First, a disclaimer: my purpose in writing this blog is not to vent on my mom or anyone else. Rather, it is an attempt to discover the many threads of my upbringing that currently act as a sticky web, holding me away from my own growth and development. I am trying to know myself, my drives, the ways I see things at a basic level, whether I'd like to cop to them or not.
The first bipolar symptom I'd like to talk about is grandiosity. My understanding of this trait is that of an inflated and ungrounded view of one's place in the world. Now, my spiritual understanding would tell me that each of us is a much more radiant and beautiful being than most of us are able to perceive due to our eyes choosing to connect to flesh more than to spiritual reality. Grandiosity is different in my view because it often puts other people down. "I'm so great and the others are less than" is a meta message I have heard from my mom many times. The spiritual perspective, on the other hand, holds that the Truth is true for me, and for you too, by the way.
My mom walks on a very different planet than that of a person who does not have bipolar. Where she lives is a place oft covered with a magical dust. It is a place of fairy tales where the moral of the story is what she is interested in during that particular moment. There is a very different kind of relationship with the past, because the past is filled with impressions she covers with fairy dust. When she feels wronged in some way the dust turns to acid and she sees the person or situation as all bad. Because she is the only one seeing this reality she by definition is at the center of the show and has to share to others what's playing. This takes a lot of effort. It means that she hasn't much left to listen to what other people are saying.
She is the star of her show and other people aren't able to perceive at the depth she does. Her career she describes in grand and noble brush strokes. Her opinions are connected with the high march of history towards the good and noble. Sooner or later other people will see that she was right all along. The thing is, her opinions can change fairly quickly, and it's not the idea itself, but her opinion which needs to be defended as being intrinsically transcendent.
Mom has, as long as I can remember, looked down on her family of origin. She was smarter than they. She achieved more. She was more ambitious. They were regular fodder for her criticisms. Rarely did she point out their good points, the exception being her father, who passed away when she was just over thirty years old. She described him in expansive terms now that he was dead and she could shape his image to her liking. He couldn't get in the way of how she wanted to think of him. Now that her mother is gone there is more and more lionizing of her. Less and less does she reference the almost constant sense of conflict she experienced in the presence of her mother.
One class she taught at age thirty at the local college becomes the grand sweep of "When I was teaching at the University". When I was eight and nine years old I remember how she received a mailing from the company "Who's Who in the West". The letter told her that she had qualified to be listed among the elite achievers of the region. Her father had also sent the money in and been listed in the book. To mom this was a sign that she was making it in the world. She was noticed! For about a year she talked about being listed in the book and kept the volume proudly on the bookshelf. By the time the dog chewed the cover to shreds several years had passed and the thrill had worn off.
As far as I know she very rarely goes back and reviews her past perceptions and questions her judgement at the time. Her connection with her own memories is tenuous. The past is a jumble and needs to be remade in the present time according to her present mood. I suppose such a process is somewhat true for all humans; methinks it is considerably more so for my mom.
Mom's expression of the symptom of grandiosity has worked on me in at least two ways I can think of. First, As a child my self esteem was harmed by it during the times when she looked down on me. She still looks down on me today, but the affect of that is less than it was when I was a child. "Don't you get that/ aren't you able to do something so simple, you idiot?" her tone told me time and time again when I was a kid. As I look back I can answer back to her "How can I know how to do something if no one has shown me?" She expected me frequently to be ABLE without ever teaching me the skills to be so.
This translated into a some traits that I carry today: I have low self-esteem. I tell myself that I am stupid if I don't understand something. I assume that another person can do something better than I can. I feel responsible. Though I can tell myself not to have such a feeling, I feel responsible, at a basic level, for my mom's well being.
She is a grand lady and I am supposed to blend in with the wallpaper except where I am there to serve her in some way.
A second affect is that I have taken up the trait of grandiosity to some degree. I don't see this as a symptom of a biological illness. Rather it is what I took in year after year from my primary model. When I was young mom brought me into her grandiose sphere. At times I was part of her club. I'd get a little fairy dust as well. I could, through her, see myself as one endowed with expansive knowledge of the world and all its inhabitants. I was allowed to see myself as more special, and better than others.
There were other people who she referred to in this expansive way. They were like demigods, though I never met any of them. They were people she knew of , for the most part people involved in state politics and culture. She also included her dad, after he was dead. These were the great titans I could aspire to emulate. Other people I met along the way were not in the same league. Not by a long shot.
From the time I was in my mid twenties I have cultivated a spiritual life. Through my spiritual life I have tried to consciously develop my higher self. That means that I have had tiny glimpses from time to time of the radiant being that I am essentially. My ability to see this in myself must have, in order to be real, a corresponding capacity to see it in others. The trait of grandiosity can weasel in there at times, showing me my radiant self, but now through the lens of the lower self. Grandiosity tells me that I'm cool and others aren't.
So I am careful about seeing my radiance too much. Luckily, there are signs that come to me and tell me whether the voice is the angel on my shoulder or the devil. Sometimes, or perhaps often, I miss the signs. I'd like to raise my awareness about this a lot more than I have to date.
Your comments are welcome.
Warmly, Ben
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