Limerence, trash fires, progress

It's amusing to read some of the psychological lit about limerence and note the ways in which the mind tries to categorize and classify experiences of the heart- usually dismissive, reductionist, overly simplified. One of the issues with a lot of psychology is that the emotional life presents as a problem to be solved, rather than a richness of experience to be creatively cultivated. My own experience of counseling has been that I present some kind of seemingly unendurable pain and the counselor and I set about finding ways to alleviate that pain through rational thinking, behavioral change and other methods. 

Psyche revived by Cupid's kiss. Note: revived.

I have never had a counselor say to me "your pain is completely proportional to your experience of the world and let's find some ways for you to explore it, engage with it, take it seriously enough to spend some real time with it. There may in fact not be a solution, but just a growing familiarity." 

Maybe a counselor has taken that approach but I ignored it because I myself have been looking for anodynes. 

There's also the whole area of flat out self care. A friend of mine wrote about a relationship breakthrough, in trying to extricate himself from a clingy partner, where the phrase was "I could do that, but it wouldn't be good for me." I've been trying that one on and experimenting with it, and it's especially interesting to note areas of resistance. In many ways, I don't want what's good for me, clearly, but in other ways, I feel like it is a bypass of something important, a deeper good for me than the immediate. 

Anyway I have been confronted with a lot of anger in myself lately and no outlet for it. Also a lot of sadness, and sometimes despair. No outlet for that either, really. Some conversations have been good. Mostly, the dark and painful places where I am meeting myself are solo, and there's no legitimate way to connect around the experience. It is what it is. 

The new CoDA meeting that I started is picking up steam, fortunately. We had three people on the first night, eight people last week and five last night. We're putting together the script for the meeting chair, we decided on a varied format based on the week of the month we are in, we decided to get medallions and incorporate that into our routine, as well as a newcomer packet, etc. There are times when CoDA provides that one or two second hit of total serenity and clarity that I am powerless over others and that my anxiety, anger, despair and lack of peace all goes back to various ways that I am either trying to have power over others or letting them have power over me. Even just one or two seconds of clarity around that can be a valuable reset. 

Nothing is simple with me. I try to force things at my peril. 

730 days between total misery and now

Or somewhere in there. It took Valentine's Day 2017 and the sig other being on the phone at our house with her new boyfriend when I got home from my AA big book study for me to melt into a puddle and realize I had been depressed for a long time and decide to get help. I went to ASU counseling, did the intake, alerted the intake counselor to my suicidal ideation, worked up a safety plan. Started counseling and CoDA shortly thereafter. March 10 will be two years in CoDA, which has helped me enormously. Freedom is an amazing thing. Of course, being madly in love with an unavailable woman during 18 months of that has offered many, many opportunities to practice relationship recovery skills. Still does. 

I have manifested a middle position regarding U, which is holding gratitude, love of all "kinds" and friendly kindness for her while practicing "non-attached appreciation" and not expecting to see her. The two of us have had several inexplicable, synchronicitous (?) experiences involving each other, a pleasant mystery that I feel no need to explain. The kind of strength that it takes to remain present but unattached would have been utterly impossible without CoDA and I'm grateful. 

The main thing up for old Percy now is the tremendous boredom of finishing the dissertation combined with the crushing anxiety of not knowing either when the defense will be nor what will happen after this process is over. The dissertation has become boring because I'm just reshaping a ton of analysis for the molecular phylogeny that I have already done a few times and then writing it up. I have grown weary of the science writing style where the first three to nine pages have a fairly comprehensive lit review with approximately 50-80 citations, and then there's the usual other formal elements. I mustered a lot of energy for the first two chapters, but these last two, which oddly enough are the most publishable, are truly challenging. 

But at least this collapse of motivation is resulting in much shorter and more concise chapters, which should be a relief for both my committee and myself. I was in the middle of doing a workflow yesterday, to do some congruency tests of the DNA sequences I'm working with and I couldn't figure out the software and it was the absolute last straw. I'm done analyzing. If anybody wants some other aspects, they can suggest them in the review. 

The future is murkier than Tempe Town Lake. My preference would be to do a cool post doc somewhere like a botanical garden with a research program. Either related to plant evolution or conservation or both. Those are rare. My second preference would be a nice job at a primarily undergraduate institution, where I would teach and still be able to do ecological research. My third choice would be adjuncting somewhere, and/or Maricopa Community Colleges (pretty good pay and great benefits) and/or teaching high school again (which actually would pay much better). I love teaching high school but I worry about the work load- it is always such a fucking brutal schedule. Adjuncting is too these days. I know adjuncts at ASU who are teaching 5/5/3 just to survive. Big nope from me. I guess I could do it for a couple of years while pounding the pavement for a post doc. Who knows. 

The big challenge right now is searching for opportunities while finishing the PhD draft and teaching human anatomy. It's a lot. 

I did start a new CoDA meeting here in Tempe, 6:30 to 7:30 on Tuesday evenings, selfishly to fill the gap in the CoDA meeting schedule. My favorite meeting is an hour drive and 40 miles round trip. It was the very kind, solution oriented and non-judgmental people there who got me going on CoDA, so I enjoy going back. But I needed a meeting here, and the room I snagged is one block from my apartment. The church where the meeting is was willing to take 50% of our donations for the first six months as rent, so that's great. The first meeting was last Tuesday and there were three people there including me, but I think it will pick up. 

Refuge Recovery is helping enormously also, especially the daily meditation practice, whether simply paying attention to the breath for 20 minutes or using a guided meditation. There's a kind and supportive community forming around that meeting and it feels good to see the same people every week, for whom this particular path seems to be working. 

A mid-February much, much better than two years ago. 

Mantic/ROmantic

"mantic (adj.)
"relating to or pertaining to prophecy or divination," 1836, from Greek mantikos "prophetic, oracular, of or for a soothsayer," from mantis "one who divines, a seer, prophet; one touched by divine madness," from mainesthai "be inspired," which is related to menos "passion, spirit," from PIE *mnyo-, suffixed form of root *men- (1) "to think," with derivatives referring to qualities and states of mind or thought. Related: Mantical (1580s).

romantic (adj.)
1650s, "of the nature of a literary romance," from French romantique, from Middle French romant "a romance," oblique case of Old French romanz "verse narrative" (see romance (n.)).


As a literary style, opposed to classical since before 1812; in music, from 1885. Meaning "characteristic of an ideal love affair" (such as usually formed the subject of literary romances) is from 1660s. Meaning "having a love affair as a theme" is from 1960. Related: Romantical (1670s); romantically. Compare romanticism.

romance (n.)
c. 1300, "a story, written or recited, of the adventures of a knight, hero, etc.," often one designed principally for entertainment," from Old French romanz "verse narrative" (Modern French roman), originally an adverb, "in the vernacular language," from Vulgar Latin *romanice scribere "to write in a Romance language" (one developed from Latin instead of Frankish), from Latin Romanicus "of or in the Roman style," from Romanus "Roman" (see Roman).


The sense evolution is because medieval vernacular tales usually told chivalric adventures full of marvelous incidents and heroic deeds. In reference to literary works, often in Middle English meaning ones written in French but also applied to native compositions. Literary sense extended by 1660s to "a love story." Meaning "adventurous quality" first recorded 1801; that of "love affair" is from 1916. Romance novel attested from 1964."

(all of the above from the Online Etymological Dictionary, where I spend a lot of my time these days)

Funny that "mantic" and "romantic" of course have no etymological connection. 

Anyway, I've been having conversations with Amrit Brar's Marigold Tarot a lot lately, and I find the cards to be perfect for the darker shadows of my psyche. 

It's been interesting becoming more familiar with a new deck after years and years of the Rider-Waite. I have had a few other decks in the past- The William Blake Tarot for example, which is super cool, and the Thoth Tarot, which is creepy. But I am really resonating with Brar's images and mood. 

I'm also back to more in depth meditations on the I Ching's unpleasant messages. It's funny how the I Ching is a bit of a scold, a disciplinarian, a critic. Last night, for example, I thought the hexagram "Inner Truth" was great, until the yang lines all dissolved except for the top one, leaving "Disintegration/Collapse/The End of the Relationship." 

These extremes of wisdom and folly, equanimity and agony, have been characteristic of the past two years in many ways. 

I did finally finish the draft of the species distribution modeling chapter and email it to my chair and the committee member who specializes in same. I am very glad to be done, but I expect they will both take a hatchet to it. It is extremely challenging to do ecological work within the short time frame of a PhD. I have renewed respect for ecologists who use sophisticated statistical methods, but I also have an increased skepticism regarding the robustness of the analyses and the reliability of the findings. 

I am ready to launch right into the last two chapters- the molecular phylogeny and the estimated divergence time/ancestral state reconstruction/biogeography chapters. I expect these will be shorter and more publishable. 

Interesting to note that it was exactly two years ago that the "month of total silent treatment" started with A. I still feel a knot in my stomach when I recall that time. By March 1, I would have all my stuff in storage and that was that. Catastrophe that still feels traumatic now. I'm hoping I have a chance to work through it and let go. The hexagram "Disintegration" above is exactly what it felt like. Wilhelm translates the Chinese as "Splitting Apart." 

From James DeKorne's Gnostic I Ching: 
Whenever we go deep enough toward the core of a sub- personality, we find that the core -- which is some basic urge, or need -- is good. For practical purposes, this can be considered an absolute. No matter how many layers of distortion may surround it, the basic need, the basic motivation, is a good one -- and if it becomes twisted, it was because of not being able to express itself directly. The real core -- not what the sub- personality wants, but what it needs -- is good. A basic purpose of the coordination phase is to discover this central urge or need, to make it conscious, and to find acceptable ways in which it can be satisfied and fulfilled. And, provided we have sufficient understanding and skill, it can be satisfied -- if not fully, at least enough to maintain the process of growth. 

James Vargiu -- Subpersonalities

Other People's Decisions

I think one of the hardest things about this trundle through Hades for good old Percy is that it has been precariously affected, repeatedly and chronically, by the decisions of other people. Many things have occurred that are against my will. For one thing, the starkness of this has made me much more aware of how often in the past I have, for better or worse, gotten my way. There's a line in an otherwise not very good Helmet song that goes "all the good that never comes, from always getting your way." And I'm feeling it. 

All the good that you discover

In people that you hate

Draw them close and pencil thin

Then they're easy to erase

You've got it down just feed them lies

And watch them starve to death

Keep them crowded and short of air

Then you can take their last breath

I'd rather be insulted by you

Than someone I respect

If I don't share the same view

It's just my birth defect

All the good that never comes

From always getting your way

For a couple of years now, the decisions of others have had a huge impact on my life. My ex, A, decided she was sick of me and had fallen in love with another man and basically evicted me from our home. My progress in my PhD program is entirely contingent on the decisions of my committee members. U could have chosen to restructure her life to get us into the sunlight but decided not to. Or could have decided she had the psychic endurance to stay in the shadows, but decided she did not. My own passivity was *MY DECISION* not hers, and I "could" have bailed anytime along the way for my own very good reasons. (Of course, I never wanted to bail, at least not for very long. I wanted to do what we were doing forever, if we couldn't be in the open. Pathological or not, them's the facts).  Her husband's passivity also affects my life-- he "could" decide he doesn't want to be in the situation he's in, as well as she "could," but then I am reminded of the statistic that only 25% of people who have an affair leave their partnerships as a result and this seems so sadly human to me. Understandably human. 

It's been very important for me to realize that I am under no obligation to allow the decisions of others to fuck my life up. Their decisions are theirs, and I am a free agent (within reason) to make my own decisions accordingly. For long stretches of time stuck here in Hades I have assumed without reflecting much that I just have to find a way to arrange my life around the decisions of others. I am realizing that this is my own passivity and is a delusion, and if people make decisions that fuck with me I can just change my own course and not drag out suffering for the decisions of others. 

I am experiencing a lot of anger the past few days arising out of my hurt feelings of being thrown over for an existing situation that I have a lot of judgment about. I haven't expressed that judgment directly very often, out of respect for the people involved. It is a weird reality, respecting someone's choices completely, understanding the reasons, respecting the person making the choice 100%, but simultaneously thinking they are...unnecessary?... choices. Yes, it is possible to do both at once. 

I am finding ways to deal constructively with the anger within a context where there is no communication. U has completely shut down any direct communication between we two at this time without explicitly setting a boundary, but by just acting out a boundary, so there's no room for conversation. It was not possible for her to make space for a conversation we could have benefited from in the past week because of circumstances out of her control, and so the communication came down as an edict, a unilateral decision of hers via a few text messages. So be it, what the fuck ever. I must continue to try to remember that her choices are not mine, and after a certain point, my life does NOT have to be impacted by the decisions she makes. 

Anyway, back to work with me. A hair's breadth from finally getting the draft of chapter two of the diss off my desk. Met with committee chair yesterday and he had completely forgotten that I sent him the draft of chapter one way back in mid October. This pisses me off no end and seems unprofessional and stupid in the extreme, but there's no way for me to express that, of course, other than firing him and getting another committee chair, which I just do not have the energy for right now. 

Fuck, basically. Not liking any of this. Is the converse of all the good that never comes from always getting my way, having some good come from never getting my way?

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."