sleepblogging

From Alice Miller’s book, “The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self” (more info):

The newly won capacity to accept her feelings opens the way for the patient’s long-repressed needs and wishes to be actualized. Some of these needs cannot be satisfied in reality, since they are related to past situations. The urgent wish for a child, for example, may express among other things the wish to have an available mother. Unfortunately, children are too often wished for only as symbols to meet repressed needs.

Basically what I was saying in the beginning of my debut post (here).

All the same, there are needs that can and should be satisfied in the present. Among these is every human being’s central need to express herself, to show herself to the world as she really is—in word, in gesture, in behavior, in art—in every genuine expression, beginning with the baby’s cry.

That partly explains why I blog here about my most personal processes.

For the person who, as a child, had to hide her true feelings from herself and others, this first step into the open produces much anxiety, yet she feels a great need to throw over her former restraints. The first experiences do not always lead to freedom but quite often lead instead to a repetition of the person’s childhood situation, in which she will experience feelings of agonizing shame and painful nakedness as an accompaniment to her genuine expressions of her true self.

…which explains why I find blogging, even at my less personal blog, as excruciating as I do, even as I find it necessary to my development as a person and a writer. That’s why I’m even now fighting the urge to recriminate myself for ‘plugging’ my own work just by making the link available here when I mention it in a perfectly organic (ie. non-contrived) context. There have been times, as I struggle to push the publish button on a new post, when I am tempted to kill the blog in its entirety instead.

With the infallibility of a sleepwalker, she will seek out those who, like her parents (though for different reasons), certainly cannot understand her. Because of her blindness caused by repression, she will try to make herself understandable to precisely these people—trying to make possible what cannot be.

Yes, over and over, she will. And when they inevitably reject her, she may think they had understood, saw her for exactly who she was, and then rejected her on that basis. She will respect them more for it, though it hurts. And she may even love most the ones she feels most rejected by.

the distance factor

Last time, I wrote about the friend I realized I was irrevocably in love with despite that he never seemed entirely to approve of me, and that I was sure could not return my depth of feeling. How I let that eat away at me…

Soon after my epiphany, but before I might give away my predicament, he told me that he had begun seeing someone. A year or two later, they moved in together. Then one day last summer, during one of the most tumultuous periods of my life — the apex of which was my father’s death two months previous — I heard this question enter my mind, completely unbidden while I had been thinking of other things: Could I cope if they got engaged? That summer, there were many startling coincidences between my thought and his movement. This one: within 24 hours of putting that question to myself, he had updated his profile on Facebook indicating that he was indeed engaged. Even as someone was saying “Yes,” my answer turned out to be “No.” I grieved harder than I had even over my dad’s death — I forgave myself for this on the basis that it had been anticipated and he had been relieved of great suffering and anxiety — nor did the intensity abate for days. I remembered that scene in Sex In The City when Carrie vomits almost immediately upon learning that Mr. Big is engaged. Though I did not puke my feelings, I suddenly grasped the mind’s assault on the body when it is shocked by this kind of news. Kind of like when you think you’re over someone but then you see their name somewhere and your heart is instantly in your throat. It’s like that, magnified.

almost over It

These lyrics come from the latest addition to the mp3 playlist I use for sing-along/de-stressing sessions, a song by Ane Brun called The Puzzle:

I walked into love
I walked into a minefield
I never heard of

Her remains were spread out like the pieces of a puzzle
it took her 365 days putting them together
the pieces were quite difficult to distinguish from each other
they were tiny and the clear blue sky
went on forever

Clearly the corners were an easy start
that was when everyone was still
helping me out
when it was time to fill in the frames
they left – they thought I ought
to have gotten over you
by then

It really did feel like I walked in a minefield, the day I stepped out of denial that I was in love with a friend. That, after a couple of relationships which had started out passionately but ultimately failed due to some foundational incompatibilities, and after telling myself that the profundity of love I had once hoped for — defined by its depth of intellect, feeling, and meaning — was only a romantic ideal I had better get over, here I was finally feeling It.

The unfortunate thing about epiphanies is you can’t un-have them. I knew this would not be a reciprocal thing, and it has been a great source of pain for several years, twisting into obsession through the twin frustrations of Keeping It To Myself and Not Feeling Worthy. I’ve almost completed the puzzle, which has meant creating a clearer picture of the friend and the direction his life is headed, according to pretentious motivations I don’t share. Is it wrong to focus on someone’s faults to make it easier to get over them? Or to draw my own interpretation in the spaces where missing pieces should fit? (Pretentious might be harsh.)

I spent a lot of time bent over jigsaw puzzles when I was a kid but I enjoyed putting together those scenes of jungle cats and European cities better than this. Plus, the box had a cover picture you could refer to if you were completely confused.

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my name’s not Mary, but…

A teacher told me once that I was contrary. I think it was in grade 6. I went home, looked up the word, and considered it a compliment.

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review not, lest ye be reviewed

Allow me to be humourless for a few paragraphs.

…clearing of throat…

Open letter to the critic I have loved, and other ‘reviewers’ in general:

I have outgrown your judgment of me. The only opinions I may let affect my estimation of me will be of those who possess empathy borne of experience.

Nor am I impressed any longer by a life, conventional in its way, that is plotted to your own status quo, removed from meaningful contact with people different from yourself.

…exhalation…

Living off the script without taking cues from the would-be directors, writers and reviewers is difficult but much more rewarding. (Unless of course you’re on a reality TV show, or you consider money most rewarding.) So, I will stop internalizing when I catch my beloved critic cringing at one of my line readings, ridiculing my dialogue, or getting that look of distaste when I begin to explain my character’s motivation.

(In all fairness, The Critic did actually apologize twice for one instance of the middle action, but at this point I don’t even seek acknowledgment of, let alone ‘reparation’ for, the rest. Frankness is not allowed in our discourse.)

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(edited on Oct 20, 2008)

you can’t spell Freud without feud, but you can have Scientology without science

I came across a great little column piece today, written by Bruce E. Levine at The Huffington Post. “Thinking Critically About Scientology, Psychiatry, and Their Feud” intelligently gets to the point of the source of the friction between society at large and those who counsel or medicate their patients for psychological distress; those who…

…merely assist their patients to adjust [into inhospitable environments], but neglect to validate their patients’ alienation from society.

Those comfortably atop societal hierarchies have difficulty recognizing that many American institutions promote helplessness, passivity, boredom, fear, isolation, alienation, and dehumanization for those not at the top. One-size-fits-all schools, the corporate workplace, government bureaucracies, and other giant, impersonal institutions routinely promote manipulative relationships rather than respectful ones, machine efficiency rather than human pride, authoritarian hierarchies rather than participatory democracy, disconnectedness rather than community, and helplessness rather than empowerment.

Levine also nicely encapsulates Scientology’s criticism of and therefore ironic similarity to psychiatry:

The source of the mutual hostility between psychiatry and the Church of Scientology, as depicted by the mass media, centers around psychotropic drug use; but my sense is that the root cause of their feud is a fierce competition between them. Both establishment psychiatry and Scientology are competing for the same people — those more comfortable with authority, dogma, and insider jargon than with critical thinking.

Both the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard and psychiatry’s DSM (the official diagnostic manual in which mental illnesses are voted in and out by elite psychiatrists) have much more to do with dogma than science.

This is an important distinction. Many psychiatrists, like medical doctors, seek to heal rather than harm further, but doctors have material tools whose misapplication is generally more directly observable. They also inherit a long history of hard medical science and generally more solid research behind their diagnoses, (non-psychiatric) medications and procedures. Besides, as I pointed out a few posts below, the DSM is printed on dirty banknotes. It makes some awfully dubious claims about conditions that are often only further cemented by poorly conceived diagnostic pronouncements and further aggravated by poorly researched psychiatric drugs.

It is my experience that psychiatry, Scientology, and fundamentalist religions are turnoffs for genuinely critical thinkers. Critical thinkers are not so desperate to adjust and be happy that they ignore adverse affects — be they physical, psychological, spiritual, or societal. Critical thinkers listen to what others have to say while considering their motives, especially their financial ones; and they discern how one’s motivation may distort one’s assumptions.

Actually, just read the whole thing. It’s short and concise. So short, I’ve already quoted about a third of it. Thanks to Gianna for my first exposure to the article and this columnist.

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web 2.0.1

Revision notes:

1. I updated the post not a final testament, aka the Mother’s Day Special, today; added some lines, fixed a couple more. I know, it’s kinda sorta cheating, and you can be as rigid with your own blog as you like.

2. I now have a profile page on Facebook to go with this blog; it includes links of interest, favourite quotes, silly applications that pretend to be serious, and pictures of me as embodied by a frog — in case you haven’t caught the poorly germanized reference in my nom-de-blog.* Once I figure it out, there will also be notifications whenever I update this (or my other) blog.

Search for “Froscha Wenig” and add me as a friend. My friend list is inaccessible to people not already added. Bonus: You will appear to be one person more popular in your profile. So will I.

* please refer to “Origin Story” at Narrative Cavity (top right corner, front page) to better understand the nomenclature and my philosophical modus operandi. Besides this, I like frogs. This affinity predates the blogs. As for the bad translation, I’m part-German by birth. This bloodline predates all blogs.

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hard to know if he knows

I can relate to these lyrics all too well, as if the songwriter had traced a few brainwaves while I was thinking about the object of my unrequited love or the many reasons why I consider myself to be — new word! — unrequitable. This sampling of my psychic drivel, which I did not consent to, could have taken place at… almost any given time, given the ridiculous frequency of my dramatically mundane thoughts on this subject.

Sophie Zelmani
Hard to Know

I ain’t here for fun
Can’t be moved around
Maybe that means I can’t
Give you a good time

I could spend my time
Looking at you
But as long as you’re striving
I’ve got to do that too

Hard for you to know
I’m dripping of love
Hard to defend
I’m only dreaming of love

I’m not here to make
My voice heard
Maybe that makes me smaller
In this world

I could spend my time
Wishing I was like you
But if you think my life
Looks alright, I’ll think so too

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sometimes I just know too much

I came across this blog post today that I really responded to, as I have a mild case of the crazies myself. Given the immense popularity of that Gnarls Barkley song last summer, I wonder how many other people do too even if they haven’t been designated a DSM label. Yet. Certain quarters of the psychiatric community seem to be busily pathologizing and classifying every aspect of human behaviour that doesn’t fit neatly and inconspicuously into middle-brow civilization. This review by L.J. Davis, previously published in Harpers Magazine, is a great (and entertaining!) synopsis of the DSM, its history, and potential misuse: Encyclopedia Of Insanity — A Psychiatric Handbook Lists a Madness for Everyone.

According to Wikipedia, surely as indisputable as the DSM manual itself, “roughly 50% of the authors who previously selected and defined the DSM psychiatric disorders have had or have financial relationships with pharmaceutical industries and drug companies.” It is disturbing that you can sometimes track the rising numbers of a particular psychiatric diagnosis (ADD, Bipolar Disorder, etc) to the availability and marketing drive of a new drug. Also good to remember, the DSM once classified homosexuality as a mental disorder. That’s how relevant to reality this ‘bible’ of the psychiatric community can be.

On to the blog that precipitated this post:

Most people who do not have a diagnosis define themselves as “normal”. They think of anyone who does have one as “incredibly different” from them, right off the bat, when that probably isn’t the case. It’s a distancing technique. A way to say, “That’s not me, and never will be,” but one never knows. We exist along a continuum, I think, and we see how environmental factors influence the onset and the appearance of mental patterns or features labelled as “crazy”. The “way florid” exist at one end of a continuum, and those seen as “incredibly stable” exist at the other, while most of us fall somewhere in between. We also move around on this “scale of stability” throughout our lives, as we experience stressful events or changes in our consciousness.

You can read the rest of it at the larmes de pamplemousse blog. Some of the comments at the end are worth reading too. Last quote from the above:

True and lasting empathy for one another often puts us – crazy or not – out of our comfort zone.

To which I would add, displaying true and lasting empathy might earn you the crazy label as well. With or without the DSM.

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(updated January 17, 2008)

not a final testament

And so ends the month of Mother’s Day, one of the holiest days of the Hallmark calendar. The guilt-ridden obligations of this annual date and its esteemed place between religious observances is appropriate because my mom has put forth more mixed messages and guilt trips than the Old Testament. Sometimes the passages are completely contradictory, and the prescience of the holy book — which heretics refer to as ’self-fulfilling prophecy’ — just supports my analogy.

Thou art a little bitch but also a wonderful, beloved daughter. Thou shalt be a disappointment unto thine boyfriends, and yet, when they leave, how could they value you not? Thou needeth to lose weight; thou art already beautiful — but thy beauty shall be more apparent with the loss of weight. Verily, I say unto you that you shall fail; despair not but believe in the power of positive thinking. You are cared for, yet tho ye ask for help paying thy medical bills, thou shalt not receive such unless thou hast made an exodus home to stay.

It goes on and on like a genealogy log in Genesis, while I await the mercy of a younger authority with a new testament. I suspect the majority of people who are products of a troubled childhood have children of their own in order to make the connection of unconditional love that was missing in their own family and to create a unsullied new chapter in the story cycle already produced by generations of dysfunction. So not a sufficient reason, by the way. Since I’ve decided to buck the trend, I will have to be my own younger authority and write my own testament.