It's hard to really describe the loneliness I often feel. I feel extremely fortunate to have parents who still help and care for me, who don't ask for money and are willing to tolerate my situation, with love and patience. I am also truly blessed to have my brother and sister still - both living at home; one will be turning 30 this year (shes an ECE), although she'll probably be gone in a year or two, and the other is 22 (a sous chef). I'm in the middle, 27, turning 28.
I acknowledge all this goodness around me. It helps, it's humbling. But here I am, an intelligent, relatively good looking, athletically built 27 year old guy; what do you think I want out of life? I'm reading "Faitheist" by Chris Stedman. In it, he recounts his early homosexual romances, the feelings he felt, the longings he saw realized; he spoke of that moment where all your energies from previous conversations and experiences with that special someone finally build up, and then, something in you just impels you spontaneously into action: into a love infused kiss.
I'm not sure what he described in that passage is love itself (he was 18), but in any case, I found myself growing envious; when I became aware of my envy, I searched the reason why, and began to grow depressed. "I'm going to be in this situation my entire life", I get to thinking. It is my worst fear. There's such a painful contrast between the present monotony and my future hopes. What lies in between is the hard work of self transformation. What it entails in practice - so much practice - is years and years of repetition. How much more before I meet that special someone? How long must I wait in this interminable stasis?
There's a particular girl who works at the library who has the prototypical look which attracts guys like me. Research has shown that blonde haired, milky skinned, blue eyed girls come off to guys (especially introverts like myself) as more empathetic. It's true! I can vouch for this. At first, I didn't really pay attention to her. When I moved to my new house I was eager to keep myself focused on a new way of being: to only think, or rather, feel myself. Not knowing exactly what I was doing (only recently have I delved into the somatosensory psychological literature) I still knew that it was working. I was allowing myself to feel myself in public; a liberty I haven't experienced very much of in my recent life.
She's taller than me. I'm 5'7, she's probably 5'8, maybe 5'8 1/2. Not that big a difference, although when I was reading "The Better Angels of Our Nature" by Steven Pinker, when he pointed out the influence of height on social success, it got me a bit demoralized. It took me awhile to get over this fact and learn to see myself in a different context. Eventually, one day, I guess after observing me, smiling at me, she came up to me to talk about how nice and considerate I am for putting the chair I put my feet on while I read, away, back in it's original position. At first, when she came up to me, I felt accosted. The PTSD kicked in: "holy fuck, go away!" one part of me felt like saying, while another part was like "Hehehehe, she's talking to me! and what she's talking about - a basic common decency - is clearly being used as a pretext to talk with me!". But I could barely let out a word. My breath shortens so badly in those situations, and speaking, if it does come out, will sound higher, forced, contorted, and over all, uncomfortable and self conscious like. It IS ironic. I can embody myself physically: I can demonstrate through physical movement, confidence and ease.This is clearly what made me attractive to her: the way I carried myself. But there's a roadblock in my mind, a massive, gigantic, insecurity, that obstructs me from being in myself while I speak. So she spoke, and I think I may have heard a bit of nervousness in her voice, and I didn't respond. I simply nodded my head in agreement, as if to say "Ok, go away", or, if she's a little more perceptive "I'm so insecure, this is painful for me". I also felt a little guilt for contributing to her feelings of anxiety while she spoke.
This girl is sometimes on my mind, but I've been forced to rethink what it all means for me. 1) I may be idolizing what I want in life, and because she's a fairly attractive girl, with features that suggest empathy, kindness, patience, sensitivity, gentleness, I am taken in. I am besieged into thinking that "she is the one". 2) I know nothing about her. I don't know what er personality is like.
3) I am so lonely. I long to fall in love. I feel so much love in me all the time, especially at night. And I realize the apex, apogee, and highest expression of this feeling occurs in the context of another: the beloved. I don't just want to love another person, but I want her to love me. I hear so much about the powers of love, what it can accomplish, what it can effect in the personality of the other. On a neurochemical level, the experience of love is an explosive blend of dopamine (and oxytocin). The surge from that experience fills the body full of this highly invigorating neurochemical.
Some people are skeptical of psychics. Could it exist? On a theoretical level, it's hard to say, although there are some compelling theories out there for how it might work. But for me, what pulls me in the direction towards belief is an experience I had at 19. My mom comes home, and she calls me upstairs and sits me down at the table. She's full of this nervous excitement - she wants to tell me something. As if knowing how to get me nervous, she tells me "now don't get nervous" - which gets me nervous. "Gay, the woman who owns the chocolate store, well me, your dad and your brother just came back from her house. She's psychic you know and she said some things. We were talking and all of a sudden she stops, and says 'donna, your father is here' making a wagging motion of her hand towards me, as if in imitation of him". Gay then goes on to describe my grandfather, even making a movement - some hand gesture up against the face - which apparently was supposed to be something only he and my grandmother knew. Gay then goes on to make predictions for 2 of my mothers children. 1) something big will happen to your daughter, but don't worry, she'll be fine. She'll have children 2) your son will get better, but he will have something serious happen to him at 21 where he might commit suicide. Be gentle and patient with him, and he'll get through it fine. 3) Your son will meet a girl, blonde, who will help him.
So you can understand my temptation to see all blonde woman and see in them "my savior". I've done it with this girl. No matter how hard I try to be rational about it - and this part is the one making the decisions - there's still a very strong emotional part in me that groans: it's her! it's her!. Who refuses to chuck away the hope that I will meet a blonde girl who will help me. Who will love me - titillate the dopamine in my brain - helping work through the morass that is socializing.
As for the predictions. Something serious DID happen to my sister. And she got through it fine, despite the odds. I did go through something serious at 21 (2 years after the prediction was made; I hadn't even been conscious of it then, so this was some self fulled prophecy) - the kundalini yoga thing, didn't sleep for 21 days. Contemplated suicide a few times, but was too fearful to do it. Ohhh, nothing will ever match the intensity and fear I experienced during those 3 hellish weeks. No sleep - at ALL. Nerves ravaging my body. Electric shocks from my SNS keeping my mind on continuous alert: if sleep was near, an electric shock pounded its way into consciousness. A monstrously frightening shock - waking me with a jolt. I can remember my panic stricken face.. I've gone off track by mentioning this, but some experiences are just so high on the richter scale, so unusual, so intense, that it is hard not to stop and pay notice to them. The body can be a torture chamber: the nervous system can be an electric chair. And you, scared, for your life and your sanity, just want to be helped. Can you blame those people who turn to God? It seems to be the only rational response in such situations.
Parts of her predictions have more or less panned out. The gesture she made to my mom was recognized by my grandmother, causing her to get emotional. I personally believe that psychic phenomena is legitimate. That it is shortsighted, premature, and needlessly skeptical, to deny the universal ubiquity of this phenomena.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Cognitive Liberation
Here's a concept: cognitive liberation: the ability to give yourself up to the subjective emotional present.
Being in the subjective emotional present is a state of flow - albeit, not the type described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - but a type where you're just feeling yourself. In the flow state described by Csikszentmihalyi, you're completely involved in something else. In this flow state, you're involved with your self - with passing emotions, drives and feelings. This state could be described in terms of an absence of self consciousness. Self consciousness is holding yourself as an object of conceptual self awareness. In this state, you hold two things in mind at the same time: your particular feelings - and how you look experiencing those feelings. It's as if you try to give form to the flow of emotion; this is the state we sometimes succumb to when we meet someone new, during an interview, or while public speaking.
Cognitive Liberation is the inner first person awareness of a "giving up" to the flow of emotion. What your giving up - if you're an obsessive or compulsively insecure person - is your temptation, or your interest, in watching yourself in the action of speaking. This sense of cognitive liberation enables the person to give up his egoistic tendencies, the part which wants to experience itself in a socially meaningful context. Cognitive Liberation is like a religious liberation. Just as in the latter, the person gives himself up to "another": to God, and to the elusive motions of the self.
I experienced this feeling just now while speaking to my brother. I find the hardest thing of all is the ability to commit to an embodied state of mind. In order to commit, there must first be cognitive liberation.
Getting into a state of cognitive liberation is subtle - mindbogglingly subtle. It involves planning without your conscious mind being too involved in the planning. It's like farming; you till the soil, plant the seeds: and then go away. Nature will take it from here. You go on your way, back to your house, eat with your family. If you want, you can check up on it - a need if you want to keep everything in order (self regulation), but for the most part, you aren't there watching the plants grow and bear fruit. Similarly, you can only guide yourself, implant an idea into mind, and experience yourself go with the flow. The temptation to be avoided is to watch yourself go in the flow. That is a bottleneck to the flow of emotions; that is enforcing form on the flow - unwittingly guiding yourself toward the source of the temptation (in my case, my insecurity and fear of social; embarrassment).
Innate Temperament
I've always been an unusual person. Not personality wise - in quirks of character. Not socially, although nowadays it would seem that I had social problems growing up. My strangeness is not so much emotional, as it is vital. I have what appears to me to be an incredibly sensitive nervous system.
I'm 6 years old. I'm playing video games - I finish the level. I am so elated, so excited, that a simple "hoorah" or "yay", or a soft feeling of satisfaction, does not suffice. No, my enjoyment - or excitement, to be more precise - need's to be physically burned off. I need to get up, run around, jump up - touch the ceiling maybe, or run up and down the stairs - a quirk which my family members never tired of deriving amusement from.
Fast forward to 27, and I am still essentially the same. I seem to process positive stimuli in a very thorough manner. It just doesn't affect my attitude at any current moment, but it seeks release in some physical movement; it's not obsessively choreographed - it's just a big fat thump of energy that shoots into me, causing me to perform some extremely quick and hyper movement to burn it off.
If I'm playing NBA 2K13 ( a favorite of mine) and I manage to come back from a large deficit, I find myself unconsciously acting out my happiness - I'll smack the table in front of me in some awkward motion - tap, tap tap, bringing my arms back up to me before I lower them again to tap the table (my mom says I look like a bird trying to fly). It's strange, yes, and when I become aware of having done it I feel a little bit of shame and self consciousness afterwards. This might be the source and origin of my social issues.
When I was a kid, I played a lot of football and soccer at recess. Being much less self conscious then, the kids (friends/acquaintances) I played with thought my hyperness was hilarious. They'd come to predict that I would jump up, run around, after something good happened. Later on in highschool, I remember being chastened by friends to stop rocking my legs back and forth. Being naturally anxious - or easily stimulated - I did this completely unconsciously. This caused me to become more aware of myself.
An upshot of being hyper is basketball related. I played a lot of basketball growing up (and still play 2-3 times a week at the leisure center) and my "first step" - that first movement from a stationary or relaxed position - was always unusually faster than other peoples. My full speed was not that much greater than other peoples, and my quickness after that first explosion was also unspectacular. What set me apart and gave me an athletic advantage over my opponents was just how blisteringly fast I could go from zero to ten. This to me makes sense only in terms of my hypersensitive nervous system. My PFC issues commands to my motor cortex, which passes that information on to my muscles, with just a little more juice - adrenaline - than other people. This results in a millisecond advantage over my opponents.
I'm starting to come to terms with my hyperness. I'm shy because large groups over-stimulate me. I get happy so easily - and with such ease - because I'm quick to respond to happy stimuli. At the same time, if someones mean, or even implies something offensive in their gesturing, I pick it up with a cinch. I wish I didn't, but I do. So where to go from here?
I need to "stretch" my temperament enough to help me feel comfortable in large groups. Essentially, this is me using my neocortical faculties to regulate my limbic system. In ontological terms, It means being more attuned to my feeling states than conceptual states. I only get anxious when my over-anxious mind starts THINKING about my feelings in relation to it's environmental cues. When that happens, I 'leave' the feeling, and start ruminating ABOUT it; this crystallizes the feeling, freezing it in my minds awareness.
Monday, 24 June 2013
Exploring the Past
Being that I still struggle - and suffer - day in and day out with my confidence, self esteem, and ability to maintain an embodied self awareness, I can sometimes get caught up in moping over the past. I'll think to myself: I'm only here because of my mother.
She got depressed at age 40, withdrew from her children, withdrew from her parental duties, and because of her, I too got depressed. I was 13 years old and needed a strong and stable household. It was bad enough I lacked a father figure in my life - my own Dad was similarly withdrawn, occupied with my mom, and consumed with his work - but in addition to that, my own mother began going out everyday. Come the school year, grade 8, for some odd reason I feel especially insecure this time around. Before it was just nerves, shyness, but beneath all that was a anticipation for the new school year. This year was different. The social problems began to accrue towards the end of grade 7. And this is also the time when my dad was demoted, and my mothers depression began. At this point, there were no dramatic suicide attempts, just your run of the mill arguments between mom and dad, withdrawal from her children, little or no positive conversation and encouragement that there used to be when I was younger. All of a sudden home life changed. It was a sadder, angrier, more irritable place. And my mom, unbeknownst to her at the time, was planting the seeds for a life long insecurity in her son.
My troubles at the end of grade 7 loomed in my mind before grade 8. I remember distinctly: I didn't go out as often as I did the summer before, and my mom reminded me. The year before, everyday, I'd be outside playing road hockey with street kids, or playing basketball with my friend Ryan at my house - or his house - or baseball, soccer, or quite often, tennis at the tennis courts. We had developed quite a rivalry. We'd also play doubles when Adam, John, Matt or others who came around. I may have been a shy kid, but I was a kid who was socially capable: I liked socializing and enjoyed playing sports, roaming the forests, and more or less, having fun. But, I wont deny, I was a sensitive kid as well.
By the time grade 8 came around my mother's depression had been growing worse. I don't recall much interaction between her and I. I remember many arguments between my parents, many nights where she slept at her friend Sylvanas apartment in downtown Toronto. Our home life was marred by this avoidance: my mom sleeping at her friends house and my dad wanting her to come home. Sometimes I'd come, but most of the time I'd be left at home. Already at this point the home problems were adding to my depression, low self esteem and increased insecurity in socializing. My brother conversely, more naturally sociable, and also younger, spared the social complexities of grade 8 - a transition to early adulthood - was effected in a different way (after watching my mother attempt suicide on a number of occasions, he developed a stutter).
My mother's actions - her disregard of her parental duties - provided the basic environmental impetus that got my biology all off kilter. More bluntly put: her depression caused my depression. It's been 13 years since her depression days. But for me, life hasnt changed. At 27, I am still feeling the effects of the ruthless emotional abuse I experienced at the hands of a bully. I realize that there were two factors involved: home life, and the presence of this bully. But I know I would have handled this kid much differently if I had been spared the emotional complexities happening in my homelife. Life became confusing for me. I became scared, anxious, and increasingly uncertain about things. All this stress no doubt contributed to my stunted growth (4'7 at 14 - 5'7 now) which in turn supplied fodder for the bully (his entire program was based around my being "a midget", and I'm sure aspects of my personality irked him too)
I suffered greatly during that year. I couldn't even finish school - be confirmed with my classmates, or attend graduation ceremonies. Something I could and did do during my earlier years, 1st communion, class pictures - something I did with no small measure of alacrity, I saw myself dreading.
Then, in grade 10, after attempting to mold my personality into someone else in grade 9, that same bully entered highschool. Terror struck my heart. I had actually hung around him in grade 9 - he was a friend of one of my friends. Towards the end of grade 9, I found people asking questions about my past, and more or less changing their demeanor towards me. Being easily riled up - I amped up my efforts. I tried even harder to "fit in". But even then, I think I did a decent job being myself, holding down the fort of my true self. But then grade 9 withered away, and on the way to grade 10, my difficulties returned, coinciding with the reappearance of Adam Mcdonald. Tall, lanky, blonde haired, pierced, sociopathic looking, with a monotone voice, he seemed to embody the notion of "I don't give a shit what you think". He thought he was badass, too cool for school. His opinions were razor sharp, acerbic and vitriolic. He spoke with a sarcastic hint to his speech - as if his effort to talk with you should be something taken as a favor. Even to this day, when I say sociopathic, I am being quite literal: he possessed all those basic criteria needed to qualify for social personal disorder. He seemed to be beyond the pale when it came to empathy. If he didn't do something, it was because he restrained himself on a cognitive level. Not because he felt guilt, or shame, or sorry, but because he didn't want to get in trouble.
His relentless bullying, his repursuit of his victim from his elementary school days, was truly sadistic. When you think about it, PTSD caused from bullying is not a thing to be taken lightly. It is horrific what a bully can do to the personality of his victim. Any life condition - in my case, trouble at home - happened to coincide with the presence of a sociopath. Sociopathic children would more easily be held at bay if teachers and students took bullying more seriously. But back in '98, things didn't happen that way. My teacher was indolent to the extreme. A part of me wants to blame him for preferring to let the bully hurt me than to jeopardize his carefree and interactive relationship with his students. He could have, for example, suggested expulsion of Adam Mcdonald for the effects his bullying was having on one of his students (refusing to speak or lift my head from the desk should have wrung alarm bells), but no - he didn't entertain that notion. He was far too "fun" a teacher to take initiative against a problematic student. Instead, he tolerated the abuse of the bullier, which in effect enabled the suffering experienced by his victim. If he were reading this today, I would say to Mr. Kelly: you should have taken your duties as a teacher more seriously.
But, perhaps, he was just a symptom of a dysfunctional school system that under emphasized the psycho-social responsibilities of teachers - to inform children, to encourage children, to treat other kids with respect and empathy. I truly believe that this is the only moral direction we can go. It is inexcusable that someone like me - subject to unfortunate life circumstances - should have suffered so bad in school, that till this day, I am unfit for the social world. I am still re-experiencing the feelings first felt at 13 years old, despite my intellectual and spiritual maturity, I still feel like a scared little kid inside.
At a certain point in time, I remember just giving up. Not being able to process these emotions within me anymore. I was fighting for my breath after grade 8 and into grade 9. After falling again in grade 10, I began experiencing this shakiness in my voice when I spoke. I was conceptualizing myself as I spoke - observing myself to make sure I acted carefully - rightly, that I didn't make any social mistakes. I was so stricken by my social difficulties in the earlier two years that I was taking excessively self conscious measures to deal with the mechanics of socializing. By 16, after spending the summer playing basketball at a basketball camp and convincing myself of my coolness, of my new found identification with black culture, I returned to my old school after my parents moved to a different house in the same district. This year, I might as well describe as my most deluded point in my life. I changed the style of my voice - shaved my head and fancied that I could pass for a mulatto person - and pretended that I was on course to become the next Vince Carter. I just had to get through highschool. Then, I'd be playing D1 college ball on scholarship down south. A "free education" - that was the cool thing, something emphasized by the basketball instructor. Even though my real dream was merely the story - the glory - that goes along with a kid working towards becoming a professional sports star.
Throughout that year, I struggled off and on in my social relationships. Unlike the years prior, this time I made extra effort to feel cool. By being so "tuned in" on my self, I made sure that I never spoke without the appropriate accent - that I said cool things, mentioned basketball, and other things designed to make me look good in the eyes of others. Eventually, the effect wore off, and I became annoying to people. I made the junior basketball team, only to be seated on the bench for most of the games. The one game I played in, I got an elbow to the nose and broke it..
Everyday I Woke up at 6AM, and played basketball for 1-2 hours before school started in the high school gymnasium. The gym teachers themselves began to grow irritated with me playing in "their" gym without special permission. Some kids, if they're charismatic enough, can get that imprimatur. But me, being shy, reclusive, and tongue tied when spoken to, this gave a bad effect on the teachers, and eventually even they would prevent me from entering the gym.
Just remembering those days, at 16, is painful for me. I was so depressed with my life. I also grew more and more paranoid and anxious about increasingly silly things. The relationships I still had began to falter at this point. By the end of that year, I had no friends left, and I once again withdrew from the world.
I began to worry about killing myself. Being accustomed to anxious thoughts now and again, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the intensity and frequency of these emotions. I began to obsess over talking - how to do it. By obsessing so greatly, I began to conceptualize myself as I spoke. But since this was from a feeling of insecurity, of fear of social disapproval, it was tinged with a strain, with a forcefulness that could be easily heard - consciously, or unconsciously - by the person I was talking with. Also at this time, I began to worry about suicide. I would go to bed and disturbed and morbid thoughts would percolate in my head. One second it was a disease - I had it, Aids! Next second, it was suicide, my wrists became rashy, and I would take it as some sort of command from some nefarious source to cut my wrists. I would worry about taking the subway, because I had heard of someone who recently jumped in front of one. Having heard it - and feeling a pit in my stomach, I began to grow afraid that I too would - or could - jump in front of a subway. I would have the worse anxiety attacks when I had to ride the subway. These thoughts just weighed on me and oppressed me throughout that year. By the end of it all, we had moved again, this time way up north to Barrie, Ontario. My life had taken on a sordid consistency - my days were now filled with anguish about my voice. My ability to relate with my brother was weakening, and my sister having gone off to college 2 years earlier had only strengthened my feelings of seclusion and depression.
Since then, since 18, it has been the same thing day in and day out. At around 19, I began to grow interested in reading - something I never really did before. At 20, I was absorbed in spiritual subjects. By 21, I had a horrible experience with Kundalini yoga that left me sleepless for 21 days. A pivotal point in my life. By 23, I was learning Hebrew and studying Judaism. 24, I began spending a lot of time at the library reading. Now, at 27, soon to be 28, I spend my days at the library - a two minute walk from my house. I read 20-30 books a month, from neuroscience, to psychology, to political science, to computer science, to philosophy, biology, novels, reading scientific journals. All of this for self improvement - an investment in my future.
My greatest hope is to be out of this situation by age 30. To be in school by 31, to be married by 35, to have kids by 40. These are hopes I can't deny myself - I want them so deeply, at the core of my being. But, as of now, I know I have a mountain to climb. I have things to do - situations to conquer. I hope and pray it goes well.
She got depressed at age 40, withdrew from her children, withdrew from her parental duties, and because of her, I too got depressed. I was 13 years old and needed a strong and stable household. It was bad enough I lacked a father figure in my life - my own Dad was similarly withdrawn, occupied with my mom, and consumed with his work - but in addition to that, my own mother began going out everyday. Come the school year, grade 8, for some odd reason I feel especially insecure this time around. Before it was just nerves, shyness, but beneath all that was a anticipation for the new school year. This year was different. The social problems began to accrue towards the end of grade 7. And this is also the time when my dad was demoted, and my mothers depression began. At this point, there were no dramatic suicide attempts, just your run of the mill arguments between mom and dad, withdrawal from her children, little or no positive conversation and encouragement that there used to be when I was younger. All of a sudden home life changed. It was a sadder, angrier, more irritable place. And my mom, unbeknownst to her at the time, was planting the seeds for a life long insecurity in her son.
My troubles at the end of grade 7 loomed in my mind before grade 8. I remember distinctly: I didn't go out as often as I did the summer before, and my mom reminded me. The year before, everyday, I'd be outside playing road hockey with street kids, or playing basketball with my friend Ryan at my house - or his house - or baseball, soccer, or quite often, tennis at the tennis courts. We had developed quite a rivalry. We'd also play doubles when Adam, John, Matt or others who came around. I may have been a shy kid, but I was a kid who was socially capable: I liked socializing and enjoyed playing sports, roaming the forests, and more or less, having fun. But, I wont deny, I was a sensitive kid as well.
By the time grade 8 came around my mother's depression had been growing worse. I don't recall much interaction between her and I. I remember many arguments between my parents, many nights where she slept at her friend Sylvanas apartment in downtown Toronto. Our home life was marred by this avoidance: my mom sleeping at her friends house and my dad wanting her to come home. Sometimes I'd come, but most of the time I'd be left at home. Already at this point the home problems were adding to my depression, low self esteem and increased insecurity in socializing. My brother conversely, more naturally sociable, and also younger, spared the social complexities of grade 8 - a transition to early adulthood - was effected in a different way (after watching my mother attempt suicide on a number of occasions, he developed a stutter).
My mother's actions - her disregard of her parental duties - provided the basic environmental impetus that got my biology all off kilter. More bluntly put: her depression caused my depression. It's been 13 years since her depression days. But for me, life hasnt changed. At 27, I am still feeling the effects of the ruthless emotional abuse I experienced at the hands of a bully. I realize that there were two factors involved: home life, and the presence of this bully. But I know I would have handled this kid much differently if I had been spared the emotional complexities happening in my homelife. Life became confusing for me. I became scared, anxious, and increasingly uncertain about things. All this stress no doubt contributed to my stunted growth (4'7 at 14 - 5'7 now) which in turn supplied fodder for the bully (his entire program was based around my being "a midget", and I'm sure aspects of my personality irked him too)
I suffered greatly during that year. I couldn't even finish school - be confirmed with my classmates, or attend graduation ceremonies. Something I could and did do during my earlier years, 1st communion, class pictures - something I did with no small measure of alacrity, I saw myself dreading.
Then, in grade 10, after attempting to mold my personality into someone else in grade 9, that same bully entered highschool. Terror struck my heart. I had actually hung around him in grade 9 - he was a friend of one of my friends. Towards the end of grade 9, I found people asking questions about my past, and more or less changing their demeanor towards me. Being easily riled up - I amped up my efforts. I tried even harder to "fit in". But even then, I think I did a decent job being myself, holding down the fort of my true self. But then grade 9 withered away, and on the way to grade 10, my difficulties returned, coinciding with the reappearance of Adam Mcdonald. Tall, lanky, blonde haired, pierced, sociopathic looking, with a monotone voice, he seemed to embody the notion of "I don't give a shit what you think". He thought he was badass, too cool for school. His opinions were razor sharp, acerbic and vitriolic. He spoke with a sarcastic hint to his speech - as if his effort to talk with you should be something taken as a favor. Even to this day, when I say sociopathic, I am being quite literal: he possessed all those basic criteria needed to qualify for social personal disorder. He seemed to be beyond the pale when it came to empathy. If he didn't do something, it was because he restrained himself on a cognitive level. Not because he felt guilt, or shame, or sorry, but because he didn't want to get in trouble.
His relentless bullying, his repursuit of his victim from his elementary school days, was truly sadistic. When you think about it, PTSD caused from bullying is not a thing to be taken lightly. It is horrific what a bully can do to the personality of his victim. Any life condition - in my case, trouble at home - happened to coincide with the presence of a sociopath. Sociopathic children would more easily be held at bay if teachers and students took bullying more seriously. But back in '98, things didn't happen that way. My teacher was indolent to the extreme. A part of me wants to blame him for preferring to let the bully hurt me than to jeopardize his carefree and interactive relationship with his students. He could have, for example, suggested expulsion of Adam Mcdonald for the effects his bullying was having on one of his students (refusing to speak or lift my head from the desk should have wrung alarm bells), but no - he didn't entertain that notion. He was far too "fun" a teacher to take initiative against a problematic student. Instead, he tolerated the abuse of the bullier, which in effect enabled the suffering experienced by his victim. If he were reading this today, I would say to Mr. Kelly: you should have taken your duties as a teacher more seriously.
But, perhaps, he was just a symptom of a dysfunctional school system that under emphasized the psycho-social responsibilities of teachers - to inform children, to encourage children, to treat other kids with respect and empathy. I truly believe that this is the only moral direction we can go. It is inexcusable that someone like me - subject to unfortunate life circumstances - should have suffered so bad in school, that till this day, I am unfit for the social world. I am still re-experiencing the feelings first felt at 13 years old, despite my intellectual and spiritual maturity, I still feel like a scared little kid inside.
At a certain point in time, I remember just giving up. Not being able to process these emotions within me anymore. I was fighting for my breath after grade 8 and into grade 9. After falling again in grade 10, I began experiencing this shakiness in my voice when I spoke. I was conceptualizing myself as I spoke - observing myself to make sure I acted carefully - rightly, that I didn't make any social mistakes. I was so stricken by my social difficulties in the earlier two years that I was taking excessively self conscious measures to deal with the mechanics of socializing. By 16, after spending the summer playing basketball at a basketball camp and convincing myself of my coolness, of my new found identification with black culture, I returned to my old school after my parents moved to a different house in the same district. This year, I might as well describe as my most deluded point in my life. I changed the style of my voice - shaved my head and fancied that I could pass for a mulatto person - and pretended that I was on course to become the next Vince Carter. I just had to get through highschool. Then, I'd be playing D1 college ball on scholarship down south. A "free education" - that was the cool thing, something emphasized by the basketball instructor. Even though my real dream was merely the story - the glory - that goes along with a kid working towards becoming a professional sports star.
Throughout that year, I struggled off and on in my social relationships. Unlike the years prior, this time I made extra effort to feel cool. By being so "tuned in" on my self, I made sure that I never spoke without the appropriate accent - that I said cool things, mentioned basketball, and other things designed to make me look good in the eyes of others. Eventually, the effect wore off, and I became annoying to people. I made the junior basketball team, only to be seated on the bench for most of the games. The one game I played in, I got an elbow to the nose and broke it..
Everyday I Woke up at 6AM, and played basketball for 1-2 hours before school started in the high school gymnasium. The gym teachers themselves began to grow irritated with me playing in "their" gym without special permission. Some kids, if they're charismatic enough, can get that imprimatur. But me, being shy, reclusive, and tongue tied when spoken to, this gave a bad effect on the teachers, and eventually even they would prevent me from entering the gym.
Just remembering those days, at 16, is painful for me. I was so depressed with my life. I also grew more and more paranoid and anxious about increasingly silly things. The relationships I still had began to falter at this point. By the end of that year, I had no friends left, and I once again withdrew from the world.
I began to worry about killing myself. Being accustomed to anxious thoughts now and again, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the intensity and frequency of these emotions. I began to obsess over talking - how to do it. By obsessing so greatly, I began to conceptualize myself as I spoke. But since this was from a feeling of insecurity, of fear of social disapproval, it was tinged with a strain, with a forcefulness that could be easily heard - consciously, or unconsciously - by the person I was talking with. Also at this time, I began to worry about suicide. I would go to bed and disturbed and morbid thoughts would percolate in my head. One second it was a disease - I had it, Aids! Next second, it was suicide, my wrists became rashy, and I would take it as some sort of command from some nefarious source to cut my wrists. I would worry about taking the subway, because I had heard of someone who recently jumped in front of one. Having heard it - and feeling a pit in my stomach, I began to grow afraid that I too would - or could - jump in front of a subway. I would have the worse anxiety attacks when I had to ride the subway. These thoughts just weighed on me and oppressed me throughout that year. By the end of it all, we had moved again, this time way up north to Barrie, Ontario. My life had taken on a sordid consistency - my days were now filled with anguish about my voice. My ability to relate with my brother was weakening, and my sister having gone off to college 2 years earlier had only strengthened my feelings of seclusion and depression.
Since then, since 18, it has been the same thing day in and day out. At around 19, I began to grow interested in reading - something I never really did before. At 20, I was absorbed in spiritual subjects. By 21, I had a horrible experience with Kundalini yoga that left me sleepless for 21 days. A pivotal point in my life. By 23, I was learning Hebrew and studying Judaism. 24, I began spending a lot of time at the library reading. Now, at 27, soon to be 28, I spend my days at the library - a two minute walk from my house. I read 20-30 books a month, from neuroscience, to psychology, to political science, to computer science, to philosophy, biology, novels, reading scientific journals. All of this for self improvement - an investment in my future.
My greatest hope is to be out of this situation by age 30. To be in school by 31, to be married by 35, to have kids by 40. These are hopes I can't deny myself - I want them so deeply, at the core of my being. But, as of now, I know I have a mountain to climb. I have things to do - situations to conquer. I hope and pray it goes well.
Friday, 21 June 2013
The Baby Inside
When I ask my mom: what was I like as a baby? She responds: "you were such a happy baby! the littlest things would make you happy. Always laughing, always playful"
So what happened? Generally speaking, a newborn human being exhibits it's genetic repertoire early on it's life. For me, I clearly connected easily with a feeling of happiness. So what happened?
Well, as I understand it, the environmental stressor of having a mom that was frequently angry, critical, or to use a popular colloquialism, bitchy, I suspect her general attitude made me a lot more tentative and needy.
But, nevertheless, I feel good hearing that I was a happy baby. For as long as I can remember, I have known myself to be easy to please. Even today, people who comment on my situation will tell me: I don't know how you can live like that, to be alone everyday, with your own thoughts, and not lose your mind". I guess I am fortunate to have this streak in me which allows me to find contentment easier than in others.
I want to get back in touch with that baby in me. That baby who smiled and laughed - the one I see in the picture in the family room with a wide smile on his face, eyes glowing. Where was the shyness? I don't see it. My mom described my easiness as wonderful, compared to my sister and brother. This baby is still deep within me - within primal neurological structures. My innate ability to feel happy, to enjoy the little things, to get easily excited and revved when any positive stimulus occurs - I want that back, I want to find it again and feel it grow within me.
I need to find my inner baby.
So what happened? Generally speaking, a newborn human being exhibits it's genetic repertoire early on it's life. For me, I clearly connected easily with a feeling of happiness. So what happened?
Well, as I understand it, the environmental stressor of having a mom that was frequently angry, critical, or to use a popular colloquialism, bitchy, I suspect her general attitude made me a lot more tentative and needy.
But, nevertheless, I feel good hearing that I was a happy baby. For as long as I can remember, I have known myself to be easy to please. Even today, people who comment on my situation will tell me: I don't know how you can live like that, to be alone everyday, with your own thoughts, and not lose your mind". I guess I am fortunate to have this streak in me which allows me to find contentment easier than in others.
I want to get back in touch with that baby in me. That baby who smiled and laughed - the one I see in the picture in the family room with a wide smile on his face, eyes glowing. Where was the shyness? I don't see it. My mom described my easiness as wonderful, compared to my sister and brother. This baby is still deep within me - within primal neurological structures. My innate ability to feel happy, to enjoy the little things, to get easily excited and revved when any positive stimulus occurs - I want that back, I want to find it again and feel it grow within me.
I need to find my inner baby.
How to train the brain
These are before and after photos of my bed. The before state is unmade, while the after state is made. Here's the story: having been homebound for 12 or so years, I have become accustomed to an extremely easy lifestyle, and, being accustomed to easiness, I have become rather lazy when it comes to making my bed. On average, I'd say I make it 4 times out of 10 (mostly to please my mother). So whats the point of this? The before state is like my current mind. Disordered, sloppy. The After state is ordered. But that's not the point either. Rather, the point is more philosophical. If I can coerce myself to make my bed everyday, even though emotionally, I really don't feel up to it, then I can coerce myself to maintain the type of focus and attention necessary to make changes in my thinking - and in my brain.
All sorts of little activities like this can serve as symbols. Some emotional part - in the limbic system, for example, prompts you to engage in a certain activity or inactivity. Whether that be making my bed, or biting my nails. Speaking of nail biting, brace yourself:
This is me peeling, biting and otherwise disfiguring my thumb nail on my right hand. I've decided it would be for me to apply the same logic to bed making to stopping my nail biting. With the former, it's something I'm not doing - and so I'm challenging my laziness. Here, it's something I am doing - peeling off layers of nail because it gives me some sort of weird satisfaction (without causing bleeding. Once bleeding occurs, I wince and complain "Oh why did I do that!").
My problem is maintaining a state of embodied self awareness. As described in that earlier entry, embodied self awareness is experiencing life in the subjective emotional present. Usually, life for me - at least when talking becomes relevant - involves conceptual self awareness. A normal person when they get ready to speak engages the feelings they're having at the moment. This is embodiment. I on the other hand observe myself as I speak - this is conceptualizing myself as I attempt to engage my feelings. Since you can't do both things at once, Its actually just me ruminating on some perceived malady while I try to sound normal. Life in this mode, you can imagine, can be extremely isolating, painful, etc. Living this way for many years, being dissociated from your own true emotions on things for this length of time, can make the experience of embodied self awareness feel absurd. In a way - it is! Psychologists rightly point out that embodied self awareness - engagement with your emotions - is inherently chaotic, unpredictable, uncontrollable. You can't "put" yourself in that state. You can only create the conditions to enter that state without your meddling conceptual self awareness interfering.
I know how to enter these states. I experience them now and again. Embodied self awareness can be: embodied physically, in how you feel in your body, and embodied vocally, in how you feel in your voice. I've become fairly good at feeling good in my body. I go to the library everyday to pass the hours, reading, and most of all, exposing myself to other people. I've learned to stay in my body when someone comes near me - if they look at me, I more or less am learning to train myself not to be on "high alert" about it. There's no reason to. People look. Oddly enough. Sometimes when I've found myself more securely in this state, if someone looks at me and smiles, I smile back! This may seem absolutely banal to most people, but for me, for someone who conceptualizes and watches himself, who anticipates the formation of feelings and anxiously observes his facial and bodily activity, to just spontaneously shoot a smile back at the person who smiles at me, in the subjective emotional presence, frankly, it felt like somebody else (and not in a bad way).
Episodes like the above encourage me. I have to dampen down my level of alertness. The PTSD has me looking this way and that in a very conceptualized state of mind, and only recently have I become aware of it, and understood it in a sort of evolutionary psychological sort of way. If I raise my hand towards my dog - she'll quiver and cower and her tail will snap between her legs; her ears will fall back, her eyes will widen and her muscles will tense. She's in a state of high alert (of course, I don't ever hit my dog - she's the runt of her litter, she, like her owners, is an anxious little thing). I see this state in myself. In the subjective emotional present, things are slowed down, consciousness is more focused in one area, while blanking out everything else around you. In an alert state, my mind is cued to my environment. Any change engenders a corresponding change in my state of mind. I need to withdraw from this habit, feel myself, my body, my breathing, and most of all, my emotions.
Training the brain will be a life long activity for me. I'm still 27, young, intelligent and physically able. My bed will be get made and my fingers will be left alone - such activities will hopefully train my limbic system who the boss is - the dorsolateral PFC!
Thursday, 20 June 2013
The mind is a strange thing
Sometimes the most banal things can be the most interesting. Take for example your normal state of consciousness. If you
developed
normally, you will be used to something psychologists call embodied self awareness, which is different from conceptual self awareness.
Being felt "IN" the body is body oriented. You could use an arrow like this one <----- to describe this vector. Yet, simultaneously, the mind is absorbed in a thought "out there". The minds absorption is a thought would be the opposite direction ----> this way.
To put it another way. Some philosophers, like Soren Kiekegaard, as well as the psychologist Viktor Frankl, made much of the fact that human beings are only happy when they are "outside" themselves. Kierkagaard famously said "The door to happiness opens outward". The outward direction is to objects that lie beyond the self. When were thinking about ourselves, happiness typically eludes us. So, when our attention is oriented to external things, such as another person, a purpose, an external activity, paradoxically, this external orientation puts us into our closest contact with our actual feelings.
Modern psychologists distinguish between attention that is oriented towards thoughts (conceptual self awareness) and attention which is oriented towards feelings (embodied self awareness). These are two fundamentally different states. Even the nervous system processes these two functions differently. If I'm "feeling" my body, such as the pain in my toe, the nociceptor sends its signals up the dorsal horn pathway in the spinal chord. When it comes to the brain, it's processed by regions in the brain stem, cerebellum, amygdala, etc, and in the PFC(prefrontal cortex), by the ventromedial and orbitofrontal parts. When your THINKING about the pain in your toe, as opposed to feeling it, the nociceptors send the signals up the ventral horn of the spinal chord, which goes up to the brain to be processed by the dorsolateral and dorsomedial parts of the PFC.
So again, there is a definite "embodied" component to this mode of being. But simultaneously, the "self" is completely immersed in the object of it's attention. These are to halves which make up the whole of embodied self awareness. There also appears to be a symmetry. Just as embodiment entails absorption in something else, worrying about some thought ABOUT yourself, such as finances, health, etc, takes you OUT of your body. When the thought is on yourself, the mind is outside the body. When the thought is on something outside the self, the mind is in the body.
It's a funny state of affairs.
Being felt "IN" the body is body oriented. You could use an arrow like this one <----- to describe this vector. Yet, simultaneously, the mind is absorbed in a thought "out there". The minds absorption is a thought would be the opposite direction ----> this way.
To put it another way. Some philosophers, like Soren Kiekegaard, as well as the psychologist Viktor Frankl, made much of the fact that human beings are only happy when they are "outside" themselves. Kierkagaard famously said "The door to happiness opens outward". The outward direction is to objects that lie beyond the self. When were thinking about ourselves, happiness typically eludes us. So, when our attention is oriented to external things, such as another person, a purpose, an external activity, paradoxically, this external orientation puts us into our closest contact with our actual feelings.
Modern psychologists distinguish between attention that is oriented towards thoughts (conceptual self awareness) and attention which is oriented towards feelings (embodied self awareness). These are two fundamentally different states. Even the nervous system processes these two functions differently. If I'm "feeling" my body, such as the pain in my toe, the nociceptor sends its signals up the dorsal horn pathway in the spinal chord. When it comes to the brain, it's processed by regions in the brain stem, cerebellum, amygdala, etc, and in the PFC(prefrontal cortex), by the ventromedial and orbitofrontal parts. When your THINKING about the pain in your toe, as opposed to feeling it, the nociceptors send the signals up the ventral horn of the spinal chord, which goes up to the brain to be processed by the dorsolateral and dorsomedial parts of the PFC.
So again, there is a definite "embodied" component to this mode of being. But simultaneously, the "self" is completely immersed in the object of it's attention. These are to halves which make up the whole of embodied self awareness. There also appears to be a symmetry. Just as embodiment entails absorption in something else, worrying about some thought ABOUT yourself, such as finances, health, etc, takes you OUT of your body. When the thought is on yourself, the mind is outside the body. When the thought is on something outside the self, the mind is in the body.
It's a funny state of affairs.
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