets, right?

The point is this.  If a person is out there reading this and getting offended, it’s time to take a step back and think hard.  Is it so fair to be so judgmental?  Isn’t it about time to take a look from another perspective?  Does a person with a congenital disorder choose to be symptomatic?  It would be an entirely different story if I were refusing treatment, but like anyone else, I am keeping my appointments and taking my medication according to doctors orders.  We don’t blame someone for their symptoms when they have a seizure.  Why should this be any different?

Let me assure everyone.  If could have snapped out of this disorder and been a “normal” person, I may have done it, instead of living this ongoing nightmare.

The Friday Confessional : Romancing Suicide

 

 

Though I confess the things that are most intimate to me, I don’t know if I am accurately painting the picture of the real me.  To everyone here, I am Lulu Stark, the writer, the mother, the wife, and most importantly, the woman who bares herself in the name of mental health and disorder awareness and advocacy.  But, I wanted to put some truths out there.  The uglier side.  The real side.

I only Lulu Stark in the persona.  The one that you read about.  The antihero, the antagonist, protagonist, the victim, the perpetrator, the survivor and occasionally, the hero.

What I don’t talk typically talk about is one of my darkest, sickest secrets of all.

 

Suicide.  I regularly have suicidal thoughts and occasionally ideation.  The little voice goes through the back of my mind, sometimes as an unintelligible whisper and other times as clear as a bell, I want to die.  I want to kill myself.  It would be so easy.  No one would miss me.

I imagine ways it would play out.  I idealize all of the scenarios of suicide.  In a way, it seems I’m under it’s spell.  It seems like the only way out of this torturous world of disorder and dysfunction.  I am more crippled by my illness than I let on.  I feel pathetic in my bones, and I desperately search for my solace in this place of distress and despair.  An endless string of hopeless days and bottomless pits.

I fall deeper, clinging to my last shreds of hope.  I am flirting with suicide, with his silver tongue, soft, familiar caresses, and honey sweet kisses on my neck.

I see a sturdy rope swung around a rafter in my basement, tied with a tidy slipknot instead of an impossible noose.  I stand on a rickety chair, dressed in my Sunday best, leaving a pretty, cold, lifeless corpse behind.  The shell of a woman who never really existed.

I stand with a glass of juice and a bottle’s worth of blue pills in my hand.  I am ready, stripped to nothing but a bathrobe.  Down the hatch, the medication leaves a bitter aftertaste.  I draw myself a hot bath and arm myself with a razor.  And then, I wait.  I wait until I am almost seeing double, and world starts to blue around the edges.  I dig the razor into my wrist and drag it with all of the force I can up to my the bend of my elbow.

Or, I just await death.  I lie in the tub, feeling myself slip away under the surface of the water.  In my mind, I imagine all of the people that would be thankful that I am finally gone.  How in a year or two, I will become a distant memory that only leaves the tiniest pang.  How my sullen face starts to fade from everyone’s mind and any trace of me begins to disappear.  I think of how easy the clean up would be.

Or maybe, I would clean myself up to begin with.  I would be powder fresh in a pretty pastel little girl dress I bought for the occasion.  I would empty all of the contents of my medicine into my stomach, washed down with an entire bottle of vodka.  I would tuck myself into a warm bed, and swaddle myself in blankets.  It would look like sleep at first.  My final sleep.  My resting place.  The only place in my life where I ever felt warm and safe.

 

For the record, I’d never do it.  There is an uglier side to suicide that I’m painfully aware of.  It could possibly be the most selfish act I could ever commit.  The finality of it all is too much for me to even wrap my head around.

My son asks where I went when I am gone for an hour for class.  I imagine his confusion and sadness when he comes to see that his mother will never return. I imagine the possibilities of who would raise him if I were to be gone for good.  He would likely fall into the hands of my own parents, and I would be sentencing him to a similar fate that I experienced.

There would never be enough of an apology for my Xan.  A piece of him would die inside, and he might go mad himself.  There wouldn’t be another out there for him.  He couldn’t possibly recover.  Leaving him to his own devices at work, cutting off communication, it’s too much for him to bear for a few hours.  What if I were to be gone for the rest of his lifetime?

And then there’s the matter of the afterlife.  What comes after death?  Through my Christian upbringing, I fear the day of judgement and the sentencing to an eternity of hell, separated from my friends and family, endlessly tortured in unimaginable ways.  Ways that are beyond my comprehension.

But, what if there is nothing?  What if I sacrificed my life for a world of nothingness?  What if a person just dies and there is nothing behind?  What if I am condemned to walk this Earth as a true ethereal being, and not just the kind I feel as a flesh and blood person?  I stand there and watch as people file in for my funeral.  I see my family overlooking my lifeless body, consumed with grief.  Then, I get to watch my family and friends mourn the loss, as someone irreplaceable that met a tragic and unfair end at my own hand.

Sometimes, I feel as if I am condemned to life.  Sometimes, I feel like I’ve chosen life over the alternatives.  Sometimes, it’s for the sake of my family and friends.  And there are those brief shining moments where I live life as the gift it was meant to be with the promise of tomorrow.

Related articles

• The Friday Confessional : Promiscuously Yours (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
• Flirting with Suicide (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
• Where Do I Find Help for Someone Who Is Suicidal? (everydayhealth.com)
• The Friday Confessional : Mo Anam Cara (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
• BPD and Me (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
• The Friday Confessional : First Edition (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
• Behind a rising suicide rate, a struggle for answers (stltoday.com)
• The Friday Confessional : Seeds of Affection (sunnywithachanceofarmageddon.wordpress.com)
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Ten inspirational self-esteem quotes

All that I am, all that I ever was...

It’s time you had a time out

Contemporary life can, at times, be somewhat stressful.

We fill our lives with Twitter, Facebook, the need for twenty-four hour a day contact and blogging. There’s traffic congestion, inbox congestion, nasal congestion and artery congestion. The eternal quest to eradicate wrinkles, lines, body hair and blemishes. Does my bum look big in this? Does my cleavage look too small in this? Does my toe look like it has a fungal infection in this? There’s the endless balance between work, home, family, friends and random strangers. Electricity, food, medication, gas, water, rates, taxes…those bloody taxes! Every day of our lives is an endless stream of stress and tension, relieved only when we chance upon some time for sex, cuddles, massages and cunnilingus. But only if we’re lucky enough to have them.

And then there’s physical health, and mental health, and emotional health, and at…

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The Friday Confessional : Mo Anam Cara

Last week, I wrote Seeds of Affection, confessing the almost sordid, but sweet details of Xan and my secret burgeoning relationship.

We left off with Xan’s admission of when he recognize his love for me.  Our moment was described in this:

Chronos smiled, freezing time for us, and only us.  The night stood still, permitting us to slip between the cracks of space and time.  We defied the continuum without breaking our bonds.  And for those moments, we were more than just two solitary entities inhabiting the same space.  We were the space; we were each others’ thoughts, voices, and breaths.

Something sparked that evening while we were painting.  I doubt me being in my underwear had much to do with it.  Art is an intimate thing, especially painting.  There is a lot of physical contact and what remains is a representation of the emotion in the area.  What was left was permanent.  We were oblivious to this, but it certainly wasn’t lost on his girlfriend.

Neither of us could understand why she was so upset.

Familiar places, familiar faces, we once again found ourselves on our eternal carousel, orbiting one another but never to meet in the middle.  Gravitation pull kept us circling, leaving others to be our asteroids consistently knocking us off course.  Nearly two years elapsed before our irregular orbits had crossed paths once more.  But other planets were aligning, creating a universal, cataclysmic event, speeding up motion and time.

Years passed, and we remained friends.  There was a barrier of friends and lovers that stood between us, wiser and more perceptive.  We had something, a certain something that can only be found between two people who were mean to be together.  But, neither of us knew it.  Individually, we had feelings for each other, but nothing that existed in the forefront of our minds.  And both of us believed that the other would be unlikely to give the other a sideways glance in any life.

Regardless, we still gravitated toward each other.  Through falling outs, jealous lovers severing our ties, and simply life leaving us in vague passing, we still managed to come back together.

The Eve of Omega and Alpha culminated at the end of a mighty crescendo.  All in one space and time resided unrealized past, present, and future respectively as if the freshly laundered fabric of time had been folded, once over, twice over, then again.  I was frozen, pondering the possibilities, and still too nearsighted to distinguish.  My crossroads were much fuzzier and perilous than I had realized and my choices too weighted and narrow.  Yet, he stood further down the path, silently beckoning me once again, always too far ahead like a time traveler.  And for once brief moment, I caught his greyish outline in the distance, down the overgrown path.  However, it wasn’t enough to detract from the bright signs, falsely guiding me down yet another treacherous path.

Confession #4:  At one point, I had recognized that I had affections for Xan.  This was months after we had started our pseudo dating.  I had written in my journal, “What is the difference between a best friend and a lover?”  Xan was my best friend.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again and again.  Xan had seen me at my very best, attending my concerts, screaming and smiling while riding shopping carts down busy city streets.  He had also witnessed my very darkest moments, all of the late night sobbing, the rages, vicious attacks and desperate, pathetic living conditions with alcoholism.  Xan knew me better than anyone in this world.  We shared more than two friends should probably have shared.

The spring air was crisp, and the beauty exuded more so than ever before.  We spoke, old moths to the flame, drawn in, never missing a beat to the rhythm of the familiar drum.  Perhaps we marked time to it, never straying far enough for life in all of it’s obstructive noise obscure it’s particular pulse.  Our time was infinite.  We walked the earth eternally, as long as the sky was blanketed in the celestial beings that kissed the sky.  Even with every step I took, I felt my chains to the other becoming more cumbersome, the burden unbearable.  I trudged on.

Xan and I spent a great deal of time on my balcony.  We were forced out there, because my ex was occupying the singular room we were living out of, while playing World of Warcraft.  It is not as if we were typically speaking words that shouldn’t have been overheard.  It was just incredibly difficult to have a deep conversation with blaring metal music and Avi’s incessant, nonsensical babble.

Drunk words are sober thoughts.  Confessions poured from my soul through my mouth faster than a river through the universe, traveling at the speed of light.  I was the sinner and he was my savior, hearing every gruesome detail, redeeming me with stroking words, caressing my frail soul.  The picture was black, the sound garbled like in a damaged film reel.  The scene continued regardless; the show must go on !

Confession #5:  I kissed Xan before we were officially together.  In fact, I didn’t remember it until after we were officially together.  Xan told me about how I had confessed my love for him while he dragged my limp, floppy body home from the bar one warm Saturday night.  That was the same Saturday night that I took him to the trestle.

Come with me.

Such a simple phrase struck a nerve and coursed my stagnant lifesblood through my icy veins.

The “come with me” phrase was in reference to his college choice.  He was finally ready to finish his degree, and was accepted into Tulane.  I was distraught at the idea of him leaving.  He put his hand on my knee and looked deep into my eyes.  He said, “Come with me.”  The way he said it was like, “Come with me, away from this place, away from this hell you’re in.”  It was like he wanted to rescue me.  It was the first time that anyone had said anything like that.  He cared for me so much that he couldn’t stand to leave me behind.

That boy loves you more than you’ll ever know.

First synapses firing, connecting, the stirrings of conscious realization.  The Alpha and Omega, overlapping in folds of time.  The mirage eroded before me, and the poisonous cloud released.

For the first time in centuries, we were standing face to face within the labyrinth.  Side by side, we made our way through its dark, narrow walkways.  Our flames licked each other eagerly, separate for the very last instant of eternity.  No walls remained, only the flesh and air between us.

“That boy loves you more than you’ll ever know,” was spoken by my own father, one hot summer night while we all drank together on the porch.  Xan had left to grab us all some more drinks, and my father told me that.  My father, the man who approved of absolutely nothing I had ever done or ever planned to do.  I could do no right in his eyes.  But, he seemed to see something I didn’t.

Confession #6:  That is among the dozens of reasons I married Xan.  Parental approval was more than through the roof.  I asked my mother how she would feel about our marriage, and she was thrilled.  She put out the engagement announcement in the paper the very next week.

In the dead of night, so silent the rain did not dare make a patter in this moment, he grasped my arm firmly and wrapped himself around me.  Underneath the long reach of the trees branches above, time slowed to accent the moment, and brand it in heart and memory for lifetimes to come.

I have always loved you.

He breathed into me, a life and fire to awaken mine.  Our lips touched, melting into one another.  Reunited, intertwined, conjoined at the purest moment of our final reunion. My being shot out so quickly reality could not keep pace.  Time and space bent for us, allowing this moment to live in all of our eternities.

I, as well.  I have always loved you.  

It echoed louder than a chorus of angels, spreading throughout all the worlds to be recognized for the cosmic event it was.  Twin souls, united, now indiscernible from one another.  Two halves of the whole conjoined, intertwining with each passage, every last exchange.  Our flames united into the blazing inferno, lighting up the whole world around us.  He gazed into me as I gazed into him.  And in that very second, we fell into one another, freed from the labyrinth.  Only the world, our beautiful, majestic world, with the vast fields yielding those just emerging seedlings, existed among us.

Mo Anam Cara. It was in that moment that I knew in my heart and soul that I had found My Soul Friend, the English literal translation.

Final Confession:  There is a concept beyond all descriptions of any kind of intense love that exists.  It’s a love that transcends our physical existence in any time or dimensions.  It exists everywhere, in all space, and in all time, defying the laws of nature.  That is how I feel about Xan.  And secretly, I think it’s the way I’ve always felt.

Jungian Theory in Personality Assessments

JUNGIAN THEORY IN PERSONALITY ASSESSMENTS

Jungian Theory in Personality Assessments

Tiffany M.

Personality Development

 

Take the MBTI now, if you’re interested.

On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators (MBTI), I scored ENFJ.  (Note:  Since, I score an INFJ, because of medication changes.)  ENFJ personality breaks down into traits that are extroverted, intuition, feeling, and judging.  Mostly, I would agree with this assessment of my personality.  However, I feel it is a limited, as many others have criticized.  Jung asserts that extraverts project their energies outward to others and their environment and characterizes these people as sociable.  I feel I embody this description to a point.  I would be more inclined to believe that it is a better measure of sociability.  I disagree that personality type is affected by heredity, seeing as how neither one of my parents is ENFJ, and only my father scored as an extravert.  In addition, I don’t agree that personality is static throughout an entire lifetime.  Jung’s personality theory neglects attention to childhood development and major events affecting adult development.  I feel that I am very intuitive, however, I once again don’t feel as if I completely fit the description.  While I am apt to “tune in” to others and have a certain innate understanding of situations as well as their outcomes, I don’t feel as if I’m focused on the “big picture”.  Family, friends, and co-workers can attest to my attention to detail and highly cultivated level of organization.  The assessment of feeling is given when people are thought to place value on things that create a positive emotional response.  This is opposed to utilizing logic for decision making.  I feel that is a very hedonistic evaluation.  We all, as humans, are subject to hedonism according to Freud’s Hedonic Hypothesis.  By this logic, that would place all humans into the feeling category.  Instead, Planap and Fitness proposed that said traits function together.  Therefore, I am able to embody both empathy and logic.  Another problem with this assessment is the obvious gender bias.  Jung personally though that women typically score “feeling” and men score “thinking”.  This can even be seen in my marriage.  My husband and I are fundamentally the same, hence the original attraction.  However, on the MBTI, he scored ENTJ.  The only difference between my husband and myself is the way that we process emotions.  Perhaps this scale measures empathy and expression of emotions better than it’s original intention.  (Judging)

The MBTI is the most recognized and frequently employed assessment when “measuring Jungian functions”. (pg 88 review citation)  Essentially, the MBTI is based on Jungian personality theory and hardly differs.  It incorporates the eight basic personality types in Jungian theory.  These psychetypes combine extroversion and introversion with thinking or feeling and intuition or sensation in pairs of two.  The MBTI expands upon Jungian personality theory by identifying a fourth trait which functions as a person’s conscious interaction with the external world.  This trait works differently for extraverts and introverts.  In extraverts, the fourth trait is the dominant function and contrastingly introverts utilize it as an auxiliary function.  For example, one assessing a MBTI result can combine extroverted with either judging or thinking as how they interact with their environment.  The other functions are introverted and therefore how they deal with themselves.  For introverts, it is the reverse.  By allowing a fourth trait, the MBTI provides a more comprehensive analysis with sixteen types instead of the eight in Jungian typology.

MBTI has a high degree of reliability and validity; it is objective and free of interpretation by the administrator.  The Inkblot exam is purely subjective, and also, subject to the subjective interpretation of the administrator.  MBTI measures the types of individuals, while the Inkblot exam measures individual traits of individuals.  It seems that each time an individual takes the MBTI they score the same or close to the same as the time before; however, an individual may not picture the same things he once saw in an inkblot revealing that the inkblot has a low test-retest reliability.  In the case of the Inkblot exam, it would mean that individual personalities are constantly subject to change.  While personality is subject to revision, it is not subject to total change.  The inherent, learned traits that an individual has will remain with them, despite certain revisions.  Each exam, however, provides valuable information about the individual’s personality and therefore a tool in evaluating a client.

This information is essential in a therapeutic setting.  Each assessment has a purpose.  MBTI is excellent for getting a feel for the patient and understanding their basic personality.  It is also been proven as an excellent tool for career placement.  It has advantages for the patient as well.  As the patient gains a better understanding of themselves, they will also be able to understand their emotions, thoughts, and motives.  This way, they can learn how to cope and self-regulate.  Inkblot and other projective tests provide a look into the subconscious.  This may reveal repressed emotions and impulses.  Once these are brought to light, the patient can then begin mitigating them and expressing them in healthy ways.  Personality disruption and abnormal behavior and development can then be resolved, resulting in a balancing affect and creating a more whole personality.  Therefore, these assessments, combined with psychotherapy can resolve conflict, establish healthy coping mechanisms, and reunify a person to promote functionality.

References

Kaplan. (2008). Past and Present Views on Personality. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. (n.d.). Retrieved September 15, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator

Phanalp, S., & Fitness, J. (n.d.). Thinking/Feeling about Social and Personal Relationships — Planalp and Fitness 16 (6): 731 — Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Retrieved September 15, 2009, from http://spr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/16/6/731

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Liquid Courage and Tablet Saviors : 30 Days of Truth

Day 20 : Your views on drugs and alcohol.

“Drugs are bad, m’kay?”

Or are they?

There is this long, Nancy Reagan-induced diatribe about the dangers and evil of illegal drugs.  Say no to drugs.  This is your brain on drugs.  The war on drugs.  Above the influence.  Don’t drink and drive.  Prom promise.  Those of us that are Reagan babies and older, through the boomers, are well aware of the presence and negative consequences of drugs and alcohol.   And despite the heavy dialogue, many people have personally experienced their own battle with substance abuse and dependence.

Alcohol had torn my life apart at the seams.  As with any addiction, it starts off as a recreational activity.  It’s a part of popular culture, especially in the younger age groups.  In my youth, drinking was cool.  Truthfully, it was a fun escape from the drudgery of daily life.  That was at seventeen.  Within a year, I started to find solace at the bottom of a bottle.  Coincidentally, that was the same year Smile Empty Soul sang:

I do it for the drugs.

I do it just to feel alive.

I do it for the love that I get from the bottom of a bottle.

Bottom of a Bottle – Smile Empty Soul

By the time I was in college, I was seeking out opportunities and excuses to drink.  A set of rules existed which meant to separate alcoholics, the loathsome bunch that we perceived people like our own parents to be, and recreational drinkers.

1. Never drink before 5PM.
2. Never drink alone.
3. Never drink without occasion.
4. Don’t drink before or during work or school.

As I gained my own freedom with my own apartment, the rules started to change.  In private, I could do what I liked.  I could deny everything and anything when I failed to be under the limelight of public scrutiny.  I began to use alcohol as more than a crutch; I started to abuse it completely as a coping mechanism.  That’s when alcohol and I started our sordid love affair.

The environment in my private life began to change.  I have spoken about it many times in various posts like Decent into Hell where I described my addiction as:

The last days of that relationship are blurry; my memories are obscured by the drugs and alcohol intoxicating my mind.  The days blended together in a ritualistic, self-medicated loop, work.drink.sleep.work.drink.sleep.sleep.drink.sleep… suspended in agonizing slow motion.  The silence was deafening in the deep, dark hours of night, still, cold, indifferent.

I had become a functional alcoholic.  I never drank before 5PM.  There was always an occasion, even if it was a day ending in “Y”.  And I certainly was not without company to share in my intoxicated merriment.  But there is a solid difference.  Every waking moment I did not spend at work was with a glass or a bottle in my fist.  I had gone far beyond the point of mixers, and mostly beyond the need for glasses.  It was me, a bottle of Bacardi 151 sans the filter, and a bottle of Gatorade to chase.

I wrote in Love the Way You Lie:

At that point, the seeds of alcoholism were taking root.  I violated my own rules of drinking.  It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!  I’m not drinking alone if I’m drinking with my boyfriend.  Hair of the dog, best way to cure a hangover.  If I’m still managing to get to school and hold an honor’s average, I’m not drinking too much.

Liquid courage and comfortingly numb.

It has always been my vice, and holds the looming, unending threat to assume control and ruin my life. In another 30 Days of Truth piece entitled, Control, or Lack Thereof, I went into a full exploration of recent recreational alcohol use and the negative impact it created in my life.

Flip that coin.

Drugs have revolutionized my life.

People neglect to realize that they are consuming legal drugs daily.  It becomes painfully obvious when you sigh over exorbitant copays at the pharmacy counter, like many people with mental health disorders often do.  But, instead of calling them “drugs”, we call them “medications”.  Did you know that Wellbutrin technically has the same chemical composition of a methamphetamine?  And that benzodiazepines work on the same receptors in the brain as alcohol?

So here I am, with my uppers to wake me in the morning, and my downers to put me to bed at night.  It would be illegal and detestable if I were using meth and boozing away.  Instead, it’s under the supervision of a doctor, as a controlled substance, in a convenient little pill.  Don’t get the wrong idea.  I am only likening the effects.  The supervision of the doctor is safer, and the medications are regulated by the FDA.  And as a result, I have most of my functioning back.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Friday Confessional : Seeds of Affection

In Possibility and Ascension, I wrote an abstract post of sorts detailing how Xan and I got together.  It didn’t have to be so convoluted and vague as it was, twisting and turning with enough imagery to put anyone into overload.  But, at the same time, it did.  Those were the only combination of words that I could put together to express how it had happened in my mind, and even more so in my heart.

Today, I’d like to make some confessions about it.  The first being the translation.

In the first paragraph:

When one door closes, another opens.

And occasionally it occurs as overlapping events, rather than simultaneously.  Such is the nature of life, with its interwoven fibers amounting to the gorgeous flowing fabric.  We are the sum of our actions and the resulting events.  But it’s not so simple.  The seeds were strewn about our fields throughout a long period of time, lodging themselves deep into our soil.  Then under the right conditions, they emerged to the surface to the light of day.

This was a sister prose of Decent Into Hell, if one was unable to tell.  The seeds were those little, unconscious, benign exchange between us over a period of three years.  I continued:

The seeds of our affections were sown.  And yet, we were blind to it.

Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve – – – words that often arise when hindsight comes into perfect focus.  Had I not been so engulfed in my failing relationships, I could’ve realized it.

 

Confession #1:  Xan and I were dating before I had even left my ex.

It was not an intentional love affair.  In fact, I was nothing of the sort.  It was accidental, subconscious courtship.  There was no physical contact.  However, as I started to inspect our romantic roots, I realized the existence of our love far beyond any admissions or actions.

I worked in a bakery at the time, making myself pretty visible.  Xan knew when I got off of work, and he would occasionally pop by unexpectedly.  Then, he would invite me to dinner.  I always declined, telling him that I just didn’t have enough money to go.  He said he didn’t plan on me paying in the first place and that my prescience wasn’t requested.  It was required.

In short, we had dates long before we were ever officially together.

 

The purging had ceased, inebriation started to fade while the sun battled his way above the horizon.  The first dim morning rays crept into the room, scarring the darkness into hiding.  Innocently entangled in one another, grappling for a certain reality that remained just shy of our reach, we breathed in unison.  Our voices were so low that the breeze seemingly whisked our words away, leaving only remnants in my memory.  What only remained was his gentle baritone murmur in my ears and the soft vibrations against my chest.  However, one managed to sound loudly in my mind.

I want to make love to you . . .

Stunned.  Paralyzed.  I want to make love to you too . . .  – stifled far too soon.  It wasn’t the phrase.  It was the sentiment.

 

Confession #2:  Xan and I had romantic roots more than three years back.

The situation played out like this.  My ex, Beck, and I had broken up for the first time shortly before this occurrence.  His new girlfriend was having a welcome party for some of her friends from Colorado, and our mutual friends invited me, much to his chagrin.

Xan and I were competitive drinkers at the time.  Well, truthfully, what weren’t we competitive about?  Though there was a certain amount of attraction and affection, there was always this need to feed an ego.  All of those things have stood the test of time, in case you were wondering.

TMI:  So, after getting wrecked on red bull and vodka all night, we shared a cooking pot to vomit into.  We were the last people with any remaining consciousness, and the whole house was silent.  All of the other sleeping areas were taken, and we were sharing the smallest, most uncomfortable sofa in the entire world.  It didn’t matter, though.  There was something about being locked in his embraced.  It wasn’t sexual.  It was a feeling like home.

That is when he propositioned me.  Confession:  I wanted to.  He admitted later that he wasn’t entirely serious, but he would have if I had agreed.  But, I didn’t.  There were a lot of factors that went into it.  We were friends.  I was seeing someone else.  And somehow, a rumor had spread that gave him a bad reputation as a playboy.  He never was.

Silence, with the exception of our constant dialogue like a clear flowing stream.  It was never the conversation that was important, but rather the continual contact.  We caressed each other through discreet discourse, as if our words were hands searching each others’ darkest secrets.  Outright confessions would’ve been too forward and obvious.  Physical displays would certainly be condemnable.  Our verbal intercourse continued, flying low under the radar as an innocent act of friendship of which even we were both eagerly convinced it was.

We stayed up for late night chats a lot.  There is really no other way to become truly intimate with a person than to share early morning hours with them.  That was years in the past.  We didn’t pick that back up until our subconscious courtship prior to our abrupt relationship.

His bare bedroom walls were soon filled with the colors of our affections.

Confession #3:  The words that sparked our relationship were, “I have always loved you.”  When did always begin?

I asked him that question shortly into our relationship.  He had asked, “Do you recall that night we painted my room?”

I did remember.  I remember being in some pseudo-screwed-up-relationship with my ex, Beck.  Xan, being the devils advocate that he is, said to me, “I’m bored.  Do you want to ransack Sasha’s (Beck’s long distance girlfriend) stuff to find something to do?”  It was devious.  I loved it.  It was so us.  We had done mischievous things to friends before, ranging anywhere from sending bogus text messages to “misplacing” things.

We found her paints, and we made a night of it.  I recall taking off my jeans and throwing them in the hallway.  He inquired.  I replied, practically, “So I don’t get any paint on them, duh.”

Confession:  I actually kept that pair of blue underwear with the yellow paint stain for several years afterward.  Xan was doing my laundry one day and asked, “Are these the…?”  “Yep.”  It turns out, we both have decent memories for the sentimentals.

 

To Be Continued….