Various forms of misery

"Disordered attachment" is a huge umbrella for all sorts of longstanding or temporary issues, problems, sources of suffering regarding relationships. Codependency, on the other hand, is a specific set of patterns and characteristics. In the same way that it bugs me when heavy drinkers say they are "alcoholic" or detail oriented people say they are "OCD," or people who have attentional probs but are not diagnosed say they are "ADD," it bugs me when various kinds of emotional attachment, some of which are not even pathological, get labeled "codependent." 

Here is a link to a fun little checklist that, were it an exam, I would get an A+ on, with possible extra extra credit. I think anyone who reflects on the list can fairly quickly see that so much of what is casually labeled "codependency" in colloquial discourse is not in fact codependency, but a huge range of various attachment issues or even just attachment styles.

A long time ago on this very blog, good old (old) Percy wrote about each set within that list at some length. Denial, low self esteem, compliance, control, and avoidance- I think there were five individual and fairly lengthy posts with lots of personal disclosure, but I am too lazy to go look. As I head back into step work in CoDA, I'll have to go back and gather that writing. 

I have done a lot more thinking and feeling about love, romance, attachment, loss and codependency since then, and I'm sure I'll do more. In particular, however, it has become more clear to me that there is a whole range of attachment styles that are not particularly problematic, then there's some extremes of attachment styles that are problematic, and then, quite separate from these styles, and neither "better" nor "worse", is codependency. 

For example, there's a very interesting psychology website where I have taken a couple of attachment style surveys. A person can learn a lot about themselves from that process. My attachment styles from November to now for family are dismissive avoidant, for close friends, secure, and for romantic partner, fearful avoidant. The fearful avoidant style is the least common (7% of the population) and causes some difficult situations. The other cool thing about this website is you take a survey every 30 days and can track how quality of life, personality traits, and attachment styles are shifting over time. Between November and now, for example, I have become less agreeable and more neurotic. Winning!

There may well be some overlap between the fearful-avoidant and dismissive attachment styles and codependency, but in very important particulars, codependency is, as the CoDA literature states, "a most deeply-rooted, compulsive behavior." 

My relationship style, romantically, as I *also* blogged about months ago, is effusive, wide open, communicative, poetic and romantic, imaginative and florid, somewhat impetuous and sometimes highly impulsive. I express admiration for a romantic partner frequently and tend to give presents, pay attention, get to know what they like, what would make good gifts, and enjoy showing up and validating. I have definitely not always been this way, and have destroyed several intimate bonds by being withholding, distant, uncommunicative, indifferent, oblivious and highly avoidant. But I seem to have grown into being much more open and warm as I have gotten older. 

I also get very deeply attached. But my tendency to become deeply attached *is not* codependency. In fact, I think a "more" codependent behavior of mine is to pretend to not be attached, when I actually am. Another codependent compulsion around attachment is to constantly check for it, make sure it is reciprocated. That's a behavior arising out of the fearful style, of course. Jumping at the chance to see someone I adore again is *not* codependent. Manipulating, strategizing, blaming myself for a canceled visit, feeling hated and taken for granted, having the impulse to collapse and feeling like I have no self worth- those are codependent behaviors. 

It seems to me that people think deep ties of attachment are a sign of codependency, or being deeply affected by heartbreak and loss, or imagining a lot of shared activities, or- really- a lot of the aspects of emotional and life attachment that I feel are perfectly natural to a close, intimate relationship. To be deeply hurt by the end of a precious relationship is absolutely not pathological. I think there are other responses to loss that are destructive and problematic. Shutting down, raging, sabotaging, ridiculing others, becoming jaded, bitter, sarcastic and distant, ghosting people, manipulating- and it's interesting to note that many of these behaviors are held up by our culture as "strong" and "independent." The self-sufficient noble person who never, ever looks back once they are done- I think that's an absurd expectation and perhaps to some people very damaging. 

There's a tendency to judge story as either codependent or not. For example, "being in an affair is codependent." Or "staying in one's marriage is codependent." This is not the case. One can be codependent in the affair or one can be non-codependent, quite separately from whether the affair is wise, or sustainable, or absolutely necessary and appropriate (a perspective on affairs that rarely gets talked about). The fact is that one can be codependent in a marriage, in a dating situation, while single, while in an affair, while polyamorous, etc. One can have an anxious attachment style, or an avoidant attachment style, or even conceivably a secure attachment style, and be codependent. It's all about the behaviors that are in the above checklist of the patterns and characteristics. 

And in that way, whether in or out of a relationship is irrelevant, at least after one gets one's basic bearings in recovery. Because there is a codependent way to be in any relationship, and a way to be in recovery in *any* relationship, with the exception of the abusive and toxic variety. One doesn't recover from codependency and then, subsequently, get into a "healthy" relationship. It simply does not work that way, usually. It's not linear. And relationship recovery is not precarious or contingent on story or outside circumstance. I think this is very difficult for people to understand. 

Far more important than the outside circumstance is whether or not a codependent is in relationship recovery. If that is the foundation, a lot of circumstances become possible. The only requirement for membership in CoDA is a desire for healthy and loving relationships, and, obviously, those can be built from a variety of narratives. 

Secrets

There are three people out of the entire human population on Earth who know the whole story, and one of those people is directly involved. Well, if one counts Percy, that would be four. 

However, and I quite often forget this, even the people directly involved don't know the whole story. Thus, how it can be the case that unexpected things happen. As with music, the story needs time and memory in order to exist. In the present, there is no story. Of course, consciousness itself has the same requirements. Past and future. Except that we're also sewing together all of these nows into what we end up remembering and hoping for. That's the paradox that old Tommy Boy Eliot was ruminating on in Four Quartets. 

I have been trying to think up a new, non-revealing blog moniker for the loml, since the singular truth of that epithet seems to get watered down by repeated use. THE is the key word, and some people peripherally involved seem unable or unwilling to grasp the definite article. And I am tired of revelations anyway, and not trusting of much understanding. The most difficult thing about discussing private matters with others is that they tend to bring their own story to the discussion. "Oh yes I have had several lomls." No, by definition, you have not. Important loves, intense connections, landmark relationships, plenty of love and probably even some intimacy of the real kind. But the concept of the loml is that it is singular. I never used to believe it. Well, I guess I thought my first love when I was 17 was The One True Love of my life. And then, when reality did not conspire to make that sustainable, I was completely disillusioned, and became cynical, and of course there is plenty of rational support for discarding the idea of the loml. There is always plenty of rational support for discarding a lot of romantic or mysterious ideas, sometimes wisely.

Did you know there is an entire religion based on 11:11?

Anyway, expecting outsiders to simply accept at face value that the loml is a reality in the singular is too much to ask these days. I think it is even the case that the loml herself doubts it now, or talks herself out of it. I think we imagine that if there is a thing like partnership destiny, it will also be met with practical support. I doubt that we can very easily tolerate the combined knowledge that the loml is real and that the complete inability to be with the loml is real. I think we prefer our star-crossed lovers to be fictional, and the narrative of our lives to not be excruciatingly painful. Like those bowdlerized versions of Romeo and Juliet where she wakes just in time and they end up together and the families are over their feud haha, nice. 

Anyway, I think old Percy will leave behind the loml and come up with a different descriptor. I think it will be Ulmus americana for...reasons. Too lazy for the required italics. U for short. Not UA, since that has drug test connotations. There's too much tied up in the singular quality of the old label to put it out there. Not trusting that it would meet with understanding. Tired of the tale that only a very few people know. We live in ice cold cynical times. 

A cultivar of Ulmus americana called "Beebe's Weeping"

The only problem with U is that, when referred to, it will bother me, phonetically. "U is having a hard time with etc." Is U is or is U ain't my baby? etc. Hmmm. Not sure I can get past that. Time will tell. 

Secrets exist for a wide variety of reasons, some delusional and some as solid as a brick. Some people, especially people in recovery, including myself at times, go to an absolutist place where all secrets are bad and there is never any good reason to live a secret life or keep secrets. I get it, and there is of course great wisdom in the saying "we are only as sick as our secrets." There are all of the shame-based, fear-based reasons to keep secrets. There's the one or two things we have done that we have sworn we will take to the grave, those things that Bill W says are the most important to put on our 4th and 5th steps. 

Practically speaking, secrets that make a compromise with the universe to enable a crucial experience that is not possible in the open have a rationale all their own, not always transparent or ethical, but a rationale nonetheless. There is also a valuable sacred place where secrets and privacy overlap. There is a value to protecting something fragile and irrational from those who would never understand or who would be jealous or judge for other reasons. 

There's also some odd agreements that people make, often not even consciously. Keeping it a secret that I know the other person's secret, for example. Pretending to not know that they know, while they pretend to not know. One of the layered forms of denial that makes avoidance possible. I think some partners allow this vague space to go on for a long time, biding their time, out-waiting the true situation, prioritizing just staying together but not making a big scene or ever having to make a painful choice or decision. 

The Lovers, Amrit Brar's Marigold Tarot

The above tarot card at first seems to be only about romantic love, intimacy, connection and the meeting of two people in mutual understanding. But it has always had the additional, more general meaning of The Decision. The choice. The clear and sometimes irreversible choice of partners, for example. In times when such a clear choice is not possible, there may be more wisdom in letting things be grey, in waiting to act or choose, or in secretly choosing but not acting. 

I think we underestimate the weird collective projection power of revealing our situation to our community. With A, we waited almost a year and then came out very publicly. There was a lot of ill will directed toward us. I got fired, for example. That ended up being a great thing, but I'm convinced it would not have happened if we had stayed secret. But keeping a relationship a secret also adds strain. 

I'm feeling protective of the story with U. It's time for it to sink into the shadows for now. I'm dissertation writing, starting a new CoDA meeting, teaching, trying to find a post doc or job for next year and dealing with a lot of other ideas and issues anyway. After a certain point, there's nothing more to say about a situation, until or if there's some kind of profound change in the narrative. 

Into the dark with it. 

Suicidal Man, Hanged Man

Golden Gate Bridge, a.k.a Suicidal Man by Byron Randall

     In a Facebook group of polyamorous people in Arizona to which I belong, someone asked for people to comment with their favorite breakup songs. I was struck by how many were raging, angry, dismissive or otherwise critical of the ex. I get the idea, but I do not share the tendency, at least not for very long. I recall (and there is some evidence on this blog) being bitter, angry and judgmental toward A back in the early part of our breakup, but I need to move myself through that energy fairly quickly, in service to my recovery. I can't remain in resentment. It is as Bill W says the dubious luxury of normal people. It is corrosive and potentially fatal for me. 

     How to get out? Pray, meditate. "May all beings be free, may all beings be happy, may all beings be peaceful and at ease, may all beings be full of loving kindness," even those beings who are not giving me what I want. This honestly does work, in case any of you are skeptical. I find that I don't even have to be sincere. If I just keep offering it, everything eventually softens. 

     The other way out is to forget about the other person entirely and just look at my role. My experience. My insecurity, my jealousy, my demanding nature, my clinging, my expectations, my own selfishness. To do this in a spirit of friendliness and good will toward myself is challenging, but the effects are healing. Because, after all, what can I do about someone else? And how accurate are all my stories about them anyway? 

     The above painting by artist Byron Randall is an homage to a friend of his who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. His suicide note said "There is not enough love in the world." Believe me, I resonate. 

     Where is love missing? Everywhere, clearly. But, and this is by no means offered as superficial anodyne, what if I were able to bring the love that's missing from within myself, to every situation? Or to enough situations that it would feel that, at least, there is enough love in the world to keep me?

     I think this is a highly worthy goal. It's amusing, observing the behavior of the people in the Facebook polyamory group. It seems like the entire range of motivations and intentions lie behind the polyamory of various members of the group. May of the men just seem desperate and thirsty. Many members seem able to navigate polyamorous arrangements entirely because they do not feel very deeply at all and their connections are loose and easy. Some seem to both deeply connect and be capable of multiple connections on multiple layers. 

     I doubt I am poly, in all situations. Many in the "poly community" believe that polyamory is an orientation one is born with. I don't experience it that way. It is situational for me. I have been in partnerships where there was little to no sexual or emotional jealousy in spite of very deep affection, and within those contexts, polyamory feels natural and sustainable to me. Recently, I had the opportunity to experience severe possessiveness, jealousy and insecurity, and of course within a context like that, polyamory is a pipe dream and unhealthy. I think it may well be that there are people who are capable of being situationally poly and equally situationally mono. I would have tried an open poly arrangement with the loml, but that was not practical I guess. And then I would have had to find some way to more effectively deal with my truly toxic jealousy. Toxic to me, I mean. Extreme discomfort and hurt. So odd for me, since the last time I felt such jealousy was in 1983. 

     Another aspect of involvement in that weird Facebook group is that I have the experience of being a weirdo within a group of weirdos for whom I am extra weird. Haha. This is the same experience I often have in AA. The rooms are populated by the identified patients of society, and are like the Island of Misfit Toys, and even so, I seem to be extra in the eyes of many. I neither am hurt by this nor do I wear it like a badge. It is my spectrally weirdling truth, and it is what it is. 

     Lou Reed's Busload of Faith has been running through my mind the past few weeks, and it summarizes a sort of bottom line for me, which is, as much as we rely on our family, friends, lovers, identity, beliefs, ego structure, the impermanence will always rear up, and in those times, we need a busload of faith to get by, because there isn't anything else. 

 

     Carl Jung's explanation of what is going on when we spend a season in hell feels connected to this:

 "What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to renounce one's own will and one's own wit and do nothing but wait and trust to the impersonal power of growth and development." 
     But the key within this type of hell is also to survive in the waiting. Sometimes our experience of an impossible situation feels also like it will be a fatal situation. As if we just won't make it. Or we just don't want to. These are probably the most important kind of impossible situation. How droll. 

 

Bog Mummy Take the Wheel

Basically. 

My emotional life is fucked. But I am practicing taking refuge in the present. And remembering that no behavior is required of me. In fact, given some current circumstances, non-action is required. Or, at least, non-action is the most skillful behavior, 

Dislocating, wrenching, breath taking desire for one who is not present evaporates when I bring myself into this moment. And if it doesn't evaporate, it is at least simply what I am feeling at this moment. The wanting loses the edge it has that it will kill me. It's just a state of being, right now. It doesn't have to be accompanied by either memory or projection. I don't have to do anything about it. Even if it still feels like a flaming shirt I can't remove. 

Doing the right thing, the healthiest thing, and the best thing is a lot easier when I just don't do any damn thing at all, often. 

It's easy to tumble toward. There's primal magnetism there. One single simple disclosure seems like it could open the floodgates. I feel we're both trying our best to keep that from occurring. 

Then the projections creep in. "Is it going to be this way for years? Will it never? Will it ever? What will I do if I feel like this forever? What will I do if I still feel this way in an hour or tomorrow?" But a few deep breaths, the effort to train my mind back to this present moment and remember, nothing is happening right now that is any threat. I'm having a feeling. That is all. 

It's exhausting. 

I was reading about a guy who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived. He said that, before he jumped, he was utterly disconsolate, hopeless and absolutely convinced he wanted to die. But the weirdest, most terrifying thing happened as soon as he jumped. He was instantly full of regret and desperately wanted to live. He was falling to almost certain death and felt hope again for the first time in years. 

The reductivist in me thinks this was just his body's and ego's survival instinct, bred in the bone over millions of years, where survival is the top priority. One of the things about suicides is they find some way or other to guarantee they will get past that survival instinct, the raw and fierce fight of the body to keep sucking air. Sometimes, people who hang themselves handcuff their hands behind their backs. Or I think of Virginia Woolf, walking into the river with weights on her feet. Or the preponderance of gun suicides among men, who at least intend to not let there be any way out created by the primal animal survival instinct. The time between trigger and oblivion is too short, although it is not as short as an electrical impulse, and I wonder if people who kill themselves by gunshot have, even so, a microsecond of regret. 

Another possible explanation for the terrifying return of hope that our bridge jumper experienced is that the moment brought him fully into the present. How could it be otherwise? Unless one were drunk or otherwise numbed, that sensation of free fall and flying would probably snap anybody out of past and future. And in the blinding moment when he was fully present, he remembered that all the shit that made him hopeless was imaginary. It had already happened and could not be changed, or it was in an imagined future and had no substance. So he was suddenly fully in the pure present, and remembered what it is like to be alive. The thought that such an experience might happen with every suicide is enough to quell a lot of my idle fantasies. 

Taking refuge in the present is the only experience that makes certain realities possible for me, other than the experience of flow, which is similar. With flow, I am lost in play and work, and engaged enough that none of the past or future shit matters so much. This here right now is consuming enough. Flow experiences are crucial during times of loss or difficulty because they offer a kind of waking oblivion that can be very healing. But even more powerful for me right now are those flashes, especially during sitting meditation, of complete presence. No past, no future, no longing, no remorse, no hoping, no desolate story telling. None of that exists. 

Not news for anyone who has a spiritual or meditation practice. I am grateful to have even brief moments taking refuge in the present. I was describing to a friend the difficulty of wanting who I can't have and he said "yeah but how different is that from any time, really? We always want who is not around when they aren't around. You couldn't have her when you were still in the affair either. So what has really changed?" I'll tell you what has changed. The future. But of course, I'm telling the story of the future either way. The present has not changed. 

One of the games we played to take the edge off was scheduling visits every two months or so. "Something to look forward to." I think this is essentially harmless, most of the time. But now, I have nothing to look forward to. And both of those phrases are stories about the future that is not happening now. 

Anyway, at other times, I'm just immolated and bereft and that's that. Wanting. But working anyway. Getting a lot done on the dissertation. A grant proposal. Poking around for a post doc or a teaching job. I still feel that old bog mummy could be running a far better show than I am currently running. 

Missing and missing. Wanting. 

It is what it is. 

Celebrity, persona, reality

The main reason I can't be Facebook friends with the loml at this time is my vulnerability to her image, to pictures of her. Well, that combined with the way men react to pictures of her, and how jealous that makes me. Of course it was a photograph (and an unlikely one at that) that caught my attention 18 months ago. This is the currency of social media- the image. Why certain images floor us and others do not is anyone's guess. I wonder if the same is true for women as it is for men. 

Beautiful Narcissus

I know I am as prone to indulging in the male gaze as any male. I can be very superficial and crush on someone just based on their photo. I am also prone to the usual acculturated male interest in erotic images. In all of these ways, there is nothing extraordinary about me at all. 

I often felt that the loml was signaling flirtation and interest in male attention with her profile pictures, but I fully acknowledge that this was all my interpretation and projection. The fact was, she did get a lot of male attention. She occasionally expressed exasperation at the boundary crossing that would happen. At the same time, we were both jealous of various people at various times, and, at least as far as I know, none of the jealousy was ever warranted. I bet there were men who held more fascination for her that I didn't even know about and "should" have been jealous of but was not. 

This goes to other aspects of social media that are toxic for me. I have come to think of the dynamics as essentially the same as those for celebrities. The dynamics of public persona, image, power and fame. Because it seems, psychologically, scale doesn't matter. Social media affords us a chance to create a persona, an image and to generate interest in that, rather than in ourselves. We run our own little marketing, branding and media empires, and carefully calibrate our choices and know the effect we would like to create. I know a great many twenty-something women, especially, mostly former students of mine, who perform these decisions deliberately and make money in various ways from their online personae. 

I know many women who post "sexualized," erotic photos of themselves but who seemed surprised by the thirsty and desperate reactions of a lot of cis het men. The power dynamics are very odd. I think, when we get a sense of having this kind of power of attraction and attention, and we know how to create a context for an ego boost and for flattery, we tend to exploit it. But we also tend to resent it. I think, especially women tend to resent it because men are dicks. 

Men are 100% responsible for their responses and their behavior, and I am not in any way shape or form policing the ways women present themselves. I sometimes expressed jealousy to the loml about a particular interaction or whatever, and this never went anywhere with her. For whatever reason, as I've mentioned before, she did not offer much reassurance. At least not that I recall. 

The moment I knew Facebook would be toxic between the two of us, for me anyway, was after she ended the affair and used a profile pic that had been intended for me in the past. I told her months ago that I loved the pic, and she told me she was thinking of me and looking at me into the camera. Why she would have chosen to use that same pic after we had broken up is anyone's guess, and when I mentioned it to her she offered no explanation or apology. We periodically ran up against this collision between my sentimental sensitivity and her apparent cluelessness. But more than that, I think she just does not want any man saying anything to her about any of the ways she presents herself on her own social media, and who could blame her? Certainly male attempts to control the way women show themselves are a huge part of the patriarchy, and a ton of the energy of selfie culture and third wave feminism is to reclaim that power. 

I like posting profile pics where I think I look handsome and getting the attention, also. It's a boost to my ego. I have never felt good looking, so social media has provided some interesting alternatives to my insecurity around my appearance. The rise of social media coincided with me being increasingly photogenic, in unexpected ways. Lots of women comment on certain of those profile pics and this sparked jealousy in the loml as well. 

In general, I think social media makes trust difficult. The green dot and the seen notification combined destroyed my trust in the loml repeatedly, rightly or wrongly. I spent many weeks utterly convinced that she was engaged in extensive communication with other men, and probably erotic play at that. My intuition would be on high alert a great deal of the time. She swears this was not operating, but my intuition was so strong I often just felt gaslighted after that, even when I "knew" I should trust her. It's funny too, because some of the time she would tell me what she had been doing, and believe me, it was not involved with other men, nor was it erotic. 

I am glad to be out from under that. I recalled that I have access to compersion regarding her pleasure and sex life and I wish her the greatest experiences along those lines. I can't imagine she will just be asexual now. It doesn't seem to be in her nature, as far as I know her. Sex is grand, sometimes even if it ain't that great. It's enjoyable and it's nourishing. I don't want to live without it, in the long run, and I'm sure neither does she. So reflecting with some distance on these human truths reduces my jealousy sometimes and abates the sense of wanting to know with certainty what is going on and why. It's none of my business. 

This is always a difficult turn, after a breakup. What was all of our business quite suddenly is none of our business. Very jarring. 

Anyway, ultimately, I am frustrated a lot of the time lately that I have the feelings I have. My mind tells me I "should not" feel romantic, tender, aroused, yearning, sad, or even angry and resentful, toward her. I should "be over it by now." That I "should not be remembering." But I am happier when I just allow the soft animal of my body to love what it loves, and accept my feelings, and stop trying to force or alter. Certainly, ruminating and perseverating and wallowing are no bueno, so I have been practicing some behavioral skills with those behaviors. A few people have rushed in to bad mouth the loml and that is always a weird thing. People who don't even really know her. It's an interesting impulse that people intend to be protective, I'm sure. But in the loml, in spite of her flaws, I know a woman who is kind, generous, authentic, patient, brilliant, weird, has a great sense of humor, is dedicated to her children, hard working, honest, etc. I do feel she enjoys power and holding power over others, including me, and I think she takes criticism defensively. I think she kills her emotions more than she has to. I think she lets fear run her life too much. But these are all things I do also, and I never idealized her anyway. 

Part of the guts of what we had was that we met each other directly and had a wordless understanding of our humanity, our flaws, our fascinations. I never felt disillusioned, because I never felt illusioned. I miss her all day, every day, to varying degrees. My mind and my ego are offended by that. It's too bad, because nothing I do to try to manage it makes any difference. Acceptance is key. 

Proportion and Insanity

Bill W defines insanity as "a lack of proportion and an inability to think straight" in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. Proverbially, you often hear people defining insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I would say this goes directly back to Bill's definition. 

A lack of proportion for me often means making small things big and diminishing big things by talking them down to small. For example, waking up at 3 a.m. filled with electric dread because I forgot to write a letter of recommendation that isn't even due until tomorrow and that will take me 10 minutes to write. That's how a small thing can cast a huge shadow on the wall and keep me from serenity. Then there's making light of losing a person who meant much to me, trying to diminish that experience somehow, laugh it off, mock my own romanticism, or worse, hack away at my self-esteem by ridiculing my weakness or longing. That is an example of trying to en-little the big. Both tendencies are fiercely out of proportion. 

It's only a flesh wound. 

I had a Facebook friend for a while who is now taking a break, a minister in one of the nice friendly Protestant denominations, who had an entire psychological framework for a dual typology: functioners versus feelers. I think he was going through a painful phase in his marriage and he identified himself as a feeler and his wife as a functioner. Of course, with a "healthy ego structure," we try to balance ourselves so that we are both functioners and feelers. And I think functioners and feelers find each other and in good times can be great mutualists. But when the shit hits the fan and we are faced with loss, I do believe those are the two ways that people often respond: feeling or functioning. Some people grieve by staying busy. My experience of grief is so overwhelming and paralyzing that getting busy is extremely difficult for me. I usually need a shit ton of cave time, hermit time, and outdoors time. Of course, being strapped to the dissertation and being disabled by my eye situation means, on the one hand, a lot of cave time, but, on the other hand, none of the solace of the desert or mountains or travel in general. This will lighten up, of course, but it has been a real lesson for me.

The loml is a 100% functioner, at least at this time of her life, at least in my opinion, which of course makes perfect sense, even if she weren't a Capricorn. She is mothering, working full time, householding, trying to reconsolidate her life and I guess her partnership after a disorienting and destabilizing 18 months. I bet some phase of functioning will arrive for me also, on down the line, as it usually does, but I need that subterranean spelunking first. 

I cleverly chose a spelunking image that is out of proportion

Which gets me to proportional responses. Marsha Linehan, the creator of dialectical behavioral therapy, which in spite of not having any of the nine standard indicators for borderline personality disorder, I still find very useful, developed rubrics that help proportionalize emotional responses to stimuli. Shoelace breaks? Probably not a useful cause of suicidal thinking and rage at the universe. Loss of an important person? Probably a valid catalyst for many different emotions, not to say that suicidal ideation or rage at the universe are proportional even so. I do believe people have difficulty with proportion, without suffering from any sort of personality disorder or emotional or mental illness. We seem to me to live in a culture that takes the most horrifying and terrible losses and realities and turns them into jokes, as we whistle past the graveyard. But then the most seemingly trivial experiences-- a delayed flight, a flat tire-- become epic sources of agony and outrage. Or- we trivialize the experiences that are directly at hand in our present life, but become deeply emotionally embroiled in the doings of the President or other individuals where we have absolutely no direct involvement or control.

Anyway as I mentioned in a post around New Year's, one of my intentional practices this year is to take myself seriously in productive ways. I am finding that this effort re-proportionalizes my experience of the world. An example of not taking myself seriously in a way where I should would be minimizing my suffering or making light of it, in order to feed my ego. An example of taking myself seriously where it is probably not productive would be to look at my 21 year old car and feel like a failure. Areas where it may be productive to take myself seriously would be in the craft and detail of my research and writing, or in my authentic emotional experience, or in examining whether or not some of my out of proportion emotional responses might signal a need for a medication change, etc. Self care arises out of a kind of regard for oneself, a seriousness about one's needs and a capacity for self-compassion and tenderness. Perhaps working with proportional self-seriousness will encourage a reframing of many of my priorities. I do tend to allow people to treat me like an option and even like so much garbage or at least like a doormat, because I am all too willing to relinquish my sense that I matter. But of course, this then leads to explosive assertions of my value later on, born of resentment and blame. 

The story in the book Alcoholics Anonymous that leads up to Bill's definition of insanity is in regard to a newly sober guy, Jim, who has been through the wringer repeatedly and risks losing everything- job, wife, family, life- if he drinks again. He blithely orders a whiskey mixed with milk for lunch, thinking that if it's mixed with milk it can't hurt him. Of course, he's out for another horrifying binge after that. So this is the lack of proportion and inability to think straight. If I think of the range of catalysts for my tumbling out of emotional sobriety in the same way as the delusional thought that "it won't hurt me if," that can help bring some proportion to my experience. If I take my experience seriously in productive ways, I start to understand more clearly that, oh yes, yes it will hurt me. This is just taking refuge in the present, but with some curb feelers, so to speak.

I feel desolate, bereft, dark, sad, angry and lonely. These are plain facts. I think at least part of the work now is to take myself seriously enough to work with these facts in wise ways. A part of this wisdom seems to me to be that there is nothing to be done. But another part of the wisdom is that there are things to be done. So, as always, knowing the difference is the crux of the biscuit.

Meanwhile the loml and I maintain a thread of connection, which I have never done before through a break up. Aside from a few ill-advised soul baring texts I have sent her, our exchanges consist mostly of texting memes to each other. There have been some days where the memes she send, always top notch, provide the only laugh of the day. I envision a story in the "human interest" (a hilarious phrase) section of some awful website 20 years from now that says "man and woman communicated entirely in memes, exchanging more than 100,000 over two decades." 

Land of the blind

One of my all time favorite photos so far from Baja, moonrise over Bahía de Los Angeles

I was lying in bed in the dark this evening, thinking about my eye, prostate cancer (indolent or no), losing the loml, the void of graduate school into which I have been pouring so much of my labors and getting nothing at all back, having no prospects for post graduation, old age, what is probably gout in my right little toe that occasionally hurts like someone has taken pruning shears to it (to the doctor for that tomorrow), insomnia, depression and loneliness, and, frankly, there it was again, Walt Whitman's word, the word of all words, and it is still an anodyne. It's been one weird hell of a two years for sure. Highest highs, definitely. Lowest lows, so far, although, no thanks universe, you do not have to prove that it can always get worse. Thanks. Really. 

Fitting that impermanence, which poses the greatest challenges to us, also contains within itself its own relief. This too shall pass. See that my grave is kept clean. Because I will no longer either be able to nor want to give a flying fuck. 

I think it's definitely time to start working with a counselor again. I am in overwhelm just about every day and night these days. I do sleep, fortunately, but usually only from about 9 to 2 or 3. 

hello darkness my old friend. Darkness: I have a boyfriend

I am up for hours after that. And I'm thinking about suicide way too much. It's still just in that romanticized, wistful way, there's no equipment, there's no plan, but I've started to get to that place of wondering what it would feel like. How much would it hurt? How do people hang themselves? I found myself reading a website two nights ago with a list of "tips for blowing your brains out correctly the first time." Whoever put the page together had a resonant, dark sense of humor. It was mostly just out of morbid curiosity but I did catch myself and think "hey, uh, this is not cool." I deploy my deep background in teaching human anatomy. I think about the skin across my throat above the carotid and jugular, and know exactly where they are, or, I recall my suicidal girlfriend years ago explaining that razor cuts perpendicular to the axial direction of the wrist mean the hospital, but parallel to ulna and radius mean the morgue. How much would it hurt to slice through there? How long would it take to bleed out? But then, Virgo style, I am repulsed by the  thought of the mess it would leave, even in a bathtub. I fantasize about going out into the desert somewhere truly in the middle of nowhere and dying (not sure by what method), and being vulture and coyote food, and not causing anyone any trouble. I do know of several places where I would not be found until I were bleached bone and nothing more, absolutely guaranteed. The side benefit of being a botanist I guess. 

Anyway, at least, at the same time, I am cognizant of the fact that it is not what I want, to be living in these shadows, and I do know that I have tools for climbing out. I get a perverse feeling of rebellion and rage when I think about "working on" healing though. I guess I am still furious at the universe, and I feel defeated at the same time that I feel hope. My only power is to revel in sheer hopelessness. It's funny that people talk about being a "hopeless romantic." It's not as fun as it sounds. In fact, however, when I get down to the desolation, all of my fear goes away. No more fear if there's nothing but loss and deprivation. 

Amrit Brar's art has been an understanding companion in Hades lately

But these are all just fantasies and speculation. I have been alarming myself enough that I'll have to haul my sorry ass back to ASU counseling and see if I can either get a new counselor or start working with the old one again. Even I know when I've crossed a line into some dangerous territory. It's just been too much for me to handle on my own, beyond simply surviving one day at a time. Most nights these days, I face going to bed and I think to myself, "phew, you made it."

A tree in Minnehaha Park, Minneapolis, November 2018, telling me what to expect

And I have a devil of a time finding people to talk to about it. My best friend of more than 35 years is great, but I hate the telephone, and texting and messaging lately has mostly been making me feel worse, more lonely and more isolated. Everyone is so far apart these days. The loml is doing a good job of withdrawing and taking care of herself and her life, a much better job of it than I am, and I have no desire or ability to drop any of this her way. My sponsor is out of AA for the time being and I have lost a sense of people I can trust with this very, very dark stuff in the AA community here. There's a bunch of new people from Refuge Recovery, but those connections are all too new.

I think the most constant feeling is that I am trapped inside a catch-22 where I feel a desperate need for connection but just can't show how vulnerable I am or I will get eaten alive. I'll get good advice or I'll get told what to do or I'll have it diminished somehow. I am hyperalert to the tendency of my fellow humans to go directly to either solace or strategy, and it just pisses me off these days and exacerbates my despair. 

Photo collage by Noelle Oszvald

My trust level is just- ha, what? Gone. I honestly have exactly zero trust in any other human being right now, none. Another perfect reason to start working with a counselor again, as for some reason, when it's talk for money, trust doesn't matter to me. Like sex for money. Trust doesn't matter for shit there either. 

Sometimes I can picture a time when I'm done with the PhD, my health problems are on hiatus, the prostate cancer has remained steady and I haven't needed surgery for that and I'm still sexually functional, I have a job somewhere, hopefully out of Arizona, some new place, a new life, finally free of the crushing feeling of loss and absence and yearning, finally just putting all of this behind me, with some gratitude, but also with huge relief. Fancy free would be the best. No more of this emotional involvement with any other fucking human. No more. But the fantasy includes in it the idea that I am a block of ice. No more feelings. Fuck feelings. Invulnerable and unable to be hurt. Ice cold and completely self-sufficient unto the grave. And I pull myself up and realize I could, in fact, push that to happen, and live the rest of my life in that circle of Hades. I have it in me to do that. And that causes me anxiety. 

Deep in the bottom dark of the loss and unrelenting weird bad news and stuckness and all of it, there's a warlockian spellcasting fierce terrible and even darker energy that I have accessed the past few weeks. Along the lines of fighting darkness with more darkness. Self-protection and a truly odd gnarled old soul within, the male crone if such a thing exists. The Hermit, I guess, although that doesn't quite cover the feeling of witchery and snarling, blood rooted bone shards of dark-sparking spell casting energy. In the midst of contacting this chthonic weirding, I decided to go ahead and get Amrit Brar's Marigold Tarot, which has been calling to me at various times the past two years. Working with the images and symbolism of her dark-light cards has been congruent with that darker energy in me, a kind of fierceness that is at the very sinew of hopelessness, if that makes any sense. 

I've been especially enjoying the botanical/symbolic references, such as the wood anemone in the above Ace of Rings, a symbol of protection, adaptation and a bright future. Brar published some helpful guidance on the symbolism of the cards, much of which comes from her Panjab culture. (Which we call Punjab, but apparently that is an anglicization). For example, in The Star, above, the house crow skull echoes the symbolic importance of crows, which, in Panjab culture are signs of good fortune. Birds navigate by the stars, through the darkness, thus the feathers. The Star was the lead card in a reading I did today and it's one of the great protector cards of the tarot, and invokes faith, assurance that all shall be well, and a vision of the long game. This is good. I find I especially resonate with all of the skeletons in her cards, of course. 

On Facebook, the general idiocy and insensitivity of people has been most evident, where any sign of vulnerability on my part is met with a lot of teasing, hilarity, passive aggressive snark, "joking" and shallow idiocy. I have pulled away from Facebook as a result, at least insofar as revealing anything even remotely personal. It brings out the worst in people when they smell that blood in the water. I am so fucking sick of emotional cowards. I am also lacking in patience for the proliferation of profound-sounding platitudes that, when truly examined, end up being shallow and disappointing, and yet many people comment things like "So true," or "I needed this today."

I stumbled on this piece of facile nonsense recently from a FB page called "Higher Perspectives:"

     Oh please shut up. haha. Grief is so much more than this. I am not only extremely thin-skinned regarding the tendency of people to go to solace or strategy, I am also loathing reductive spiritual and sentimental bypass. In short, the deficiencies of being human in the face of the worst and most challenging experiences we can have are aggravating me these days. My own as well as others. I want people who sit with me and allow for all the space it takes for the one billion forms of grief to have room. Few have either the interest or the ability to do that. One friend who is, of course, a trained therapist *and* a Scorpio, recently messaged me and  simply offered space, and said "I see you, if you need anything let me know." Is that so difficult really? My AA cronies are all too quick to say it is just self pity. To recommend step work, or service. I agree that those things are extremely valuable. Yet, I got sober for the full, 360 degree experience of life. I do not want to substitute one set of controls for another. Many of my friend in recovery are terrified of emotion. 

  Meanwhile, this crossed my path:

I definitely resonate with the first few sentences- of course it's the case that there can be great love but no joining, for one reason or another. And how can we drag someone into that anyway? And what kind of foolishness would it be to try to "convince someone to do the work to be ready"? I start to resist a little bit there, since it equates someone choosing not to "meet us on the bridge" with them not being "ready," and needing to do work to be ready. The more solid reality sometimes is that people just can't or flat out do not want to. There is no work they could ever do and it's not the same as not being ready. 

with my one good eye, I pledge to stare unflinchingly into the truth, so help me non-existent gawd

So there's some wisdom in the beginning, I think, especially in this: YOU MUST LEAVE. It's such a difficult concept for me, to leave that which is not serving me, in a way where I maintain the advantage and have a shot at healing. If I'm alone on the bridge, no matter how great the love, if it's not coming to meet me, then- I'll wait and wait and wait and hope and sometimes even cajole or even verge on begging. Then when the inevitable happens and the love does not materialize, I feel even worse because I do not have the advantage and I do not have my dignity. I have not only the suffering of parting but also the suffering of feeling diminished by my own desperation. 

But when the above writing turns to: "There is more extraordinary love. More love that you have never seen. Out here in this wide and wild universe. And there is the love that will be ready." Well I reject a lot of that. I reject that it even fucking matters, really. The simple fact is: YOU MUST LEAVE. Whether there's the promise of "more love" or "the love that will be ready." I am skeptical, as you might imagine. And I don't want more. At this point, really, I pretty much just want to either spend the rest of my life with the loml and her offspring or be left the fuck alone, romantically. Company? Fine. Daggers in the heart? Not fine. Let's say instead, YOU MUST LEAVE, and the only thing you know with certainty you will have is nothing at all, and that will have to be enough. 

668 days

It will be wild to watch the Democratic primary process heading to the nomination for the candidate for President, with the actual general election 668 days away. One thing I hope Democratic Party voters remember is that information is available on incumbents. If you are smitten by someone like Tulsi Gabbard or Beto O'Rourke, be sure to dig-- you sometimes don't even have to dig very deeply to get some solid info that will probably unsmitten you. Perfect is not coming along anytime soon, however, so also weigh everything in one picture. The cannibalistic tendency to take that one glaring flaw and make it the one reason why "NEVER SO AND SO" is stupid, usually. Also, although this seems like too much to hope for, I hope the Democratic Party is not a completely shredded, divided, resentful, angry and totally disillusioned mess by the time the primary is over, and, even more importantly, I hope the Left is not these things. The simple fact is that Russia will be involved again. I wouldn't be surprised if China were involved this time also.

The Right realized a long time ago-- like 1977 or so at least-- that the way to bollix a representative Republic with checks and balances is to gradually increase the power of the executive and focus intensively on the presidential election process. The lower echelons would follow. The national consciousness would be emphasized in racism, xenophobia, fear, delusion. The only way the rich can get the poor to vote for them is via fear. The spectacle of poor as shit Americans who have had a lot of their benefits taken away and who have to run GoFundMe campaigns to treat their cancer or whatever getting riled up about $5 billion for a wall to keep Latinx people out is a great example. The Southern Strategy gradually morphed into the National Stupid Racist Strategy, and it has worked. The only way this concentration of power in the executive and the domino effect it has downstream can be turned to the Left's advantage is with a not-too-scary centrist but Left leaning President. That's it. This person is going to have to carry some positions that are hated by the Left. I sympathize, but let's get real.

I think it's hilarious that one of the reservations about Warren that I saw was "she would lose in a debate with Trump." This is so surreal to me. I have known 14 year olds who could handily destroy Trump in a debate. His confrontational bullying and dumb lines of so-called reasoning ought to be fat targets. This weird passive cowering at his idiocy will have to stop. Democrats need to recall that Clinton won the popular vote, and build that confidence up. He is among the most vulnerable failures I have ever seen in American politics and this has to be exploited handily. Not necessarily by pointing out the facts and what a liar he is, because that does nothing to stop him, obviously. The way to destroy him is to fight fire with fire. Smear and smear again, Make fun of his mushroom dick and his yeti pubes. Porn star porn star porn star. Get him to talk about Jesus and show how stupid he is. Russia Russia Russia. Get his supporters as afraid of Russia as possible. Find two or three glaring flaws and hammer away every single time. Get ugly and stay ugly and get even uglier. This is the only way to defeat a bully. The Republican Party in general is extremely weak right now. It is time for the Democratic Party to come in swinging, and swinging very, very hard. If this vicious attack is coupled with generating fears about the economy, we'll be golden. The Republican Party has shown a great many of its extreme vulnerabilities. In order not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Dems are going to have to be vicious and even more vicious. It is time to search and destroy. I hope to see it.

The deception, lies, smear campaigns, trolling and whatever else is able to fan the flames of division will be at a very, very high level, sadly, mostly from the Right. Ocasio Cortez floating the balloon of a 70% tax rate on the 1% is an example of the kind of thing that the opposition will pull out all the stops to prevent, and it will definitely get ugly. Third party troll candidates like Jill Stein are bound to rebound, probably with dark money financing. The culture of armchair slacktivism and consumer voting will be exploited to the max, including here on FB. What is the most strategic way to cordon off socialist values? Put them all into a hopeless third party troll with no leadership experience and pull as many regular Democratic voters that direction as possible. I hope not too many are deceived by this strategy. But I bet it will work, yet again. I just wonder, for folks who feel drawn to vote for a candidate like Stein because "she represents my values," does it also represent your values in leadership to vote for an opportunist who only emerges every four years and does jack shit the rest of her life to actually effect change? I won't even get into the Bernie Bro thing which clearly is going to be a factor again, at least early on, until it becomes clear that Bernie is going nowhere in 2020

Another hope is that a majority of Democrats remember that *Presidential politics is not an effective arena for activism* for Left causes at this time. Unfairly, it *is* an effective arena for far right activism. The executive has far too much power at this time to engage in protest voting and participating in smear campaigns fueled by the Right and by Russia that only serves to elect the opposition. There are so many areas to engage in boots on the ground real activism, resistance and protest. Using the presidential election as an arena for protest is like 20 people standing outside the offices of Exxon, protesting fossil fuels. In the election for the executive, what we want is someone who will start to undo the damage Trump has been able to do and not stand in the way of lower echelon progressives and create a culture where movement toward a true Left is possible in America again. We can't hope for a true Left President at this time in history. Thinking it is noble, principled or revolutionary or whatever to sulk and throw unfounded accusations around about stolen votes or whatever, when the nomination inevitably goes to a flawed politician, is unskilled. But we can strategize toward one that does what Trump has done for the far right-- normalize the Left. Familiarize Americans with the benefits of democratic socialism for the greatest number, one step at a time. Get perfectly normal ideas that have been widely adopted by other first world countries into the forefront of American minds.

If you think I sound like a sell out, or like I support blue dog Dems or whatever, consider that my hopes and values are to the Left of any politician anywhere on the scene right now. You can ask me specifically what I mean, but suffice it to say that if I were to list the things I would like to see, even most of my friends who think of themselves as progressive would balk.

Incrementalism sucks, especially when it is just a sleight of hand concession meant to placate people while business as usual goes on uninterrupted. There is a kind of incredibly powerful incrementalism, however, which we can see unfolding in regard to the Far Right. Ideas that have been normalized for the Right were, 20 years ago, alarming or laughed out of the room. Twenty years ago, ideas that were alarming 20 years before that were normalized. The Right has had a long game in place since 1945, at least. The Left has tried, but assassination is a bitch. If you want to know what happened to a radical Left in the US, look at the early 60's through the 70's. A lot of people were killed, imprisoned, framed, smeared, had their lives destroyed, in a concerted campaign to eradicate socialist ideas from the national mind. But this is the kind of long campaign the Left has to wage. My list above is already the direction that many developed nations are going. The ideas only seem alarming in the US because they have not yet been normalized, and because there have been highly effective propaganda campaigns against them.

Sadly, instead of some of these things, what I expect to see is a flaming shit show of horrifying insanity, perfectionism, spoiled brat consumer voting, susceptibility to the most idiotic trolls and a re-election of Trump. (side note: those of you fantasizing about prison or impeachment or resignation, it's not going to happen, imo. it's just not). I want the next 668 to change my mind,

but I am not expecting it to.