Smoke and Mirrors

It seems like everyone around me is falling apart. My friends are depressed, anxious, and struggling with relationships, health, and life in general. A lot of people around me seem very insecure; they discourage others and attempt to create drama. Others are struggling with self-condemnation and feelings of worthlessness. One dear friend has checked herself into treatment for depression. Another friend has had a sick parent, health issues, and relationship issues, one after the other. Someone else told me she sees herself as a failure and suffers from feelings of anxiety and fear. Acquaintances are acting jealous and petty.

With very low humidity in the air, perhaps people’s brains are being affected by the static electricity. Every surface in my house gives me a shock. We are most comfortable in an environment where the relative humidity (the amount of water vapor actually in the air divided by the amount of water vapor the air can hold) is around 45%, and indoor humidity should not go below 30% (or above 50%). Today, the maximum humidity outdoors is only around 35%, and in the house, it has hovered around 30% for the last few weeks. My hair is crazy; it looks like I’m touching a Van de Graaff generator. I need some negative ions.

Incidentally, research shows that high levels of negative ions are a useful treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder if the negative ions are in sufficient quantity. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a subset of depression (chronic sadness, feelings of hopelessness and helplessness) that is experienced seasonally, particularly in winter. Even for those who do not meet the criteria for a diagnosable disorder, the severely cold weather (temperatures in the teens) and limited daylight hours certainly affect people’s moods.

Additionally, people are likely suffering because of Mercury. Mercury is in retrograde, meaning that it appears to be moving backwards through the zodiac, and it has been since the day after Christmas (December 26, 2009). It will reach direct station again on January 15, 2010. In general, Mercury rules thinking and perception, processing and disseminating information and all means of communication, commerce, education, and transportation. Mercury retrograde gives rise to personal misunderstandings; flawed, disrupted, or delayed communications, negotiations and trade; glitches and breakdowns with phones, computers, cars, buses, and trains. And all of these problems usually arise because some crucial piece of information, or component, has gone astray or awry.

As Bloc Party sings in their song “Mercury,” “My Mercury's in retrograde / This is not the time, the time to start a new love / This is not the time, the time to sign a lease.”

Snarls in communication abound. The Check Engine light in my car came on last week. Unresolved issues from my past are bubbling to the surface. Mercury is creating mayhem in my life. Wikipedia is not working properly, and I feel out of sorts, because where will I get my information now?

I am struggling with sadness of my own. I cannot even seem to articulate it or understand it. I am sad for my friends who are suffering. I am grieved over experiences from my past. I battle with a loneliness of unknown origin. I know intellectually that there is no reason for me to feel lonely. I feel like I am grieving something that is just beyond my conscious awareness. Like smoke, it dispels elusively.

Kernels of Truth

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:24)

I mentioned to some co-workers recently that I have been going through a growth spurt, spiritually and psychologically. I explained that God is revealing new insights, and I am learning more about myself and about His nature, which has improved my relationship with Him. One very Godly and humble woman in the group jokingly asked me, “What’s your secret?” wanting to improve her walk with God. I replied, somewhat sarcastically, “Oh, you know, just your garden variety emotional pain like depression, anxiety, loneliness, and struggle. The usual.” I’m not sure she wanted to utilize those particular tools of spiritual growth.

It is true, though, as we read in John 12, that a seed does not grow unless it first dies. So it is with our human growth; we must go through struggle (fall to the ground) and die to our human sin so that we may produce seeds (grow in our relationship with God) and so that we may become more Christ-like and bear fruit. What is fruit? Galatians 5:22-23 tells us that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I desire these qualities, these fruits in my life.

While I do not particularly like discomfort and struggle, I relish the growth that occurs as a result. In the same way that I tear down my muscles in the gym by lifting heavy weights, so I struggle with emotional pain in life. And just as my muscles then grow bigger and stronger as they heal from the exertion, so my spirit, my identity, and my emotional health grow as I process through the pain of life’s difficulties.

What is the cause of emotional pain, exactly? It can be a result of my sin, my poor choices, or it can be a result of other people’s sins and bad decisions. Or, it may come from making a wise and righteous decision that just happens to be a difficult choice to make. Life is not for sissies, after all.

I have made some poor relationship decisions over the years, and though I hate to admit it, some of them have caused me a great deal of grief and sadness. Romantic relationships are emotional and painful, but I am logical and analytical, and my rational mind cannot understand why I made poor decisions, like staying in an unhealthy relationship for too long. I know that many people do it, and it is our human nature that contributes to messy relationships, but still, at times I feel that I should have known better.

I have been in two emotionally abusive relationships (one of them was physically abusive, as well), and I still blame myself. It is difficult for me even to write these words, as I feel some sense of shame and responsibility, even though counselors and books and friends tell me that it is not my fault.

Yet God uses these struggles to teach me more about Him and to help me grow in my relationship with Him. As a result of my pain, I can better empathize with my female friends who are struggling in relationships, and I can better appreciate my current boyfriend, who is amazingly wonderful and kind. I can appreciate God’s love for me more deeply, because even though I fall short of His glory, I realize that there is nothing I can do that will make Him love me any less. When I sin or make mistakes, it reminds me that I need Jesus Christ because I cannot do it on my own, and it helps me grow closer to Him. I learn to trust God more in times of struggle, as He eventually brings me out of it. And more of my sin is exposed, which presents and opportunity to grow and learn.

One struggle with sin that is becoming more apparent to me in my life is my battle with self-condemnation. As I wrote above, I often feel like I should have known better. And then I condemn myself for my poor choices. But God tells me that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), so I have been meditating a lot on this pearl of wisdom. But that is fodder for another post.

How to be a Genius

Keep your mouth shut.
Unless you are extremely knowledgeable on the subject.
And even then, just be quiet.
Read a plethora of books and literature.
Do not watch television. Watching TV burns fewer calories than sleeping.
Learn obscure vocabulary words, but never use them solely to impress others.
Communicate almost exclusively in written form.
Overanalyze everything until it means nothing.
Throw out all the information you “know” about everything.
If “everyone” does something a particular way, do it differently.
Beware of things you feel you are “supposed” to do.
Doodle during business meetings or lectures.
Give yourself a weird and unique hair style. It’s best you do this yourself rather than go to the salon so you do not become one of those people who conform to the non-conformists.
Get to know yourself really, really well.
Turn all thoughts into metaphors.
When you do speak, which should be very rarely, talk in rhymes.
Ask questions and spend much of your time listening.
Do not take anything at face value.
Be obsessed with your work. Geniuses have to put out a lot of crap to produce the pearls.
Have serious emotional issues. Be clinically depressed or addicted to something. If you need help getting depressed, read a lot of existential literature (the writings of Jean Paul Sartre, Henry Rollins, and Chuck Palahniuk can give you a place to start).
Get a lot of therapy, but do not get too psychologically healthy.
Realize that you will get more criticism than accolade for being a genius.
Relentlessly pursue some artistic or creative venture, such as painting, drawing, writing, or playing an instrument.
Constantly tell yourself you are a genius.
Do not expect recognition for your genius in your lifetime.

Scars

I want to know who I am. The real me. I am obsessed with finding out.

This story is partially about a man who partly killed me and would have continued to do so.

I dyed my hair red today. Well, not really. It is a wig. My thinking cap. And I’ve got it on. How I look changes who I am. How I think I look changes who I think I am.

What I thought I wanted was not in actuality what I actually wanted.

The scar on my chin is the result of his fist. As I start to tell the story I can see that it is about the surface of things. Who I am is different with the scar. The chin scar is different than the very deliberate scar in my nostril in which I sport a tiny shiny gemstone.

The year I went to university we met. He did not go to the university but I met him in my home town. How strange that he came over to talk to me at the corner table.

He never wanted to know me. He never wanted to know me but he wanted to own me. I let him.

The more I became what he acted like he wanted me to be, the more he despised me. He loathed a me he never knew nor cared to know.

Every woman I know wears concealer. To prevent disclosure or recognition of.

He began to call me daily. He inserted himself into my life and then he made himself my earth.

I am alien.

I am just as much me with my hair and my scars as I was before but I am different. The scars he left in me grew tissue that is tougher. The issue is not the scar so much as the healing.

He drove me everywhere in his unpainted jeep. He was old enough to have known better. He tried so hard to be better than me. Like in a story he took me to the beach. He took me to the lake. He took me to the movies. He took me to hell.

He often told me I was ugly. I believed his promises without questioning the definition of beauty. He saw through me. He never looked at me.

It was constructive criticism he explained.

Years later he told me he had been an asshole but he never said he was sorry.

I do not know what I thought. He made it known what he thought. His vitriolic lips and the cruel fist.

Lipstick comes in femme and goddess. The tube tells me who I am which today is lovely. They do not make shades called confused or anonymous.

He told me he was better than me but not out loud.

I am writing this story on scraps of paper that I paste together to form a piece of my life which I will then rip into bits.

I always wanted to be someone else. Little did I know that I was indeed someone else or that I could be whoever I wanted to be. If I act as if I am someone else then I am.

I thought I had to be the me that he told me to be.

Psychological health is measured by the correspondence between who you think you are and who you think others think you are.

One of his favorite pastimes was to be real nice to me for a time. Until I would start to believe his lies and his mask would start to appear sincere. I wanted to believe is what I am saying. Then he would take me somewhere I could not escape. The not nice version was also a pretense. That is who he was.

He did it all in the name of love yet he did not like me much. The me he did not know.

I knew that feeling from before him so it was nothing new. Who I was and who I am. Who did he think he was.

The lies he told me I already knew were true.

One time, long after the scar had become invisible from habituation, a girl I worked with stopped me in the hall. I had never spoken to her before. She exclaimed that I should marry so-and-so with whom we worked. Then she told me that so-and-so was looking for the Reese Witherspoon type and my looks did not measure up. At the time I wondered what it said about me. Now I wonder what it said about her. And how did she know my precise insecurity.

A year later I had almost recovered from the girl and I told so-and-so what she had said to me. He and I laughed about it.

Foundation is a basis upon which something else stands. Foundation is what is used to hide the lines and marks on a face. It does not stick to the scar tissue which has no pores. The basis is the mask. Do you see the irony.

Three classes from finishing university and what had I learned. I wish I could say that enough was enough but it probably was not. He would have continued to kill me. One day he came after me and police ensued and that was the end. He did not want a permanent record of what he was.

Life does not always deliver closure. Or happy endings. I am closer to me. I am not who he thought.

The scar on my face will be there until my end.

Winter Blues

Today is the shortest day of the year. Thank God because I am experiencing an inability to concentrate, low self-esteem, decreased appetite, and a loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities, and if I were able to look forward to anything, I would pleasurably anticipate the gradually increasing minutes of sunshine over the coming days and months. The winter solstice occurs at the instant when the Sun's position in the sky is at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from the observer’s hemisphere. In layman’s terms, by the time you are finished working, even if you have a cushy job in the school system where you get off work in the early afternoon, or perhaps you are off for the next two weeks altogether, it is already night time.

I refuse to admit I am depressed because of the stigma associated with depression in this society. Psychiatry looks at depression as a disease while some folks view it as a constructed state of mind that you can simply “snap out of.” Never mind the egregious use of a preposition at the end of a sentence or phrase, why would anyone choose to be depressed if shrugging it off were such a simple matter?

While we’re on the subject of our society and their harebrained views about what is normal, I’d like to opine on a strange yet popular Christmas custom. This custom entails polluting the environment, raising stress levels in the body, spending precious capital you don’t have because of the economy, exposing yourself to infection and disease, and ceaseless hours wasted racking your pea sized brain for ideas that will ultimately be foolish and temporal. I’m referring to the bizarre notion of Christmas shopping.

I protest consumerism. The pleasure of my company should be gift enough for my loved ones. Not to mention I am saving my precious friends and family from the germs I did not pick up from the coughing, sneezing rugrats at the mall, the pollution I did not create by driving around parking lots searching for the perfect slot, and the needless stress I did not create from fighting the crowds. Instead, when I encounter others, I feel fresh and rejeuvenated from the quiet time I spent reading edifying literature, the wisdom from which I can share jovially during the holidays (winter malaise notwithstanding).

Just thinking about shopping has produced a rapid heartbeat, perspiration, dizziness, trembling, and nausea. Physiological processes are much more socially acceptable than psychological dysfunction, so I refuse to admit that I am experiencing anxiety, again because of the stigma.

You can thank me later for saving you from that awkward moment when you’ve unwrapped my gift and now have to (1) act surprised, (2) pretend like the worthless crap in front of you is just what you needed, and (3) waste all day being fake and brainstorming ways to incorporate the gift into a useful venture.