My Feelings

I have been building on a theme the past few posts.   The theme has to do with my experience of being abandoned by both of my parents.   My father abandoned me literally,  forming a close bond with me when I was a young child and then disappearing when I was six years old.   My mom was there in the flesh,  and in many ways worked hard to do well by me.   However,  she too abandoned me in at least two important ways. 

First,   I perceive that my mom is not able to empathize with others' feelings.  She sees everything from her own perspective,  and does not change her behavior relative to other people's feelings.   She is not able to have much of an experience about what it's like to be in another's shoes.    She did not listen to or try to see into my feelings when I was a child.    She often would project what she thought about a situation and act on her projection.   Empathy for my feelings was not part of the data she acquired.  

As anyone knows who has seen the "Dog Whisperer" on TV,   when you ignore a behavior it tends to extinguish.     When Cesar Millan walks up to an angry dog barking and snarling on the other side of a fence,   he gets right up close to it and then ignores it.   Soon enough,  the dog calms down and the behavior goes away.     My mom and my dad didn't mean to,  but they used the same principle to extinguish my feeling-life.

So, am I saying that I have no feelings whatsoever?   Not exactly.   My insight here has to do with the fact  that our feelings are the means through which we can connect with our authentic life.   Feelings are the compass we use to navigate the high-seas adventures of interacting with our fellow human beings and the world around us.   If our feeling-life is stunted it's like we are trying to find our way over the wide ocean with a broken compass.

I have to admit that my compass,  if not broken,  is pretty banged up.   Or rather,  it never had an opportunity to develop in a healthy way when it was supposed to.     My parents ignored my feelings.   So I had the experience that my feelings did not matter,   that they did not have any influence whatever relative to my environment.   So,  in essence,  I learned that my feelings are useless.

So here I was in my therapy group last night and they were asking me about what I felt about what I've been blogging about the past few weeks.   About how I felt "betrayal" at my mom taking sides with her boyfriend over me when I was thirteen.   The group members were trying to get at what I meant by "betrayal",   what were some of the feelings behind that word?   I couldn't tell them.

I couldn't tell them because I don't know.   I didn't know because I was told very early in my life that my feelings were useless.   They did not matter.   When I try to find my feelings,  it seems to me like I could search high and low,   scour the landscape from top to bottom,  side to side,  and that I might very well not find them.   It's as if they don't exist.

I am pretty sure they exist.   But they're buried so deep inside of me,  so far away from my conscious mind,  that they might as well not be there at all.

I need my feelings.   I need my compass.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Betrayal

I have realized over the past week or so that my experience of betrayal is looking more and more like one of my core issues.    Last week I wrote about how in my therapy group we were asked to do an exercise.   We were to bring to mind a painful experience from our past and meditate on it for a few minutes.  Then,  we were to say the following phrase,  "I felt ______." and fill in the blank with the feeling surrounding the experience.    What's more,  we were asked to verbalize that sentence in such a way that the group would understand deeply how you felt about the experience.   It was a way to get away from all the verbiage and "story" and just get to the raw emotion connected to the trauma.

The experience I went to was one that occurred when I was thirteen years old.   My mom and I had been just the two of us since my folks split when I was five years old.   For eight years our family was just us two.   We were the only players on a team.   That team was called,  "we're going to survive."    Mom had had boyfriends,  but they had never moved in.   Now one was moving in.   That felt VERY different.   I had had a lot of space to myself and even though mom did not have a lot of time or attention for me,  at least I didn't have to share her with another person.

One evening,  a few weeks after boyfriend had moved in,  we three were at the dinner table and had just finished dinner.   I remember my mom lecturing me about something and telling me that I couldn't do something I wanted to do.   I totally forget what it was about.   I was mad at being told no,  and went over to the fridge.   At that point the boyfriend reiterated the lecture my mom had been giving me.   I thought to myself,  "who the hell is HE to be lecturing me like he's my parent"  and under my breath I said,  "F*** you".   He jumped up,  ran over to me and started slapping me down to the floor.   "Don't you EVER say that to me!" he said,  red faced with anger coiled and ready to explode at a much higher level.   I am pretty sure he said something about kicking my ass if he needed to,  but I was in such shock,  my head was spinning.

I looked to my mom for some smidgeon of support.   She gave me none.   She supported him completely.   If she ever brought it up again I don't remember it.   For me,   it was a shattering experience.   I had been doing my part to help our family-of-two survive for all these years and taken some pretty good lumps in the process.   Having my mom switch her loyalty so quickly to this guy felt like the world was slipping out from under my feet.   My dad had betrayed me.   Now mom was betraying me.  She was  looking at all that I had done in service of our family,  all that I'd sacrificed,  and decided that it wasn't worth anything.   The deed I had done was deemed worthless.

Just to put the icing on the cake,  about five months later we received word that my dad had killed himself.   He betrayed me a second time.   The hope that I would some day be able to get to know him,  to spend time with him,  that was gone.   He was gone.   

My mom's betrayal stands between us all the time.   I hold it against her.   I do not trust her to treat me well.   There have been other issues over the years,  but nothing that compares to the betrayal I felt that day.    I built a wall between her and me.   I built a wall between me and any feelings I might have for my dad.    That same wall stands between me and pretty much every person I meet.  Between me and my family,  my friends,  everyone.   Stay back!  my gesture says.   I am a nice guy.   I am a friendly guy.   But my inner gesture says "Stay back!"

At some level I do not trust other people to do right by me.   I expect them to betray me.   Somehow,  my wife has gotten around this high wall,  by deeply reassuring me that she will not betray me.   She has done that for years,  and I profoundly believe her.   Everyone else gets my wall to one degree or another.   They get my inner "talk to the hand!"

I know that my parents were not trying to harm me.    I know that they were not plotting to betray me.   But my experience was of being betrayed.   And it was an experience which has deeply influenced how I interact with all people.   

If I were not to work on this issue,  I am pretty sure that I'd become more like a hermit as time goes on.   I don't want to be a hermit.   I want to overcome this and be able to have friends that I don't act all strange around.   I'm going to have to work on this one.   But at least I am learning about its nature and how it affects me.   

It feels pretty crappy to sit with these feelings.   But it's better than being mired in confusion,  and that's where the feelings around this experience have been up to now.  This is an insight I can build on.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

A Bracing Insight

In my therapy group the other night we did an exercise.   The exercise was to remember a painful experience from our past and try to enter into the feeling space of it.   We closed our eyes for a few minutes and focused on the experience.   Then we were to share the experience with the group in a certain way.   We were to express our  experience in a phrase,   "I felt _______"   and communicate,  as best we could,  the full emotional content of the experience in our uttering of the single phrase.

The reason for the exercise was that we often,  in our telling of our "story",  have the words actually block our access to the feelings which relate to the story.   Here,  we were to focus simply on the feeling associated with the experience,  and not in sharing all of our thoughts.

The phrase I spoke was "I felt betrayal".   I will go into what that meant to me later,  but first I want to talk about the gesture I made while I was saying it,  and what the group mirrored back to me about that gesture.   I was clenching my fists and thrusting them downward.   It was a fight-or-flight kind of gesture.   It was me "bracing for impact".   The impact of betrayal.

What the group communicated to me also had to do with one of the primary  reasons I am there:   I have challenges in forming and maintaining friendships.    I have talked about this in group fairly often.   Group members shared with me how they saw this gesture of mine as a shield I hold up around me.   It is a shield of protection,  and a shield that keep others at a distance.   

So what is the nature of this shield?   What is it made of?   One thing for sure is anger.  Deep down I am very angry.    It is also about fear.   I am deeply afraid of being attacked or abandoned.    There have multiple episodes in my adult life when I have felt a sense of betrayal.   When I feel this I have a very strong reaction.   I want to get away as fast as possible from what I determine is the source of the betrayal.   My reaction is often irrational and can overwhelm my higher intention for myself.

This sense of betrayal lives so strongly for me that I think I must project it out to people I am meeting and getting to know.    "Don't get too close"  is the message I am likely sending to others under the surface.   I am a basically likable person,  but clearly send people mixed messages at a subtle level.   I don't want to be sending those messages for the rest of my life.   I really want to overcome this challenge of mine.    

One thing I have learned is that as one ages,  our unexamined and/or untransformed "stuff" can either become stronger or weaker.   Its influence becomes greater or lessens,  but not so likely to stay the same.   Our stuff becomes stronger if we don't cop to it and work on it.   Our stuff becomes weaker if we really set ourselves to understand and transform it.   It takes a lot of honesty and work.   And it takes time.    

Standing where I am today (with loads of issues still left to work on),  I can easily say that my own striving to transform my "stuff" is well worth the effort.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Higher Self/Lower self

One way to trace my path of healing can be to look at the dynamic between my higher self and my lower self.   I firmly believe that I,  and all people,   are spiritual beings on an earthly journey.    Part of that earthly journey is facing the dynamic between our higher self and our lower self. 

Definitions.   I see my higher self as being the part of me which exists beyond this lifetime.   Its voice is my conscience,   my highest ideals are its aims;   it is that part of me which represents what is most noble and good about me.

My lower self is,  I think,  deeply connected to painful experiences which became formative for me.   People treated me in certain ways,  things happened,  and I began to build up an identity based on those perceptions and events.   

I believe that what we call the "soul" is the space in which the higher self and lower self dynamic plays out.   

Obviously,  these definitions are very inadequate descriptions;  what I am alluding to is extremely difficult to describe with any kind of certainty or accuracy.

I had glimpses of my higher self throughout my early years.   But often there were not people there around me who could see my essential self and help me to attach my higher self firmly to my general self image.    I became fairly unaware of what my higher self was like.   It was always there,  but I was only dimly aware of it.   By the time I got into high school,  my lower self was doing stuff that was painful to me and to others.   

Sometimes we see a person who operates effectively on the earthly plane while maintaining a clear connection to their higher self.  It is beautiful to see and probably not that common.    

Though my path to such a place of "integration"  has had its fair share of bumps,  I see tremendous value in continuing that way.     This blog is very helpful to me,   in this way,   because it is a place to cop to elements of my lower self,  share insights about what's happening in my soul,  and to try and clarify which parts of me are more "lower self" and which are more "higher self".   It is clear to me that when I shine the light on my own lower self,  its power over me tends to lessen.  It can be a fearful step to shine the light on something I'd rather keep hidden.   But once I have done it,   the fear subsides and I am more free than I was before.    I have engaged this process enough times now that I KNOW it to be true.

In my early twenties I began following a spiritual path.   I lived in a spiritual community for two years and worked in a context that helped me to focus on building my higher self.   My wife,  who I've known since my later twenties,   has been the person who has most consistently helped me to see aspects of my higher self.    Her gift to me in this way (not to mention many other ways) is of immense importance to my life.    The rest of my life will be very different than it might have been,  because of her.

So,  starting in my mid twenties,  I was having more experiences of my higher self.     At the same time,  my lower self,  filled with anger and sadness and pain and despair,   was angling to "win out" in defining who I am.

Being increasingly identified with my higher self while feeling my lower self rising up to try and dominate how I identify myself has been,  shall we say,   uncomfortable.    It's been like treading through a viscous,  soupy swamp,  with moist warm arms trying to wrap around me and control me.    The arms try to pull me down.   They try to pull me away from others.     They try to pull me away from myself.    

They're like the cobwebs in Shelob's lair,  for all you "Lord of the Rings"  enthusiasts.   They stick to me and try to hold me from what my higher self would have me do.   I suppose one could see Shelob herself as a representation of the lower self.   Only,  it is a picture of the lower self at the moment when we are closest to hearing the call of the higher self and doing something important for ourselves.   That's the moment when the lower self can seem to have the greatest power over us.  Naturally,  it wants us to believe that its power is greater than what our higher self can bring to bear.    Pernicious illusion!

Frodo is given the "Phial of Galadrial" to take on his journey.   It contains the "Light of Earendil".   In the movie script Galadrial says to Frodo:  "I give you the light of Eärendil, our most beloved star. May it be a light for you in dark places, when all other lights go out."    So at the moment when Frodo was being overwhelmed by the forces of darkness,  there is the piece of light which leads him back to his higher self,  and enables him to continue on his mission.   Of course, "trusty Sam" is a key helper to Frodo,  helping him to survive and continue on their journey.

I think Mr Tolkien might have been on to something.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

I Can Hear

The platform I was given from childhood was a bit wobbly.  By platform,  I mean the skills,  understandings,  and grounded-ness needed to navigate the world successfully.    I have been working for a while now to strengthen that platform,  a basis on which my happy and productive life can continue to emerge and develop.   I have done many things,  over time,  to add rebar where there wasn't much (or any) before.    One place I have recently strengthened is my ability to hear the world around me.

About a year ago I went to get a hearing test.   My family had been telling me that I was saying "what?" an awful lot so I started tuning into the possibility that my hearing was a bit off.     I started to notice that I did say "what?"  more than average and questions I've asked myself like "Why do others learn song lyrics faster than I do?"  might have an answer in my ability to hear at a normal level.

I went to an audiologist friend of mine and she informed me that I had "mild hearing-loss in the mid-range and moderate hearing-loss for high tones."   She told me it was not crucial to get hearing aids but that my life would likely be enhanced if I did.

So a few weeks ago I did.

 Trying out two different kinds of hearing aids,   I can now hear things that were not audible to me before.   Or at least not for a long,  long time.   I had a lot of ear infections when I was a kid,  especially between the ages of 4 and 7.   I probably listened to some loud music when I was in high school….  I am guessing I may have had hearing loss since high school age and have not since been screened for it.   That's pretty amazing to me.   I have had loads of physicals since that time and I don't ever remember a hearing test.

In one way,   I can see that as "water over the dam".   In another way,  I have to ask myself how mild/moderate hearing loss has affected my life over the years.   It's not really a question of IF it has affected my life;  it's HOW.

One way that seems pretty clear:   without the hearing aids,  when I am in a group,  and sometimes one-on-one conversations,     I tend to miss things that people say.   When I do miss something,  I am often shy to ask them to repeat more than a few times,  and so I begin to withdraw subtly from the conversation.   I am not able to track the conversation because I simply am not able to hear everything the person is saying.   

There is part of me which is fairly sociable,  and another part which withdraws.   How much of my withdrawing has been due to my ability to hear?  

I have been thinking about the phenomenon that people who have hearing loss sometimes are perceived by others as being "slow" or a little "dim-witted".   How often has that happened to me just because I was not able to hear all that someone was saying.

My family is already telling me they see a difference in me.

This is a good reminder that my progress in life is not always related to my "overcoming my psychological issues".   Sometimes life can be very much enhanced in other ways.

Hearing aids are not perfect.   They can be a bit a of a pain.   But I can hear a lot more of what's going on around me.   And that makes me feel more confident about my social interactions.

Sounds good to me!

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Overcoming my Shame

Last week I wrote about what I perceived as being at the root of my shame.   Namely,  that I was often not treated as if I mattered during formative periods of my life.   

Now that I am an adult,   I can see into the lives of the people who made these deep impressions on me and realize that it was not personal.   They were not trying to screw me up and scar me.   They had their own issues and I can try to have compassion for them.   Nevertheless,  a child takes in the messages from those around him,   and he uses those messages to understand his place in the world.    

Here is how I received some of the messages I've been talking about,  and how they relate to my shame.

1)  When I was six,  my dad left my life.   Message from him to me:   "You don't matter to me.   You are not important enough to me to stick around."

2)  During much of my childhood,  my mom was a workaholic,  gone most of the time and stressed out and exhausted when she was with me.    Message from her to me:   "You're not worth spending time with.   I could spend more time with you and care for you but I've got better things to do."

3)  When I was six, my babysitter molested me after school frequently over the course of several months.  Her message to me:   "My sexual urges are far more important than your basic sense of safety and well-being. You're about as valuable as a dildo."

As a child,  I tried to take in these messages and still function in my world.   What made it all the more challenging was that no one was all that aware of my deep suffering.    My mom took me to a psychologist for a few months after my dad left,   so she had some sense of the pain I might be in.   But she was completely oblivious to numbers two and three listed above.   She was oblivious to number three because she simply did not know the abuse had happened.   She was oblivious to number two because she was invested in not learning anything about that one.

So,  I had to deal with all three traumas largely on my own.   What I integrated from these messages built up my shameful self,  my sense of not being good,  or good enough.   Of being less-than.   I integrated into my self-image an underlying sense that I was unworthy and unlovable.   These aspects of my self-image went under the surface while what I projected on the outside was relatively steady and cautiously friendly.   

Over time,  other parts of my life went well enough and I started to receive messages from others that "maybe I was a good person,  maybe I was a worthy person."      I started having friends and developing relationships.   I got into sports.   I did well enough in school.   

The chronic issues were there:    One was that dad lived out of state and rarely communicated with me.   The other was that  mom worked all the time,  had very little time for me,  and did not communicate to me that she was interested in my feelings.

But the traumatic parts of life subsided.   Everyone moves on and development continues.     My shame was a part of me now.   Its key parts were abandonment,  neglect,  and sexual assault.   

When I came into middle school I caught pneumonia and lost twenty-five pounds.   All of a sudden girls started to notice me and I became sexually attractive.    My shame took this up and translated it back to me as:   "Your worth is based on your being sexually desirable to others.  No one would want to be with you for any reason other than to have sex with you."   

By the time I was seventeen I was at the end of my rope.   Life seemed like a confusing,  jumbled and dangerous thing to do.   

Since then,   I have led a path of trying to make healthy choices to the best of my ability.   I have tried to find a way out of my shame.     And I have been very lucky.

Each year I have tried to do good and to become a better person than I was the year before.  And,  since today my life is pretty stable and wonderful in many ways,  I think I have done well.

I have,   thanks to my own efforts and the care and love of my wife and others,  created a space for myself from where I can look at my shame from an objective point of view.   I can try to look at the scope of my shame,   its depth,  its regular influence over my thoughts.   And,  I know that my shame is not me.   I did not do anything to deserve my shame.   I was a kid.   The real me is a beautiful child of God,  just like everyone is.

I see you,  shame,   and I've got your number!

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

My Shame

I feel shame.   

Shame is different than guilt.   Guilt is when you do something and,  afterwards,  you regret having done it.    When we apologize for what we've done and try to atone for it,  we then can alleviate the guilt.   It's possible that it can go away.

Shame is different.   Shame is when you feel bad about yourself because there is some basic flaw in who you are.   Within the framework of shame,  there is nothing you can do to alleviate it.   It is intrinsic.   Some churches do the world a monumental injustice and call this shame "original sin".   They try to tie our shame to some kind of spiritual "truth."   That way,   it's much easier to control us.

My shame is not far under the surface,  though I hide it quite well (at least I think I do).  Underneath my sense of well being and positive spin on life,   I feel,  well,  bad about who I am.    At some level I think I am unlovable,  even though there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.   When I receive love from others there is part of me that says "yeah--they're doing that now….just wait until they learn who I REALLY am".   

I have to admit that my wife loves me so well and so,  shall I say it,   sincerely,   that this voice has lost a good deal of its teeth.   And,  nevertheless,   there it is.     It is more buried than it used to be.   It flashes those teeth from time to time.

So where does my shame come from?   Here's my understanding:

When I was a kid,   I had a number of experiences,  both chronic and traumatic,   that told me,   "I am not a worthwhile person".   

When I was between the ages of birth and four life was fairly un-bumpy.   On the other hand,  my dad was a severe alcoholic,  my mom had untreated bipolar and they both,  as reported by mom,  were having affairs.   So,  perhaps "un-bumpy" is relative.

During that time both parents gave me attention and love,  in spite of the fact that they were fairly consumed by their own personal issues.   They loved me,  but they probably only had a limited amount of attention they could give to their active and rambunctious youngster. Their attention was probably pretty spacey (mom) and pickled (dad).

My bonding with both of them was likely pretty tenuous due to the realities of their mental health.

My wobbly bonding with my parents probably is near the root of my shame.   Then,  other stuff came along to add to the shame.

My parents divorced when I was four.   My dad,  whom I longed deeply to bond with,  I now only saw sporadically.   My mom was under a great deal more stress and was not fun to be around.   The attention I had received from my parents was,  at age five,  a tiny fraction of what is was before they split.    My experience was that I became much less important to each of them.   They just did not have the time for me beyond providing me with the basics.

When I was six,   I was molested by my fifteen year-old female babysitter over several months.   And my dad exited my life.   He shot himself when I was fourteen.   Between the time I last saw my dad and when he died,  eight years passed.   To say he was in sporadic contact with me during those eight years would be generous.

My mom is a good person;   she means well and she tries.   But her deep narcissism meant that she was not aware of pretty much any of my emotional needs.   She raced around and tried to do things that a "good mother" does,  but she never listened to me.   Instead,  she talked.  She had a low-level to medium-level mania going for much of my growing up years,  as well as a few nervous breakdowns.

Neglect,  sexual abuse,  abandonment.   These were some of my most formative experiences;   they told me who I was in the world and what I meant to the people I was closest to.   This was definitely not the whole story of my life.   But it is,  most likely,  the story of my shame.

It's no wonder I feel shame.   It's logical.   Anyone with childhood experiences like these would have to deal with shame.

Next post:  What to do about it?

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Dissociation

From the ACA ((Adult Children of Alcoholics and Disfunctional Families) Big Red Book,  p 344:

"What is Dissociation?

Dissociation is a survival tool from childhood.   Adult children can dissociate from themselves in a variety of ways that can be difficult to recognize until we get help.  In addition to drugs,  work,  sex or food,  we dissociate in other ways that can include:  compulsive cleaning,  compulsive exercising,  obsessive reading,  fantasizing about sex or romance,  telephone sex,  pornography,  compulsive masturbation,  workaholism,  or harmful thrill seeking.   There is also compulsive spending and cluttering.   Dissociation responds well to honesty about our behavior and a willingness to do program work."

So,   I dissociate ALL the time.   I have done this for as long as I can remember. How do I dissociate?  Let me count the ways….

Out of the fifteen dissociation "avenues" listed above,  I can personally relate to about ten.    Anyway,  well above half of them I have experienced at one time or another.      The most common is my just getting spacey and not being fully present with myself or anyone I'm with.    I "check out".   Where do I go when I dissociate?   

On page 87 of the Big Red Book,  the ACA authors describe dissociation as a child repressing their true feelings in order to survive in the face of abuse, neglect or other traumas.   They further describe three distinct methods of dissociation.   

1)  The person represses,  projects or rationalizes the feelings which are causing him/her pain.

2)  The person uses a substance (such as alcohol,  sugar,  nicotine, caffeine)   to alter the painful feelings.

3)  The person uses negative excitement to keep him/herself unaware of deeper fear.   By focusing our attention on phobias,  obsessions,  dreams and taboos,  and compulsively tensing in response to these fears,  we force the body to build a protective physical armor and to produce adrenaline,  endorphins,  and melatonin to chemically block the perception of pain.

"All three forms forms of dissociation keep us imprisoned in a narrow and familiar range of behavior,  never reaching the extremes of panicked exhaustion or of collapse into suicidal despair"  (BRB,  p 88).

I believe that I,  and all people,  are spiritual beings.   I believe that my spiritual nature joined with my earthly form which comes through my parents' biological lineage.   In an ideal setting of childhood,   the spiritual nature of a person can join with the material in a lawful and harmonious way.   What happens is an integration of spirit and material which leads someone to have ideas,  feelings and behaviors which are closely aligned with their highest ideals for themselves.   

For those of us who got kicked around a bit,  we have more work to do.    We have to identify,  to whatever extent we can,  with our higher self,  and try to gradually empower our higher self to be increasingly in control of our thoughts,  feelings and behavior.

So the answer to the question,  "Where do I go when I dissociate?"  probably goes something like this:   As a child I wanted to flee the circumstances which were around me.   But where does a child flee to?   Where was I to go? 

I think that my spiritual nature,  what ACA calls the "inner child" tried to flee out of of my body.   When I was being molested,  when my dad abandoned me,  when my mom was chronically unaware of my needs,  my inner child,  (sometimes acutely,  sometimes gradually),  separated from my every-day consciousness.   While I was going about my business of being a kid,  part of my consciousness was often hovering over my body,   not wanting to "integrate" with my material form because it seemed too damn dangerous.   And because my inner child was "out of the building",  there could be "other stuff" that was more than happy to come in.   The "other stuff" includes the ten out of fifteen of the behaviors listed above.

It is a quantum level easier to "integrate" when one is a kid.   The recovery of the human species can be achieved only by doing a better job of raising children.   I firmly believe that.   But,  we can still recover as adults even when the road behind has been rocky.   It is  a lot harder.    But what's the alternative? For me,  the alternative to recovery is years of confusion and misery.

No thanks.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

I Know What Bipolar Feels Like

I do not have bipolar.   But I am pretty sure I know what it feels like.   

My mom has bipolar.    She began taking lithium for it when I was fifteen and she went to the local mental illness hospital,  in a psychotic state.   After several years of lithium she went off of it and soon became psychotic again.   About ten years ago she started taking Lamictal,  which has led to her having the most stable mood, and life,  that I have seen in my forty two years.  

During my entire childhood,  up to the time I was fifteen,   she had bipolar,  though it was neither diagnosed nor treated.

Having a parent with bipolar means that I have modeled behavior at a very basic level which comes out of her illness.   A number of times in my life I have acted as if I had bipolar.     My behavior has,  at times,  appeared as an echo of mental illness.   We all act like our parents/parental figures to some degree.   I am no different.

My talking about this subject is helpful because it is one I fear.   Given my parents' mental health issues,  (dad suffered from severe alcoholism and depression)  I naturally have feared contracting mental illness myself.    Statistics I found in NAMI say that someone like me (two parents with MI) is more likely than not to develop mental illness.   I did not read that until I was in my late thirties,  past the average time of onset for bipolar.   If I had come to that statistic it in my early twenties it probably would have freaked me out BIG-TIME.

There have been a number of times in my life when I have acted in a way that,  looking back,  seems pretty manic.     One example was leading friends on a day-hike in bear country.   It was exciting,   but reckless.  It was a stupid thing to do.   No one was injured in any way,   but we were probably just lucky.

Another example was when I graduated from my teaching program.   There was a celebration that involved students doing skits.   I got pretty manic.    As I think about my role there I regret how manic I was during that time.   

I feel bad about those events today because I wasn't the person I wanted to be in those situations.   In one,  I was actually putting friends in potential danger in order to get a thrill.  And in the other,   I did not connect deeply with people as we closed our experience together,  because I was "out of myself".   

I also feel bad because it draws my judgement into question at times.   If I had bad judgement then,  does that suggest anything about my judgement today?   Can I trust myself?   Can I trust my thoughts?   The stability of my consciousness?   

During those times I felt euphoria and like everything was in grand alignment.  To a degree I felt superhuman or that I was a deeply important individual.     This feeling lasted for a week or so and then subsided.    When I look back on those moments I realize that my judgement was flawed and that I made bad decisions while in that state.     I feel regret around these events.   I see myself as having behaved foolishly.

There are other examples of times when I became somewhat manic in relation to some aspect of my life.   Over the past 15 years my wife has pointed out some of them and helped me to adjust my behavior.

Normally,  I would say that I am fairly mistrustful of extremes.   I strive to be calm at all times,  as a basic personality trait.    There is some "chop" under the surface but my exterior is usually pretty calm and together.   My family,  because they see me up close,  know that I am not as calm as I try to appear to the world.

It is likely that I have a deep-seated fear of extremes and that my personality is very level because of that.   "Don't get too happy;   don't get too sad.   Stay right in the middle and hold that ground."   Those words basically describe how my personality was formed.   You could say that,  to some degree,   my personality developed as a sort of mood stabilizer.     My M.O. as a kid was to keep mom stable.   All hands went on deck for that purpose.

Of course,  now that I am processing my pain I am finding that I'm not as calm as I have previously thought.   Maybe my personality will be different after I've come through this process of transforming my traumas.   I'll have wait and see what comes out on the other side.

It doesn't freak me out to try and be objective about my personality because I know that,  essentially,  I am not my personality.   My personality is the expression through which I meet the world.  I believe my true nature is spiritual,  and not of this world,  as is everyone's.

I think that my talking about this subject may make "bipolar-like moments" less likely to happen in the future.   My repression of the previous experiences of such moments created a "fear pocket",  a little "don't look in there" closet.   And my lower self just loves to take the keys to those cars and take them out for a spin.   If my higher self shines the light on the issues then my lower self does not have anything to grab hold of.   It's those little secret,  shameful places that the lower self looks for and takes advantage of.

What's amazing is that when I do shine the light on the "dark, scary places" I find that,  rather than finding something awful and ugly,  hideous to look at;   I actually find something akin to "nothing" there.   That is to say,   the lower self somehow gets me to believe in the profound ugliness of my secret;   when in fact it dissipates as soon as I shine the light of day on it.   All it is is a foothold for the lower self.   Nothing more than that.   And by shining the light on it I dissolve the foothold. The lower self has to go find something else to latch on to.   If I keep shining the light as a practice,  there are gradually fewer and fewer footholds for the lower self,  and its power over my thoughts,  feelings and behavior gets more and more attenuated.

As the lower ego becomes weaker,   my higher self naturally wants to fill the space.    Or perhaps it is the other way around:   my higher self stepping forward takes the space,  and leaves less space for the lower ego.   Inside of me there is a fearful place  that keeps me from being my true radiant self.   But if I keep this practice going,  shining the light into my pockets of shame,  I will gradually become a different person.   

A different person who reflects more and more the light that I am,   truly.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Fingernails

I have a few nervous habits that have been part of my expression ever since I can remember.   There are other mini-tics I have had in the past and which,  for some reason,  have gone out of rotation.    My perception is that I do not present as an overly nervous person.    But I guess the truth is that I hide my nervous habits pretty well.   I am sure my wife sees them all pretty clearly,  and she is kind enough to not point them out too often.

My primary nervous habit is that I bite my fingernails.  I am pretty sure that I began biting them when I was about six years old.   It's possible I bit them before six;  I don't remember but I kinda don't think so.    If you've read some of my other blog posts,  you may remember that age six was the time when I endured a number of traumas.   I was molested,  my dad abandoned me,  and my mom went to work full-time and was swallowed up in her work-life.   These events spurred in me a sense of insecurity,  which was compounded by the facts of my life in general when I was a kid.   

When those traumas hit me at age six,  I did not freak out.   I did not scream and cry,  although I am sure I wanted to.    My coping was quiet.  My M.O. became "Do not add any stress to mom".     Rather than let all that pain and suffering come out, I brought it all back into myself.   I ate it.    

The insecurity that arose in me, the nervous energy that was needing to express itself,  came out in biting my fingernails.     Also in wetting the bed, which I did  until I was eleven or so.    And sleepwalking,  which I still do on rare occasion.   

Although I do not currently wet the bed and rarely sleep-walk (my wife is very grateful for this),  thirty-five years later I still bite my fingernails   I have never stopped. Through this nervous habit I am tied to the events of that time of my life.   I try not to pick at them when others are around.    

It's funny,  because biting on my fingernails does not make me feel any more secure.   If anything it makes me feel less secure.   Sometimes I hide my nails from being seen by others.   Hiding my fingernails is kind of like hiding myself from others in general.   I don't want others to see my bitten nails (shameful self) so I hide my nails (self) from them.     

My fingernails are a constant reminder to me of how insecure I am.   How I feel ashamed of who I am.   Don't get me wrong--I think I am a good person and I do like myself.   But there is a voice in me which runs directly counter to my seeing myself in positive terms.

Were I to fully immerse myself in my shame,  I would hear a narrative something like this one:   "I have a great, big,  awful thing about me and that if you somehow catch a glimpse of it you will react to me with horror and disgust."    

My conscious self,  of course,  keeps all that under wraps so that no one would think that I was experiencing such a inner feeling.   It is a message below the surface of my conscious mind.   It is the voice of my lower self,  of my wounded child.   

Having bitten my nails for thirty five years now it is quite the ingrained habit.   I do not remember using a nail clipper to trim my nails EVER in my life.   I am not kidding.

So how do I break this habit?   Do I suddenly feel good enough about myself one day and stop chomping?   My sense is that it will happen in a fashion something like this:   

I will reach into the deep shame I feel about myself and overcome it.    Nothing a few years of ACA meetings and group therapy can't handle.   Then,  I will decide from my inner Self to break the habit.  And because the feelings of shame are no longer (or to a much lesser degree)  pressing in on me,  my decision to break the habit will not be overwhelmed by the disruptive power of my shame.   The work I do on  myself will give me the basis to stop munching the little guys.

Sounds like a good plan,  eh?   I'll let you know how it works.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Thoughts on ACA

I have recently begun attending ACA (Adult Child of Alcoholics) meetings and reading the foundational text,  called the Big Red Book.   As I read this book and hear people's experiences in the meetings,   I am seeing an amazing number of connections.   This material describes my own experience in a very clear,  detailed and profound way.   Who knew?

The official name of the movement is "Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dis-functional Families".   I qualify as an "Adult Child" in the ACA sense relative to both of my parents.   My dad was a severe alcoholic and my mom had untreated bipolar for most of my childhood and teenage years.   

The ACA material often just nails the issues I am trying to bring to light in this blog.   The more I read,   the more I see that this community and body of knowledge stand to be huge helps to me now and in the future.

ACA,  like all 12-step programs,  has a spiritual basis,  a fact which is tremendously appealing to me.   I began actively pursuing a spiritual path in 1994,  when I was twenty five years old.   My spiritual path has steadily developed over the years.   What I have found in the past five years or so,  since I was in my late thirties,   is that my spiritual understandings have come up against my deep and unhealed pain.     I have found myself in crisis in relation to this fact.    

It seems to me that ACA is what is coming toward me to show me the way through.   This answer to my question is,  to me,  a sure sign that the universe is always looking to help us towards our highest good.   The only thing that holds us back is our own thinking.   And I,  for one,  am ready to tackle the places where my thinking is holding me back.    Turns out that's not going to be a small task.   

Interestingly,  instead of feeling excited and happy about finding ACA,  right now I am feeling very sad.    I think it's because of the deep,  deep sadness inside of me;   the ACA material I am reading is shining a light on that.   For me to heal myself,  I am going to have to bring my pain,  sadness,  anger,  and all the rest of it to the surface of my consciousness.    I am going to have to look at my own dysfunctional behavior at a new level.    This is going to take work.  And time.   And there will be times when I feel crappy about it all.

But it seems clear to me that ACA offers me a way to work through the issues around my painful upbringing and move forward,  with time,  into being a true adult.    My purpose in writing this blog was not that I could permanently identify myself as an ACMI,  but to find out how I could overcome my experience of being an "Adult Child".

I will keep reading this Big Red Book.   I will keep going to ACA meetings.   I will start working the 12 Steps.  I will start looking for a sponsor.  

 I see where my path is pointing me.   I might as well get going.   

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Adult Children of Alcoholics

I have recently been introduced to the group ACA/ACOA,  Adult Children of Alcoholics.     I have never thought to go to any of the 12 step groups because of two things:  first,   my dad,  an alcoholic,  was out of my life when I was relatively young (age six).   Second,   I have never had any kind of serious substance abuse issue.   I have had brushes with compulsive behavior but not at a level I thought would warrant 12 step involvement. 

My thinking on this matter is changing and ACA seems like it may be the group for me.   

First of all,  ACA is a group for adult children of alcoholics as well as adult children of dysfunctional families.     Apparently,  they have found that many of the principles apply to both groups.   As I read the ACA tome "The Big Red Book" the issues laid out there ring very powerfully for me.   ACA has a foundational statement called "The Laundry List" which speaks to the shared experience of folks like me.    There are fourteen points and I'll list them below:

_____________________________________________________________

The ACA Laundry List

1) We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.

2) We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.

3)  We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.

4)  We either become alcoholics,  marry them or both,  or find another compulsive personality such as workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.

5)  We live life from the viewpoint of victims,  and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.

6)  We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility,  and it is easier to be concerned with others rather than ourselves;  this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults,  etc.

7)  We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.

8)  We become addicted to excitement.

9)  We confuse love and pity and tend to "love" people we can "pity" and "rescue".

10)  We have "stuffed" our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).

11)  We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.

12)  We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in  order not to experience painful abandonment feelings,  which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.

13)  Alcoholism is a family disease;  we became para-alcoholics (co-dependents) and took on the characteristics of the disease even though we did not pick up the drink.

14)  Para-alcoholics (co-dependents) are reactors rather than actors.

_____________________________________________________________

Let's see which ones seem to apply to me.     I will use a scale to rate how much each of the points on the list seem to apply to me.   Terms are "Definitely" (3),  "Yes" (2),  "Sort of" (1)  and "Not so much" (0).   

1)  Definitely

2)  Definitely

3)  Definitely

4)  Yes,  I have dealt with compulsive behaviors in myself.

5)  Definitely,  though my wife has helped me start to find a different way.

6)  Definitely

7)  Definitely

8)  Not so much--though perhaps people who know me would see it differently.

9)  Sort of--this used to be more true for me than it is now.

10)  Definitely

11)  Definitely

12)  Not so much--I have often done the opposite,  which is to neglect relationships,  often because I was afraid of people seeing how shameful I am.

13)  Yes--this is likely true to some degree.  I'll have to research characteristics of alcoholics more to get more clear on this one.

14)   Definitely--I often see myself as being more of a reactor than actor.   I very much want to change this trait of mine.   

My score:   out of 42 possible points (answering "definitely" to all 14) I scored 32.    My score would likely be higher if not for the model my wife has shown me over the past decade.    I have gradually been addressing these issues in my my life but still have much more work to do.    It seems very clear to me that the ACA material could be very helpful to me if I decide to take it up.

What do I have to lose?

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

Mom Fog

A few weeks ago my mom came to visit on the occasion of my step-daughter's high school graduation.   I knew mom was about to arrive because,  during the week leading up to her being here,   my neck and shoulders began to stiffen up and become sore.

Her visits often have a certain rhythm to them.    I feel tense as she arrives but she is upbeat and so it's all smiles and hugs.   After a day or so she begins to be less upbeat and there is some kind of challenge to work out.   After a few days there is often some kind of a larger challenge,   especially if I try to draw any kind of a boundary with her.   She hates to hear the word "No".   After about three days I am ready for her to leave.   

Mom lives alone.   My family and I,   almost without exception,  are the only ones she has spent more than a few hours in close company with over the past twenty years.   She can be bubbly and charming for very short spans but her mood fairly quickly wears thin.   

During this visit I found myself drifting into what I'll call "Mom Fog".   This is a common pattern of interaction between us;   she talks and talks (and talks)  and I start to fade out.  She's talking about what she's thinking about and has very little interest in what others' views and thoughts might be.   

This stimulates my childhood pattern:   I had very little emotional room to grow as a person.   The space for "me",  where my sense of self could grow,   was very, very small.    The space I was given was her projection and had little or no relation to what I was or was not feeling at any given time.  She had very low empathy toward my inner life so she would just project her own imagination of what she wanted my inner life to be.   Her projection had almost no relation to my actual experience.   My feelings were invisible to her and so,  as this pattern laid in over time,   they became invisible to me.   

My survival mechanism was to support her at all costs.   And so I hid myself.   I never really took hold of my own agenda and, instead,  identified with hers.   Her narcissism blinded her to what was going on.

Mom Fog is the experience of losing my self in the ceaseless ramble of words and thoughts she is always sharing.   I have worked to have a greater sense of self,  but I need to be away from her in order to develop that.   When I am around her I have a split intention:  part of me pushes her away very strongly while another part tries to be friendly and accommodating.    

This split creates the Mom Fog where I feel pulled into a dangerous,  me-effacing vortex that swirls into oblivion.   Oblivion,  in this case,  means living my life in order to serve her agenda--a place where I have no individual will but all of what I have to give is taken by her,  without even saying thanks.

My experience of Mom Fog continues to relate to her narcissism.   Often I feel like I don't really matter to her except in so far as I serve her agenda.  She doesn't see who I am.   She often doesn't say thank you when she's asked me to do something and I do it.   Saying thank you is the most basic level of acknowledging the other person and his role; that he matters.    The fact she often does not say thank you tells me she's still stuck in the same mindset that imprinted on me when I was a kid.

Mom Fog comes when I deny the feelings brought up in me when she starts doing "her thing".   I stuff all of the pain.   I stuff all of my anger.    In me lies fury over all of this.   But  I smile and do my turn as the dutiful son,  without saying anything.   Why?   Perhaps it is because I have to pick my battles.   The period of my step-daughter's graduation was not the time to do major processing with my mom.   We needed to keep our attention focused on what was important and not distract from this important event.

I acknowledge that my mom is not malicious,  she's just clueless.   She wants to do better but she doesn't know where to start.   She's been stuck in these patterns for a very long time.   Her bipolar mixes up with other medical issues to make her perceptions wobbly at times.   I don't think it would be all that fruitful to "have it out" with her around my childhood,  because her memory of those years is spotty.     She has many times shared a "memory" with me which was actually distorted memory fragments from completely different times and contexts.    My mom largely lives in the moment and that's pretty much where you have to meet her.   

Additionally,   my mom could not handle what I really think and feel.   She has lived with her projection of me all these years.     She would likely feel crushed by what my actual experience has been.   She knows I am angry about things but I have shared very little of the content of my angry feelings.   But I do have to acknowledge the feelings myself.   My doing this is an absolute key to my healing.   It's being divorced from my feelings, the legacy of Mom Fog,  that is one of the major challenges I face in life.   

Writing this down was really helpful for me.   I wrote most of it while mom was here;   the process of writing and acknowledging my experience was a major help to me.   I was able to pull out of Mom Fog and be more present for my step-daughter's graduation. 

Thank God for blogs!

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Lebron and Michael

In belated honor of Father's Day I thought I'd take up a sports theme.    What could be more natural?!   

I have to confess that I am sports fan.   I don't watch a whole lot of sports on TV but I do read the sports page first (almost) every day.   So sue me.   What has caught my interest lately relates to the NBA finals.   This was the finals where the latest "Dream Team" of super stars Lebron James,  Dwane Wade and Chris Bosh was going to show everyone how it's done.  Except they didn't.   

One piece that stood out in a big way was how Lebron pretty much choked down the stretch.   As he choked at exactly the moment he needed to step up,  many of us sports fans were likely thinking about the discussion from the previous week.    A sports news items had Scotty Pippen saying that Lebron might be better than Michael Jordan.   Anyone who follows the NBA knows that Pippen was Jordan's right hand man.   The phrase "Jordan and Pippen" was often heard during the time their team,  the Chicago Bulls,  were winning six NBA titles.   

Lebron better than MJ?   Really,  Scotty?   Now that the finals are over and Dallas triumphed in six games,   Pippen's comment looks,  shall we say,  premature.   The difference between Jordan and Lebron,  at least so far,  is that Jordan did whatever it took to win.   To use the shoe mantra,  he just did it.

To my eye,  the major difference between MJ and Lebron has to do with  the relationship they each had with their father.

I don't know exactly what kind of childhood Jordan had but as an adult he was very close to his father.   In fact,  it was after MJ's dad died (he was murdered)  that Michael quit basketball (while at the height of his ability) and went to play semi-pro baseball for a few seasons.    Basketball fans were incredulous.    Apparently,  Jordan had a close and loving relationship with his dad.    It seems to me that one only comes to be close to one's dad as an adult if the whole childhood bit went pretty well.    I am guessing that Michael's dad was a caring person who gave his son attention and love and supported him throughout his youth and into adulthood.  

My understanding is that Lebron never really knew his dad.   He was raised by his mother who was facing both poverty and,  at times,  drug addiction.    A documentary called "More than a Game" depicts Lebron and several of his friends who played on highly successful basketball teams together from age 10 through high school.    The coach of the team appears to be one of the few positive male role models Lebron ever had growing up.     

Personally,  I can relate to Lebron a lot more than I can to Michael.   I had a close relationship to my dad in the first 3-4 years of my life.   When I was five my parents divorced and I rarely saw my dad.   At six he moved out of state and I never saw him again.   He started out being a support to me;   then he disappeared.   There is a strong signature of that fact in relation to my consciousness,  how I see myself,  my basic self esteem.   The path I take to achievement will be more like Lebron's than Michael's.

See,   at those amazing moments when MJ sticks the jumper and leads his team to an NBA title,  he has his dad behind him,  holding him up.   All the care and encouragement his dad gave him,  all of the confidence his dad expressed towards him over the years,   all that is there for Michael.   It is what gives him that follow-through,  that supreme confidence when everything is on the line.   He is supported.

What I see with Lebron is that when he gets to those moments when everything is on the line,  a gnawing,  malicious voice comes up from his sub-conscious and asks,  "Why did your daddy leave you?"    Then he has to go out and make that shot that will win it all for his team,  only he does it with a creature hanging on his back,  trying to bring him down.   He freezes.   He asks himself,  "Who am I to shine?"   "Who am I to be the best at this game?"  He chokes.

I can identify with his struggle.  It is also my struggle.   I hope Lebron can keep after it,  that he can learn how to overcome the handicap of the cards he was dealt as a kid.     I hope that the power of his spirit can be so bright that it outshines the creature on his back.   I hope that he can come to a place where he knows he's a perfect child of God;  that he knows his gifts on the court are among the limitless expressions of divine love;  that even though his earthly father was not there for him,  his father in heaven is, always.

I hope that for me too.

Maybe Lebron and I both can become the best in whatever it is we each are meant do.   It sure looks like basketball is what Lebron's meant to do.   I am still trying to figure it out for myself.   

Sorry Michael,  I think you are amazing,  but I am rooting for Lebron from here on out.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben