Romantic love: The pinnacle of all that I cannot control that I wish I had in my life

When I was a junior and senior in college, I lived off campus in a one-bedroom apartment on the edge of downtown Poughkeepsie, NY. My apartment was the top floor of an old three-floor home that was converted into apartments. The woman who lived in the first floor apartment came up to me one day and said that she is a psychic and would like to do a reading for me. I would not have paid for a psychic reading at the time, but since she seemed eager and interested in doing it for free, I said I'd love for her to give me a reading, sure.

So one day my neighbor brought me through our common side entrance through her rear apartment door directly into her kitchen. She gave me dinner and afterwards she took out her Tarot card set and said that she gives readings through the Tarot cards. It didn't matter to me.

I don't remember exactly which cards that she pulled or what they all meant, but I do remember feeling non-impressed by her supposed psychic abilities. She didn't give me anything specific, but she said that I would one day find love, but it wouldn't be for a long time. She also said that people would always be comfortable at my house wherever I lived - something about that. Lastly, she gave me a small, bronze figurine of the Hindi God, Ganesh (or Ganesha), stating that he would be "the remover of obstacles".

Before I left, she walked me through her living room - or the room that I only assume would be her living room due to its size and central location at the front of the home. Before I even entered the room, it was apparent that she was a hoarder. We walked through a makeshift pathway through stacks of newspapers and full, large, black garbage bags of I-don't-know-what to the front door. I don't know if she was looking for something that led us to walk through this room or maybe she was just leading me to the front door, although we had entered through the back door. I cannot imagine that she wanted me to see her room - it was horrible. I'd never seen anything like that before and I did grow up in a fairly disordered home, but nothing like that.

It's clear that whether she had real psychic abilities or not, she was right when she said it would be a long time before I found love (I mean, there's always love but here it is clear we are talking about romantic love). I still haven't found it - at least not that true, long-lasting kind.

Instead of romantic love, I have come to experience longing, loneliness, spirituality, self-discovery, self-love, friendship love, familial love, etc. But nothing quite replaces romantic love and sexual affection. There is a dual aspect to romantic love - there is that deep connection with someone that feels like a symbiosis of the souls and there is a physical aspect that satisfies a biological drive. Maybe if they were not so intertwined, the lack of it would not feel so much like a lack of something fundamental. But that is how it is and how it feels and yes, it is of a higher order to learn to go without it and not to feel the fundamental loss. However, how many people can do that? It is hard.

So my old neighbor gave me Ganesh, the remover of obstacles, while she was the one who had real obstacles obstructing her living room - the room in which one is meant to live, right? And yet she gave me the remover of obstacles, as if the room in which I am meant to live is even more obstructed than hers. I have since then given that Ganesh figurine away to someone else, as well. It is not that I thought I had removed all of my obstacles, but more that I thought someone else may need it more than I did at the time. Anyway, I am the one who needs to remove my own obstacles - I know this now. Of course, to remove them I first need to know what they are.

Bates

No one has ever loved me

The way you loved me

You chose me

By holding on just a little longer

They marked your paw purple

When I returned to bring you home

I could hear your sweet meows as I drove

So I had to take you out of the box

And you crawled up on my shoulder

Purring quietly as I drove the rest of the way home

You would sleep on my neck

So light I could feel your purrs

I never wanted to leave your side

So I carried you in my jacket

While I went grocery shopping

And I took you in my bag

To my Women in Music class

You were so good!

As you grew older

You still wanted to sleep on my neck

But I couldn't breathe

So you slept by my face instead

Through the years

You were always happy to see me when I came home

You followed me from room to room

Even to the bathroom

We peed together

(Maybe even pooped together)

You always wanted to be close to me

Sitting next to the counter

While I washed dishes in the kitchen

Sitting on the arm of the couch

While I watched TV

Sitting on me

Climbing on me

You always seemed to want to get closer

Did you want to go inside my face?

How did you know so well when I was sad?

You came up to me

Gently pawing at my head

Licking my tears down my face

How did you know so well when I was sick?

You stayed with me

All night
Your paw on my hand

While I tossed, turned, moaned

Got up to vomit and returned

I wish I had known about your perforated eardrum

I wish I had taken you to the vet sooner to diagnose chronic liver disease

I wish I could have prevented Letia from attacking you those two times

(But everyone loved your folded ears, anyway!)

You never cared that some people referred to you with female pronouns
I assured them that it's ok

You're gender-fluid

Like me

I miss you already

You were my best friend

My companion

My (non-sexual) boyfriend-cat

One of the loves of my life

I can't wait to be with you again

But I will

And I

ee-I

Will Always

Love you

My handsome Bates-ies

"Just Say No" Over-simplifies the Issue; What About, "Just Teach Each Other How to Love Ourselves and Each Other More and in Healthier Ways"?

Oh, is that too hard?

Seriously, ever since Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death from heroin overdose a few weeks ago, there have been many op-eds regarding it, or regarding drug use, or addiction, or some combination. The best one that I read so far was written by Russell Brand, who is a recovering drug addict. Actually, the article that I really liked that went viral in the wake of PSH's death was one that RB wrote a year ago. It was honest and raw. I like that.

The worst one that I read said to tell kids to "just say no to drugs", or something of the sort. The wind behind that sail was so weak, I feel like it may have completely shored the boat. Honestly, whoever wrote that knows nothing about addiction.

I am a recovering addict, but not a drug addict, per se. I have used drugs, and maybe I have had addictive tendencies towards them, particularly marijuana, but nothing that really derailed me. What derailed me was my addictions to people and relationships. I'm a love addict.

Love addiction is a hard addiction to understand; it's even harder to work out your personal recovery from it. You can't "just say no" to love, so this addiction teaches you that addiction is deeper than the subject of the addiction - be it love, drugs/alcohol, food, gambling, etc. Addiction grows out of a deep-rooted pain, or void, or something you're trying to avoid.

Every addict's addiction is different. Its causes are different and its manifestations are different, but they all have similar themes - all rooted in a profound lack or loss of love, primarily self-love. By definition, if you had enough self-love, you would not allow yourself to hurt yourself in such ways as the addictive behaviors cause. But that is just the root - there are more layers, of course, and loving yourself is not abstract - it's an action.

Those who do not fully understand addiction cannot understand that you can be addicted to anything, and that recovery from addiction is not just abstinence (and in some cases, abstinence is not even possible or healthy). The first layer to recovering from addiction is stopping all addictive behaviors; thus, this is why drug/alcohol addicts must stop doing drugs/drinking alcohol. But for a love or food addict, this does not mean stop loving or eating food. It's about the addictive behaviors around love and food that must stop.

For instance, one of my "addictive behaviors" was something that people in SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) call "double contact", which is the behavior of contacting the object of my affection (O.O.M.A., as I call it) more than once before she replies or contacts me. This is like sending an email, hoping to get a response, not getting a response within whatever timeframe I am feeling I should be getting a response, then sending another email...and then maybe another...and another - this is "double contact". Therefore, my recovery is to not have "double contact" - that if I send an email and never get a response, I never send another email.

The flexible line here is that this "double contact" behavior is not something I worry about with everyone in my life - I mean, I may have "double contact" with someone like my mother, whom I do not have these feeling for, and it may be just fine, not stirring up anything negative or painful or addictive. But, if it's someone for whom I am feeling some sort of romantic/sexual affection or just feel some sort of anxious excitement...well, then, I do have to be careful not to have "double contact" with them. So...it's a very case-by-case, subjective recovery. It's not cut-and-dry like what a lot of people consider drug and alcohol addiction to be. However, I don't think substance addiction is so cut-and-dry, either.

It's not that I don't believe abstinence is appropriate for recovery from substance addiction; it's more that I don't believe that's all there is - that it's all that is necessary for true recovery. No one in 12-step programs thinks that, either, to be honest, so I'm not a pioneer in this belief, just that the general public doesn't seem to understand, that's all. I think the benefit of total abstinence for substance addicts is a matter of pride - not only are you avoiding your addictive behavior, even at its minimum, but you are building a type of pride in how long you have maintained that avoidance or "sobriety". I have also made the decision to be sober from drugs and alcohol, and I can feel that pride - it's a beautiful thing. You don't want to break it because then you have to start over - and even if you don't tell anyone, you will know. It's a pride thing.

The pride thing is important for addicts, actually, because this helps us to build that sense of self-love in actions. Like I said, self-love - or love, in general - is an action, it's not merely a feeling, emotion, thought, or contemplation. To love means treating the object of that love with care, respect, and joy. When you love yourself, you do things that you love, you make sure that you are not doing things that are not in your best interest or that hurt yourself, and you listen to yourself to see how you feel so you can be better to yourself (and others). By loving yourself well, you are indirectly loving others by taking the burden away from them to have to care for you or watch out for you. You allow them to care for themselves, and to share in the love for each other, if you choose to do so.

When you love yourself, you are able to see your faults more honestly without feeling like you are a complete and utter failure. We are all imperfect, and we all have faults, so to always feel like a complete and utter failure due to one, two, or many errors you have made in your life is absurd. It's absolute absurdity because we are meant to make errors - how else would we ever grow? Think about it: even our tissues overgrow with cells before they kill those cells off to form the correct shape (this happens with our hands, first we form what look kind of like flippers, then certain cells die off to form the individual digits of our fingers and thumbs - it's called "programmed cell death" or "apoptosis". It's a perfectly normal and healthy process of growth.)

When you love yourself and see your faults more honestly, you are able to see other people's faults similar to your own, and hopefully that will allow you to judge others less. Maybe you can see that they are just like you - imperfect and worth loving. Sometimes it's harder than other times, so it's perfectly natural that you may not feel a lot of warmth towards everyone else, but at least you may feel it more than before.

When you love yourself, and you judge others less for their faults, you are basically loving others more, too. And then you may realize that all that pain you felt...from other people's faults...well, it's ok; it was perfectly understandable that you felt (or maybe still feel) that pain, but in the end, you can say, you know what? We're all worthy of love, and I don't need to escape this reality anymore. There is no more void to fill - I have filled it with my own self-love. Then, maybe you can more easily abstain from the addictive behaviors because what you want now is genuine, honest love - from yourself and others. And you find that the more you give it to yourself, the more you feel it for others, and the more you feel it for others, the more they feel it for you in return.

So that's what I'm trying to say: it's not so easy as "just say no to drugs". It's as easy as "just teach each other how to love ourselves and others more and in healthier ways." Can that be a campaign slogan? (JTEOHTLOAOMAIHW)?

I'm Good, Thanks

So it's been nearly a year since I last posted anything on this blog - wow. I shared a post with a friend today, and then I started re-reading a bunch of my old posts. I am impressed with how far I've come in my recovery in just a few years. I feel soooo much better.

I cannot really say how it happened or when it happened or that it happened at a specific point, but I really do feel like I have learned to love myself properly. I have learned to enjoy my solitude. And I'm just plainly content and happy most of the time, despite the fact that there are parts of my life that remain difficult (having some hard stuff going on with my family, I struggle to make enough money to exist, etc.).

I'm still single, but I am open to the idea of dating - I even put a profile up on an Internet dating site (a free one)! The thing is, I'm not that anxious to date anyone, though. I mean, I feel like if I were to meet someone in my life that felt right, I'd know it and I'd be able to make time for that person, but otherwise, I'm not really anxious to put effort into trying to meet someone. So yeah, maybe it's misleading that I have a profile up on a dating site - as if to say I'm trying to meet someone and want to put the effort in. But I don't really want to put effort in that way specifically, because I have other things I'm interested in doing right now - like building my audio engineering career, writing, drawing pictures for a picture book, etc. I'm pretty happy where I'm at is what I'm saying.

Of course, I did have a dream the other night about making out with someone, and yeah, that felt good. But then I woke up and had stuff to do. I guess if there is someone that enters my life with whom there's a mutual attraction, I'd certainly be down for it. But I'm not going out hunting for it, let's just put it that way. I don't really care enough right now about that. I'm having too much fun doing whatever the fuck I want right now, otherwise.

And that's the truth - I'm doing whatever the fuck I want with my life nowadays. Guess what? I don't have to wake up at a certain time to get to work at a certain time, wearing a certain "professional" dress-code, and I don't have to kiss anybody's ass (like pretending that it's ok that my boss' boss' boss can treat me like he thinks I'm a total idiot just so I don't lose my job). My financial situation probably reflects this change. However, I'm much happier - that more-than-double-what-I-make-now income that I was making previously did not make me happy like this - isn't that kind of fascinating? That you can actually do the experiment and find out that money really, really can't be all that you work for to make you happy - not even partially. (I mean, I didn't hate being a scientist! But I didn't love it, either.) You have to do what you love, what makes you happy, whatever that is, and the money will come as little as it needs to help you survive; after that, though, you really don't need it (money).

I really think the way this all happened - this recovery - was just sheer persistence. In fact, I know that's how it works. It's been imperfect, but I keep at it. I keep coming back to the questions, "is this what I really want? is this in my best interest? will this make me feel resentful if I do it?" etc. Just really trying to be authentic and true to myself and others, no matter how hard it is (and it can be really hard sometimes, especially if you don't like to disappoint others). That's all it really is, though. Loving yourself is an action (not talking about masturbation) - loving yourself is taking care of your own needs, doing the things that you love/enjoy/your passions, and treating yourself with the kindness and respect that you would treat someone else that you love (if you're that kind of person, like I am). Practicing these actions over and over makes them more natural in your life, and eventually, causes you to integrate them and the feelings that come with them (like the inner strength and love for yourself that you no longer need from someone else). Then, suddenly, you realize that you're happy just as you are.

So life comes into better focus after you find that solid ground of self-love and happiness. Clearly, all that matters is treating yourself and others with love and respect. You do what brings you joy, and maybe you can also lend a hand to help others find their way to do what brings them joy, to love themselves. So yeah, I'm good, thanks for asking.

No Victims

Sometimes I like to read over my old journal entries. They always bring me some sort of perspective on my life - usually, I feel somewhat silly or embarrassed. But I've learned to be more compassionate with myself - that's how I felt then and it was real.

The hard part is that reading those entries shows me how crazy I've been - and some of it wasn't even that long ago that I was crazy. The truth is, I sometimes still feel crazy now. I'm getting better at keeping my crazy at bay, but I'm just barely able to do it. I attribute my ability to do it at all to my sobriety. Thank GOD I'm sober!

I often feel so badly that I'm so alone, without a lover and I've been without much close companionship at all for the past bunch of years. But now I see that I've needed to take some distance - from myself and others - in order to really grow up. I'm still growing up, too. I've had to do it for myself because I didn't get the right tools when I was younger, for whatever reasons. It doesn't matter now.

Growing up doesn't mean not having fun or being silly or giddy like a child. It means behaving the way you intend to behave - which is to be the best you that you can be. The other half of it is to acknowledge when you are not able to be that way, when you have failed or screwed up, apologizing and learning from your mistakes. Lastly, as I see it, growing up means being able to sit in your pain without trying to escape it - which is where addictions come from (the attempt to escape the pain). This ability takes faith that the pain will pass and that you will make it through to the other side.

Anyway, I accept that I chose to be alone in order to get healthy. It's been lonely, yes. But I believe I will make it to the other side where the loneliness will diminish, subside, and where I'll have the opportunity to find a loving partner with whom I may enjoy the remainder of my life. There will be times of more and less loneliness, but I believe it will diminish overall.

I do not have to be a celibate monk if I do not want to be one. I can find love. I will when it's right for me, when the universe conspires to make it so. I'm not a victim of the will of the universe - I am part of it. It is my will.

Rewritten

I've listened to this one RadioLab episode on memory a gazillion times (ok, maybe 3-4 times) because it's the only one that actually got downloaded to my iTunes library. (ok, it was an episode on memory and forgetting - but I guess I forgot that part! Ha!) One of the most astonishing features of the episode is on the experiments that were performed on rodents, then in human trials, that showed the use of a ribosomal inhibitor (which blocks protein formation) in blocking memory formation, then they showed how it could also "erase" memories when the rat or human was remembering that particular memory, kind of like the idea in that Jim Carey movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

So, actually, I have a strong opinion about their interpretation of the results - they (the scientists and the show's producers/creators) are trying to suggest that they can actually erase these traumatic memories that the people in the trials had. What they showed was that this inhibitor drug actually de-coupled their traumatic emotions from the memories, rather than erasing the memories, themselves. I think that's actually the key element in the story - this decoupling of emotion from memory. Even in the rat experiments, they cannot say whether or not they erased the memory of the shock or if they just erased the fright that they associated with the shock, as conditioned to them by the signal. (I actually cannot remember the details right now of the experiment, but I do remember the gist - and I recall my emotions regarding it! I didn't take the drug.)

The other interesting part of the story that I agree with their interpretation of is that each time we remember something, we are reforming our emotional connection with that memory (again, this is how I would say it rather than reforming the memory, itself). It is like we are re-writing how we feel about the past every time we remember it. This actually makes sense, doesn't it? Doesn't this seem intuitively true?

Of course, this interpretation implies that we don't actually need to take a drug to re-write our emotional coupling with our memory, just that we need to consciously alter that emotional coupling - make that choice while actually remembering the memory. In fact, this research provides a mechanism for how talk therapy can re-wire our emotional coupling with our memories - by remembering a traumatic memory and talking through it with a therapist in a safe environment, where the therapist can help you to change your emotional out-take of that memory, you can de-couple the emotion from the event, thus resolving it to the degree of not having it affect you in the same way anymore, so that you can move on with your life.

I don't necessarily think we always need to work out our painful memories with a therapist. I also think we do it, naturally. We are constantly changing our emotional connection to memories in both directions, especially when it comes to relationships. For instance, when you're in love with someone, everything they do seems nearly perfect and you are elated with them - the memories are happy, lovely, etc. But then when there's a painful break-up, you might remember those very same events with a very different emotional connection - now it is painful, now it hurts to remember it. I think it's hard for us to know what is true and what is not - is this pain more real than the love and joy that were connected to that memory previously?

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm doing some re-writing right now, too. Or re-re-writing some emotional connections to memories. The joy and the pain were both real at the times that I experienced them with this person I am remembering, but what does that mean about the true, objective reality of who this person is and how we interacted? I guess I am willing to re-write this story, or at least add an addendum to the previous one.

Dramatic Relationships

Do you ever wonder why some relationships (including friendships) are more drama-filled than others?

I sure do.

The thing is - it's clearly the relationship, not exactly just the people, you know? For instance, the same individuals, let's name them Jane and Max, can have a very good, serene relationship with each other, while Jane might have a really drama-filled relationship with, say, Tina, but Tina and Max have a fine relationship, which is not drama-filled. Maybe Max, too, has a separate relationship with someone named Jackie that is also full of drama. You see - it's not any of the individuals that are the cause of the drama - it's the relationship.

Ok, yes, there are some individuals who are more prone to drama than others - agreed. But I don't think that's the whole story. But I do think I know what the key is: the key is how at least one person in the relationship feels about the relationship - as in, I think one person (and maybe only one person) has a strong fear of losing the relationship because of whatever reasons, while the other may or may not (and maybe it's that they don't have the same fear, I'm not sure you'd necessarily get the same degree of drama if the other person felt the same way, but maybe.)

I'm thinking about this because I've been on both ends of a dramatic relationship: I've been the person who was afraid of losing the relationship because it meant too much to me, and I've also been the other person in the relationship who doesn't care as much about whether or not the relationship exists anymore. So what happens is that something triggers the person who is afraid of losing the relationship to signal that the relationship is in jeopardy, then they start feeling hurt, angry, defensive, etc. and begin to act out in telling, dramatic ways. This, of course, just drives the wedge deeper between the two people in the relationship and the person who doesn't care as much will back off even more.

Well, this is the story of the love addict and the love avoidant; or the dance of the codependents. The love addict is trying to control the situation (stop the feeling of abandonment/losss) out of a real fear of losing something that can almost feel like losing one's life. Obviously, that sounds dramatic, but that's why the behavior becomes so dramatic. The fear is of a feeling of dying - if you lose that relationship, that love, then you might as well be dead. The hard part is recognizing this feeling and bringing it to light so as to examine it and de-mystify it; grasp the reality of the situation. (As in, you're not going to die. The pain is bearable.)

Anyway, coming out of this pattern is obviously a long process and is not easy. For instance, I am recovering from love addiction, myself, and I have had these types of dramatic relationships, as I said. I can control whether or not I behave dramatically, but I cannot control whether or not others behave dramatically towards me. As I said, I've been on both ends, and even though I'm not on the one end (the love addict), I guess I still have (or have had) some relationships where I'm on the other end (the love avoidant). It's weird to be on this end and having to step away from a relationship with someone who is behaving in a way that is almost like a mirror image of myself in past relationships. It's ugly. It's unattractive. And I feel sad about it because I know how she feels.

But part of my recovery is stepping away from these relationships - not partaking in the drama anymore. If she were to change, enter recovery, whatever - that would be a different story, something else to consider. But that's not the case. So I have to step away.

But it is a reflection to consider.

I am so very sorry for how I must have made others feel. I guess that's why there's that step where we make amends. Hmmm.