"She's not a friend. She's a hostage."

"People love that cliche, time heals all wounds. But live long enough and you'll realize that most cliches are true. It's amazing what even the smallest passage of time can accomplish, the cuts it can close, the imperfections it can smooth over. But in the end, it comes down to the size of the wound, doesn't it? If the wound is deep enough , there might be no way to keep it from festering, even if you have all the time in the world."

From an intro voice-over on Being Human, US, emphasis mine

I keep finding myself coming back to the same old questions. How do we know when it's time to give up? Where is the line between sticking to your guns and just being stubborn? How long can you ignore the advice of people you do think are wise, wiser than you? How do you figure out if your wound just needs time to heal or if that wound is just festering and will never heal?

Last week, my favorite afternoon dj's had a discussion about staying friends with ex's. (It's the third section down, with the offensive Asian caricature. The first streaming audio is their overall opinion. The rest are discussions with callers, the final caller being the most interesting to me.) Lazlo, the older, more experienced man, who I usually, begrudgingly, agree with, asserts that no one can be friends with their ex because that ex will always have some control over you and your emotions (or vice versa), your current friendship will interfere with one or both of you's current romantic relationships and one of you is always more emotionally involved, (unconsciously) only does it because you still LOVES that person. This is why Lazlo says that an ex is dead to him. Slimfast, the younger, more idealistic of the two, wants people to call in and prove Lazlo wrong. Lazlo makes some exceptions for people in open relationships and people who have children with ex's and keep a cordial relationship with that co-parent. Of course, Lazlo rips all the callers excuses to pieces. The first two callers were men who still hung out with their female ex's and the ex's new boyfriend/husband, men who couldn't say what positives they got from their friendships with their ex's. Lazlo declared that these men were the ones who still cared and that they needed to cut the cord and move on. The last caller was on the opposite end. He was the only close friend that his ex-girlfriend had. She had not had a serious romantic relationship with another man since they'd broke up, though he'd had other girlfriends and even been engaged for a bit of time. The caller was on his way to have an after-work drink with this woman and Lazlo asserted that the best thing the caller could do for this woman was to not show up to it, to, figuratively, kill himself, so she would be forced to move on. "She's not a friend. She's a hostage," was Lazlo's closing salvo.

And I'll be damned if that didn't ring true. One of those harsh truths that you want to deny, deny, deny, but the words get under your skin, play on a loop in your head.

My friends and relatives don't get why I'm still friends with you. They think being friends with you is so hard that it might not be meant to be. They see that we have very very different values systems, goals, and outlooks on life. And for everyone of your friends or relatives who thinks I'm a crazy unstable jealous bitch, I have a friend or relative who thinks you're a moralistic asshole who needs to take the stick out of his ass and live a little. And I'm pretty sure there are times we agree with that assessment. We also have complaints with how the friendship currently is. Ok, well, I know I do and I'm pretty sure you do, though I couldn't say what yours are at this point. You're great in a crisis, but you kinda disappear for the everyday, though you keep saying that isn't how you want to be. In your own words, "A man shows how he feels in his actions." Though I'm trying to get over it, I know that I'm the ex who stayed on, at least in part, because I thought we'd get back together. And I know I'm the person who feels more wounds more acutely, because it's in my nature to do so.

She's not a friend. She's a hostage.

Now I don't feel that with my other bff who's an ex. But our romantic relationship was far from traditional and we both kept our distances, for a variety of reasons. And while neither of us have plans on being in a romantic relationship with the other, we still relate to each other in much the same way as we did when we were involved. I guess neither of us has felt rejection from the other just because we aren't pursuing a romantic relationship with the other. Maybe my parting with him was not as brutal as my parting was from you.

I thought it would be easier than this, you know? But few things are easy, at least not with me. I had lots of reasons for accepting you back. I have lots of reasons for keeping you in my life. But probably none so strong as sheer stubbornness, the idea that this is one thing that I can make work through the sheer force of my will, that the things we do have are stronger than all the obstacles that lay in our way, that I want to see who you'll be and I want you to see who I become.

So I'll find antibiotics for the deep festering wounds. Call it Stockholm syndrome. I'll be your hostage, at least for now. Gods know you've been mine before. And you can be the symbol of my rebellion, even if you never have one of your own.

Care-taking and Being Taken Care Of

So I feel like I'm kinda a "ride or die chick" when it comes to my family. I'm going to be there, no matter what, if someone I feel is family needs me. I might not keep track of extended family the way that my mom does and I might not have a day to day relationship with some family members, but, if something happened to them, I'm pretty sure I'd be there in a heartbeat. Even family members that I'm estranged from, for this or that reason. If my black sheep uncle actually needed me, like he was sick or injured or dying, I'd be there. No matter how crazy my grandma got, I couldn't break that relationship. I know that isn't how many people feel. Moneypenny and his parents have severed their relationship with most of their extended family, which serves them well in many ways, and I don't judge them for that. TyRoy, no matter how much he does love his family, doesn't put the same premium on being with them for holidays, for various reasons, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't love his parents or that he wouldn't give both his kidneys to his niece if she needed them. Once again, different strokes for different folks. And I'm sure that my way hasn't always served me well, has prevented me from saying 'no' when I should have. Right now, I have the future-anxiety of how much I'll be involved in caring for my step-dad's parents, if/when they need more care, and how I'll be able to balance my desire and obligation to care for them with doing the other things I want to do in my life, especially when that means not living in the metro area where I live. The same is also true when I think of my parents growing older, as I'm the only child.

Family is also not defined strictly by blood or marriage for me. I have a few close friends that I think of as family. This very much includes Moneypenny and TyRoy. I think that anyone who I've been romantically involved with who is involved in my day to day life afterwards and has been there 3+ years seems a shoe in for being family. If my uncle showed me anything, it's that you can make your own family and keep your blood family too, and that it helps everyone if you all have others to carry your burdens.

On the other hand, I know that I rely heavily on my close blood relatives, especially my parents, to the point of taking them and their generosity for granted sometimes. They don't have to let me live here, rent free at the moment. They don't have to help me financially when I'm unemployed or in a tight spot. I'll probably never be able to repay them all they've given me, though I'm sure that can be said of most child/parent relationships.

But I'm a bit ambivalent about taking help, especially financially, from others, especially non-blood/marriage relations. Though the family on my mom's side was always close and leaned on each other, my mom pushed me to have my own money and be independent. This is good advice for anyone, but was important advice for her to pass on to me after her experience being married to my father, not being able to leave the relationship when she wanted to because of the financial situation. While I've not been as great at this as I've wanted to be, the principle/aspiration stuck. In the realm of dating, even living together, until I was married, I never had a significant other who regularly paid more than half for things. I'm not faulting them for that. At the time, those people and I were usually pretty broke. Unless it was a birthday, dinner out was usually fast food and whoever had money that week paid. When I first got with BT, I was a bit flush with cash and paid for almost everything until he was getting full pay from the army. While we were married, theoretically, he didn't see any need for me to work and we could make all the necessities and have money left over to save for after he got back (though that was purely theoretic.) I tried to be a good wifey, spend my time taking care of his needs, be available at crazy hours to talk to him online, etc. (Honestly, that was mostly theoretical too.) But I (mostly) didn't feel bad about "mooching" off of him. In fact, the way Army pays, a part of that money was supposed to be JUST for his spouse, even if we were legally separated, up until any divorce was final. The next person I was involved with was TyRoy, who I've never seen let anyone pay for a check in my life. In the day to day, he didn't really spoil me while we were living together, but he paid the general bills. There I didn't really feel bad either because I knew he'd pay the same amount on the bills if I was there or not. I tried to contribute as much as possible in other ways and, in all honesty, I knew he just didn't want to be alone in that big ol' house, so I didn't really think he minded me being there.

But now I'm not romantically with any of these people, or anyone else for that matter, and I'm ambivalent about them helping me financially. I'll be honest- I'm probably not going to turn them down, but will try to be grateful and gracious in accepting their help. What I'm wondering about is if I should feel guilty about that. With the exception of letting them pay for gas to go see them or dinner/concerts/movies when we're together, the things that people have offered to pay for, already paid for, are...well, not necessities, but quite helpful. Like parts for my broken computer so I can look for work online at all hours, not worry about my parents needing their computer or having the light or noise wake them up. Or recharging the A/C in my old car, so I can go to interviews without being remembered as the sweaty woman. These were things they offered, not something I asked for, though I'm not currently turning down. But I worry that accepting this financial help goes against the principle of being self-sufficient and independent that I really want to work on, though am falling woefully short of at the moment. I'm not necessarily the kind of person who can't accept help and gods knows I've tried to help others when I could, even financially. But this feels different.

This week, when I told Therapist (yes, that's her pseudonym!) about TyRoy buying me the components for my computer, which weren't cheap, she asked why I thought he did that. Maybe my ambivalent feelings are coming from that fact that I'm not really sure. I've never really been sure why he was so generous, but I guess I was always afraid that asking would stop that behavior, so I didn't. At the time, I told Therapist that he's just generous. I'd like to say that TyRoy and Moneypenny are generous financially because I'm generous in other ways. Maybe it's that they love (small l love, like you love your family, not in love) me. Maybe it's because they love me (again small l) and want to take care of me. Maybe it's because they're men and they see a woman in distress, know they can help financially so they do. I kinda shoot down the idea that they are trying to get into my pants because that's completely free and neither of them is currently trying to take advantage of that pay in.

I suppose it's difficult for me to think that these friendships, which I view as family, these (male) people that I would do anything for, but have no plans of current or future romantic or sexual relationships with, are actually as deep for them as they are for me. My commitment is that I'd go running to their non-local home to care for them if they needed it, though I can't contribute to their lives financially. Their commitment is that they can contribute financially to these specific one time things that will help me right now, but they can't drop their jobs, their life, where they are now to come take care of me. On both sides, I think it shows that we dedicate what we have, what we can do, what we can give up, to help the other, to demonstrate that we're in this, that we aren't going anywhere. And to me, that's family. Thanks guys. I'll try to pay it forward (and maybe back) when I can.

So My Therapist Says, Vol 2

So my therapist says that I care a lot about what others think about me.

Well, actually she asked, "Do you think you care a lot about what others think about you?" in that leading way that therapists do.

Well, shit, of course I do! Who doesn't? Don't you? I don't see you coming to sessions in your sweatpants or pajama bottoms.

Look, no matter how much I try to do things just for me, just do thinks I like, just "be me," it's my opinion that it's often difficult to draw the line between what I do because I like it and what i do because it gets me the desired results, whatever they may be.

My primary example in this is how one dresses and behaves in work and social settings. When I have a job, I try to obey the dress code. I don't usually wear any piercings, other than earrings, to job interviews and, unless the boss says otherwise, I don't wear them on the job. "Work me" is completely fine not being "all me" while at work. I try to dress according to the social situation and have the proper manners. I might not really want to put on some slacks to go to a cabaret show at a fancy (to me) bar. I might really want to stay in my pajama pants, but I don't. Now I might not get kicked out of a place for wearing them but I'd feel even more awkward than I already do in my skin, so I try to dress accordingly.

At the time, we were talking about how I had acted, as well as how I said I had not wanted to act at a get-together for to remember my uncle's passing, on the one year anniversary of it. Everyone else was acting happy, trying to enjoy the company of other people that they had only known because of my uncle. We told funny stories about him, but no one was crying. I find it very hard not to cry when I talk about him, even just when I think about him. I think my therapist was trying to get across to me, or remind me, that crying is a valid response to thinking and talking about a dead loved one and I shouldn't have felt prohibited from doing that. But I just didn't want to be that person. However valid an emotion might be, even however justified an emotion or the reaction to that emotion might be from a psychotherapy point of view, even from my point of view, it isn't necessarily seen that way culturally and I get tired of being seen as the crazy or overly-emotional or overly-sensitive one that everyone has to walk on eggshells around. I might know that experiencing that emotion that I'm feeling isn't the end of the world, that justifiably being angry or sad and reacting to it isn't going to make me hurt myself, but others don't. Or it just makes them feel uncomfortable in a way that can't be resolved then and I get tired of being the one that does that.

And I do care a lot about what the people I care about think of me and, unless I think it's just way out of bounds or outside my character, I do things that will please them. Take dating and romantic relationships. First date, I dress sexy in my opinion and place/activity appropriate. When I first start dating someone, I try to lay my cards out fairly quickly, so we can part if we aren't suited to one another. If someone doesn't want to be in a relationship with someone who's living with a mental illness, I get that and I'd rather tell hir now and have hir say that, than months in when I have an attachment to them. (Only one example of many.) But, after I'm with someone, especially on the things I could go either way about, I'm happy to oblige. I try to be GGG (good, giving, and game, from Dan Savage) not only in the bedroom, but everywhere in our relationship, within reason. I had one someone who, as the country song says, likes his women just a little on the trashy side, when they were their clothes too tight and their hair is dyed, with too much lipstick and too much rouge. When we went out together, like 'date night' out, I wore tight slacks, very low-cut tops, and full make-up. Now, another someone I was with for awhile, has completely different ideas of what makes a woman look sexy. When we went out on dates, I wore (almost) no makeup, and clothing that left something to the imagination. Now both of these men had seen me in the morning as well as sick as a dog. Ultimately, they'd go out with me no matter how I looked, within reason. They never asked me to look a certain way, but I didn't really care either way so I did what had the best results, which was looking in a way that they found sexy. But they also do things that they know I'll like. Neither took me to a football game, because I don't like football. Both try to pick out movies that I won't think are completely stupid when we go to movies. When I've asked them to wear certain things, they have. We both care about what the other thinks of us, which isn't always a bad thing.

I am also very aware that I do things specifically to get negative reactions from people. When I was younger, I used to think that I did these things just because I liked them. Now, I do like them, or at least most of them, but I know I'll get specific kinds of not-positive reactions and I'm either ok with that, or, usually, trying for that reaction. As I've said before, I share many things that others might save for a later date, or for never, specifically so people can decide to leave if that doesn't suit them. I really like weird shoes. When I was a freshman in high school and I felt invisible, I wore the weirdest, funkiest, chunkiest shoes I could find. I might not have had any romantic admirers, but I was no longer invisible in those black lace-up shoes with the two inch platform and the five inch heel. I still have, and wear, the black and white wingtip Doc Martin's I got my junior year. I just bought a pair of purple and lime tennis shoes. I have piercings and tattoos, which I flaunt proudly (as long as I'm not in a work environment.) If a person is on the more conservative side of public presentation, it might come off as mean or scary. Though this means less in some circles than in others, I still feel like it makes me seem tough. I still feel like I've earned my stripes, in a way. Moneypenny has suggested, in as nice a way as he could find, that it also makes me less approachable, which I'm ok with. I'm overweight and I don't really feel like I want to be what is considered a normal weight for me. When I was eighteen and still pretty close to that normal weight, I was robbed in my home. I've been overpowered and sexually assaulted. I have hopes that the piercings and tattoos which make me seem unapproachable and my weight itself make me a less desirable target all around. Last but not least, I have my hair cut short, not quirky manic pixie dreamgirl short, but short short. Though I'll date anyone on the gender spectrum, I hope that it is a bit of a dogwhistle to other queer women (hey, you can hit on me.) Also, until I really want to grow it out or I fall for someone who wants me to grow it out or Moneypenny finally gets me that neck tattoo, I'm going to wear it short because my ex-husband said he'd never fuck me again if I cut it short and I never want to fall back into that situation.

So, yeah, I care about what other people think. I think about, wonder about, what other people think. Maybe I do it too much. But, until the reality is such that not caring, or not caring as much, about what other people think is a problem, I don't see a need to make it a problem.

So My Therapist Says, Vol 1

The first in a series of posts where I try to sort out my own feelings on things my therapist has put forth...

So my therapist says,

Disordered Eating is Self-Harm

and my mind does it's best Keanu Reeves' impersonation, "Whoa...."

I've been having lots of different eating issues lately and it seems like every time I accept the current problem, it changes to a new problem. But the things that never seems to permanently leave me are that I overeat and that I eat more food out than is healthy or currently affordable.

It was about a month ago that I realized how out of control the problem was, as it was something that I was lying about, sneaking around with, and overall making myself sick with. So I brought it to my therapist, said that I wanted to work on figuring out why. I wasn't, and maybe still am not, ready to change it. I just wanted to figure out why. She suggested I start using a modified diary card (another DBT thing, used to track your emotions and harming habits over the week) to track my emotions and when I binged. (Man, writing that word suddenly makes this feel way more personal. But what's the point in shame if it's not public, right?) The first week that I used the modified diary card, I thought it might help for me to write down what I had eaten. For me, it helped me get a better idea of exactly what I was eating, instead of forgetting the things I had mindlessly eaten. My therapist suggested that I continue with this as long as it wasn't triggering, which I can see how it could be, is for some people, but that isn't an issue I currently have.

After several weeks, sorta out of the blue, the big reason I was doing this hit me, the one I'd been missing. I'm educated about anorexia and bulimia, have watched the Intervention episode on them, with the best of them. In theory, I know that, at the core, they all seem to be about control, exerting control over your life in an area you have control over, your eating. Also, in theory, I know all about emotional eating, about eating habits we learn from our families growing up, all of that. But it's another thing to a) say "yeah, that's me" and b) figure out what it is you are trying to get control over. Because it is about control, at the heart of it. But I don't feel it as control. What I feel is that I don't want to feel poor. Saying it outloud, writing it here, makes it seem silly, but that's what it is. Personally, I don't have any money. In the last several months, I've gotten and quit two jobs. I'm lucky enough that my folks are both still able to work and both still have jobs and I'm living off of them. There are lots of reasons for this situation, some from my mistakes, some not. Even if I got the best paying job I could probably get right now, I would have just enough money to continue my therapy, pay my bills, and start paying back my student loans, and that's it. I would not have enough to move out. For awhile, I wouldn't even have enough to help out financially around my current household. My financial situation seems out of my control. But there's this weird culturally-trained voice in my head that asserts that poor people can't eat out at restaurants or fast food joints, can't even buy sorta lavish stuff like Ben & Jerry's ice cream, so if I do that, I must not be poor. Hey, I never said that it was good logic, but there is a logic there and I can't change the pattern until I know what starts it.

Warning: Kinda gross, sharing even more than I've already shared ahead

In all honesty, looking at it now, this has probably been going on longer than I previously admitted to myself. I had finally gotten to a place where I was moderating my eating, when my uncle and my grandfather became ill and I said "fuck it, I'm going to eat whatever fast food I want." Which I could, because I'd often vomit after any fast food meal, caused by the gallstones I didn't know I had at the time. I wasn't purposely purging, but one followed the other, so I can't exactly say I wasn't aware of the outcome. Within a couple of months, my gallbladder was removed at which point the after meal outcome switched ends. My primary care physician at the time suggested I just eat better and lose weight and that would stop, though she gave me a prescription for a powder to use when eating well was unavoidable, like Thanksgiving dinner. I never found any way of eating that allowed me to avoid the problem. Finally, after several very embarrassing accidents, I started using that powder everyday and the issue quit. I also started blowing up like a decomposing whale on the beach, baking in the sun. For awhile, especially while I was grieving heavily, my weight was the last of my problems and I didn't care. Last fall, all of that fast food and overeating started to aggravate what I'm assuming are stones that have developed in my bile ducts. After a few weeks of pain, I finally accepted the situation and changed my diet. After the two weeks in which I was very cranky, it seemed to all be under control. Except that it made my lithium levels go crazy which lead to the hospitalization. The stones must have gotten dislodged in all the mayhem, because I could eat however I wanted to, pain-free, when I got out. And I did, with a vengeance. After the hospitalization, I felt horrible, guilty and ashamed about what I'd done, and worried all the time about how much it was going to cost. Hell, you could go back further if you wanted, to my big after-mono weight loss, largely caused by not wanting to eat during the mono, then going to a therapist a few months after who told me that my real problem was chronic fatigue caused by Epstein-Barr and that I needed to cut all processed flour out of my diet, which meant just about everything I liked to eat.

When I brought my big reason to my therapist and she said, "You know, disordered eating is a form of self-harm," I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. Fuck. I had no rebuttal, didn't even think she was wrong, but I had just never thought about it like that. And FUCK. I thought I'd stopped the self-harm. I'd been suicide-thought free for months, hadn't cut or anything in even longer, didn't misuse my medication, rarely drank alcohol, and had even stopped drinking Coke after dinner. I thought I was doing so fucking good with not harming myself. Being told that this issue I had just started dealing with, this thing I wasn't even saying I was going to stop doing yet, was more self-harm was like having my balloon popped. A very necessary and true balloon pop, don't get me wrong, but...fuck.

Now I said in the last post that all that DBT shit would be coming into play and here's where it does. To change this, I feel like I have to not only accept the situation itself, but to figure out and accept where the line gets drawn, what I believe is healthy and what I believe is unhealthy, what is the right way to handle this particular disordered eating and what isn't, what a good and achievable goal looks like at this moment.

Because I have this thing with "diets" and "dieting." First of all, my personal (familial) experience, as well as scientific research, has shown that "diets" are unsustainable and, the majority of the time, result in the dieter gaining back all the weight ze'd lost and then gaining some more on top of it. Scientific research shows that this yo-yo-ing is very unhealthy for the body, probably even more unhealthy than staying the original, overweight weight. "But all it takes is determination, willpower, stick-to-it-iveness, counting calories, keeping smaller portions, pre-making all your meals, working out to offset any desserts and you'll be able to lose that weight and keep it off," you say. And that all might be true and I might just take you up on that offer someday. I know one of the precepts of Buddhism is not harming any living things and, when I was first getting into that, I knew that someday I might feel so hardcore about Buddhism that I stopped eating meat. But I also knew that, at that moment, it was not something I was willing or able to do and it wouldn't stick. My willingness can only go so far at this point. Also, if I spend every waking moment fighting my mind and my body over what I'm going to eat or not going to eat, I'm not going to have any time, energy, or mind-space to think about anything else. Maybe, someday, I'll be that minority of people who lose weight and keep it off, but there is nothing pointing me to that being the reality now.

So where does that leave me? I guess the answer is that I'm still looking for an answer. Not necessarily from you, gentle readers, but within myself. As someone who has never been convinced that we aren't in the Matrix, that we aren't brains in a vat, reality has never been very clear or fixed for me and I'm still trying to figure out what the reality in this situation is that I need to radically accept, so that I can work for change. And I'm not sure if that's a for of willingness, that I'm looking at all, or willfulness, because I'm not doing anything yet.

Radical Acceptance, Willingness vs. Willfullness

Hello, Gentle Readers. As some of you may know, I'm currently participating in DBT therapy, both group and individual. Unless you are in DBT or close to someone who is, you probably have no idea what that is. Here's a sorta dry but accurate description of what DBT therapy is:

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a treatment designed specifically for individuals with self-harm behaviors, such as self-cutting, suicide thoughts, urges to suicide, and suicide attempts. Many clients with these behaviors meet criteria for a disorder called borderline personality (BPD). It is not unusual for individuals diagnosed with BPD to also struggle with other problems -- depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, eating disorders, or alcohol and drug problems. DBT is a modification of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In developing DBT, Marsha Linehan, Ph.D.(1993a) first tried applying standard CBT to people who engaged in self-injury, made suicide attempts, and struggled with out-of-control emotions. When CBT did not work as well as she thought it would, Dr. Linehan and her research team added other types of techniques until they developed a treatment that worked better. We’ll go into more detail about these techniques below, but it’s important to note that DBT is an “empirically-supported treatment.” That means it has been researched in clinical trials, just as new medications should be researched to determine whether or not they work better than a placebo (sugar pill). While the research on DBT was conducted initially with women who were diagnosed with BPD, DBT is now being used for women who binge-eat, teenagers who are depressed and suicidal, and older clients who become depressed again and again.

While one of my group members likes to describe it as its own little cult, to me, this great combination of psychotherapy and Buddhism, which provides and reinforces coping skills for living with the mental illness issues that I am dealing with. Oh, and despite what it seems like at the end of the previous paragraph, it is not just helpful for women, teenagers, and old people. I honestly think that many of the life skills can be helpful for anyone and my particular group has (has had) quite a few men who have found DBT helpful for them.

When I started the therapy, honestly, I just wanted to be able to make it through the day, or even just an hour, without crying. It was several months after my uncle's death. Everyone else seemed to be moving on. Mom and I had done a grieving support group. But I was still crying all the time, as well as backsliding into other behaviors which I knew were just negative coping skills. But I didn't know what else to do. It lead me to this.

But now I'm past 'just getting by,' past just wanting to make it through a day without crying, past wanting to JUST not hurt myself. I want to move forward with my life. I want to flourish. I want to deal with my problems (so I can get all new ones.) I want to turn mistakes into opportunities, instead of making them crisis. And, in DBT, the skill for making that transition, the basic skill for accepting reality, since you can't change something you don't acknowledge, is...drum roll please... RADICAL ACCEPTANCE. But what does that mean?, you might ask. Well, let's start off with the bullet point description in my book (capitalizations are the book's):

• Freedom from suffering requires ACCEPTANCE from deep within of what is. Let yourself go completely with what is. Let go of fighting reality.
• ACCEPTANCE is the only way out of hell.
• Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to ACCEPT the pain.
• Deciding to tolerate the moment is ACCEPTANCE.
• ACCEPTANCE is acknowledging what is.
• To ACCEPT something is not the same as judging it good.

All of this reminds me a great deal of Oprah's views on forgiveness. Forgiving is something a person does for themselves, not the person ze feels has wronged them. It is done to stop fighting that something has happened, to stop wishing that it was different, but to acknowledge the truth of the situation as it is and move forward from there. It does not say that something is good, alright, ethical, or legal. But the concept of radical acceptance moves beyond just things that others have done to you to encompass something one can do in all situations.

It also revolves around this very Buddhist distinction between pain and suffering. Pain is not only unavoidable, but it is helpful and necessary. Pain tells you when to stop. Pain draws your attention to damage and hurt. But pain is not suffering. We suffer because we refuse to accept the painful reality we are faced with. But the greater the pain, the more difficult it is to accept, because we don't want it to be the reality, so we fight it, deny it, wish for it to change, which is where the suffering comes in.

It isn't easy though. For bigger, more difficult situations, a person usually has to keep radically accepting again and again, which DBT calls TURNING THE MIND. (It has it's own bullet points but I think it's fairly self-explanatory.) Just like in Buddhism, meditation in DBT works, in part, as an exercise in radical acceptance. You just let everything be what it is. In a video we watched a few weeks ago, the creator of DBT, Marsha Linehan, suggests that you start trying to radically accept little things before you try to tackle big things. For example, radically accept that, though you don't like it and it may make you late, traffic on the highway will go at it's own pace. Maybe, if you are travelling at the same time of day again, now accepting the traffic for what it is, you'll leave earlier or bring a better cd to listen to in the car. But don't learn the idea of radical acceptance and make the first thing you try to radically accept be that you've been very damaged because your biological father has abandoned you. It's a good one to work on, but, if that's the first and only one you have in your mind, it'll be much harder to do without the other experience and you have much more on the line if you feel like you have failed.

Radically accepting things also requires WILLINGNESS, not WILLFULNESS. This sometimes gets me into trouble, as I'll talk about in a later post really soon. It's about having the right attitude, not being stubborn or obstinate, blah, blah, blah. They each have their own bullet points so I'll let those help me:

WILLINGNESS

Cultivate a WILLING response to each situation.

• Willingness is DOING JUST WHAT IS NEEDED in each situation, in an unpretentious way. It is focusing on effectiveness.
• Willingness is listening very carefully to your WISE MIND, acting from your inner self.
• Willingness is ALLOWING into awareness your connection to the universe- to the earth, to the floor you are standing on, to the chair you are sitting on, to the person you are talking to.

[vs.]

WILLFULNESS

Replace WILLFULNESS with WILLINGNESS

• Willfulness is SITTING ON YOUR HANDS when action is needed, refusing to make changes that are needed.
• Willfulness is GIVING UP.
• Willfulness is the OPPOSITE OF "DOING WHAT WORKS," being effective.
• Willfulness is trying to FIX every situation.
• Willfulness is REFUSING TO TOLERATE the moment.

So, if you weren't already, I bet you're asking yourself just why the hell I'm telling you all this. I am not trying to bring you into the cult. But all this knowledge will come in handy in the next couple of posts. See, all of these ideas are well and good, but, like Buddhism has always done for me, putting them into use means asking myself what the reality is that I need to accept, what it is that I need to be willing to do to accept that and then to change it if needed. That judgment has to come from inside me or it won't really be very effective, but sometimes there are complicated situations with no simple answers. (In fact, DBT works to steer us away from black & white thinking, challenges us to realize that there are many times when seemingly opposing things can be true at the same time and that is fine.) My next post will look at this dilemma in terms of food, eating, and weight issues, but there are many big situations in my life where, though I want to do what it takes to move forward or make things better, I'm not always sure what those things are, what things I might be not accepting right now which are blocking my ability to find the answers to. So just take the ideas for what you will, but they are meant as groundwork for the next couple of posts.

They say "The 1st Year Is the Hardest"

Saturday will be the one year anniversary of your death. I'll go back to your home to celebrate your life with a bonfire and free flowing alcohol with your partner, your neighbors, and a few other select people you loved. Of course, without you to unite everyone and quash bad blood, not everyone I wish could be there will be. You were amazing at bringing people together, making families and friendships where there might not have even been acquaintanceships. Even within our own family, your level-headedness and ability to empathize with even the most different person kept us together. When I wanted to be a sullen, anti-social teenager, you never stopped shepparding me back into the fold.

More often than not, my family strife came from my step-father and I's inability to effectively communicate. But your knowledge of all of the players in the situation, your ability to find just the right way to tell me how to get my head out of my ass, and your spot-on advice on what would work best for me to fix what I'd done wrong while, if possible, getting what I wanted... well, it saved me. Saved us.

Selfishly, all I can think of is how much I need you now for this. Before you passed, my lack of paid employment had a reason. I was taking care of you. Then, I got some slack to grieve. But Mom went back to work right away. Even after 3 months and a grieving support group, I couldn't run a simple errand without crying. The months of therapy since have mostly helped contain that, but they've also helped me develop all these coping skills. Or at least that's how I feel. I've tried to make up for what I lack in cooking ability and having paid employment with trying to do as much of the cleaning as possible, with running errands, with doing all the laundry, and with trying not to pick or be drawn into fights about politics with my step-dad. But apparently he still thinks I'm a hysterical shrieking harpy who's mood changes faster than the weather in our Midsized Midwestern City. Finally, yesterday, I snapped, which only served to prove him right, at least in his eyes.

I know I should have sat down and really analyzed the skill that I could use best in this situation, written down step by step what I was going to present as the issue(s.) I should have had fucking multi-colored 3x5 cards. And I should have taken a magical pill that would prevent me from crying when I got mad or upset or sad and that forced me to keep eye contact, instead of looking down at the floor to catch my thoughts. But I didn't. And I lost. Leaving for the night to get some space on the issue turned into me running away. Asking him to say something or listen at all, even after he himself said he didn't like that there was no communication in the household, was me trying to change him and he's just not going to change. The real problem is that I just feel too much, think too much, and want too much. In my therapy, we call this invalidating, and, as you can probably guess, it's not a positive term.

The homework my therapist gave me was to do the thinking-work and paper-work with the skills I should have used, so I can have a better grasp on the issues, assert myself, reinforce why these changes might be a good thing, etc. Obviously, it's a good idea. But I really wish I could just have picked up the phone tonight, told you what happened, which you probably already heard from my mom in a phone conversation during her lunch break, and you would have been able to just whip up the perfectly suited advice for me to handle the situation with my step-dad in a manner where we could both feel like we won. Hell, I would have called you last night before I went off with my guns half-cocked, and you would have given me that advice then and the situation wouldn't have ended up fucked up and with me being told it was still my fault, like I was back to being 15 again. And I'd be able to escape to your house as soon as I had a couple days off, to get some space, some perspective, and to cool off. I really could have used a good night of drinking and bitching with you. I have a few lovely friends who are kind enough to let me crash on their couch for a night, but they're not family, so they don't know my folks and can't call telling them to get this shit settled so I will get off their couch and back to my parents' basement.

But you aren't here and I'm at a loss as to how to fix this on my own in a way where I get any part of what I want without having to give away everything. And you could explain why I'm always in these situations with (straight) men, where I have to change completely to be satisfactory but they don't have to do anything. I can give up dating them, but I can't really stop one of them from being my step-father.

I just miss you so much. Everyday there's something else I want to tell you, show you, let you listen to, something I'd love to hear your opinion on, some bit of family history I can't quite remember and wish you were here to ask. The last two weeks in my group therapy, we focused on "Radical Acceptance." I've gotten to where I can tolerate that you are gone. But I haven't been able to accept it yet. Despite what therapy says about how radically accepting something isn't saying that it was ok, that it was what we wanted to happen, that it wasn't a bad thing, kinda like Oprah's opinions about forgiveness, I don't feel that is true, like radically accepting your death would erase how cosmically unfair it was, still is. It'll mean I don't still need you, but I feel like I need you more every day.

I hope you know how very very much I miss you.

A Tale of Two Cats

When you arrived, my older, female cat, already lounging on the couch, was more than happy to accept any and all attention you had to offer. While she spent some time in my lap, it was often only as a gateway to getting back into your lap. When you and I were together, when I lived back home, she knew your touch almost as much as she knew mine. But it has been years since that time and we wonder outloud if she actually remembers you or if she just likes to be petted by someone new.

My younger, male cat, however, is much much more wary. He spends the entire time you are there hiding under the couch where we sit. Just before you leave, because you want to see him as well, we search all his usual haunts, calling his name. He doesn't volunteer his presence. When I finally find him, hold him in my arms, he allows you to pet him, but doesn't offer any affection. At first I wonder if he just doesn't like another male on his territory, but just last week he readily jumped into the lap of my relatively newly-adopted male cousin who he'd never met. I start to wonder if he does remember you and isn't just showing the caution I should have been showing all this time.

I'm reminded again of how grateful I am that I don't have children, especially that I am not currently a single parent, with the responsibility of judging who to bring into their lives and when, and what to tell them if/when that person leaves their life. I'm still not good at judging those things for myself and still seem to tell myself that things will be different this time. Maybe they will be. Maybe they are.

Belated Valentine's Day Message

To Moneypenny. And to all my friends and family who keep putting up with me.

Two Songs, Same Message

My current anthem:

(here's link to Flo's video, but I'm not particularly impressed by it, so I opted for this "video" which is just the song with the lyrics. Also, I think it makes it easier to connect the lyrics and the song, rather than having the video and the lyrics posted below.)

Last week, I finished the last third of Lauren Weisberger's Chasing Harry Winston, a chick lit book by the author of The Devil Wears Prada that TyRoy gave me. (Big Army guy loves chick lit. Go figure.) Not to bash chick lit, but I really didn't expect to have any epiphanies from a chick lit novel. But I was wrong.

To be fair, it started with one of my guilty pleasure tv shows, The Vampire Diaries, when two characters full of not very well disguised but kinda forbidden longing for each other finally kissed.

But, later that same night, while reading the section of the book where the character, who's engaged to the 'perfect man' though she doesn't really love him, has a night of passion with a man she works with. Since this is a chick lit book, of course her and the man she works with are together by the end of the book. But I realized that, now, like a light switch turning on, I wanted a 'real' relationship, that I wanted something more than a fuck-buddy. Recently, I had said that I didn't want a LTRR because I wasn't in a place emotionally to handle one, and I also wasn't as financially independent as I would like to be when entering one. Also, in my most recent experience, and quite a few others, "looking for heaven, I found the devil in me," and I wan't quite sure I'd dealt with that devil yet. All that was true when I said it and all good reasons to put off pursuing one right now. Actually, those things are still true. It's just now I'm willing to take the risk that those things will interfere for the payoff that I might have something great, even if it isn't lifelong, like my relationship with TyRoy. "But what the hell, I'm gonna let it happen to me." At this exact moment, I'm not actively pursuing anyone, in general or specifically, through dating sites or by flirting with people I meet, but I won't turn away opportunities that present themselves.

Just a couple of nights ago, to clear up some of the lyrics I wasn't quite sure of, while listening to "Shake It Out," I looked up the lyrics. Then, I listened to the song two or three times before I continued on with the rest of the album. And I listened to it on repeat before my shower Friday, also after my shower, but we aren't there yet.

While singing along, thinking about they lyrics, I couldn't help but be reminded of things with Moneypenny. "It's a fine romance but it's left me so undone." As I've said in a previous post, even though we've transitioned back to 'only friends' territory, and I live quite far from him and we haven't seen each other since he began an exclusive relationship with his current girlfriend, I seem to be causing strife in his current relationship, though I am trying as hard as I can not to. Honestly, I'm not really sure our friendship is very satisfying for either of us right now, though he can ignore that while his time is filled with a busy work schedule, his girlfriend, his hobbies, and his long-time friends. It's a bit harder for me when he doesn't answer texts or emails and has to frequently cancel the one phone call appointment we might have per week. Guess I naively thought he'd always be around as much as he was when he was 'courting' our renewed friendship, but you know how it is, once you have something, you don't have to work for it anymore. "And given half the chance, would I take any of it back?" Maybe my expectations are skewed. TyRoy has had a girlfriend who he loves and is monogamish with for over a year, though much of that time has been long-distance. He doesn't text or talk on the phone with me, as he doesn't like to do either and he says his phone gets shitty reception where he lives. He has 'classes,' which, as it's the Army, I expect are more full day classes than, say, a typical college undergrad load, plus homework and he often plays intramural sports or works out. But we typically have one long email exchange a day and sometimes a few one or two liners. As for Moneypenny, weeeeelllllll, he often responds to texts during the day while he's at work, but that's about it. I try not to text in the evening unless I know he isn't with his girlfriend as I don't want to stir up shit. No responses to emails. Takes forever to read my blog posts and never comments on the blog. I might talk to him on the phone once a week, if I'm lucky, but, well, things always get in the way. Now, I'll probably sound like a total hypocrite to many of my current other friends, almost all local, who I don't talk to very much and have cancelled on many times, though many of them I do keep up with through facebook-stalking. My excuse would be that, with the ups and downs of the bipolar and the meds, I don't have the attention span or the ability to do things on a schedule that most face to face friendships require. Though I realize that's an excuse, not a reason, and I hope to be better at that soon.

Then, while I was in the shower, trying to find other songs to sing in between listening to Flo's "Shake It Out," this oldie but goody popped into my head:

(No video options with lyrics. I'll post lyrics below it, but, seriously guys, who can't understand what this guy is saying?)

Walking Away-Clint Black

Walkin' away, I saw a side of you
That I knew was there all along.
And that someday I'd say good-bye to you
'Cause one right can still make two wrongs.
Not for each other, not from the start
The diff'rence was day and night.
My finest hour was spent here with you in the dark,
Was just before I saw the light.

It's the people who want love and the people who need love
Who find love on the way.
I'll be looking for someone 'til I find the right one,
Then I won't be walking away.

Now that I know what I'm tryin' to find
There's only one place it could be.
So I'm lookin' ahead, I've stopped looking behind
For someone who's lookin' for me.

It's the people who want love and the people who need love
Who find love on the way.
I'll be looking for someone 'til I find the right one,
Then I won't be walking away.

Maybe it's just that this theme is so universal that there should be two songs so different that pop into my head at the same, two songs that I have loved since the first time I heard them. Gram would argue that it's a sign. Mom would say that you know when you're ready to leave, that you can't force it before then because it won't last. And TyRoy keeps asserting that there are good men (and women) out there that I can have rewarding LTRRs with, if I'm willing to try and willing to lose. I think they're all right.

"I'm always dragging that horse around....All of his questions such a mournful sound. Tonight I'm going to bury that horse in the ground....I am through with my graceless heart so tonight I'm going to cut it out and then restart."

Or at least I might.

Though mine is on a blue background, this is the shirt I was, co-incidentally, wearing while dancing and singing to Flo's song after my shower, bought at last Urge show I went to with Moneypenny. How (Alanis Morissette) ironic. But, yeah, looks like my devil sometimes does to me, except mine has breasts.

Am I a 'Meredith'? (Not about Grey's Anatomy)

Hello gentle readers. Welcome to another post of your beloved author working out her issues through typing.

Regular readers are probably already well aware of my views on monogamy, but I'll repeat myself for those who don't. In my life, I've never been very good at staying faithful in relationships. It wasn't until a few years ago that I started to accept and explore the idea that, perhaps, not all Long-Term Romantic Relationships (hereafter referred to as LTRRs) have to also be monogamous as well. Sex and love advice columnist Dan Savage, who I've read faithfully for over a decade, often advises those that write to him about alternative relationship arrangements, including lately talking much about "monogamish" relationship arrangements. Several years ago I read Stephanie Koontz's Marriage, A History, which, among other things, asserts that the ideal of a monogamous marriage is a relatively recent development, historically speaking. And just this weekend, I read this interview on Huffington Post with the author of a book about men and fidelity in LTRRs. If you read to the end of the piece, the author manages to get past what seems like a 'boys will be boys' apologist attitude and includes the fact that, though it is not what this particular book is about, women also cheat for many of the same reasons as men, in many of the same ways, and he doesn't necessarily believe that their "extradyadic," (a [made up by the author?] word meaning outside [extra] the relationship of only two [dyadic] people) relationships should end their primary LTRR either.

So, of course, I found it interesting Monday when, listening to the afternoon program of an alternative station in a town I have lived in (not saying I currently live there now), the main DJ Lazlo, his sidekick Slimfast, and their board operator Meredith discussed a series of events that happened to/involved Meredith over the previous weekend. Here's a link to the audio of the full 15-minute conversation (it's the 3rd on down, labelled "Meredith is not the type you take home to Mom"), though I'll provide the background and the main story, I've transcribed the last five minutes or so, which is what I find most interesting.

Background: So Lazlo is in his 40s, married, been with the same woman for several years, used to be wild alcoholic and do drugs but is clean now, has one child from a previous relationship and one child in his current marriage. Slimfast is in his late 20s or early 30s, about the same age as I am, recently got married to his girlfriend of a few years, and the two men now often talk about life as married men. Meredith is their board operator who pops up in the show, is in her early 20s, still pretty wild, lives with her boyfriend of a few years who they call 'The Ewok.' The story they discuss in the first ten minutes or so of the segment is that, over the weekend, while her boyfriend was out, Meredith made out with a female friend of hers who was visiting, after a long, deep conversation about the value of their friendship. It happened unexpectedly and Meredith didn't believe it was a big deal because, early in their relationship, her boyfriend had said that he didn't care if she kissed other women, as well as the non-logic that, since he wanted a threesome, he shouldn't care if she kissed other women, whether he was there or not. Meredith told her boyfriend that this happened, it seems in a rather nonchalant way, when he came home, and he's been a bit unhappy ever since, though he hasn't shared any particular feeling with Meredith. The men assert that it is because he feels that she cheated on him by doing this, that he probably assumed that the relationship had progressed to a point where it was exclusive. Meredith does not exactly see it that way, though she does say that if he does think it was cheating, she will apologize and not do it again.

On a side note: I am not sure how Meredith identifies her sexuality. When the men say that if they were her boyfriend, they might be worried that all her kissing of other women and previous sexual experiences with other women might mean she was gay thus why would she need them, she asserts that she is not gay. I am not going to label her sexuality for her. I will just say that I never assert that my bisexuality means I think I am entitled to be romantically or sexually involved with men and women at the same time, and many bisexual find it offensive when others think they feel that way. When I express a desire for an open relationship, it is not because I am bisexual and I do not believe that my problems with monogamy are because I am bisexual. Now, plenty of couples in arranged non-monogamous relationships only allow their partner to be with other partners that are of the sex they are not in situations where one or both of the partners are bisexual, but that is not the only way that bisexuals have relationships.

After all my long-windedness, here is the section of the conversation that really interests me, which starts about ten minutes into it. In this mostly monologue, emphasis are mine, Lazlo asserts that the problem is really with the "kind of girl Meredith is":

Meredith is not the kind of girl you move in with. She's never gonna be the kind of girl you date seriously. She's never gonna be the kind of girl you marry. Meredith isn't that girl. Meredith is the girl you date when you smoke a little too much weed, drink a little too much, and you think you love her. You really think you love her. You really think she loves you. And then on a Thursday, she tells you that she's going to New York with a guy named Paul and she's going for the weekend and she'll be back Monday. And you go "Whoa! We have been dating for two and a half years." And she goes, "I don't really understand what you're freaking out about. I'm just going to New York with some friend of mine." And you go "Oh, I forgot. You're Meredith. You're Meredith. And I thought something changed in the last two years, but it didn't." She will always be the girl, when you come home, who went dancing with a guy friend, who made out with a girl friend, or did this or did that or did this. All of these things that stop you from having a real relationship with her, that's her. And that's you. Truth, truth, you are a good time and a broken heart, wrapped up into a little bundle, packaged and put underneath the tree, [Meredith giggles] that men will have to go through in order to get on the other side and find happiness with another woman. That's you. That's you. You realize that right? [Meredith: Yeah.] And you're the part of the life that men look back on and go "When I was with Meredith, it was a great time." [Slimfast: Yeah, she's a good time.] "She ended up breaking my heart. Unbelievable that I, I didn't see it beforehand, but she crushed my heart. But I'm happy now. I'm married. I have kids." And Meredith will still be out just breaking guys. [Meredith giggles some more.] You just break 'em. That's what you do. You get that right? [Meredith: I guess. Slimfast: And it is cheating.] [Both Lazlo & Slimfast: It's cheating.] And the fact that you don't even recognize it and you give up the look like, "Ugh, it's not cheating" just validates everything I just said. [Meredith: I..ok.] You see what I'm saying? [Meredith: Yes. I do.] Right, because I'm the guy who's in love with you. We've been hanging out for a year and a half. Yeah, it started out you were the crazy girl who made out with other chicks but all the sudden we're living together and everything's cool. Wow, I had no idea I could pull this into a relationship and then one day you come home and go "I made out with these chicks over the weekend." And I go, hmph, "Of course you did. Of course you did." [Slimfast: You gonna stop making out with chicks, Meredith? Meredith: Yes.] The answer is no, Bambam. [Slimfast: I know. The relationships over. The relationship was over before it began. I agree.] He's just gotta figure out how far he wants to go. [Slimfast: Right, she's a good time. And, and, and, if he can make that good time last a little longer, she's not going to say --] Now he's at the point where-- And I've been in this relationship before, he's at the point where it's no longer a good time. [Slimfast: Probably] He's at the point now where, yeah, we have some good times, but it hurts. It stings. And now those stinging moments become more and more and more and more and more and more. And it's no longer just fun, it becomes painful. And he's at that point where he's starting to feel pain. And, therefore, he's gotta go. [Meredith growns.] Now, he'll probably let, let, if he's like every other guy, he'll probably ride this out until he can't take the pain anymore and he'll make you feel the pain too and it'll just end in a blood bath of horrible emotions on a Wednesday night, some night, and you sitting in that apartment by yourself and him packing up his stuff and moving back to Oklahoma. [Meredith: Oh god.] That's the way it ends. That's the way it always ends. Question is, is that six weeks from now or six months from now. It ain't six years from now. [Meredith laughs, kinda sadly though, not the giggle of before.] Fair enough, Bambam? [Slimfast: Fair enough.] Have fun Meredith. [Meredith laughs: Alright. Slimfast: Have a good time.] {End}

Though it probably goes without saying, I'll first interject that, unlike the guys, I think that Meredith could have great LTRRs, with men or with women, if she and her partners honestly embraced some sort of not exactly monogamous arrangement, though, since she asserts earlier in the segment that she would not be pleased with her boyfriend doing the same thing she did, it might be a bit harder to find a partner who is happy letting her play while he (or she) is not allowed to, though those people do exist.

I am intrigued by the apparent swap of gender stereotypes happening in this conversation, as the men seem to be attributing a level of desire for monogamous commitment to men that is usually reserved for women. While 'girls like Meredith' may be a good time, it seems that they are asserting that real happiness for these men that she dates, for any man, will be achieved once they have gotten over her, moved on, and settled down with a more stable (and monogamous) woman and had a child. (There's a whole different language and feminist discussion in the fact that they refer to Meredith as a girl but these men's future spouses as women, but I won't get into that.)

But something more personal stuck with me. I'm slightly dismayed by the thought that I may be a 'Meredith,' either in the eyes of the people I date or just by virtue of how the relationships shake out. Regular readers will probably know that the only LTRR I've been in which I didn't cheat was my open relationship with TyRoy. I somehow even managed to cheat in my open marriage. For me, many times, the risk is the reward, in all kinds of crazy situations. Despite a new found desire for a LTRR, rather than a just fuck-buddies situation (explained further in the next post), I am not sure how much my meds and DBT therapy will reduce my penchant for volatile LTRRs. I recently read, "One woman can break a man," in a compilation of six-word memoirs on love and heartbreak (fourth down.) Hell, I'm ruining relationships I'm not even in. Though Moneypenny and I are merely (barely?) friends at the moment and hundreds of miles away from each other, I appear to be ruining his romantic relationship. (Yes, and the fact that it is not me he is in that relationship with only advocates further for the idea that I am a 'Meredith.' I'm aware of that as well.)

But I don't know how to be anything other than I am. And I think I've changed drastically in the years Moneypenny and I's friendship was burned. But we still seem to be playing out the same roles we always have, which begs the question in my mind of how much people are able to change. Even in the radio segment, the men do not say that Meredith should change, merely asserting who she is. In recent emails, TyRoy asserts that there are men (and women) who would be more than happy with me as I am right now. His contention is that, while I have never been a perfect person in any relationship, it take two to tango and that many of the non-cheating issues I blame on myself have more to do with these men's Peter Pan-ing issues than with some wrong I have done them. My DBT therapy teaches skills, especially mindfulness practices, that are meant to help us behave in more effective ways, though not necessarily the same ways for each practitioner or for each situation. But does changing behavior change who we are? People in AA never stop calling themselves alcoholics, but instead call themselves recovering alcoholics, even if they haven't had a drink in years or decades. Many would assert though that current behavior, as the only thing demonstrable about ourselves, must count for a large part of who we are. I guess it begs the question of if who we are is what other people see about us or how we feel inside. Buddhist tradition says that there is no who we are: can you separate the waves from the ocean? is the flame on the candle the same flame that was on the candle a minute ago or is it a different flame? It's a dialectical dilemma I've struggled with for years and never really found an answer to, often just allowing all things to be true and work as best I can within all those frameworks.

But that isn't to say that thinking I'm a woman who breaks people isn't disturbing me right now.

NB: I'm using the Merriam Webster's second definition of DIALECTIC, concerned with or acting through opposing forces, which is the one I believe my DBT therapy is using in it's name, though my DBT instructors have always also asserted that it refers to two seemingly opposite things being true at the same time, which, when accepted, reduces the extreme and/or black and white thinking that often gets us into trouble.

Psy Treatment Ambivalence

Before I start exploring the side of this situation that I actually find interesting, I want to make something very clear. I am (currently) very happy that the intervention of my loved ones and medical professionals, medications, therapy, and even hospitalizations have saved my life more times that I really like to admit. I am happy to be working on making my life better in ways that I think are necessary and to be on medications that I believe allow me the breathing space to do that. This post is not the predecessor to me stopping either my therapy or my medication, as I have absolutely no plans of doing either. But, as my mother told me recently, I've never been able to not ask "why" of anything and I've been thinking more and more about the other side of this issue, to possibilities other than the current accepted treatment of mental illness in the U.S.

TV junkie that I am, some of this thinking was prodded by a quote I heard on a tv show, the finale to FX's American Horror Story. Though it was only meant to be a cutting comment to one of his former patients, psychologist Ben Harmon declares,“Therapy. Doesn’t. Work.” When the patient then asks why people do it is “Because they don’t want to take any responsibility for their crappy lives. So they pay a therapist to listen to their bullshit and make it all feel… ‘special’ … so they can blame their crazy mothers for everything that went wrong.” I would add 'absent fathers' to that. Of course I heard this only days after I was released from my latest (not exactly voluntary) hospitalization, typically a time of both hope for future treatment as well as bitterness about the circumstance surrounding the hospitalization itself. I have to admit that one of my problems with past therapists I've seen was that I didn't feel like I was progressing anywhere, but just dealing with the problems of the week, a season of Buffy without any overarching, linked storylines. I wasn't getting better. I just had a disinterested third-party to bitch to now. One of the biggest draws to the DBT therapy that I'm currently in is that my individual therapist and I clearly stated goals for what I want to accomplish through therapy while the group sessions are teaching and reinforcing the skills that I'm using to accomplish them. But it's hard to deny some level of truth to what Dr. Ben says.

The next dominoes to fall came after I started receiving bills from my hospitalization. While I find it difficult to say to anyone, especially people who have lost someone to suicide, that anyone, especially their loved one, should be (have been) allowed to die if that is what they want(ed), even if they had the option of medical assistance, when I am said person and that medical assistance costs tens of thousands of dollars...well, let's just say that I was not quite as enthusiastic about those prospects.

In one of the recent GOP presidential nominee debates, this exchange occurred:

Wolf Blitzer, debate moderator: A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it. Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?

Ron Paul, Republican nominee, but often described as libertarian: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.

Wolf Blitzer: Well, what do you want?

Ron Paul: But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not be forced

Wolf Blitzer: But he doesn't have that. He doesn't have it, and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?

Ron Paul: That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks (applause from many in the audience)

Wolf Blitzer: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?

Audience: Yes!!!

Ron Paul: No. I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid, in the early 1960s, when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, and the churches took care of them. We never turned anybody away from the hospitals. And we've given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. This whole idea, that's the reason the cost is so high. The cost is so high because they dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy.

Now, liberal commie me and the me who knows how high my uncle's medical bills were even with insurance and Medicaid doesn't really agree with that and, if you judge by the laws of our country, our country largely doesn't believe that the choice of whether people receive life-saving treatment should be left to charities and chance either. Emergency rooms are lawfully required to give whatever treatment will continue the life of a patient, regardless of if they have the ability to pay or not. I understand why this is the law of the land and agree that life-saving medical treatment should not be withheld because a person cannot pay, especially if they desire the treatment, but that does not mean that they will not be required or at least asked to pay.

Now, currently, if a person is not competent to make medical decisions for whatever reason and they do not have a specific DNR, living will instructions with them, and no medical proxy to make the decision to refuse treatment for them, doctors will give them the proper treatment to save their life. For the most part, even if they are conscious, people who have tried to commit suicide are automatically assumed to be not competent to make the decision to refuse life-saving treatment. If the person is not able to refuse medical treatment for whatever reason, they will be billed for whatever services are rendered, even though they did not consent to the services and might not have, if able to. For people who are being saved from an attempted suicide, a several day psychiatric hospitalization will be tacked on to their treatment, after their physical health is established and stable. Though the patient is nominally given the choice, this isn't really true. For those people lucky enough not to have experienced this, a person is usually given the chance to decide whether they will be transferred to a psychiatric unit "voluntarily" or the attending psychiatrist can commit them involuntarily with a 72 hour hold, to a dreaded "state hospital" if they do not have insurance. A patient can fight the hold and can fight further commitment afterwards, but, whether true or not, as I've never actually challenged it, patients are told that judges don't usually find in favor of the patient and resisting the hospitalization is generally seen as continued mental instability so no doctor will let you out. Even signing in "voluntarily" doesn't necessarily mean one can just sign out again. Doctors and nurses will tell a patient that their insurance will not pay for their visit if they sign out AMA (against medical advice), which is what they are requesting to do. If this doesn't work, patients will then be told the same thing that people who do not want to be voluntarily committed will be told, that their doctors can decide to put their hospitalization on a 72 hour hold, at which time they can challenge it, but they won't win and it will just be wasted time, since their resistance is seen as further instability. I'm not sure if these are scare tactics or not. I just know that this is what patients are told, from both my experience and the experience of my fellow patients.

My point with all of this is that, while I am not arguing that anyone should just be denied life-saving medical treatment just because they don't have health insurance or the ability to pay for the treatment, I am starting to wonder about our inability to refuse medical treatment on the basis that we cannot pay. I guess maybe I'm just surrounded by (too many) conservatives, but all I seem to hear lately is that people should not do things they cannot pay for and that no one should rely on the government to pick up the slack when they do things they cannot pay for. But in for a dime, in for a dollar, right? Just some examples: Should people not be allowed to drive if they can afford car insurance, but just the bare minimum, which covers anyone they might hit or any damage they might do while driving, but not whatever damage they might do to themselves and end up in the hospital needing life-saving treatment for? Also, if a person cannot work, cannot find work, or just doesn't want to to work, can they kill themselves so they do not require anything anymore? Oh wait...currently they can't. I'd been pondering all this since starting to deal with the bills, but came up a bit short on finding an audience for these views. Then again, I guess my mother was not the best person to start with and the best time was not just as we were about to get to my uncle's grave.

Then, a few days ago, catching up on my RSS feed, I saw this blog article From Risk to Harm and from Harm to Suicide. For some reason, now that I'm writing this I can't find the area of the article where the author discusses how true liberatarianism should advocate against forced hospitalizations and such. Crap. Either way, this article, the second in a series, after Mad Not Crazy, raises questions about the ways race and psychiatry intersect, helped me realize that not only was I not the ONLY person who questioned the mainstream ways of treating mental illness in North America (the author is a Canadian, living in Toronto), but that there is a WHOLE MOVEMENT (however small), called the "mad movement" (not to be confused with the Make A Difference, or M.A.D. movement), which, from these articles, seems to refute the idea that someone who thinks differently is ill in a manner that needs medical or psychiatric treatment, but asserts that there are many different ways in which people think and experience the world which should be embraced. When reading the above articles, my thinking about mental illness and the appropriate ways were challenged in ways that my thinking about anything probably hasn't been challenged since Miss Kee was alive. Though the articles are in depth and full of ideas on race that I'm not sure many of my readers will agree with, I still recommend them as they offer different ways to think about mental illness, about what I'm going through, about what some of you are living with, though I obviously am not telling ya'll to just throw your pills in the toilet and the rest of your life will be all daisies and roses.

I did want to share these ideas with a larger audience though, to show my dear readers that there are other ways to think of these things that are worth thinking about, and that even a person devoted to their current treatment can still be ambivalent about it and the way mental health is currently dealt with in this country, the country most of you are from and reside in. Please read those other articles when you have some free time. Comment. Thanks for reading.

About the title of the post: Quote from "Mad Not Crazy"

"Members of the Mad community may also identify politically as psychiatric survivors. Psychiatric survivors are people who have experienced the mental health system and feel psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy, and similar helping professions (called the “psy” complex) can be ineffective, harmful, and even violent. The “psy” complex does not just exist in the hospital or the therapy room, but is pervasive in other spaces such as schools, settlement services, and prisons. It’s present any time behavioral language and psychological practices are put into effect in a workplace. Psychiatric survivor scholars and activists explore how psychiatry is a tool for detention and social control. We lobby to end forced drugging, electroshock, restraint, seclusion, institutionalization, and outpatient torture."

Yes, I am aware that this is a rather non-mainstream view of things, but that is what makes it all the more interesting to me to contemplate.