My Dysfunctional Personality

The subject of Borderline Personality Disorder came up during a recent on-line conversation. That’s when I remembered finding out, to my surprise, that my complete diagnosis actually includes that one too. I’m not sure if it’s because my doctors just don’t have the time to go into all of their findings with me, or what, but I never would have known at all if not for having a “friend with access” who provided me with a complete printout.

Amazingly enough, I’ve never gotten around to dragging an explanation out of my doctors. Between the fact that there were more than one little “mystery” in that printout, and having to reveal just how I had come across the information in the first place, I simply could never figure out how to go about it.

Prior to this on-line conversation, I hadn’t thought about my “mystery” diagnosis for years. But once my curiosity was aroused I decided that I wanted to know more. So I finally clicked on a link in one of the e-mails I get on a regular basis from various mental health related sites, and after a little more clicking, came across an interesting New York Times article that provides some fascinating insights into an often misunderstood condition.

What I found so fascinating was the fact that the definition for Borderline Personality Disorder is so broad that it not only includes my symptomatology, but also that of other members of my own family that I wouldn’t have thought shared the same illness I did. If you’ve read the other articles in the My Life series, then perhaps you can understand my amazement.

For example, the article says:

People with the disorder are said to have a thin emotional skin and often behave like 2-year-olds, throwing tantrums when some innocent word, gesture, facial expression or action by others sets off an emotional storm they cannot control. The attacks can be brutal, pushing away those they care most about…

and:

In an effort to maintain calm, families often struggle to avoid situations that can set off another outburst. They walk on eggshells, a doomed effort because it is not possible to predict what will prompt an outburst. Living with a borderline person is like traversing a minefield; you never know when an explosion will occur.

While the part about having a “thin emotional skin” may certainly fit in with my symptoms, there are members of my family that this entire description fits to a tee. To this day, I have a very difficult time being around them because the stress of having to “walk on eggshells” is just too much for my fragile mentality to deal with.

But “family history” plays such a large role in mental health issues that I have always wondered if there is a common link between my illness – that I have decided to recognize and deal with – and the obvious issues that my family has never even been willing to acknowledge. Fortunately, the article addresses that as well:

… affected individuals seem to be born with a quick and unduly sensitive emotional trigger. The condition appears to have both genetic and environmental underpinnings. Brain studies have indicated that the emotional center of the nervous system — the amygdala — may be overly reactive, while the part that reins in emotional reactions may be underactive.

As children, people who will develop the disorder are often “hyperreactive, hypervigilant and supersensitive,” Valerie Porr, a therapist in New York, said in an interview. Typically they receive a host of misdiagnoses and treatments that are inappropriate and ineffective.

“Some children need more than others in learning to regulate their emotions,” said Marsha M. Linehan, a psychologist at the University of Washington who devised the leading treatment for borderline disorder.

“These kids require a lot of effort to keep themselves emotionally regulated,” Dr. Linehan said in an interview. “They do best with stability. If the family situation is chaotic or the family is very uptight, teaching children to grin and bear it, that tough kids don’t cry, these children will have a lot of trouble.”

Finally, I’m beginning to see the whole picture. “Hyperreactive, hypervigilant and supersensitive” absolutely describes both myself and other members of my family. And if there was a picture of my family in some “encyclopedia of dysfunctional families,” the caption would read: “An uptight and chaotic situation, where children are taught to ‘grin and bear it’ and ‘tough kids don’t cry.’”

In the end, I guess the only thing that really distinguishes us is that part about “a lot of effort to keep themselves emotionally regulated.” While it has cost me more than I ever expected, I’m the only one out of my entire family who tried to model his behavior on the example set by Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. Of the limited choices my childhood provided to me, I’ve chosen to just be cool.

To read the full article: An Emotional Hair Trigger, Often Misread.

I want ice water.

Reruns and Memories

I’m not sure why, but for whatever reason I find it difficult to watch re-runs of some of my favorite, if now defunct, TV shows. This is especially true for comedies. But sometimes there’s nothing else on so I watch one, and almost always end up wondering why I’d been denying myself the chance to renew a pleasure that I had sorely missed. A case in point is WKRP In Cincinnati. A ball game I was watching the other night was in a rain delay and I needed something else to watch that I wasn’t likely to get so wrapped up in that I forgot about the game, and WKRP was playing on the very next channel. Well I ended up watching two episodes back-to-back and missing the resumption of the game. I actually think the time was better spent.

Now I have no idea what the inner workings of a radio station are really like, but I do know that when I watched that show regularly I couldn’t imagine a better job than being a disc jockey. Getting to hear the latest releases before the world at large. Being myself before a huge audience while I’m actually alone in a protective shell of technology. Having an audience that actually wants to hear what I’m playing. What could be better than that? But watching WKRP In Cincinnati also brought back a great memory of an experience I had with a real, also now defunct, local radio station.

It was back in the late 90s and I was just beginning to come to grips with “my terrible illness.” Having been declared “unemployable” because of my reluctance to deal with the world outside my home, I had spent well over $4000 of my “retirement money” on computer equipment that I intended to use for a home-based business providing graphics and printing services to small businesses, as well as computer training to the neighborhood kids. Unfortunately, operating a business, any business, requires that you actually engage in an effort to gain clientèle, so I ended up mainly creating a lot of things to print out on my fancy new $750 color ink-jet printer.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was quite proud of the philosophical pronouncements and song lyrics – with graphics – that I was producing, but they hardly justified the enormous expenditures required to produce them. And trust me, having only a dial-up connection to what was then a very primitive world wide web didn’t help when it came to doing research. Unlike today, there weren’t zillions of sites to go to to get the lyrics for songs, so I reproduced them mainly from memory. And when memory failed, I reproduced them by listening to my old vinyl records over and over again until I was satisfied.

But I was stumped when it came to Don McLean’s American Pie. Like so many other “one hit wonders,” I hadn’t bothered to actually buy the record, so I was attempting to reproduce the lyrics entirely from memory. Unlike the therapeutic value I had gotten from mentally working out the lyrics to other songs, my attempt to do this with such a long and complicated song had rapidly become an exercise in self-torture. But like the fabled monkey with his fist in the jar, I simply could not let it go. Which is what gave me the idea to call up a radio station for help.

I think the station was called “Arrow” or something like that. They specialized in playing classic rock from the 60s and 70s, and seemed the perfect place to call for help. Unfortunately, the guy I talked to told me that their broadcasts were pre-programmed and that they only did requests on an infrequent basis. I guess he caught the disappointment in my voice upon hearing that, so he asked me what was up. Without really meaning to go into such detail, I told him about the depression and how I used working through the lyrics to my favorite songs as a kind of therapy.

Well to my absolute amazement, the guy actually offered to play the song for me over the phone, using a cassette deck he had in his office. He went even further by offering to rewind and replay all or any part of the song until I was happy. Needless to say, I will never forget his understanding and his generosity. I only wish I could remember his name.

I’ve included the lyrics to this song below (downloaded this time – I lost the ones I worked out long ago). I’ve also included the song itself on the associated music playlist.

American Pie by Don McLean

A long long time ago
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while.
But February made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn’t take one more step
I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died

{Refrain}
So bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die

Did you write the Book of Love
And do you have faith in God above
If the Bible tells you so
Do you believe in rock ‘n roll
Can music save your mortal soul
And can you teach me how to dance real slow
Well, I know that you’re in love with him
‘Cause I saw you dancin’ in the gym
You both kicked off your shoes
Man, I digged those rhythm & blues
I was a lonely teenage broncin’ buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died

I started singin’
{Refrain}

Now for ten years we’ve been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rollin’ stone
But that’s not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the King and Queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh, and while the King was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book of Marx
The quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died

We were singing
{Refrain}

Helter Skelter in a summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
It landed foul out on the grass
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast
Now the half-time air was sweet perfume
While the Sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
‘Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died

We started singing
{Refrain}

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation Lost in Space
With no time left to start again
So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
‘Cause fire is the Devil’s only friend
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in hell
Could break that Satan’s spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died

He was singing
{Refrain}

I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the man there said the music woudn’t play
And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died

And they were singing
{Refrain}

They were singing
Bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my chevy to the levee
But the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die

I want ice water.

Speech Therapy

This article has been inspired by a rerun of Boston Legal where Alan Shore started having these bouts where his usually well conceived and colorful manner of speech came out of his mouth as pure gibberish instead. Being a lawyer renowned for his eloquent oratory, he was understandably concerned. While discussing the problem with his partner Denny Crane, he revealed that, other than Denny himself, his words were his only real friends. This struck me like the proverbial lightning bolt.

As anyone who has read my ramblings before would know, I have a certain fondness for using lots of words, in what I hope has been a well conceived manner, to precisely get across the ideas I want to express. My readers will also not be surprised to read that I have a rather large ego. The fact is that my large ego – the very essence of me – revolves around my love for using precise language to express my thoughts. So I hope you can understand why Alan’s problem struck home with me.

I had already been fascinated by the slow progression of Denny’s Alzheimer’s disease – what he calls his “mad cow.” As someone with a big ego and a history of mental illness, the idea of losing ones faculties is frightening enough. But to add in the prospect that I could be speaking with what I thought was my usual brilliance only to have everyone within earshot look at me as if I’d gone stark raving mad… Well that’s a truly terrifying prospect indeed.

The truth is that I’m no where near as good live as I think I am on paper (screen?), but I think you get what I mean. Since no one knows what the future will bring, I guess the thing to do is to speak (or write) about the subjects that are important to me while I can. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.

I want ice water.

Pride, Respect and Pain

After a very long time, I had the opportunity to talk to my oldest son the other day. I say ’talk to’ because I hardly let him get in a word edgewise. When I realized how much I was hogging the conversation I started to apologize by telling him how rare it has become for me to have someone to talk to, and that was when he told me how much he has in fact missed listening to me. Since we were also discussing his becoming my roommate, I was glad to hear him say that. But his statement planted a thought in my head that didn’t come to the fore until I watched Tavis Smiley’s interview with Mickey Rourke tonight.

Mr. Rourke’s description of the childhood demons that plagued him almost to the point of self-destruction caused me to reflect on my own. Both of us were affected by childhoods filled with violence and pain, and both of us chose to develop a ’hard’ persona to protect us from that pain while attempting to prove that we were a match for the evils that we perceived the world to have set against us. The difference between us lies only in the manner in which we chose to present our ’hardness’ to the world. His choice was the persona of the man who could not be touched through a shield of violence. My choice was the persona of the man who could not be touched through a shield of mental perfection.

I’ve always been so determined to prove that I was too ’smart’ to be affected on any deep level by the chaos and pain of our lives. I did this by attempting to appear to have an answer to everyone’s problem, and of course, an appropriate sermon to go along with my advise. This had both positive and negative consequences. On the positive side, maintaining this persona required me to learn quite a lot about the human condition, and also how to communicate my ideas effectively. On the negative side, this persona made conversing with me a real ’downer’ for some, and made me appear as an arrogant ass to others.

The problem was that perfecting this persona had become the very basis for any sense of pride that I had. I simply never believed that I could ever truly be respected without it. But the harder I worked at it the more difficult the task became, and I seemed to be moving farther and farther away from the respect I wanted. In a very real sense, my ego had become like the planet held up by the shoulders of Atlas, which only grew heavier the harder I strained to hold it up. Eventually it became more than I could bear and I had a mental breakdown as a result. The irony of it all is that as I slid down into addiction and despair, I became in reality both unreachable and untouchable to those around me.

I have to admit that I found comfort for a while in being thought of as ’crazy’ by other people. After all, who would expect a crazy person to have all the answers? But at the same time it really irked me to be judged ’chemically imbalanced’ by doctors and ’unemployable’ by the government. Especially when my mental state seemed to me the logical result of being a sane person living in an insane world. But over time I have come to realize that ’sane’ is a relative term, and that no one is completely sane when compared to some perfectionist ideal. I’ve also come to see that the disappointment that I saw in peoples eyes when I was really screwing up wasn’t because I had been revealed as imperfect after all - everyone already knew I was human, but because it looked like I had given up on striving for perfection - what actually made me special to them in the first place.

It’s now been over two weeks since I started writing this article. Something about the subject matter, in combination with other events in my life, made it too difficult to continue until tonight. What got me going again was seeing Mickey Rourke on Charley Rose last night and helping my oldest son move in with me earlier today. As far as the Rourke interview last night is concerned, I was again struck by the amazing combination of strength and vulnerability that exudes from the man. How can I not feel compassion for a man whose ’shield’ has failed him at least as badly as my own has failed me? But at the same time, how can I not have hope for myself when I see how possible it is for one to survive the failure and come out better for it?

I don’t know if the people who have been disappointed by my failures feel so because I had given them hope and then dashed it, or because I was no longer amusing them by acting like some Don Quixote character battling against impossible odds. And I guess it’s that not knowing that fuels my fear of being a further disappointment or an even bigger fool. But I know that the bottom line that I must stick with is the fact that I do what I do for myself and that it’s my own respect that I must earn. Pain is, after all, an unavoidable consequence of being alive, and genuine pride can only come from self-respect.

I want ice water.

Love, Loss, Anger, and Faith

Now that My Terrible Ordeal is over, I can get on with trying to salvage the rest of my life. In addition to all of this writing, being sober and temporarily without the distractions of telephone, cable TV and Internet has allowed me to take a more clear headed look at my life up to now. These circumstances have also allowed me, with some difficulty, to resume my love of reading and listening to music. This is difficult because those things are clear evidence of the state of my psyche at the time I chose them. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with some of my history and of my tendency for idealistic thinking. Well all those books, records, and memories are painful reminders of the choices that tendency has led me to make. Choices like who and what I loved, what I did and did not give up to pursue those loves, and what I did in response to their loss.

I must say that my definition of what ’love’ is has evolved to be quite different from what other people say it is. I now believe that a person can truly love only the people and the things that represent that person’s ideals brought to life. Unfortunately, my definition was nowhere near complete enough to be a proper guide for some very critical choices I made in that area. So although my current beliefs did exist in infant form, they were of little help in preventing me from becoming locked into what later became very painful relationships with women and things. Of the two women important enough to write about, the first was my early childhood sweetheart and the other is the mother of my five children. The things are too numerous to mention other than to say that they were the typical kind that we waste so much time, energy, and money pursuing.

While I have little ambition for things these days, the women have been nowhere near as easy to dismiss. Regardless of how I feel about love and philosophy now, the feelings I have for these two women are still so strong that I literally get a psychic shock whenever either of them cross my mind. I try very hard to tell myself that my feelings aren’t rational because I shouldn’t feel this strongly for anyone not ’qualified’ for my love, but I might as well be spitting into a fan for all the good that does me. And there’s simply no possibility that I can prevent the thoughts altogether, especially when it comes to the mother of my children. So I guess that the only thing left to do is to face those memories and feelings head-on like all the head-shrinkers advise.

Before I can begin to describe either of those relationships, I must delve a little into the circumstances - and my thoughts about them - that surrounded them. I was born into a time of great turmoil and anticipation. If you know anything about the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, you’ll understand why this was so. And I’m not sure whether it was arrogance or naivete on my part, but somehow I came to believe that I had a special talent for judging right from wrong and for finding the good in anyone. My faith in my abilities gave me the confidence to take on many challenges that I might not otherwise have taken on.

But the belief that I was somehow ’special’ also left me feeling that I had a bit of an unfair advantage over other people. This feeling was reinforced by their apparent lack of faith in their own abilities and by the ’protected’ state I lived in due to having such a dangerous father. In turn, this led me to never want to appear ’superior’ to anyone and to never tell anyone of my fear for them should they be seen by my father as a threat. So I adopted the persona of a non-confrontational person who gave everyone the benefit of doubt, while I secretly strived to keep my true perceptions to myself.

But also behind the mask I wore raged the heart of a romantic idealist who believed himself capable of perceiving both the true pains of the world and the answers needed to alleviate that pain. Thus began the log lasting conflict between the person I let people see and the desire to be recognized as the ’answer’ I wanted to be. I became a person who denied the possibility of finding a ’perfect’ mate for himself while always campaigning to bring everyone to a state of ’perfection.’ As anyone in my family will eagerly tell you, that was not the way to begin a long and healthy life. But that’s how I ended up choosing women for mates not because of who they were but rather who I thought they could be. That’s not to say, despite the opinions of others, that just anyone would do.

My first ’love’ was a little girl that lived next door to me at the time of my earliest memories, when I still thought of myself as Bobby Hart. From then until I was ten years old, we spent practically all of our time together. She seemed so perfect to me. In fact, her family seemed more like my true family than the one I was born to. They even looked like me, which was kind of unusual in those days. My attachment to her was so strong that it inspired the first obsession I had with a song - The Monkees' I'm A Believer. But when I was ten we began to drift apart. I think this was mainly because she was a grade higher than I was in school, and had developed a circle of friends who couldn’t understand why she would spend so much time with a ’lesser’ being.

She had also developed an interest in other boys. The only fight I was ever in that I actually started, was with one of my perceived rivals. As I remember it, the fight pretty much ended in a draw. But I remember quite clearly how embarrassed I was at my behavior and the struggle I had to regain her respect. To me, those results felt like a terrible loss. I kept on trying to keep that relationship alive however, right up to my twelfth birthday when my mom shipped me off to live with my sister in L.A. I’ve seen her only twice since then.

The first time was after I was discharged from the Air Force over eight years later, during a drug-induced search for lost love after my wife revealed that she was pregnant by another man and had refused to resume our broken marriage. She was still just as beautiful as I remembered her, and still cared enough to welcome my visit in spite of the circumstances. But the fairy tale reunion came crashing down when should told me that she was in love with the guy I had started the fight with. The last time was during a road trip for my job. That’s when I found out that she had married that same guy and had a couple of pretty little girls by him. Since he really was a decent guy, and I was back with my wife at the time anyway, I did the best I could to hide my pain. Whether she bought my act or not is anyone’s guess.

I met my now ex-wife right after I moved to Ohio from L.A. in 1970, when I was fourteen and just getting used to being teased about that damned Janis Joplin song. She didn’t look like me the way my first ’love’ did, but I found her athletic grace and stature to be irresistible. Her family lived across the street in the housing project my sister lived in, and when I finally got up the nerve to talk to her, I found that she was a very bright fifteen year old who was very active in track and girl’s basketball. I myself have never been much into sports, but I had a pretty good hook shot and was fast enough to outrun her. And amazingly enough, she was a year ahead of me in school and was born in February - just like the first girl I fell in love with.

Over time I also discovered that, until I actually introduced myself, everyone she knew had wondered why ’a White kid like me’ was such a frequent visitor at my sister’s house. And even after I thought I had made it clear that my interest was in her, she and her sister still tried to fix me up with the White girl down the street. From the perspective of a horny teen-aged boy, it seemed to take forever to convince her that I was worth spending time with. Looking back on it now however, I have to wonder just how convinced she really was. You see, except for my intense attraction to her, we had almost nothing in common. All of our interests in music, in books, and in how we spent our time apart were completely different.

Although she was obviously just as bright as I was, the things she chose to focus her intelligence on made no sense to me whatsoever. I’m sure that she too wondered at the oddity of our relationship, because she introduced me one day to a potential suitor who just had to see it for himself. That really hurt. But I was relieved nonetheless when she chose me over him. And even after I joined the Air Force just to be financially ready to do so, I was still amazed when she agreed to marry me just three years after we met. If you consider the fact that we had to fake a pregnancy in front of a judge because I was only seventeen at the time, you can perhaps empathize a little with how I felt.

Have you ever heard the song I Hope You Dance by Leann Womack? It’s probably a fair bet that my ex-wife hasn’t, but if she had it could have given her some insights into the way I feel about my life today. You see when I was very young, I was so naive and uninhibited that I actually loved to dance all by myself in the bootleg joints frequented by my mother. As long as people kept giving me dimes to put in the jukebox, I danced like I was alone and happy on the moon. Unfortunately for our marriage, I had become increasingly extremely shy and introverted by the time we met. I had also discovered what actually motivated all those gyrations at the parties and nightclubs she wanted us to go to. So when I needed to the most, I just couldn’t bring myself to dance with her in public.

When you add to that the fact that my mental state also denied me the ambition needed to properly provide for our family, the fact that she remained married to me for almost thirty-three years is kind of hard to believe. And through all of those years, through all the highs of our reunions after the lows of our separations, through the successful births of our children and the frequent miscarriages, through all the stupid things I did that should have driven her away, she stuck with me. And the intensity of my feelings for her never diminished one little bit. Even after my spirit-liberating discovery of Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, during the months of separation surrounding my military discharge, I was still unable to give her the life I wanted for us after we got back together - although for an entirely different reason at that point.

And for that same reason, the conflict between the person I showed to the world and the person I actually was became so great that it led to a psychotic breakdown. But she still kept me in her life, even through hospitalizations for mental health, drug abuse, and pancreatitis. However, I knew it was finally over when I awoke from a medically-induced coma, after an almost fatal resurgence of the pancreatitis, to see that she had brought her new man with her to visit me. Ironically, it was the guy she was with when I got out of the Air Force. You know, the guy she chose to be with instead of resuming our marriage. The one who actually fathered my first child - the son who still considers me to be his dad even though he knows otherwise.

But maybe the true irony lies in the fact that, in spite of all the drama, I still miss my ex-wife with an intensity I couldn’t begin to explain. Just hearing her voice on the phone can bring on one of those crying jags I struggle so hard to avoid. If there were no more evidence than that of just how badly twisted my mind has become, I think that should still be quite enough. But her new man is actually a very nice guy despite the animosity between him and our son. She certainly seems to be living a far more comfortable life than the one she had with me. And I truly don’t want to cause them any pain. So I try my best not to let my feelings show. But I’ve always been a very poor liar and I have my doubts about how successful my efforts have been.

Now that I’m nearing end of this article, an amazing thought has occurred to me. While watching the Presidential inauguration earlier, I was once again impressed by the imposing stature of Michelle Obama. If I had to guess, I would lean towards her being the physically stronger of the two. And that’s when it hit me. Do you recall my earlier statement that I believe you can truly love only that which represents your ideals brought to life? Well I realize now that the irresistible attraction I have always felt for my ex-wife derives it’s power from the strength that I first saw in her from across the street when we were kids. And it has been reinforced time and again by the courage and confidence she has demonstrated throughout the years.

Despite all my rationalizations to the contrary, telling myself that it didn’t make sense for me to love her because she didn’t look the way I wanted my woman to look and didn’t have the same goals that I did, I realize now that I did indeed love her. Not because she fit some magazine definition of beauty. Not because we wanted to do the same things and pursue the same goals. Not even because she truly was the best sexual partner I’ve ever had and of all the wonderful children that having sex with her produced. I loved her because she completed me by possessing the courage, confidence, and strength that I have always lacked and was willing to put up with me anyway. I’ve heard it said that, "There’s no fool like an old fool," While I don’t know if such an imbalanced love can ever actually work, knowing the true nature of my love for her might have helped.

To be clear, I have had other, shorter term, relationships with girls and women, all with equally disastrous results. I have not had even a one night stand since the end of my marriage in 2002. That is, other than those of the infrequent and always disappointing pay-to-play variety. The loneliness has gotten to be almost more than I can bear. But I’m so full of unresolved anger at myself and my circumstances that I simply haven’t had the confidence or the courage needed to approach a prospective mate while dragging such a mountain of pain and confusion behind me. Considering my history, I fear that starting a new relationship before dumping some of this baggage will only lead to more disaster.

My regular readers know how I like to include lyrics from my favorite songs in these articles. And when it comes to the subject of love, I’ve certainly had a wide array to choose from. I’ve looked into the soulful sounds of The Temptations, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Sly and the Family Stone, Lionel Richie, Hall and Oates, Grand Funk Railroad, Larry Graham, and Whitney Houston. I’ve surfed the melodic waves of The Beatles, The Carpenters, Elton John, Billy Joel, The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Yes, U2, Heart, and REO Speedwagon. I’ve even churned through the dark and angry waters of The Police, John Waite, Def Leppard, The Who, The Eurhythmics and Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut is an excellent reflection of my love life:

"Through the fish-eye lens of tear stained eyes
I can barely discern the shape of this moment in time.
And far from flying high in clear blue skies
I’m spiraling down to the hole in the ground where I hide.

If you negotiate the minefields in the drive
And beat the dogs and cheat the cold electronic eyes.
And if you make it past the shotgun in the hall.
Dial the combination. Open the priest hole.
And if I’m in I’ll tell you what’s behind the wall.

There’s a kid who had a big hallucination
Of making live to girls in magazines.
He wonders if you’re sleeping with your new found faith?
Could anybody love him? Or is it just a crazy dream?

And if I show you my dark side, will you still hold me tonight?
And if I open my heart to you, show my weak side,
What would you do?
Would you sell your story to Rolling Stone?
Would you take the children away and leave me alone?
And smile in reassurance as you whisper down the phone?
Would you send me packing?
Or would you take me home?

Thought I ought to bare my naked feelings.
Thought I ought to tear the curtain down.
I held the blade in trembling hands, prepared to make it but
Just then the phone rang.
I never had the nerve to make the final cut."

The only significant difference between that story and my actual life is, ironically, the fact that the ringing I heard before attempting suicide was the call of crack cocaine.

Considering the state of my recent ’love’ life, maybe I’d be better off these days looking to groups like The Tube’s when they sang:

"You can step outside your little world.
You can talk to a pretty girl.
She’s everything you dream about...
But don’t fall in love!"

But for the future I’m still hoping for, perhaps the best advice came from the group Toto when they sang:

"Hold the line. Love isn’t always on time."

I have no idea if writing about these things will truly have the exorcising effect I hope for, but I do know that having copies of them outside of my head seems to somehow diminish the power of the ones still inside my head. I’m holding on very tightly to the hope that it’ll all work out in the end. I guess that would be the ’faith’ part of this whole thing. And in the real world, that may just be the best that I can hope for.

I want ice water.

"Fortunately, I keep 'em numbered..."

"... for just such an emergency." Thus spoke the great Foghorn Leghorn in one of my very favorite cartoons. He was, of course, referring to his feathers, which had been blown off in yet another failed attempt to get than darned hound dog. Although I watched many cartoons as a kid, there's something about that loud-mouthed southern baritone that really appealed to me. And while the Foghorn vs. hound dog conflicts were certainly no less violent than Bugs vs. anyone, that southern accent somehow made them seem more 'civil.' And, of course, it's 'civility' that I like to talk about.

In all of the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons, the plot always involves the two adversaries devising and setting in motion various schemes based on their predictions of how the other would behave in a given set of circumstances. Invariably however, there were unaccounted for events that caused their schemes to blow up in their faces. And that, of course, is what makes them funny. We laugh because it reminds us of our own ill-fated attempts to overcome the unpredictability of life, in a way that's so much less distressing than the memories of our failures.

So, to the double-edged issue at hand: Is there something wrong with wanting to be able to predict the way people will react to things? And is there also something wrong with being predictable to other people? The first side is important to me because my inability to predict the reactions of others leads me to feel that either myself, or everyone else, is insane. The second side is important because I have too often been labeled as 'boring' because I'm so predictableThis last was brought to my attention when someone I cared for deeply revealed that I had been the butt of a secret running joke about it.

To me, a person who thinks and acts in a rational manner should be predictable. After all, isn't predictability part of the definition of rational? But if I'm predictable because I'm rational, what does it mean when people whom I find to be unpredictable are able to predict my reactions so easily? Call me crazy, but I think that other people deliberately behave in a manner that makes them hard to predict and that I'm so predictable because I don't. Which brings us to the issue of spontaneity.

In today's society, predictability equates to a lack of spontaneity and, of course, a lack of spontaneity means that you're boring. And by the same logic, being unpredictable means that you're interesting and/or exciting. If you don't believe me, I invite you to take a look at the statistics on relationships. The fact is that the vast majority of relationships end in disaster precisely because people believe that they must behave in unpredictable ways to be attractive, and that those who behave in unpredictable ways are the ones they want.

Now I will admit that perhaps I'm a little obsessive in my desire to predict everything. But my 'lack of spontaneity' stems from a very rational fear of the unpredictable reactions of others.

Have a listen to Nothing Ever Goes As Planned by Styx for a musical metaphor for this post.

I want ice water.

Opening Rant

I have been diagnosed with Major Depression since 1995, although I now think that, without all the masks and self-medication I used to hide from the world, I might well have been diagnosed much earlier. Over time, the initial diagnosis has been expanded to include other 'issues' as well. This I know because of helpful 'peeks' into my files provided by friends who thought I should know. These modifications came about, I believe, because the doctors have been confused by both my sessions with them and by the results of all the testing I've submitted to.

One thing they all seem to agree on is that a person who breaks down in tears over what appears to be trivial events, and hides himself away from people to the point where he cannot be trusted to handle his own affairs, must be 'mentally ill.' Also, I'm sure it didn't help when I stated my belief that, rather than myself, it's those who are not depressed while living in the world we live in that are mentally ill. I still don't understand why, in spite of the epidemic-like use of anti-depressants, alcohol and other not-so-legal mood altering drugs, my statement was dismissed outright and regarded only as further proof of my 'illness.'

Okay, so just how did I get to this sad point? To begin with, I was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1955. I'm of mixed racial heritage, with my mother being half Black, half American-Indian, and my father being half Black, half White. You do the math. Apparently, my appearance has lead most people to assume that I'm White. As you can probably imagine, looking the way I do while living and growing up in mostly Black communities through the 50's, 60's and 70's had a profound impact on my psychological development. Wanted or not, the perspective of 'outsider' was forced upon me.

Another profound impact on my development happened in elementary school, when I was first introduced to the honor rule. I can clearly remember the chill that went down my spine when my adolescent mind grasped the significance of being on my own and responsible for myself. It was both scary and exhilarating at once and, in my own childish way, I knew that this was one of the most important lessons I would ever learn. It meant that I had to think for myself and take responsibility for my own actions. I had to take charge of my own mind so that I could be sure to do the right thing.

These two experiences formed the core of a lifelong quest, out of fear and the need to develop the tools required to survive in a hostile environment. I became driven to question everything I was ever taught, and the motives of everyone I knew, including myself. But I knew enough to realize that such a mentality, if too obvious, would only bring further harm upon my self. So I took on the persona of 'the naive seeker of wisdom' in to appear harmless. I thought it would be easier to be perceived as just another 'space head' than as someone seeking to judge the people with whom I interacted. Oddly enough, 'spacehead' was exactly the nickname given to me by my 'friends' at one time.

Since then, my life has been an extreme roller-coaster ride through other experiences - other lessons, both good and bad. From West Virginia, to California, to Ohio, to marriage and the Air Force, to college and kids and work and debt. I went from wide-eyed optimism and a 'can do' attitude about my ability to handle any problem, to drug abuse, psychological breakdowns, hospitalizations, disability, divorce, and finally, isolation. I've learned a great many things - some of which I'm trying to unlearn. I've done some good, and many things I wish I could undo. Yet, as I don't grant anyone the credit for my successes, I blame only myself for my failures. You see, I knew better!

Today, from a philosophical standpoint, I'm what I think of as a 'backsliding' Objectivist. Objectivism is a philosophy developed by the late novelist Ayn Rand. She believed that, aware of it or not, each of us has a philosophy of life that is behind our every thought and action. This acts as the main survival tool for cognitive beings such as ourselves, who aren't equipped with the instinctual responses of animals and, therefore, should be chosen with deliberate care - because our very lives depend on it. Objectivism is her attempt to provide mankind with such a philosophy. Simply stated, and in the best language I can muster, Objectivism is the philosophy of absolute freedom and it's corollary, absolute responsibility.

When I first started college in 1976, I was accused of sounding just like Ayn Rand by a school library clerk with whom I had frequent friendly 'debates.' I had never heard of Ayn Rand before, so I asked her to show me an example of Rand's works. They didn't have much, so she handed me a copy of The Fountainhead. Whew! Let me tell you, reading that book was like seeing my very own soul, in clear and concise language I couldn't hope to equal, poured out on the pages before me. I was absolutely dumbfounded! Without going into unnecessary detail, it was the story of a man who stood against the merciless tide of collective humanity out to destroy him for his unwavering stance in favor of his individual right to live as a free man - by his own standards and at his own expense. It was after that that I knew!

I knew then that the thing that had been in my gut since elementary school was right. That all the altruistic bullshit I had condoned, both implicitly and explicitly, in order to 'help create a better world,' was just that - Bullshit. That all the talk about 'self-sacrifice' and 'service to man' was just the verbal manifestation of same kind of evil that has been the root cause of all the blood-letting and destruction perpetrated by man throughout the ages. Until then I could justify my poor reasoning as mere 'ignorance.' But after, I knew that this type of ignorance was not 'accidental,' but rather the act of deliberately substituting the beliefs of others in place of my own. I knew then that if I continued to support such beliefs, in any way, that I would be committing the worst kind of sin a man can commit - the sin of moral suicide!

So I threw my self into reading Ayn Rand's books, along with anything else I could find that rang true to me. To this day, with almost no one to hear it, I will preach it to anyone who'll listen. But now, rather than being considered merely 'eccentric,' I'm considered 'delusional' and other not-so-nice labels associated with my having been diagnosed 'mentally ill.' But it's not what I preach that's wrong, it's my compulsion to preach it to people with their fingers in their ears. You see, along with all this 'growth and enlightenment,' I also accumulated quite an attachment to the people in my life. In spite of how wrong I knew it to be, I just couldn't turn my back and walk away. It wasn't until after the bottom fell out that I learned the final lesson. There's a reason why flight attendants tell you, in case of emergency, to put on your own air mask before helping your loved ones with theirs: You can't help those you care about if you're incapacitated!

Okay, I hadn't intended to be so long-winded - but clarity is important to me. I'll now conclude this sad tale, and sum up what I think about myself and the rest of humanity. To my knowledge, and actual experience, we represent the pinnacle of life in what we know of the universe. I have yet to see proof that there are any limitations to what we are capable of, except for those limitations we place on ourselves. And yet, we squander and belittle this capacity in an insane effort to escape the responsibility it represents. I believe the unconscious knowledge of this abdication is the reason behind the one consistent theme in all of the theories of life and morality I have come across: the notion that you get what you deserve. Now tell me, where do you think beings such as us are headed? What final judgement would YOU pass on mankind?

Now I don't personally believe in God or anything else 'supernatural,' but as the evidence for the existence of superior intellect and technology can be seen all around us, I have no problem with the idea that there may be beings 'more evolved' than we are. But such debates serve only, and perhaps deliberately, to distract us from the fact that there does exist a final, and absolute, supreme arbiter - Reality! To paraphrase the cliches thrown around in the rehabilitation community: "Nothing changes if nothing changes" and "Making the same choices while expecting different results is the definition of insanity". Sooner or later reality catches up to you, and if you're caught with your pants down you're going to be, as they say, Ass Out! Please pardon my slang.

I am paying a very high price for my sins and, just in case you're delusional enough to think you won't have to pay for yours, may I point out the state of the world around you. In Ayn Rand's greatest work, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt vowed to 'stop the motor of the world' to punish mankind for the sins I've outlined. Well, what we are now experiencing is justice being delivered by the real John Galt - Reality! And as another character in that book answered when asked what he thought was going to happen to the world, "Exactly what it deserves."

Now, for those of you about to sharpen your pitchforks and fire up the torches, you might begin the assault by crying 'who the hell are you to pass judgment on all of us?' In answer to that question, I resort to another Rand quote: "words do have exact meanings." While assuming that you're even capable of rational thought amidst the fog of rage, I ask this of you: Please examine your question carefully. I am just one individual human exercising his right, as an individual, to express his opinion. For you to have asked such a question, in such a tone, means that you are not thinking as an individual, but acting instead as part of a mindless herd hell-bent on stampeding over the cliff into oblivion. Rather than looking into yourself to find the actual cause of your frustration - and the means to deal with it - you would rather lash out and destroy anyone and anything that reminds you of the truth you seek to deny. But you cannot destroy reality. You can only destroy yourself.

I apologize and wish all the best to those to whom the previous paragraph does not apply. For those to whom it does however, I quote from Pink Floyd's The Wall:

"Sitting in a bunker, here behind my wall. Waiting for the worms to come."

You see, I already know that I've been guilty all this time. And for those who wonder why I obviously still haven't just 'turned and walked away' - why I would even bother to write this? The simple and easy answer is that I'm 'mentally ill' - what else could you expect? For those seeking evidence of 'evil intent,' the answer might be that I'm some mad 'arch-villain' seeking proof that those who read this will act in the manner my 'theory' predicts. The truth is that I just needed to speak my mind, and being able to take the time to get it right before it's heard is simply too cool to pass up.

I want ice water.