Existential Angst?

Existentialism:  philosophical theory which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free agent, responsible for their own development.

Angst:  a strong feeling of anxiety about life in general.

We all start out as infants and children dependent on others for our existence.  For better and worse, other adults take on the responsibility for training and developing our skills and understanding.  And yet from the start we are separate individuals, separate bodies and spirits.  No one can see through our eyes or feel through our bodies.  No one can know, not even our adult selves, what our first associations were when we were learning the symbols of words.  So much of what children do is the practice of imitation.  We learn by watching and repeating at home, in school, with friends.  For some attitudes and actions we are praised, rewarded emotionally and sometimes physically.  For others we are scolded and sometimes punished physically.  We learn young to identify our confusion when other adults and children say one thing and do another.  Here is where we have to reach for our own understanding, our own unique perspective.

In our minds as children we are free agents because there are no other people in our minds to oversee us, but in our circumstances, in the way we are treated, we are not free.  And in our physical bodies, none of us is free.  We are dependent on food and water and air; we are dependent on our bodies for survival and we are interconnected, interdependent on the people that make up the society that we live in.  Our minds appear to be self contained, but there is the sense that we can push the limits.  We are not restrained by our bodies.  But as we age, we become almost too contained within our minds.  After we learned to say no to others, we learned to say no to ourselves.  We suffer so much with our hypercritical attitudes and thoughts.  We shut ourselves down and our most constant pain becomes more internal than external.  This is the angst we tap into during the day when we worry, scold ourselves and others, keep our heads stuck in the past or imagining the future.

We are shown early that life and death are two sides of the same thing.  We haven't experienced death, but we know it will come as we see it striking others.  This can be the undercurrent of our "anxiety about life in general."  This foreknowledge is why we are not free agents, but mortal beings chained to the cycles of birth and death.  The best we can do is to take care of ourselves and think that this will extend our life here.  But I'd say most of us don't take care of ourselves.  Think of how many millions of people have fallen victim to all kinds of addictions.  And yet I do think that we need to take responsibility for ourselves and try our best.  

Most of my days are spent alone but in a strange relationship with my illness.  I see time pass and I see how slow I am to take on simple responsibilities.  In the last few years I have committed to my belief that there is so much more going on in me and around me than it seems.  There is a message in some support literature for people recovering from addiction that says:  you are where you are supposed to be.  That can be hard to accept when life is not moving smoothly or moving too slowly.  My angst takes hold when I forget it and I do a lot of the time.  I have a persistent barrier in my trained psyche to resist telling myself that it is okay just to exist.  I'm not in a race or competition and my life does have meaning, every second of it.  

I can hear some cynical person saying - we are where we're supposed to be according to whom or what?  I say according to God, that nebulous entity that is so free that no one can catch it.  Belief in God requires a leap of faith and once you've leapt you have to continue to nurture the faith.  I nurture it every day when I pray in the morning and ask for guidance throughout the day.  I know that I am not free and have chosen to depend of something elusive yet real to me, to help me, maybe even mold me, into being a happier, better individual.   

Angst is disbelief, is resistance, is fear and it goes deep.  People in the happier stages of life believe in something greater than themselves, whatever that turns out to be, and do not resist that force for goodness.  Belief and acceptance lead to peace.  And I'm not talking about blind faith which can often be prejudiced towards one group or another without deeper reflection.  Reflection on self and life experiences is meditation and a way to get closer to the mysteriously unknown benevolent forces that seem to rule the world giving us this beautiful planet to live on.  Reflection is constructive thinking instead of the wasted thinking of worry and anxiety.  We can compare our life experiences with others while respecting that they are separate and on their own path, but ultimately we have to think for ourselves and use our intuition and insight in our past life and present life.  What we think now leads to what we do later leads to one direction over another.  Without reflection we fall into the grooves of habitual patterns we've been practicing since childhood.  With reflection we broaden the healthier choices we have.  We re-train ourselves towards healing.  We lessen those feelings of angst.

A Return To Health & Balance

I joined Weight Watchers online last week after talking with a close childhood friend who had just joined and was beginning to go to meetings.  I decided about a month ago that I needed start a diet and exercise program and began to diet and exercise.  I weighed myself today for the first time in about six months and I am at the heaviest weight I've ever been by a few pounds, but during this past month I have found that I do not have an eating disorder and my body is still strong and flexible.  I realized that what I need most and have needed most is exercise.

I started out as a child very enthusiastic about dancing.  I remember taking a modern dance class with several friends when I was still in grade school.  I studied more modern dance all through high school and then some yoga during college.  Mostly I danced in my room by myself.  I discovered that I had natural talent and I loved it.  I don't think anyone has ever really seen me let go and dance and I've only seen a bit looking into the large mirror in my room.  So I've viewed my dancing as a private communing with the Higher Power and rarely had the desire to perform for others.  I still view it that way.

Several weeks ago I sent an email to the owner of a karate teaching business in my town.  I had taken a yoga class there once and really like the studio space.  I thought it would be a great place to dance.  So I asked this black belt karate teacher if I could rent out her space for an hour at a time three days a week, every other day.  A couple of weeks went by and she didn't respond, but last week she apologized and said that my email had been in the junk folder and she had only just discovered it.  She said she was willing to meet me.  I quickly wrote back and thought I had set up a meeting, but when I arrived at the studio, no one was there and all the doors were locked.

Then I thought that I probably should visit the doctor for a checkup before I find a space to dance in.  This week I have to encourage myself to make the call and set up an appointment.  I really don't like going to doctors, but it has been a year and a half of so since I went and I need to be sure that my blood pressure is good and get my blood tested to see what my cholesterol levels are.  I need to be sure that I have not become diabetic, which, thank God, I have not acquired since becoming obese about 15 years ago.

This is my main goal for the year - to take better care of my body and home.   Since I became psychotic I have become obese, dirty and, to put it bluntly, a slob.  Taking care of my basic needs to be physically fit, clean and orderly were the first things to go when I got so sick and I have struggled with that off and on for years.  Each time I have tried to change my ways I have succeeded for only a short time and then fallen back into negative patterns.  I have hurt myself for this, judged myself and shamed myself and that just served to keep me stuck.

Something in me shifted a couple of years ago.  I stopped judging myself and worked on accepting myself just as I was.  I stopped calling myself "fat and ugly" and began to love and appreciate myself.
I began buying a lot of inexpensive, but quite nice clothes from an online store called Roamans and I began enjoying wearing them.  I cut my hair shorter.  I bought earrings and necklaces.  I started wearing just a bit of lipstick.  I started smiling at myself in the mirror.  I began asserting that I liked, loved and respected myself.

I came to accept my weight and my dirty, cluttered house.  It is not what I ultimately want and sometimes it bothers me, though mostly it makes me laugh.  So now I think I'm at a point of transition into a healthy way of living my life.  I have been praying for help to continue on this path and something is happening.  My challenge this week is to begin working on creating the good habit of exercising each day.  I have a stationary bike that I enjoy and I will bike on it for 20 minutes a day and no longer.  My urge is to push myself and that's just what I don't want to do because when I do that I do not consistently sustain it and I stop.  I need to change my life style gently and gradually.  I am not in any competition, I just want to get healthier.  A habit takes about 3 weeks to make, so I've decided that for two weeks I should just do the 20 minutes daily and no more and then start to increase the length of time and the intensity.

So perhaps I will wait 2 weeks before I contact the karate teacher which will give me time to see the doctor and reinforce daily exercise.  I also know of another place, a dance studio in a neighboring town, where I could dance if this first option doesn't work out.  I want to work my way up to having a dance practice.  I want dancing in a studio space to be my reward for putting in some effort to take care of myself.  I've only danced once in a studio space by myself.  I snuck into a university's dance studio with a small boom box when no one was around.  I danced for a while in freedom until I heard someone come through the door.  It was a little Asian American girl and she wanted to get permission to sit and watch me.  I told her no because I would be too self conscious and it would mess up the practice.  I felt bad about saying no, but I just couldn't do it.

My body amazes me.  Obesity has not stripped me of my strength, flexibility and talent.  Though I don't listen to music all the time, I love it.  Music motivates me to move and be expressive.  I have a strong sense of rhythm, pacing and flow.  My body still remembers what it knew as a child, adolescent and young adult.  Singing and making up songs, and dancing, have been the closest I've come to finding joy and a kind of worship of the life force in and around me.  I feel grateful to have another opportunity to reach for health and balance.

God In My Life

Ten months ago I was in the midst of a psychotic break - I was delusional and paranoid.  Compared to the psychotic breaks I had early in my illness it was mild and yet I could not deny that I was sick.  I withdrew from social contact, I deleted this blog and a bunch of other writing I had done over the years, I changed the lock on my door, I stayed home most of the time, I stopped taking my medication, I stopped seeing my therapist, I stopped going to a 12 Step meeting.  I'm not sure why this happened, and yet I never felt divorced from the Higher Power.

Then I returned to taking my medications, returned to a 12 Step group (Al-Anon), returned to therapy with a new therapist and fostered my commitment to turning my life and will over to God with a simple daily practice of taking my medications and thanking God for them, praying each morning and off and on throughout the day and reading aloud from various daily readers.  In the last couple of weeks I have returned to once again approaching the 4th Step by taking an inventory of my life.  I've been having trouble doing it because the truth is that I feel good about myself and my life.  I love and respect myself and am proud of the choices I made while in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic and afterwards while in the midst of deep psychosis.  I don't believe that I have harmed many people, just my ex boyfriend who I have made amends to over the years even though he has been dead since 1999.  And even then with him I tried very hard to be strong and loving kind.

I know that a lot of why I have not harmed others is because I have been a recluse for much of my life.  The greatest harm I have done has not been towards others but towards myself.  And yet I also believe that I have lived the life that I was meant to live.  It was necessary for me to live this life in order to learn the lessons I needed to learn.  These lessons were about compassion, faith, tolerance, patience and a growing commitment to the good in life.  I am now committed to the good in life and I find it all around me wherever I go.  God is everywhere, in the deepest hells on earth and in the highest heavenly experiences of humans on earth too.  God is in our spirits.  We would not have spirits without God.  God is in our hearts and minds.  God is in our bodies.  Believe in God or don't, God will still be there.

All the life on this planet has great meaning.  We create our own personal hells when we lose faith about the meaning in our lives.  I think one of the worst psychological states a human can be in is severe depression.  I feel a lot of love and compassion for all those people caught within that state especially because I have lived through it myself.  To be robbed of the motivation to engage in life is truly horrible and yet it can be overcome through medication, therapy, support groups and most especially the practice of gratitude.  It is the day to day practice of focusing on the positive that can gradually change one's perspective and therefore one's life towards healing.  I have spent many, many hours lying around or sleeping trying to avoid the pain in my life.  But I think even when I wanted to die I still at the same time also wanted to live.  It was the pain I didn't want and not this world.  And so I persisted.  At first I decided to listen to many, many audiobooks while lying on my couch.  If I couldn't do anything, at least I could listen to all kinds of stories and accounts of life and take my attention off my pain.

I could still listen and learn.  So I didn't give up despite being beaten down by my illnesses.  I had training to endure and survive acute psychosis and depression through having lived with an abusive alcoholic lover for over five years.  He was someone that I loved, but could not save.  I learned through him that the only one I can save through the help and grace of the Higher Power is me.  And later I saw that that was true for all of us.  The most important relationship in every one's life is between self and God, however you define God (and there are so many ways to do that).  And whether we admit it or not, I believe we all long for union with God.  And by God I mean peace, love and happiness.

There is value in developing endurance through painful life experiences and relationships.  If you open up enough to look, there are valuable lessons in every single life experience and relationship.  Nothing goes to waste.  I have thought of God as sentient space.  Space is everywhere in even the hardest seeming object.  There is no waste in space.  It is open, harmonious, peaceful, receptive, gentle and essential.  We tend to focus on the objects in space instead of on space itself, just as we tend to focus on the pain in our lives instead of in the pleasure.  Buddhists teachers have taught that nirvana or heaven is in every present moment.  Nirvana is now.  The ability to be aware, to experience through our five senses, to think, to feel, to breath, this is all nirvana, this is heaven.  Pain and suffering can serve to highlight this if we allow it.

Why is it necessary for us to suffer?  To learn, to appreciate what it is not to suffer.  The farther down you go, the higher up you have the potential to go.   Profound experiences, both positive and negative, can deepen your life and make for profound understanding, for revelations about the nature of truth.  How can you define and experience true freedom if you have never been in bondage?  We are all slaves on the path to freedom.  Union with God goes way beyond our life as living beings on this planet.  And yet what joy there is and can be for us here in our limited forms.  So I say appreciate what is right in every moment while we're here.  Cultivate your awareness of the beauty and balance all around us which is the essence of God.

Social Anorexia

This past week I have started joining 12 Step telephone meetings for Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.  This is a first for me and I've been to three meetings so far, two of which focused on what SLAA calls sexual, emotional and social anorexia.  I identify most strongly with social anorexia and to some extent to emotional anorexia.  I have practiced social anorexia since high school or, in other words, for around forty years.  I've met and known and been intimate with only a few people.  Thanks to the SLAA group I'm starting to see that my self-imposed isolation is really an addiction, too.  I know now that I can't stop this behavior without the help of the Higher Power.  People cannot help me, nor I them, if I don't reach out to them.  My isolation from people is a form of imprisonment.  I'm so used to it that I lose sight of this.  

Returning to the Al-Anon group has given me the confidence to begin reaching out to the Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous group through the telephone meetings.  I feel I belong in the Al-Anon group, but I am starting to realize that I belong, in my present circumstances, even more to the SLAA group, especially to the anorexic group within the group.  My response to the two meeting I went to for anorexia was mixed.  I feel a real gratitude for the meetings and the people who chair them, the people who show up and for the connection between members in the meeting after the meeting.  I also feel sadness that there are so many people isolating themselves the way I have done.  And I feel fear of those fewer members who are so emotionally shut down as to be cold to themselves and others despite reaching out to the group.  

Many anorexics in this group practice self-hatred.  They are caught in a double bind of judging others and themselves equally harshly.  I used to be more like that, but I've found, after surviving domestic violence and serious mental illness, that I am generally kinder to myself and others than I have ever been.  And yet still a sense of shame lingers within me paving the way for me to continue practicing social withdrawal.  Perhaps I've known how pernicious shame is since after I graduated from college the first time in the mid 1980s.  So many people have had people in their lives that actively have shamed them to the point where they internalized it and began shaming themselves daily.  That's how it started for them, often in childhood and adolescence.  But that is not my story.  Why I chose to take on the burden of shame when no one had seriously shamed me in my childhood and adolescence, I do not know at this point, but that's what I did.  It led me right into a love addicted relationship with a young abusive alcoholic.   

I do not know what it is to have a deep, healthy friendship or love relationship.  In my sick state, I don't know what true health looks and feels like, except through the glimpses that my Higher Power shows me when I reach out to others.  Now, I'm reaching for greater awareness and understanding and as it comes to me gradually I am beginning to awaken sadder, darker feelings, the feelings that I have been pushing down deep, trying to ignore.  I don't want to, but I know I have to embrace feeling my feelings if I am to have the chance to break out of this prison I have constructed.  

Of course, the story doesn't stop there.  If I get too dark while coming out of my denial,  I fall back into living without balance and that is not a good place to stay.  I have to search for the good inside me and outside me.  I am close to trying to approach my 4th Step "made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves".  Many of the inventory guides say to pick out 12 character defects or shortcomings first and then pick out 24 character assets.  I did make a list of my shortcomings, but now it is time to make a list of my strengths and never lose sight of all the good that is in me.  I need to love and respect myself as I am.  Self love is not only precious, it is absolutely necessary in order to have a rich and rewarding life with oneself and with others.  

From Sadomasochistic Abuse & Addiction To Getting The Help That You Deserve

We ate the apple from the Tree of Knowledge a long, long, long time ago, at least according to our sense of time, which might be a split second in the greater scheme of things.  There are so many people calling out to God, crying "Why is our life this way?" and "Why must we feel so much pain?"
Too many of us want to point the finger at the Higher Power or at the other sentient species the Higher Power has chosen to help us on our sad, little world.  The Blame Game is the hallmark of practicing addicts.  It is too much sometimes to feel the depth of our own pain and so we try to shoot it out of ourselves at any available target be it friend, lover or foe.  In psychological terms that is called projection and anyone who has practiced it, which is basically everyone at one time or another, knows that it is a shallow sadistic pleasure to hurt others.  To hurt others is to hurt ourselves.  That is the real point in the cycle of self hating beliefs, practices and lifestyles - to hurt ourselves is to reject our true natures, to not believe that we started out in a completely innocent state, everyone of us.

Here is a quote from a book called SADOMASOCHISM: Etiology and Treatment by Susanne P. Schad-Somers:

"Sadomasochism, the confusion between love and hate, power and submission, is a uniquely human phenomenon.  It is one, though by no means the only one, of the inevitable products of man's prolonged dependency in early childhood, for dependency invariably mean inequality.  Since the human infant is born several years prematurely, physiological birth and psychological birth are roughly three years apart.  (italics mine)  During that time, the infant's emerging sense of self, and its external and internal reality are filtered through those of its mother's.  And what makes us human, and therefore unique, creative and capable of complex feelings and thought processes is the eventual resolution of the tension between the wish for symbiosis and the need for autonomy.  Only a perfect balance between holding on and letting go on the mother's part would permit complete separation and individuation--which is to say that it can never be fully attained.  What is more, for childhood to be free of lasting trauma, parents would have to be mind readers and utterly selfless.  Finally, since there is no such thing as a compromise between unequals, the subjective experience of oppression is therefore a universal part of childhood."   (Introduction, p. 11)

Because we are born prematurely, we endure three years of an unnatural dependence on our primary caretaker, often our mothers.  Being finite and fallible mammals on this planet earth, there is no way the primary caretaker could supply our needs to the point that we could reach a healthy balance between our inner and outer worlds, even in the most healthy of families.  We start out disadvantaged and totally dependent.  That is the core of our beginnings in this world.  As Ms. Schad-Somers writes, "the subjective experience of oppression is therefore a universal part of childhood."

And what of those who live in homes where abusive attitudes and behaviors towards children are the norm?  Emotional abuse and neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse are sometimes all intertwined.  These abusive expressions and behaviors from adults often are the result of one of the many forms of addiction that permeate our culture and therefore are supported by our culture.  And how do babies get born into this world?  Through mature, healthy, balanced physical love between two partners of the opposite sex?  Not so often.  More often through couples conditioned to buy into the popular culture promotion of romance and relationship addiction which can lead right into sexual addiction.  Of the three often interlinking addictions here, sexual addiction is the most pernicious.

A sexual addict is at the mercy of an unnaturally amplified sexual drive/instinct.  Containment of the urges is possible in the early stages of the illness, but soon progresses to excessive attachment to getting the sexual fix be it through animal or child or the use of other adult bodies or the obsessive use of pornography.  It is no longer about choice and ethics--it is about disease overtaking the body and the human spirit.

And yet there is a choice, the choice to acknowledge the disease within yourself as a disease and stop getting hooked into the torment of shame and guilt.  If you were told you had cancer, would you avoid going to the doctor and getting treatment?  Not likely.  Sexual addiction is essentially no different, but it is such a stigmatized illness.  Another hallmark of using addicts is the commitment to living a dual life, a life of silence, of not saying plainly what it is that is hurting you, your life and those you care about.  And so there is another choice that must be made, that of whether to embrace deceit or embrace honesty, especially self honesty.  You cannot break the cycle of abuse and addiction unless you get honest with yourself first and preferably with another safe person.  Getting honest is turning your will over to the Higher Power and it can open doors to getting you the help that you need and deserve.

The Right To Bear Arms?

Somewhere in our evolution we learned to make tools.  Tools by their very nature are useful in some way or another.  Being omnivores, we not only gathered food, we hunted.  And so tools of violence were created to kill animals to feed ourselves so that we and our family and tribe could survive, especially during harsh seasons.  Because we were animals, we were also territorial.  We laid claim to sections of the land, built our homes there, had families, hunted, gathered, cultivated the land and stored our treasures.  When some outsiders arrived and threatened to take our stuff and/or hurt and subjugate our tribes people, we acted out.  If they hit, we hit.  If they used hunting weapons to hurt or even kill others, so did we.  Hunting was sometimes a matter of survival, but so was conflict with the violence of people outside of the tribe.

The very foundation of the predator/prey (or master/slave) relationship is the "us" versus "them" mentality.  We say to ourselves, we are valuable and they are worthless.  We must protect ourselves and they must be sacrificed.  For thousands of years we have de-humanized the other, the "enemy", in order to preserve and benefit ourselves.  The message has been drummed into us by ourselves that we must desire victory for ourselves and defeat for the enemy.

Other predators on this earth have no means to justify their aggressive impulses.  They are instinct driven.  When a kitten plays, it is training for one day hunting.  It sometimes seems as if we are ruled by instincts, too.  And yet, many live non violent lives and some have even forgone meat in their diet.  What this shows is that, unlike most of the natural world, we have a choice.

If we have been given dominion over the earth and all of its creatures, we have proven ourselves to be very poor stewards.  The human species has been raping this planet ever since our population exploded and we entered into the industrial age.  We are in such trouble now because of the choices we all have made, past and present.  Perhaps we are just following our animal instincts, but these same instincts, which once preserved our little tribe, now serve to destroy us.  We can either continue to evolve into an enlightened, peace loving society of humankind, which would require that we face our collective mental illnesses and destructive ways, or we can devolve and self-destruct taking the life on this world along with us into extinction.

No greater authority gave us the right to bear arms and use them; we gave that to ourselves in service of our primal us versus them mentality.  As a species, still dominated by the male sex, we are born warmongers.  But at this crucial point in our human history, with a planet that is rebelling against our abuse of it, we do not have the time or resources to waste on warring tribes.  The experiment to prove the necessity of violence in our civilization has been done ad nauseum.  Aggression no longer has any useful place in our world.

I do understand that many people in the United States are very attached to their guns.  Without guns, we would not have defeated the British and started this country.  But then, we also would not have slaughtered the native people here or institutionalized slavery of Africans.  We would not have had a civil war.  What if no one had the right to bear arms?  We would be forced to cultivate a deep and abiding diplomacy as the rule of law.  We would have to learn how to all get along with each other.  The very first step would be laying down our arms and turning away from them.

In our popular culture we have glorified the gun, made it a symbol of strength and heroism.  In typical (and instinctual) ways we are taught to believe that there are good guys and bad guys.  We are taught that because the bad guys are so out of control, we have no choice but to be out of control, too, resorting to violence and destruction in order to obliterate the bad guys.  The possibility of any kind of diplomacy is ruled out so that we can get to the real entertainment:  the fight.  If you can step away from the pull of entertainment to really look at what is being promoted, you will see that the message is one of mental illness and not the triumph over "evil" forces.  Look into your own heart, you are neither totally good nor totally bad; we are all good/bad.  The negativity you project onto others is inside of you as well.

Why aren't we taught that resorting to violence is not an act of bravery, but one of cowardice?  Because we have so much invested in perpetuating the illusion that we are better than others.  We are NOT better; we were created equal.  It is ironic to me, a person who has survived severe mental illness, that what I see in the world of humans around me is also severe mental illness, a form of mass denial.  The reason I attempt to write forcefully about what I believe is that I want to challenge my readers out of whatever complacency they have, to challenge deeply held assumptions, such as this topic of the right to bear arms or in other words the right to maim and murder other beings.

One of the ten commandments in the Judeo-Christian Bible is Thou shall not murder.  Then there was Buddha saying all life was precious.  And then, there was Jesus instructing that we love our enemies.  The United States is predominantly a Christian country and yet all of this spiritual guidance fails to register in many of our daily lives, which is why I don't see us a Christian country.  Believing in the right to bear arms is antithetical to spiritual practice.  Moses or Buddha or Jesus would not have picked up an automatic weapon and aimed it at anything with the intention to harm.  That's a fact.  If you are an American Christian and you had to choose between owning a gun or guns and following Jesus, would you have the faith to let go of your attachment to firearms?  I know many in this day and age would say no.

Instead of focusing on the right to bear arms, why not develop in yourself the right to be a mature, non violent individual, the right to grow up and work with others instead of against them?

The Benefits Of Buddhist Practice

I just wanted to thank Chris, Ashley, Karen and Pam for leaving some great comments to my last blog entry about Pema Chodron.  These are all women who have experience with mental illness and yet each in different ways are deep into recovery.  They are smart, creative, talented and perceptive people and they have come a long way and have a lot to offer the world.  I respect and admire each and every one of them and am honored that they took the time to read my entry and comment.

I would like in this entry to address some of Chris' comment.  She wrote that while she responds to several of Pema Chodron's books, she can't commit to being a Buddhist or following Buddhist principles mainly because she believes that Buddhism shares with other organized religions the imperative to follow without questioning.  She also wonders whether it is appropriate to pick and choose what to believe while leaving the rest behind, which is an approach that I have supported in previous blog entries.

First of all, I have to say that while I am strongly influenced by Buddhist principles and have applied many to my life, I do not consider myself a Buddhist.  I did not grown up living with any form of organized religion and was taught to be suspicious of religions in general.  I turned towards Buddhism in my thirties, after having survived an abusive relationship but before I became actively ill with schizophrenia, because I had begun practicing yoga and meditation and I was curious.  The Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, was my main teacher via audio programs.  He introduced me to the practice of mindfulness.

There is no dogma in the practice of mindfulness.  It's all about focusing your attention on what you are doing in the present moment and really staying aware.  Thich Nhat Hanh gave examples of mindfully eating and mindfully washing the dishes and said that one could apply mindfulness to everything.  And what was the point of doing this practice?  For me, as I practiced, the point was to really appreciate my life.  When I was mindful, and mindfulness lends itself to a kind of heightened perception, I was not lost thinking of the past or planning for and worrying about the future.  There is a great freedom contained in the practice of mindfulness, freedom and common sense.  I found it to be both enlightening and healing to my spirit and so I touched base with Buddhist practices just before my breakdown and then during it and beyond.

The Buddhist teachers that I went on to encounter in books and audiobooks over the years did not browbeat their readers and listeners into swallowing what they were teaching without questioning.  Instead they offered up a variety of practices and invited their audience to test these practices out in their own lives.  Pema Chodron has often said that she provides hints and clues about applying the practices, but that the ultimate test has to be done by each of us alone.  It was the Buddha himself who said that people should not blindly follow what he was teaching, but should test it out.

One of the reasons why I'm so enthusiastic about writing about Buddhist practice is because I have tested some of it out and found it to be, without a doubt, beneficial to myself.  The basic principles and practices encourage open mindedness, acceptance, tolerance, patience, generosity and love towards oneself and all others.  Being a pacifist, this loving philosophy gives me a lot of support to continue being a pacifist.  It also gives me hope that a lot of other people are turning towards the philosophy of peace in the world simply by applying these Buddhist practices to their lives.  When you embrace mindfulness, you embrace self responsibility and responsibility towards others, be they friend, stranger or foe. Mindfulness is about gently becoming more and more aware, more awake.  Too many of us are on automatic pilot, going through our busy lives without stopping to reflect and appreciate ourselves and life.

My purpose in writing about Buddhism is not to get readers to become Buddhists, but rather, to encourage them apply some of the Buddhist practices and attitudes to their lives.  The practices of mindfulness and sending lovingkindness prayers out to self and others alone are enough to benefit individuals and ultimately communities as well, if enough people turn their wills towards being aware and non harming.  What I'm proposing, along with most Buddhist teachers, is a gentle, gradual shift in awareness towards love, not just for self and loved ones, but as a basis for relating to people and life in general.  But in order to shift into love as a basis for relating to all people, individuals must have at least one or two spiritual practices to follow and guide them.  These do not have to be Buddhist practices, but I have discovered that Buddhism is rich in various practices and is quite accessible.

Chris questioned in her comment whether it was okay to pick and choose what to practice and what to ignore from either one religion or various religions.  I still believe that it is perfectly okay.  The point is to do what works for you and that could mean that you adhere to only one religion and follow it in an orthodox manner.  Whether you are orthodox or not, you are nonetheless on your own path.  You can choose no religion at all and be on a spiritual path.  I think we are all on the path whether we can consciously acknowledge it or not.  This is because we are beings that gravitate towards love, love of other people and love of all kinds of activities, with and without people.  It's the ones who turn towards anger and criticism, perhaps because of having been abused earlier, who are hurting the most, along with the ones who have moved from having been abused into the role of the abuser.

Even people who have been severely abused as children have experienced times of love and acceptance, if not from within their families, then from outside of them.  I think we are all born with the instinct to recognize the deep value of giving and receiving love.  So many of us lose sight of this when we've been hurt by people and life circumstances.  I know my heart went into a deep freeze and stayed frozen even after I left the abusive situation I had been living in.  It took a severe form of mental illness to wake me up to the absolute necessity of valuing myself and others daily.  The method of waking me up was harsh and painful, yet at the same time the lessons I was learning were branded in my heart and, over a decade later, I am still practicing what I learned then:  to be of benefit to myself and others.  The aim of Buddhist practice is the same, which is why I have been able to embrace it, apply it and share it.

Seeking & Giving Help

In the last two weeks I've been to two NAMI mental health support group meetings.  The group is small so far, just five people each time, including myself.  I'm coming in contact with my desire to show up and be of some help to the group members and also in contact with my own vulnerability and limitations.  At home I get so into expressing myself through keeping an audio journal, a written journal, blogging, making up songs and sometimes doing artwork that I've felt as if maybe I could teach some of what I've learned to others.  But going to this meeting is teaching me that I have a lot to learn from other people.

The first step is just listening with an open heart, being present while others speak with courage and share their stories.  I did this and found that some of the people in the group were struggling not only with mental disabilities, but physical disabilities, problems with housing, with finding paid work and taking care of a small child amongst other things.  I realized that though my problems with mental illness were certainly valid that I did not have as much of a burden as some of these people.  This made me feel very respectful towards the individuals in this group and towards the group as a whole.

I also felt some feelings of helplessness and a wish to come up with answers to try and "fix" their problems, but I saw that for many of their issues I didn't have the knowledge or the experience and I had to be quiet and let others offer their guidance and ideas.  But when it came to coping with mental illness, I did find that I could contribute to the group.  There was something very special for me about listening and talking and looking into the eyes of the people sitting at that conference table, something that I've been withdrawn from in my self-imposed isolation all these years.  It's been a long time since I've been to any kind of support group and now I see what I've been missing -- personal contact.

Yes, there's also a sense of vulnerability and personal limitations, but that is good, too; it keeps me in contact with a sense of humility and a wish to keep trying.  I think many people don't go to meetings because of that vulnerable quality, but in sharing your vulnerability and recognizing that we are all vulnerable, all in the same boat, there is a kind of liberation.  I'm not saying that going to a support group a couple of times is going to solve all your problems.  It won't, but, with a good attitude, it can help a lot.  Not only do you get the chance to learn from others' mistakes and successes, but you get to share your own.

Sharing in itself gives personal validation and possibly helping others raises the quality of your life.  Unless people come together either virtually online or in person in a group, the opportunity for solutions even little (or big) miracles gets lost.  People can and do change the world for the better despite those stuck in the cycle of blame and violence, but they have to get organized and come together little by little.

My goal for now is to commit to showing up once a week and to think about the people in the group and what I can do to help during the time in between meetings.  Helping also includes being honest about my own problems and open to asking for help from the group.  One of the reasons why I stayed locked into my illness for years was that I wanted to deal with my problems on my own.  I didn't want to bother anyone.  I found out the hard way that I had to ask for help, but I stubbornly resisted that; even now I am awkward about it.  When I did reach out, I found people who were willing to help me. In a sense, being vulnerable before people gave them permission to be vulnerable, too, and when we admit to our problems, we generate goodwill.  That goodwill keeps us afloat during the painful times and give us reason to rejoice during pleasant times.   Conversely, stubbornly refusing help and holding onto, even nurturing, our resentments just makes us internalize our own ill will and keeps us sick and miserable.

My voices did torment me in the beginning, but for a good reason.  They said that I had to be around people and help them even though what I really wanted to do was to crawl into a hole and possibly die.  They hurt me, but in some ways I asked for it.  Before the psychosis took hold of me I was mainly interested in myself and not oriented towards helping others.  As was my way, I pulled into myself, into self-gratification and fantasy.  I had been hurt badly, but I held only my resentment and it colored my world and led me more deeply into serious mental illness.

And that pattern of holding onto resentment repeated itself while I went through the early stages of my recovery and slowed down my progress.  I didn't regret the fact that I did help some people, but I continued to resent the voices' method of teaching me.  What began to change me inside out was the Buddhist practice of lovingkindness towards myself, the voices and the people I encountered.  That little shift in attitude that I cultivated on and off for years rescued me from my own self-centeredness.  It has taken a long time, but I'm in a much better place now and my attitude is good, is open and willing to keep trying to continue recovering and to helping others to do the same.

The Balancing Act Of Yin And Yang

We are like this seagull:  we can find balance or we can fall or we can even, symbolically, fly.  Balance allows us to land and settle and balance allows us to take off and fly.  The experience of falling also has balance in it, the balance of letting go and trusting despite the thrill or the fear of it.  To me this photograph is a good example of actual and potential balance, yin and yang in action.

In Chinese the literal meaning of the word yin is shadow and the literal meaning of the word yang is light.  The yin and yang symbol is often illustrated in black and white showing the greatest extremes co-joined in a balanced duality.  The symbol is perfectly contained yet implies movement.  It is supposed to represent the elements of nature, opposing yet not in opposition, rather interconnected.  Human beings are animals and evolved from nature and have literal and figurative elements of shadow and light in their make-up as does everything in our world.  This experience of contrasts is how we sense, and make sense of, ourselves and our environment.  We see the difference between sunlight and shadows or we feel the difference between the warmth from the sun and the coolness of the shadows.  These contrasts, and all the subtleties between them, make for the profound richness of our lives.

Duality, then, is an essential and intimate part of all our lives.  The yin and yang symbol, though it uses the visual language of extremes, really teaches about moderation, balance and the perfect compromise.  So why are humans often immoderate, unbalanced and in conflict?  The balance of yin and yang is perfection, heaven or "the pure lands", yet there is always flow and flux to it.  There are innumerable combinations which allow us to become unbalanced.  But is that lack of balance a lack of perfection?  Or is it the perfection of a process that moves towards a larger view, a broader picture?  We too often label the low points in our lives as bad and the high points as good when really they are both just different aspects of a fertile and fully experienced lifetime.

I don't mean to minimize the intensity that our suffering can reach, but suffering never is or has been the whole picture.  If it were, we would have no means of surviving and certainly none of being happy.  It is when we are seeing black, really imagining that all is hopeless and dark, that we can make the biggest fall of all into aggressive acts against ourselves and/or others.  But before the act comes the thoughts and feelings, the reactions to the real and imagined pain in our present moment.  Always there is the touch of light amidst a black background, but when we focus on the darkness and even add to the darkness, we blot out the one door out of our prison.  Controlled by our imagination we think there is no door to freedom, to the outside.  I'm convinced that the reality is that there is always a door available.

There is a Tibetan lojong slogan that goes, "Train in the three difficulties."  The first difficulty is to recognize mental illness as mental illness.  Pema Chodron uses the word neurosis, but I have found that it applies just as much to psychosis, depression and anxiety.  Recognition is intuitive awareness and awareness is the first major step towards beneficial change in yourself and towards others, which leads to the second difficulty which is to do something different after you recognize your illness.  Doing the usual thing, the habitual thoughtless thing, leads you to reinforce the original illness.  Instead of finding some liberation from sickness, you settle more deeply into it.  The only way to find the door, the access to light, is to take the blinders off your eyes.  That's doing something different.  The final difficulty is to make this your life's practice.

Actually, I think the first and second difficulty are one in the same.  The act of recognizing is an act of doing something different.  The question is how to you get to the point where you are ready to become aware?  I've been looking back on some of my adult life, reading a journal from the early years of my recovery, and I see now what I was unable to see then, that I was harboring, even cultivating, resentment towards these mysterious and challenging voices in my mind.  I was full of questions and I chased the questions wanting answers like a cat chasing its own tail.  Some of the questions were understandable, but others revealed my particular bias towards blaming them for my own ills.  Interspersed in the resentment was the germination of a compassion practice towards them and myself because we appeared to both be ill.  That practice was enough for me to see the touch of light in the midst of my persistent depression.

It's been almost eleven years since I entered into recovery.  The early years, when I was struggling to get my BFA degree, were not easy.  Now I can see that I made them harder.  I was self centered, self isolating and resentful, but I was also curious, thoughtful and basically non harming.  I did return again and again to the practice of gratitude and lovingkindness however imperfectly.  Anyway, it was enough to get me to this point where I'm more ready to be aware than I was before.  A lot more ready.  It's only been since I finished reading "Dharma In Hell" that I realized that I do have a daily Buddhist practice.  I practice lovingkindness towards myself, the voices and everyone, but I came to the practice gradually.  A little bit here and a little bit there while going in circles and falling backwards.  I believed strongly in that little ray of light and when I could I nurtured it.  None of it has gone to waste and life on the path continues.  I am just beginning to enter into compassion practice which is harder than lovingkindness practice in that I will have to feel the pain in myself, others and the situations we get ourselves into.

Next Tuesday, on September 11th, I will go to my first NAMI meeting in a nearby town.  This is very important to me and hopefully to the other people who attend.  It will give me the chance to be of service to a few of the people in my community.  Early in the acute stage of my psychosis, the voices ordered me to be of benefit to my community and despite battling the delusions and my paranoia I did help a few people out.  Then I pulled back into myself and gradually I have started reaching out.  It took me years just to reach out to people online and then years of me wishing that there was a support group to go to.  The time has come.  I'll be nervous, but I will work to stay open to the opportunities that present themselves to me, opportunities to share my story and to listen and learn from other people's stories.  The flux and flow of yin interacting with yang has brought me to this place, a place where I can finally open the door.

Holmes Is Not Faking It

I just watched several news clips about the young man, James Holmes, who killed 12 people and injured 58 more in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado this past Thursday.  Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that the newscasters wound up insinuating that Mr. Holmes might be faking being psychotic.  It is a big story after all and they were trying to make it juicier.  They made a big deal of the fact that Mr. Holmes hair was dyed orange and that he made disjointed faces during the first court proceeding.  To my mind, a mind that has been through the intensity and disorientation of insanity, his behavior was normal for someone who has just gone through a peak experience of a psychotic break and is very definitely psychotic in one way or another.  That people should question whether he is presently insane after he went on a killing spree, that to me is insane.  Of course he's extremely ill.  And it is not unusual that the before picture of him as a very bright and motivated person should quickly turn into the after picture of him as someone in the grips of psychotic delusions.  On some level he might have seen it coming as I did and, as I did, he probably stayed stuck in denial until his first break with reality.  

When that first break hits, it is externally subtle, but internally dramatic.  There is so much going on inside oneself, a total mixing of fantasy and fact.  It is extremely unfortunate for James Holmes that his deluded fixations latched onto the fictional characters of Batman and The Joker.  It is quite possible that he at first identified with Batman as a hero character, a defender of the innocent, and then swung in the opposite direction as his illness progressed to see himself as the villan.  This is fairly typical of schizophrenia and related illnesses.  Several months into my psychotic transformation I swung from the temptation of being a holy person to being the Antichrist and finally to being a sort of combination of the two.  Lucky for me I didn't stay in the Antichrist role, but leaned more heavily towards the Jesus role, which led me back to the study of Buddhism.

My fixation was not a fictional character, but a real famous person, who, in my mind, transformed into a serial killer.  The pain of this was that I was mentally joined to this delusion.  Before I became psychotic, I had been abused by my boyfriend, but after I became psychotic, my abuser lived inside of my mind.  I had to train myself to cultivate compassion for that sick side while at the same time separating my core self as best I could.  My therapist, who I started seeing less than 6 months after my first psychotic break, taught me and guided me to value the good within me.  How important was that? Important enough to let me survive two more breaks and the ensuing suicidal depression of my very, very early recovery.  It led me towards recovery.  It led me to counter the poor self esteem of my young adulthood and the eventual self hating residue of having lived through an abusive relationship.  

Most people wouldn't want to say that they identify with a mass murderer, but I do.  I identify with his illness and yes, I feel a lot of sympathy for my fellow man, who has, through this illness, condemned himself for the rest of his life.  Somewhere along the line, he didn't get the help that I reached out for early on and, at least partially, took.  Most likely he was left alone with his heroes and demons.  But really with a story like Batman and The Joker the line between hero and villan is pretty damn slim.  Both are manipulative, violent and disguised.  Why this obsession with action heroes and villans?  Why is there this almost innocent glorification of violence?  Good guys/bad guys really devolve into a sick bunch of characters each of whom utilize and perfect violence as a means to an end.  But the end doesn't come; it just keeps bouncing back and forth.  There's always another sequel.

Even children know that there is so much more to life than black and white thinking.  At their best they can easily sniff out hypocrisy.  A lot of heroes are hypocrites.  They say one thing and do another.  They make exceptions for themselves especially in the area of the tit for tat cycle of abuse and violence.  This tit for tat mentality can be seen in love relationships, friendships, in our schools, in the work environment, in our government and in our entertainment.  Slights, power plays, competition and brewing resentments that just keep getting fed.  Many of us in a hostile situation want the last word.  And the last word invariably goes -- me = good and you = bad.  Is it true?  Hell no.  All of us are a composite of all the dualities: good/bad, positive/negative, strong/weak, honorable/dishonorable, etcetera, etcetera.  All of us have done things that we are proud of and things that we are ashamed of.  That's a big part of being human; it's in the flux between polarities and in our self consciousness.

In our essence we are not either good or bad, but for at least this lifetime, we are forever working through our own ambivalence, sometimes feeling/thinking/being "good" and sometimes feeling/thinking/being "bad".  Maybe that's why so many people invest a lot in their personas as a form of denial and defense.  Mr. Holmes took that as a basis to build his elaborate delusions which has put him at the outer limits, beyond an understanding of reality.  Of course some filters in because it has to or he wouldn't be able to function, but the big picture is obscured by the delusional one.

So I say, James Holmes is not faking being seriously ill.  People who kill other people are not faking it, just as people who commit suicide are not faking it.  I believe violence is a form of mental illness, but in our culture it is almost taboo to say so because so many people justify it as a right.  The right to bear arms for private individuals, for the police force and for the military translates into men, women and children becoming the victims of that right.  We can't have it both ways with some violence good and necessary and other violence bad and tragic, but that's what we do over and over again.  Instead of suppressing violence, we lift it up and even make it mainstream entertainment in films and television.  We give a deeply mixed message first to children and then to young adults, particularly young men.  When tragedy does occur, as in this case with people being seriously injured and killed, we respond with surprise.  What's surprising is that we turn a blind eye to all the violence that goes on in our country each and every day and to all the violence in action/adventure flicks that we're practically spoon feeding to children and young adults.  Bottom line, guns and entertainment of this sort are BIG business and there's a lot of clout in trying to protect these businesses.

The urge of the media in insinuating that Mr. Holmes is faking being psychotic is the age old desire to find a scapegoat for the serious societal problems of mental illness and violence.  Every time an insane young man goes on a shooting spree in this country, and this seems to be more prevalent in the last decade, it offers a window of opportunity for change.  Community action, mental health services and gun control need to become top priority.  If that doesn't happen, don't be surprised if yet another mentally ill person repeats the same pattern that James Holmes got pulled into.  The problem won't just go away.  Scapegoats can take the blame temporarily, but in the long run we all have to take on our own share of it.  We can point fingers all we want, but what we really should be doing is examining ourselves.  Real change can only happen individual by individual.

Lack Of Mental Health Services In Rural America

Approximately 70% of New York State is rural and I live in one of the poorest rural counties of the state.  I grew up in New York City where there is a plethora of services and resources for people who suffer from mental illnesses.  Unfortunately I left the big city and moved far out into the country to another world.  It was here in the country that I encountered the legacy of child abuse, addiction, domestic violence, homophobia and racism.  I don't mean to imply that these things don't exist in big cities, they certainly do, but in the country the sense of isolation and shame along with the extreme lack of resources create a much deeper and more resistant problem.  The key culprit is poverty and a lack of community organization.  Money provides incentives to overcome problems.  Without the money people have to rely on their own inner resources and in doing that they pull into themselves and away from the help they need.  On top of that the general poverty means lots of low income families, lack of employment opportunities, single parents, a lack of health insurance, a prevalence of alcohol and drug addiction among other things.

Life is hard, but it is harder in the country.  The ethic out here is rugged individualism and self-reliance, especially amongst farming communities.  Unfortunately, self-reliance is not all that is needed when it comes to mental health.  What is needed is community support and action.  In my county there is not one mental health support group for people with serious mental illness and there are only a small handful of psychiatrists and psychotherapists to cover several counties.  Most people don't have health insurance and rely on social services and the emergency room to help them get through crisis situations.    Even if one does have health insurance and the ability to pay for services, there are very few options.
I'm in the minority in that I have health insurance, though that insurance does not cover the cost of therapy.  My health insurance covers most of the cost of my visits to my psychiatrist every three months and the cost of my medications, but that's it, the bare minimum.  Because I am not eligible for social services I have no community support.

One in four adults in the US, over 57 million people, will have mental health problems in any given year.  One in seventeen will have major psychotic disorders.  A distinguishing feature of mental illness is a pervasive feeling of isolation from others.  This sense of isolation is multiplied in rural areas where there are fewer people living at greater distances from each other.  Without solid community support people get pulled again and again into cycles of mental illness, abuse and addiction.  The burden gets shifted onto the families themselves who are ill equipped to handle these problems alone.  There is some community support for addicts and their families mostly due to 12 step support groups, but only for those who are motivated to go to them.  The stigma of mental illness and addiction is greater in the country because small town life means people are into each others business.  The foundation of many support groups is anonymity, but in small towns there is no guarantee that you won't run into someone you know and this prevents many people from getting help.

The problem remains, mental illness is rampant in poor, rural communities.  Those who are court ordered to go to the minimal support groups and rehabs available, sometimes in place of going to prison, at least have some chance, but many people fall through the cracks in the system.  Social services are overburdened and community action virtually nonexistent.  What's needed are thriving community centers where various kinds of support groups can meet and take on some of the burden of caring for those who need help.  What's needed are community organizers.  Some mentally ill and/or addicted individuals have the strength to start support groups, but most do not.  Because of this there is a need for people who are not afflicted but are dedicated to helping those less fortunate to come forward and set up groups.  The few psychiatrists and therapists that are available are flooded with clients and have no time or energy to set up groups.  Those that remain who aren't suffering from mental illness are busy trying to make a living in an area where there is a lot of competition for even minimum wage jobs.

I think it's fair to say that there aren't many community organizers interested in moving to very poor, rural areas that have very few resources.  Truth is you probably can't make a living at it here, let alone raise a family of your own.  There's just not enough incentive.  Occasionally there is a charismatic, civic minded person willing to make a difference in the community, but even those people eventually burn out when others don't join in to take on some of the responsibility.  Maybe there could be people hired to act as a community organizers that temporarily come into a community and live there for a month or two while training volunteers to facilitate support groups.  I tend to harp of the importance of support groups because I don't have one, but I have seen from going to some 12 step groups that they are effective and low cost.  I do think that bringing small groups of people together can create not only an atmosphere of support, but some motivational magic to combat and lessen the grip of mental illnesses.

People with serious mental illness sometimes act out, but more often than not they pull into themselves, isolate themselves because they don't quite fit into society.  Support groups organized by confident, healthy individuals who have the training to pass on the rules and structure necessary to sustain a group could change the lives of many by teaching those with mental illness how to take better care of themselves and each other.  The people who commit to a support group find through their commitment that they can gradually take on more responsibility within the group.  Before that can happen there must be a catalyst to get the ball rolling.  When I was in early recovery I found one of the greatest obstacles to my happiness was a strong lack of motivation.  I needed someone else to appreciate me and encourage me to reach outside of myself.  I didn't find that in my community, except with my therapist. My main support all these years has been online on support forums and in this blog community.  That has helped a great deal, but it can't take the place of belonging to a local community, taking on more responsibility and directly helping those in need.

I've wanted to be that charismatic community organizer, but the pull to withdraw and avoid responsibility is part of my illness.  Like so many people in my community, I need the extra help to get things started.  But if we had that extra help in our rural communities, there's no telling how far we could go with it.

For Those Whose Voices Remain

It's a fact that some people have voices in their minds from an early age until they die.  I think I might be one of those people.  I take my medications because they reduce the intensity of the voices.  This gives me room to do some of my own thinking and feeling.  Without this cushion life would be much harder.  It also makes it easier to work with the voices instead of judging them or trying to block them out.  I've noticed that a lot of my peers, who take the medications but still hear voices, try various ways to keep the voices at bay such as, listening to music, watching television and movies, playing video games, doing craft work and art work.  Ultimately none of these things entirely remove the voices, but they do give much needed pleasure and in some cases allow for creative self-expression.  My worry is that too many people are overlooking the benefits of working with the voices and co-existing with them.

My impression of the people I've met online who suffer from schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder is that they mostly view the voices as negative, something to run away from or block out.  That's a natural pattern, run away from pain and grasp on to pleasure, but it is a pattern that causes a lot of suffering.  Studying Buddhism, especially from the Tibetan perspective, has shown me that this pervasive pattern needs to be reversed; people need to move closer to pain in order to understand and accept it as a part of life experience and people need to let go of clinging to pleasant experiences and even offer them up to the benefit of others.  I know a lot about avoidance and running away from pain, but it doesn't work.  Eventually I return to my starting point, back to pain and the voices and to a lack of resolution.

I don't believe that my experience is unique.  I can't be the only one to have noticed that the voices are a mixture of positive and negative even during the most acute stage of the illness.  When things are painful, it is too easy to generalize one's experience and the voices as being entirely negative.  When we do that we place the blame on them and avoid self-responsibility; we breed resentment and we stay stuck and so we run away again and again.  Perhaps we convince ourselves that these voices are the result of having a biochemical glitch in our brains and that our only responsibility is to take the medications to try and correct that glitch.  I think biochemistry is definitely a factor, but it is not the whole picture.  Taking the medications is a good start for many who have chronic psychosis, but there remains much more to be done and experienced and reflected upon.

If you decide to try and work and co-exist with your voices, the first thing you've got to do is to acknowledge that they are real for you, that they exist in your life and that sometimes you have no choice but to interact with them or be influenced by them.  You grant them the dignity and responsibility of existing.  Telling yourself that they are not real and trying to block them out when you can leaves you in a cycle of avoidance and denial.  It doesn't solve the root problem.  After acknowledging that they are real, you can begin to move closer to them so that you can study them.  See and experience both their strengths and their weaknesses.  If you dwell upon their negativity, you distort the truth and lose your balance.  Conversely, if you train yourself to see the positive in them, you begin to move back towards balance.  It's just common sense.

Voices in order to be voices have to have some inherently good traits.  They have mastered language and are intelligent, they are creative because language demands that you be creative in order to express your intent.  There are also several voices coming from different places and perspectives.  This means that they are versatile and can take multiple points of view and so they are expressive.  They are capable of strong emotion, making them more like us than different from us.  And so, at the bare minimum they are intelligent, creative, versatile, expressive and have the ability to feel.  They can also use all these gifts to behave abusively.  They can lie, manipulate, intimidate and go so far as to punish and yet the basis for this bad behavior is still good.  They couldn't lie unless they could identify the truth; they couldn't manipulate unless they first knew how to be creative, versatile and expressive.  The good stuff comes first for them and for us.

I'm not denying, especially during acute psychosis, that the bad stuff is really bad.  There's no doubt about it, it's there and in your face sometimes 24/7, awake or asleep.  Of course I can see why people get into the habit of generalizing their experience with the voices as just bad, but that feeds back into   delusional thinking, because it is just not the whole truth, it's not reality.  What's worse is if you believe the Judeo-Christian idea that we are essentially sinful, you can easily get pulled deeper and deeper into delusional/paranoid thoughts.  I was very fortunate in that I believed in my essential goodness even during the worst parts of my life and when I began studying Buddhism and came across the concept of Buddha Nature in everyone and everything, I felt some of the weight of my unresolved illness lift off of me.  As I learned more about the essential need for compassion for myself and others, I knew I had to extend that compassion to the voices that had hurt me so badly.  I had a lot of resentment to wade through to get to that point, but I kept my spirit open to the possibility that Buddha Nature and the practice of compassion were not just Buddhist concepts, but the basis of what we experience as reality.

So I am presupposing two things, that the voices are real and that the voices are essentially good and not evil.  That makes it sound very clear cut, but it is not.  When you work with the voices, you are working with not only their faults, but your own.  I want to stress that when the voices are behaving abusively, do not follow them.  One of the overriding lessons I've learned from them is that when people (or voices) act out, you must return the focus to yourself and do what you need to do to take care of yourself.  People have a lot of trouble with this because you have to love and care about yourself in order to take care of yourself.  The more ambivalence you feel towards yourself, or worse dislike, the more the voices will step up their attack.  Self-denigration for many Westerners is our Achilles heel.  In our culture there's a lot of emphasis on the power of romantic love to heal everything, but what really heals individuals is the extent of their love for themselves first and foremost.  Once you can establish love and trust within yourself, then you can extend it outward to other people.

I know I was feeling a kind of detached self-hatred after I left my abusive boyfriend and from that platform the voices took over my life and I entered into the world of acute psychosis.  So I wasn't sure if I liked myself and the voices took that weakness of mine and forced me to look at it.  They showed me that I had used fantasy like an addictive drug in order to avoid facing reality.  They showed me this by taking the germ of one of my fantasies and blowing it up into an elaborate delusion, a delusion that I blindly followed for a time.  Delusions hinge on the individual having an ego imbalance.  That is, delusional people see themselves as either more important than they actually are, sometimes vastly more important (delusions of grandeur) or drastically less important or inherently bad.  The voices took my tendency to either over or undervalue myself and let that fuel the delusion keeping it alive and me trapped inside of it.

People who love themselves have a realistic view of themselves; they accept who they are and their place in life.  They are protected by this from getting pulled into serious mental illness.  But people with low self esteems are very vulnerable to praise and/or criticism.  If you base your worth on something or someone outside of yourself, you are then subject to all kinds of fluctuations which leads to a lack of personal integrity and emotional/mental instability.  For several years I had an on again off again fantasy about a rock star.  I invested him with a lot of status.  I thought he was very talented and hard working and attractive.  In my mind then he was someone who had become successful.  After I fell into the delusion that he was following me and was attracted to me, I began to look at myself critically.  I wanted to be with the rock star, but I didn't feel worthy enough.  I swung from overestimating my power of attraction to underestimating my essential worth as a human being.  The voices took that polarity in me and blew it up hugely.  They shaped me into a version of Jesus and once that took hold, they took that away and told me I was the Anti-Christ.  Then they made a compromise; I became a composite of myself following Jesus and the rock star as an Anti-Christ like serial killer.  The rock star was not really me, but he existed in my mental space and I couldn't get away from him.

Trying to be like Jesus, I had to love the serial killer I believed was a part of my mind.  In a sense, it was as if Jesus was helping Lucifer to embrace recovery from his self hating and other hating addictions.  In trying to love someone who I was also deeply afraid of, I had to face my fears over and over again.  Without the benefit of medication, this led to repeated breakdowns.  Perhaps I had to go through this as a kind of catharsis for my failed relationship with an abusive addict.  I didn't heal the serial killer, but I did prove to myself that I had a good and trusting heart.  I had come to believe in the value of loving this enemy who really wasn't an enemy, but a lost, sick soul, the part of myself that I had been rejecting.  When I finally asked the voices after my final breakdown if I could let go of the rock star, they said it was about time.  That's when I committed to taking the medications.  That's when I started loving myself the right way.

If I learned this major lesson, why do I still have voices?  Why do I dip into delusional thoughts and paranoia sometimes?  And why does the thought of this famous man being a secret serial killer still haunt me?  I think because I haven't learned the lesson that I can't be a savior to another person.  In the beginning I tried to be that for my boyfriend and then I tried to be that for my primary delusion.  The only person I can save is myself.  Yes, I can be supportive but I cannot take on the responsibility for living someone else's life.  I still have the dregs of romance addiction in me, which is what got me into trouble in the first place.  Addiction is not love.  And in order to have a loving relationship with someone else, you have to love yourself and respect your loved ones boundaries.  People have to be free to make their own discoveries and their own mistakes.

When you become willing to love yourself and take care of yourself, you enter into recovery.  Part of loving myself has been learning to love and appreciate the voices.  They challenge and guide me while I continue to learn old and new lessons.  If you can change you attitude of them from negative to positive, you can change your whole world.  For those of you who have voices I'm here to encourage you to try.

An Apology

I'd like to apologize to Karen especially and to those of you who have been reading my blog lately.  I acted impulsively when I wrote that my ex-boyfriend was a psychopath just because I read a list of psychopathic traits.  I did not do the research and feel as if I have painted a false or misleading picture.  That was not my intention.  I was so into my own perspective, doing a lot of remembering, but I don't know exactly what was wrong with Brendan.  And so I've changed the titles of my previous blogs from "The Ghost of a Psychopath" to "The Ghost of a Young Man" into order to not draw readers who may be pulled in by the word psychopath in the title.  I considered deleting the three entries, but decided against it.  Instead I put a cautionary note at the beginning of each entry saying that I may have misdiagnosed Brendan.  Hopefully this will suffice.

My voices drew me to the word psychopathic early on in the acute stage of my illness.  They encouraged me to buy books on evil, on psychopaths, on violence and prejudice, most of which I only partially read.  It was too much for me at the time to make a serious study and so I stopped.  Even now, years later it is still difficult to approach and I have been having psychotic symptoms surfacing in response to me writing about the idea of Brendan as a psychopath.  Some of my remembering and writing was helpful to me and some of it made me vulnerable to an old delusion.  The delusion centers around me being psychically connected to a famous man, a man who the voices have claimed is a psychopathic serial killer.  I was in the grips of that delusion for most of the acute stage of my illness and I have thought about it in the intervening years.  I have often wondered why I was directed to this particular delusion.  I have thought that maybe it was Brendan who was the serial killer and I didn't know it and so the delusion was a kind of punishment for me.

In the beginning of my illness the voices did a curious thing, they painted a picture of Brendan as a devilish angel, a teacher for me, someone with a good heart; they even called him Saint Brendan.  I could identify with some of that because I had seen the healthier parts of him and I knew he had it in him to be an upstanding person.  I imagined him becoming active in a 12 Step program and going on to be a speaker at meetings, warning especially young people not to do what he had done.  I thought Brendan could have led people who were like him -- addicted and mentally ill.  In my psychotic state I gave him one of my Al-Anon daily readers and encouraged him to go to meetings.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen and then he took his life, but the delusion of the psychopathic serial killer remained strong for a couple more years.

So I have a history of identifying the famous man in my delusion as a psychopath, but I never quite stuck the label on Brendan until recently.  All I can say is that it made sense to do that at the time.  I got intense about the apparent discovery and wrote a lot about it in a short time period.  My problem was that I was taking the position that I had the knowledge to make this claim, when I did not.  Thankfully Karen and another person tried to tell me that I was on the wrong path.  At first I resisted, but then I saw that I was being irresponsible in making a claim that I couldn't quite back up and that I might be misleading the people who read my blog entries.  I saw that I was at fault, which is why I am apologizing now.  There is no point in claiming to be an honest person if I can't admit to my own mistakes.

My Response to Stigma

"Stigma is a Greek word that in its origins referred to a type of marking or tattoo that was cut or burned into the skin of criminals, slaves, or traitors in order to visibly identify them as blemished or morally polluted persons.  These individuals were to be avoided or shunned, particularly in public places."
                                                                                                 Wikipedia -- "Social Stigma"


I've been very fortunate in that I haven't experienced personal stigma until recently.  It took me a while to realize that my old friend had most likely succumbed to it.  I can only guess that the reason she decided to turn away from me had to do with the fact that I continue to be mentally ill.  Not only that, but in this blog I am vocal about it.  The irony is that I am vocal about it in order to fight the very response she gave.  Then again I can understand and even sympathize with her human self-protective response.  People pull away from the mentally ill out of fear and just plain ignorance.  I have done it, too.  I remember living in New York City and riding the subway and coming upon all sorts of mentally ill people.  I reacted to them the way most people did, by keeping my distance and shutting down.  Yes, I felt sorry for them, but the very unpredictable nature of their illness kept me on the defensive.  I even worried that one of them might somehow attack me.  Needless to say, they never did.

That was a long time ago before I got noticeably sick myself.  Experiencing severe mental illness has softened me and given me insight.  It has also caused me to become rather reclusive.  I believe that being reclusive has protected me from most of the stigma that some of my peers have experienced at work, in school, with family members and friends.  So when my friend, who responded with enthusiasm to my initial contact, became totally withdrawn from me after reading some of my blog, I had no experience with it.  I was naive in thinking that she might have a strong sympathetic response to the severe struggles I've face in life.  I even hoped that she might find things to appreciate in my writing and creative work.  I didn't even think that she might become repelled by my honesty about my illness and my process.  Only when it dawned on me that she had taken up my offer to step away because she was uncomfortable did I realize that I had made a mistake in approaching her so openly.  Only then did I realize that I had put her in a difficult position, overwhelming her instead of slowly, gently getting to know her again.

The truth seems to me that we both acted poorly, but for me there is the lingering sensation of this new found stigma, this internal tattoo on my spirit.  I've been trying to shake it since soon after we made that initial joyful contact.  That's why I waited a week and a half to write this blog entry; I wanted to see if I could truly let go, but it is hard to let go of the feeling that I am ugly and unworthy.  Not only that, but it is hard to let go of one of the few people in my life who was close to me for a time in my youth.  I think she holds the answers to the things that I've forgotten about when we were both very innocent and inexperienced.  I know it's been such a long time since then and we have changed, but my love of who she was is still alive.  She may have shut the door, but I still have the urge to try and open it a crack in hopes that someday it can be fully opened.  The I Ching has counseled me well saying that it does no good to try and force someone to do something that they don't want to do, but they also said that she would never try to make contact again.  This really saddened me.

This is a loss for me undoubtedly, but it is also a loss for her.  Just as I think she holds the key to a vital part of my past, I think that I also hold the key for her.  I knew her just before she began to transform into a woman.  She changed a lot after we stopped being friends.  The biggest change for me was her coldness.  All the while she was acting coldly to me, I was feeling warmth and regret towards her, but, being me, I withdrew and watched her from a distance.  I couldn't get past that barricade of coldness.  She even wrote a little about this in a letter she spontaneously sent to me after her dear cat died during the summer of 1981 while she was away in France.  She wrote:  "My childhood seems to be farther from my reach and even I am a little more distant or perhaps stranger."  And she was, so distant that she became a stranger to me.  And yet, she had heart enough to think of me after her cat died.  I also remember writing her a letter for her 18th birthday when we were both at college together, though not friends anymore.  I forget what I wrote, but I know I put my heart into it and I heard from someone that after she got my letter she was crying in the bathroom.  That really touched me, but we didn't renew our friendship.  I think that was because she had changed too much.  I was changing also, but not as much, not as quickly.  I was only 18 years old at the time and yet I was nostalgic.

Not so much has changed and I'm nostalgic all these years later for a time, a place and a person long gone.  But no, I continue to believe that who my friend once was is a part of her and that her heart is sensitive to me, if hidden and sore.  I seriously considered writing her an apology, but it seemed as if the moment for it had passed and that she would not welcome me in any way, shape or form.  Then I thought, just give her time and maybe try again to contact her again in the Fall.  She may have no intention of ever contacting me, but that doesn't mean that I can't try once more.  I'm planning on sending her an audio tape.  I thought maybe if she heard my voice she might feel some sort of connection to the me that used to be and that exists now.  There's just something about hearing a recording from another person.  It's genuine; you can't fake it and I have a lot of practice with being as sincere as possible.  So that's the idea I have.  I don't know if I'll do it, but I might.  And, of course, she may not listen to it even if I did send it, but I will be hoping that she gives it one try.  If she doesn't respond once again, maybe then I'll be ready to really let go.

But the time is now and now I'm feeling the ache of rejection.  I can only hope that her encounter with me, however brief, makes her more aware of what it means to suffer from mental illness.  I hope that I have sparked some curiosity in her that broadens her understanding.  I apologize to my readers for going on and on about this, it's just that it takes time to go through the process and, even if I wanted to, I can't rush it.  So this and all the lessons to be learned are what have been on my mind lately and this is what I have to offer.  One of the lessons I must absolutely learn is that I cannot keep internalizing shame.  I do have an invisible disability, but that doesn't mean that I must apologize for it or for being who I am.  I have made serious mistakes before.  I am more than willing to apologize for those.  Those are things I've done and not the essence of who I am.  Who I am is good enough.  So now I'll work to fight the natural tendency to stigmatize myself in response to being stigmatized.  If any of you have experienced stigma you need to remember that most of all.  People can be hurtful, but don't you continue it by hurting yourself.  Affirm what's good about yourself, admit to what's not and let it go.  Now I have to see if I can follow my own advice.  It may take a while, but I'm on the path.

Small Mind, Big Mind

Worldly success is not a measure of how emotionally or intellectually mature we are.  Those of us who suffer from chronic or acute mental illness must not assume that we are not as rich in inner resources as someone who has reached a position of authority.  Inversely, it is just as important for those in positions of authority to not assume that their achievements mean that there is no inner work to be done.

The proper use of power is wonderful; it is the yang element in full bloom.  It gets good things accomplished.  It is strong and firm, yet balanced and just.  It allows for the open flow of communication. The improper use of power begins to erode the strong foundations of good intent.  That's where the real trouble begins, deep inside of us, in our hearts and minds.  Even before one takes any negative action, there is a shift away from the open mind of pure power towards the closed mind of tainted power.  This takes the form of anger, resentment, jealousy or just worry and insecurity.

In Buddhist terms this shift is an example of the preoccupation of "small mind."  This is our ordinary, discursive mind, also called grasping mind or monkey mind.  This is the place of ego which feeds the illusion that one's Self is solid, central, powerful and real.  This is the place where all of us fall into delusion, regardless of our history of mental illness or our various levels of external success.  All of us share in the common humanity of having egos.  The point is not to get rid of the ego, but to get to know it, understand it, befriend it.

Pema Chodron has said that ego comes down to "a slight misunderstanding of the true state of reality" that can lead into interpersonal conflicts, even wars.  This misunderstanding divides us from each other.  If we were to see clearly, we would see that we are all made of the same stuff, and beyond that, we are all interconnected.  Egos put us in the dualistic mindset of "good" and "bad".  Egos set up hierarchies like the caste system from the Brahmin to the Untouchables.  This is the core of the misunderstanding, the erroneous distinction that serves to keep us each to our own country or neighborhood or group.

I have written a little bit about the importance of building bridges between people of conflicting views.  If we can't do it in our daily lives with the people we meet, how can we hope to overcome global conflicts?  That's some of the power I see in taking a Buddhist perspective; it only works individual by individual, from inside out.  The more of us that take small stands here and there, the more of that good power, that Buddha Nature, gets spread around and the deeper the roots go.  It may take a while to see the fruition, but, with patience, I believe we shall.

Buddhist call Buddha Nature "big mind" or natural mind, wisdom mind.  It's the place of inspiration and insight.  It's the place where we can let go of our ego trip.  Small mind wants to "fix" situations and people; it is all caught up in itself.  Big mind lets go of the desires to control.  It goes with the flow of ever changing times and is, as Pema Chodron has often said, comfortable with uncertainty and "the fundamental ambiguity of being human."

Most of us stay somewhat stuck in small mind, but never permanently; there are always windows of opportunity, times of inspiration or insight.  It is up to us to recognize the difference between being all caught up and being in harmony with our surroundings and other people.  The first step is just to see it without doing anything about it.  Just look at yourself as you are and sit with it.  Learn to sit with the discomfort of realizing that you are closed off and stuck.  It is learning to accept yourself and others in the present that allows you to make the transition into big mind with its broad and balanced perspective.   Then you can relax with the uncertainty of things without needing to grasp onto anything to try and "fix" it.  Then you can accept even the people that cause you conflict.

I got caught up in some small mind thinking this past week, but then I realized that I was hurting myself and I opened up, let go into the gradual cultivation of lovingkindness for myself and my old friend.  To be compassionate and tolerant is the proper place for me and her and all of you.  Outer appearances can be deceptive and inner essence can be obscured.  The only way back to clarity is by letting go of superficial judgments and, let's face it, a lot of our judgments are superficial, especially when we measure people and situations based on success or failure.  It's not the judgments that hold us together, it's the purity of our hearts to forgive and be forgiven.  It's love.  What would the world be like without love?  Love is wise, hate is foolish.  Why do so many people proclaim that hate is wise and love is foolish?  It's a misguided, self protective measure that only escalates one's personal insecurity.

Bonds formed when we were young go deep, whether we like it or not.  But the depth of the bond is like pure, fresh water from a well.  It can revitalize and sustain us through hard times and easy times, but we have to go to the well and drink; it won't come to us.  My heart is open and receptive despite the uncertainty.  I drink from the well and hope others will, too.