'Tis better to buy a small bouquet
And give to your friend this very day,
Than a bushel of roses white and red
To lay on his coffin after he's dead.~Author Unknown
Present your family and friends with their eulogies now - they won't be able to hear how much you love them and appreciate them from inside the coffin. ~Anonymous
I was present at the moment of my mother’s and my father’s last breath, and it changed my attitude towards life and those I love. I come from a family of “long-livers.” There was a huge span of time when not one close relative had died, and I had managed to never see a dead body until at the age of forty-nine when I went to a viewing of the mother of my husband’s friend. Still, it is not the same as losing someone close to you. For the longest time I was able to put off thinking about mortality, my own and others’. The evening that my mother died, my first day of retirement, I was 53 years old. My older brother had just died two months before of an invasive cerebral tumor whose name I had barely learned before he died. A glioblastoma multiformae decimated my brother’s brain thirty days after diagnosis. He was gone at 64, a brief life for someone in my family. He died in a nursing facility in the city where I lived, and I felt fortunate to be able to visit him at least three times a day during that time and also fortunate to be able to say goodbye. I was fortunate to have had a close relationship with him. I know that this was because of him. No matter where he had lived, or the breadth of time from the last I had seen him, he always had an authentically warm, loving smile on his face that made me feel that neither time nor space had ever passed between us. For many years previous to this, we had always spoken on the phone frequently, no matter where he was. Then, as he got older, he came to spend more time with me staying at my house, and also with my parents during the coldest part of the Colorado winters. When he was diagnosed, both of my parents were catapulted into their final days. My mother 88, died first, only three months later. Many say she died of a broken heart. I feel that may be true. Just after her passing, my father said, “Sixty-eight years of love and devotion, the end of an era.” And, as is frequently true with a loving couple that has been together many years, my father followed her only 10 months later, dead at the age of 92. It didn’t help when people said to me, “He lived a long life,” because I had had so many relatives that had lived a longer life. My grandfather died at 100, my great grandfather at 108, and a great grand-aunt at 116. I felt cheated, believing that each of them -- my brother, mother and father -- had died too young. At the time I vacillated between being an exhausted automaton and an emotionally numb zombie. I was the only relative in town, so my husband and I had been the only ones there to take care of my brother and my parents. There was a job to be done, so my husband and I had run from one place to another, one hospital to another, maintaining my parents’ ranchette as well as our house -- in a state of emotional numbness, doing what had to be done, only arriving at our house to sleep a few hours before we had to get up again and go to work. It’s unbelievable how fast the dominoes fell. My brother fell in the bathtub, breaking several ribs and was hospitalized, my dad was hospitalized 6 days after my brother was diagnosed, went home two weeks later and relapsed in less than twenty four hours, reentering the hospital. My mom was also hospitalized at this time. My brother died while they both were in the hospital, and we had a memorial for my brother on the day my parents were transferred to a nursing facility. My husband and I then had four weeks to get everything in order for my parents to help them move to the same city as my sister. My mother died two months after that. We had to sell my parents’ house for them, and prepare our own house for sale as my husband and I were retiring and moving to Mexico. We spent a great deal of time in the months that followed at my sister’s house, seeing my mom off, spending time with my dad, and then spending time with my dad in the hospital before we saw him off. I will be forever indebted to my older sister for all the time she put up with us living in her home, and, most of all for her agreeing to look after Mom and Dad in the assisted living apartment close to her house for two months for Mom and for that last year for Dad when we were retiring and moving. It has changed our relationship forever. I feel closer to her than ever before.
It took a while to recover emotionally – I had lost three loved ones in twelve and a half months. Then, finally after my father’s memorial service, I had a moment to begin healing. Before, I had mostly been in a state of numbness and I was unable to reflect on anything. It had all happened so quickly, and I had so much to tend to. Now, a year and a half beyond my father’s death, I’m able to see more clearly. I’ve come to realize how fortunate I had been to know these three family members for so long. Not everyone is as fortunate. I had the good fortune of having 53 years to love my brother, 53 years to love my mother, and 54 years to love my father. Most people do not have all that time to learn to love a close family member. My hand was on my mother’s chest as she drew her last breath, and I stood beside my father as he drew his last breath. I was able to let each of the three know how much I loved them, and to thank them for all they did for me. As hard as it was to say goodbye to each of them, still, it was okay. And I told each of them that very thing – that it was okay for them to go, that I would miss them, and always love them, but that it was okay. In the end, that is what we must all do, for our loved ones and, mostly, for ourselves – tell them we love them, thank them, and release our loved ones from their earthly bindings by letting them know it will be okay. When we are young we believe that we will live forever, feeling invincible. But, it is a certainty that a certain percentage of young people will die before their time. It is also a certainty that we will all die at some age. This means our parents and older siblings will most likely die before us.
“Carpe diem” is a phrase applied to many situations in life. In this case, I would think it means, we never know how long we have to make things right with people. We must seize the day because we never know if this may be the last opportunity to say “I’m sorry” (and mean it.) We never know if this is our last chance to make things right, to speak the truth in a loving way. It’s hard, sometimes, to evaluate if we are estranged from a family member because of ego, or because there is real justification. The unwritten laws of society say that we must honor our parents, be loyal to family. I understand that sometimes this is not possible (or healthy) with “toxic” parents or relatives. In cases of “toxicity,” we’re sometimes made to feel guilty for estrangement, when it’s really healthier to maintain safe and sane boundaries from relatives that are manipulative, full of rage, that are dangerous or unhealthy due to mental instability. But this was not my case. I can remember the tiffs I had with my parents, feeling that they were being unreasonable, or dysfunctional at the time. What is essential, though, is to ask yourself the question, “Can this estrangement be remedied with an apology?” or the question, “Can we agree to disagree here, and still be loving to each other?” By the time my mother and father and brother died, I had worked out everything with them. When I said goodbye to them, I had no regrets, and I was able to let them know that before they died. I was lucky. If you are a child estranged from a parent or parents purely because of ego -- because you need to apologize -- you don’t know how long you will have to make things right. Carpe diem. “When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.” (Maurice Maeterlinck) Carpe diem. “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone.” (Harriet Beecher Stowe) Carpe diem. “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” (Rabindranath Tagore)
Carpe diem, before your dominoes fall.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Borderline Personality Disorder: Who's the Real Victim Here?
Most people do not even know what BPD is. My good friend Cheryl didn’t know until she met her husband’s ex-wife, Donna. Two years previously, after holding on to a 17-year marriage for the sake of two children, her husband Al had separated from a wife who was “mentally unstable,” in his words. He had not heard of BPD either. But he had lived with its ravages for all the years that he knew Donna. A very abbreviated description of this disorder would best be given by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV), a diagnostic manual used in psychology. As defined by Psy.com, “Individuals with Personality Disorders have more difficulty in every aspect of their lives. Their individual personality traits reflect ingrained, inflexible, and maladaptive patterns of behaviors that cause discomfort, distress and impair the individual’s ability to function in the daily activities of living.” To specifically fit the parameters of BPD, an individual must possess 5 of 9 traits specified in the DSM – IV (diagnostic manual). BPD, as quoted by borderlinepersonalitytoday.com, is described as a “pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7. chronic feelings of emptiness
8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms”
One might ask, “How could a person get caught in a marriage to such a person?” BP’s are frequently very impressive and quite charismatic on a superficial basis. And, as it goes in a number of relationships, Al dated her for two months, she got pregnant, and he was a true gentleman, and a loving father. Donna’s behavior increased in rage, anger and verbal abuse so that by the time she was six months pregnant, he couldn’t believe how much she had changed. He says he would have divorced her within the first year of marriage if it hadn’t been for the child. Back then, Al explained it to himself saying that the pregnancy hormones were making her act this way, and things would get back to normal once she had the baby. Things only got worse… and worse. As he describes it, he became “the lightning rod for her to discharge her anger and rage.” When the first child, Althea, was six, a second child, Natalie, was born. Understanding the extent of his loyalty to his child, Donna had “lost” her birth control pills for several months. This way she would hold on to him longer. And, so the story went over the 17 years of marriage, 2 years of separation, and the years that have followed the divorce – rage, dissociative incidents, several brief psychiatric hospitalizations, impulsive spending, eating, driving recklessly (in one instance, over 100 mph on a mountain road with Natalie in the car, and in another instance, running into the median barrier on the freeway scraping off the side of the car while having an argument with Natalie (this,and more, related by Natalie to Al and his new wife, Cheryl), vengeful acts, extraordinary attempts (and successes) at parental alienation (as well as intense alienation of Natalie towards Al’s wife Cheryl), sometimes as many as 15 angry, belligerent, and manipulative phone calls/voicemail messages and many, angry, manipulative emails per day to Al and Cheryl, devisive stunts to embarrass Al at work, angry threatening messages placed under Al's windshield wipers at 2 in the morning, fights with neighbors and coworkers, inability to hold a job, verbal abuse -- and, after the divorce, physical abuse of her daughters, extraordinary attempts to avoid abandonment, suicidal behavior and threats, instability of mood, frantic attempts to manipulate and control, and always, ALWAYS, portraying herself as the victim. It was Al’s fault, not Donna’s exorbitant post-divorce spending, that caused her to have to sell the house that she had received as part of the divorce settlement. It was Al’s fault and not the endless credit card balances that propelled her into bankruptcy after the divorce, and not too long after she had received $50,000 from the sale of the house. (She frittered away the fifty grand in less than three months.) Talk to anyone married to, or divorced from, a sufferer of BPD; it’s pretty much the same for all of them. Because the BP is so impressive on the surface, and because they rarely have consistent health insurance, due to frequently losing their jobs, many BP’s are never diagnosed with BPD. And, even if they are diagnosed, because of job instability and frequent changes in health insurance, many do not receive consistent help. Some sources say that it’s best not to put the BPD diagnosis in the file, because many therapists will shy away from taking on the BPD as a patient. BPD’s frequently make very difficult patients, prone to projection and transference, becoming very aggressive and defensive toward the therapist.
Many articles, books, and websites depict the BP as a “sufferer,” or a “victim” of the disorder. I do not mean in any way, to belittle the sheer hell BP’s must go through with this disorder. But there are other characters in this plot that are frequently neglected. The story doesn’t end with the divorce for Al’s two daughters or for Al and his new wife. All these people become collateral damage in this BP’s disaster of a life. When Natalie turned 18, the $1500 per month child support that Donna received came to an end. Donna now has no hold on Al, but her effect on her daughters continues. Donna’s efforts to brainwash the daughters are ongoing. Nowadays, Althea makes minimal efforts to maintain a strained relationship with Al and Cheryl. Althea now lives a distance from Donna, yet she still remains in contact with her, telling her what a wonderful mother she is, in order to hold her rage at bay. Although their father and his new wife hold postgraduate degrees, and are successful in their careers, and have encouraged and offered both daughters a college education, Al’s heart aches that his daughters barely survive working in call center and minimum wage jobs, with no plans of attending college or bettering themselves. The older daughter, Althea, did start college, but was put on academic probation after her first semester in college, and then dropped out two weeks into the next semester. Every year she makes empty promises that she will be starting “classes” the next semester, thinking that this will appease her father. She tells people that she has "two years of college." She herself suffers from ADD, and continues filling her life with strings of fantasy lies. (“My boss just gave me a raise that doubled my income. I’m going to make $60,000 a year now.” -- She was working as a receptionist. On another occasion, “My boss told me I am going to be hired as a supervisor of the school where I’m working.” Later, when asked how the interview went, “I’m so upset. They didn’t tell me I needed a Master’s in Social Work.”) She was married and divorced twice before she was twenty three, and conceived a child out of wedlock in between. The younger daughter talked of college to appease her father, but never even started the first semester after she graduated from high school. At twenty-two, her body is covered with pierces and tattoos. She cuts herself (the older sister self-mutilated at 14), drinks heavily, parties constantly, is infamous with her friends for the quantity of alcohol she can consume at a party, and works a dead-end entry level job. Both daughters are experts at telling lies. They are “drawn like a moth to a candle,” in Al’s words, when he speaks of their obsessively close relationship with their mentally unstable mother. The daughters know just how to stroke Donna’s ego, to benefit from favors. Althea is minimally communicative with Al and Cheryl and Natalie is now completely estranged, complaining about her father with the identical words and expressions that her mother had used all the years of marriage, and after. She is in constant contact with her mother, telling her what a perfectly wonderful “mommy” she is, because her mommy “gives her money and things even when she doesn’t have any money to give.” She has an extremely distorted concept of the world of money and how one should acquire it – after watching all the money her mother received from her father in child support and watching her spend it foolishly, Natalie feels that people who love her should pour money on her, and if they don’t want to do this – “f**k them.” She has expressed this to her father as well as publicly on her website. Natalie’s complaints of her father are like listening to a tape recording of the mentally unstable mother’s complaints – in many cases, even the words used are verbatim. Althea walks a tightrope, barely keeping in contact with her father and Cheryl, while stroking her mother’s ego. During rare phone calls, she has expressed the seriousness of the brainwashing that is going on with Natalie. She has expressed the concern that Natalie appears to have a kind of amnesia, is unable to recall the real events of her childhood. Althea says that Natalie is only able to recall the “re-recorded” version that her mother has repeated to her over and over. These two young ladies are the collateral damage of a BP. Both were taken to psychologists for therapy, but by this time, the damage had been done. Althea was diagnosed at 14 with post traumatic stress disorder, and as the psychologist who treated the younger daughter a few years ago, said, “She’s sixteen. It’s too late now. If I had been able to work with her ten years ago when she was six, perhaps I could have made a difference.” At this time, the psychologist confided in Al that Donna was calling him, relentlessly, to maintain complete control of the therapy sessions, and had to be asked to stop calling, as well as to leave the office when she kept appearing to be present in the sessions with Natalie. Al and Cheryl still hold on to the hope that, with time, there may be some reconciliation between them and Al’s daughters, but he accepts the fact that it may not be happening soon.
Some professional journal articles speak of a statistical probability as high as 50% that, a child with ADD that has a BPD mother will develop BPD. However, from the looks of it, Althea may have less characteristics of BPD then Natalie does. Natalie presently exhibits 8 out of 9 characteristics. Psychologists decline to diagnose teenage BPD, since it has been shown that some mental instability may mimic BPD traits but may merely be part of a difficult adolescence, and the traits may actually disappear by the time an individual reaches 19 or 20. Natalie will soon be 22. Her blog spews hatred, anger and resentment. She continues to self-medicate, and to cut herself, blaming it all on her father and her father’s wife. (Natalie lived with Al and Cheryl for a year when she was 13, but could not stand the normal structure of a curfew, accountability for her whereabouts, and requirement to participate in one or two family chores, and was seduced by the total “freedom” (read: total lack of supervision) her mother offered her at the age of 14.” Natalie blames Cheryl, for “all the pain of her whole life.” She blames her father, for abandoning her mother.)
“The sins of the father….” in this case should read, “The sins of the mother….” The adults in this story can fend for themselves. Cheryl and Al managed to stay married in spite of the myriad problems they had from Donna. The daily “damage” that Donna did to the lives of Al and his new wife was eventually controlled with a sequence of protection orders, but the damage that Donna did to her two daughters will live on in the damaged psyches, instability, obliviousness to boundaries, lack of self-discipline, and poor self esteem that Althea and Natalie will have to work on the rest of their lives. At present Natalie does not speak to Al or Cheryl. Donna has convinced Natalie that her father is a hateful bastard, a horrible father, and that he abandoned her mother and dragged her and the children to another state where Donna is still unable to get a decent job. (Donna has a Master’s degree in a technical field, but due to her unstable work relationships, subsequent frequent layoffs and recent inability to get jobs in her field, has not kept up with her field.) Donna has convinced Natalie that Al is responsible for this and all the problems in Donna’s as well as Althea’s and Natalie’s life. Natalie believes her mother. This is brainwashing honed to a fine art, lavishly dealt out over the years. What Natalie seems to have forgotten is her painful childhood when she never knew which mommy was coming around the corner – the nice one or the mean one, when her mother lavished gifts upon her or made her give away her favorite toy as a sadistic way to punish her, or the mother who bought her candy at the store one minute and the next moment, threatened a ten-year-old Natalie that she was not going to see Mommy anymore because Mommy was going to commit suicide. She forgot the outlandish behavior of her mother that to a small child looked creative and fun, but which set her mother up as an outrageous, uncontrollable child in the family, and not the parent figure, it modeled behavior which decimated all boundaries. Natalie has forgotten the times when , with seemingly no provocation, her mother would turn into the mean mommy and rage in screaming fits in which an impressionable teenage Natalie was called “a pathetic loser,” bitch,” and many other names a mother should never, ever call her daughter. Natalie seems to have forgotten the scenes with her mother “bitch slapping” her, as well as slamming her head into the passenger window of the car. She seems to have forgotten all the times the police were called to break up a violent fight between Natalie and her mother. On Al’s side – if Natalie could only remember the real truth, she would remember how her father tried to keep the sky from falling, she would remember that neither he nor Cheryl ever spoke poorly of Donna in Natalie’s or Althea’s presence. She would remember that Al and Cheryl never used demeaning words towards Natalie or Althea as Donna had, that Al and Cheryl encouraged Natalie and Althea to develop healthy friendships, value education and live productively. Natalie forgets that her mother used these attempts of Al and Cheryl to bring normalcy to Natalie’s life, to make it look like they were denying her freedom. Even if Natalie could remember it, she most likely would not admit it. And if Natalie has memory of even one of those incidents, she would still tell you today that her mother is a different person today, that she has changed. Althea would disagree. Natalie does not live with Donna anymore, and Donna has been able to fool Natalie, just as she was able to fool Al, maintaining the thin veneer of mental stability. When Natalie leaves, she does not know that Donna lights into Althea with the same vengeance as before. Althea is Donna’s lightning rod.
Al felt that it was important for a child to never hear a negative message about her mother from the divorced father. Therein lies the irony. Doesn’t it skew a child’s sense of reality when no one ever admits that Donna’s behavior was and is crazy and angry, and vengeful, and manipulative? Al just kept frantically running in circles, trying to catch the pieces of the sky as they fell, trying to keep as normal an environment as possible, pretending that everything was okay, for the sake of the children. At 22, Natalie now believes her mother is not mentally unstable, but rather that her mother is a “victim” in a vicious plot to ruin her life, and she’s become quite belligerent to Althea if anything different is mentioned. If there’s an elephant in the room while your child is growing up, but you pretend for long enough that the elephant is not in the room, there is a danger the child may believe she’s never seen an elephant, may be unable to identify future elephants, rendering all elephants virtually invisible to that child. If you admit the elephant is in the room, however, you would be accused of bad parenting for badtalking the mother. Al stayed with Donna all those years because he feared for the safety of his daughters. Donna can put on the act of mental stability when necessary and was able to fool the judge. Al finally left Donna because the marriage therapist took him aside, privately, and told him Donna would never get well, and that what he was doing was killing him, would kill him -- and Al would be no good dead, to his daughters. That got through to Al.
One apple, one irreparably rotten apple, one sly and manipulative apple was able to spoil the lives of all the other apples in the barrel. But, of all the victim apples, the ones that deserved their own chance at life, were the two little girl apples. Whether you speak of elephants or apples, the story turns out the same. There are national campaigns to help eradicate many diseases, there are programs to evacuate people from the path of a hurricane, programs to help survivors of disasters, but there are no national campaigns to educate the populace about BPD, to identify BPD parents, and to get their children help before it’s too late. Most BPD’s do not remain married for long, but you can bet that upon the couple’s divorce, the children most likely go with the mother. Besides, most people have never heard of BPD, much less are able to identify its symptoms.
So, how do we go about reinventing the world, as far as personality disorders go? When I last spoke with Al and Cheryl, they had some opinions and suggestions for everyone to consider. First, everyone should be informed about personality disorders. More often than not, if confronted with a situation like this, you will have to make an initial “diagnosis” or evaluation of the individual before you ever consult with a professional therapist. For this, you must know the symptoms. As Al said, “people don’t come with a certificate or stamp on their forehead that says, ‘Not BPD,’ or ‘Personality-Disorder-Free,’ or alternatively, ‘Beware: BPD!’ Second, if you are already in a relationship with someone, follow good-ole-common sense and take it slow, and take the responsibility for birth control. Give the relationship enough time, to be able to identify any of these traits BEFORE you get married. If you find out you’re dating a BP -- unless you’re a glutton for punishment for the rest of your married life (and after the divorce, too), Al says, “Get Out, now!” If you are not sure, get a neutral Third Party, such as a therapist to help you decide. Remember, as Al’s marriage counselor had said, “What are you waiting for? If you’re waiting for her to get better, it’s not going to happen. There will be days like this, and worse days, but never better.” Al suggests that if you identify these traits in a potential partner that you think long and hard about the long term, and what you might be getting into. Third, If you don’t end the relationship, and you choose to remain in the relationship, Al suggests that you take the responsibility to make sure that no child is born into this relationship. (He wanted to make it clear that he loves his two daughters very much, and if he could have, he would have had them with a different mother who could have brought stability to the family relationship, instead of a continual maelstrom of dysfunction and confusion. Fourth, If there is already a child, you owe the child the following: 1) serve the best interest of the child and end the marriage, 2) relentlessly, do everything you legally can to bring the child with you, if you can, and, 3)no matter what – get continual counseling for the child. Make sure that the counselor specializes in pediatric and family counseling and is an expert in BPD. It is vital that you find a counselor who is trained and experienced in this specific field. Fifth, bring this problem to the forefront. Speak the words to the lawyer, the judge, the court officials, and the counselor. Sixth, if you are an adult child of a BP, get yourself into counseling to start undoing the damage that was done to you. Finally, seventh, if you recognize the symptoms of BPD in yourself, don’t hide or make excuses for your symptoms. Listen to your intellect and not your emotions – get your children help, and get yourself help. Some sources say that, although BPD is a lifelong struggle, and most admit it cannot be “cured,” many agree that if the patient is forthright and willing to work on it through sessions for a consistent and lengthy period of time, BPD can be controlled, and the BP can have a better life.
In a way, BPD is like heart disease, a silent killer. BP’s are not the most seriously victimized – their children are. Borderline Personality Disorder silently kills the futures of little children.
1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7. chronic feelings of emptiness
8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms”
One might ask, “How could a person get caught in a marriage to such a person?” BP’s are frequently very impressive and quite charismatic on a superficial basis. And, as it goes in a number of relationships, Al dated her for two months, she got pregnant, and he was a true gentleman, and a loving father. Donna’s behavior increased in rage, anger and verbal abuse so that by the time she was six months pregnant, he couldn’t believe how much she had changed. He says he would have divorced her within the first year of marriage if it hadn’t been for the child. Back then, Al explained it to himself saying that the pregnancy hormones were making her act this way, and things would get back to normal once she had the baby. Things only got worse… and worse. As he describes it, he became “the lightning rod for her to discharge her anger and rage.” When the first child, Althea, was six, a second child, Natalie, was born. Understanding the extent of his loyalty to his child, Donna had “lost” her birth control pills for several months. This way she would hold on to him longer. And, so the story went over the 17 years of marriage, 2 years of separation, and the years that have followed the divorce – rage, dissociative incidents, several brief psychiatric hospitalizations, impulsive spending, eating, driving recklessly (in one instance, over 100 mph on a mountain road with Natalie in the car, and in another instance, running into the median barrier on the freeway scraping off the side of the car while having an argument with Natalie (this,and more, related by Natalie to Al and his new wife, Cheryl), vengeful acts, extraordinary attempts (and successes) at parental alienation (as well as intense alienation of Natalie towards Al’s wife Cheryl), sometimes as many as 15 angry, belligerent, and manipulative phone calls/voicemail messages and many, angry, manipulative emails per day to Al and Cheryl, devisive stunts to embarrass Al at work, angry threatening messages placed under Al's windshield wipers at 2 in the morning, fights with neighbors and coworkers, inability to hold a job, verbal abuse -- and, after the divorce, physical abuse of her daughters, extraordinary attempts to avoid abandonment, suicidal behavior and threats, instability of mood, frantic attempts to manipulate and control, and always, ALWAYS, portraying herself as the victim. It was Al’s fault, not Donna’s exorbitant post-divorce spending, that caused her to have to sell the house that she had received as part of the divorce settlement. It was Al’s fault and not the endless credit card balances that propelled her into bankruptcy after the divorce, and not too long after she had received $50,000 from the sale of the house. (She frittered away the fifty grand in less than three months.) Talk to anyone married to, or divorced from, a sufferer of BPD; it’s pretty much the same for all of them. Because the BP is so impressive on the surface, and because they rarely have consistent health insurance, due to frequently losing their jobs, many BP’s are never diagnosed with BPD. And, even if they are diagnosed, because of job instability and frequent changes in health insurance, many do not receive consistent help. Some sources say that it’s best not to put the BPD diagnosis in the file, because many therapists will shy away from taking on the BPD as a patient. BPD’s frequently make very difficult patients, prone to projection and transference, becoming very aggressive and defensive toward the therapist.
Many articles, books, and websites depict the BP as a “sufferer,” or a “victim” of the disorder. I do not mean in any way, to belittle the sheer hell BP’s must go through with this disorder. But there are other characters in this plot that are frequently neglected. The story doesn’t end with the divorce for Al’s two daughters or for Al and his new wife. All these people become collateral damage in this BP’s disaster of a life. When Natalie turned 18, the $1500 per month child support that Donna received came to an end. Donna now has no hold on Al, but her effect on her daughters continues. Donna’s efforts to brainwash the daughters are ongoing. Nowadays, Althea makes minimal efforts to maintain a strained relationship with Al and Cheryl. Althea now lives a distance from Donna, yet she still remains in contact with her, telling her what a wonderful mother she is, in order to hold her rage at bay. Although their father and his new wife hold postgraduate degrees, and are successful in their careers, and have encouraged and offered both daughters a college education, Al’s heart aches that his daughters barely survive working in call center and minimum wage jobs, with no plans of attending college or bettering themselves. The older daughter, Althea, did start college, but was put on academic probation after her first semester in college, and then dropped out two weeks into the next semester. Every year she makes empty promises that she will be starting “classes” the next semester, thinking that this will appease her father. She tells people that she has "two years of college." She herself suffers from ADD, and continues filling her life with strings of fantasy lies. (“My boss just gave me a raise that doubled my income. I’m going to make $60,000 a year now.” -- She was working as a receptionist. On another occasion, “My boss told me I am going to be hired as a supervisor of the school where I’m working.” Later, when asked how the interview went, “I’m so upset. They didn’t tell me I needed a Master’s in Social Work.”) She was married and divorced twice before she was twenty three, and conceived a child out of wedlock in between. The younger daughter talked of college to appease her father, but never even started the first semester after she graduated from high school. At twenty-two, her body is covered with pierces and tattoos. She cuts herself (the older sister self-mutilated at 14), drinks heavily, parties constantly, is infamous with her friends for the quantity of alcohol she can consume at a party, and works a dead-end entry level job. Both daughters are experts at telling lies. They are “drawn like a moth to a candle,” in Al’s words, when he speaks of their obsessively close relationship with their mentally unstable mother. The daughters know just how to stroke Donna’s ego, to benefit from favors. Althea is minimally communicative with Al and Cheryl and Natalie is now completely estranged, complaining about her father with the identical words and expressions that her mother had used all the years of marriage, and after. She is in constant contact with her mother, telling her what a perfectly wonderful “mommy” she is, because her mommy “gives her money and things even when she doesn’t have any money to give.” She has an extremely distorted concept of the world of money and how one should acquire it – after watching all the money her mother received from her father in child support and watching her spend it foolishly, Natalie feels that people who love her should pour money on her, and if they don’t want to do this – “f**k them.” She has expressed this to her father as well as publicly on her website. Natalie’s complaints of her father are like listening to a tape recording of the mentally unstable mother’s complaints – in many cases, even the words used are verbatim. Althea walks a tightrope, barely keeping in contact with her father and Cheryl, while stroking her mother’s ego. During rare phone calls, she has expressed the seriousness of the brainwashing that is going on with Natalie. She has expressed the concern that Natalie appears to have a kind of amnesia, is unable to recall the real events of her childhood. Althea says that Natalie is only able to recall the “re-recorded” version that her mother has repeated to her over and over. These two young ladies are the collateral damage of a BP. Both were taken to psychologists for therapy, but by this time, the damage had been done. Althea was diagnosed at 14 with post traumatic stress disorder, and as the psychologist who treated the younger daughter a few years ago, said, “She’s sixteen. It’s too late now. If I had been able to work with her ten years ago when she was six, perhaps I could have made a difference.” At this time, the psychologist confided in Al that Donna was calling him, relentlessly, to maintain complete control of the therapy sessions, and had to be asked to stop calling, as well as to leave the office when she kept appearing to be present in the sessions with Natalie. Al and Cheryl still hold on to the hope that, with time, there may be some reconciliation between them and Al’s daughters, but he accepts the fact that it may not be happening soon.
Some professional journal articles speak of a statistical probability as high as 50% that, a child with ADD that has a BPD mother will develop BPD. However, from the looks of it, Althea may have less characteristics of BPD then Natalie does. Natalie presently exhibits 8 out of 9 characteristics. Psychologists decline to diagnose teenage BPD, since it has been shown that some mental instability may mimic BPD traits but may merely be part of a difficult adolescence, and the traits may actually disappear by the time an individual reaches 19 or 20. Natalie will soon be 22. Her blog spews hatred, anger and resentment. She continues to self-medicate, and to cut herself, blaming it all on her father and her father’s wife. (Natalie lived with Al and Cheryl for a year when she was 13, but could not stand the normal structure of a curfew, accountability for her whereabouts, and requirement to participate in one or two family chores, and was seduced by the total “freedom” (read: total lack of supervision) her mother offered her at the age of 14.” Natalie blames Cheryl, for “all the pain of her whole life.” She blames her father, for abandoning her mother.)
“The sins of the father….” in this case should read, “The sins of the mother….” The adults in this story can fend for themselves. Cheryl and Al managed to stay married in spite of the myriad problems they had from Donna. The daily “damage” that Donna did to the lives of Al and his new wife was eventually controlled with a sequence of protection orders, but the damage that Donna did to her two daughters will live on in the damaged psyches, instability, obliviousness to boundaries, lack of self-discipline, and poor self esteem that Althea and Natalie will have to work on the rest of their lives. At present Natalie does not speak to Al or Cheryl. Donna has convinced Natalie that her father is a hateful bastard, a horrible father, and that he abandoned her mother and dragged her and the children to another state where Donna is still unable to get a decent job. (Donna has a Master’s degree in a technical field, but due to her unstable work relationships, subsequent frequent layoffs and recent inability to get jobs in her field, has not kept up with her field.) Donna has convinced Natalie that Al is responsible for this and all the problems in Donna’s as well as Althea’s and Natalie’s life. Natalie believes her mother. This is brainwashing honed to a fine art, lavishly dealt out over the years. What Natalie seems to have forgotten is her painful childhood when she never knew which mommy was coming around the corner – the nice one or the mean one, when her mother lavished gifts upon her or made her give away her favorite toy as a sadistic way to punish her, or the mother who bought her candy at the store one minute and the next moment, threatened a ten-year-old Natalie that she was not going to see Mommy anymore because Mommy was going to commit suicide. She forgot the outlandish behavior of her mother that to a small child looked creative and fun, but which set her mother up as an outrageous, uncontrollable child in the family, and not the parent figure, it modeled behavior which decimated all boundaries. Natalie has forgotten the times when , with seemingly no provocation, her mother would turn into the mean mommy and rage in screaming fits in which an impressionable teenage Natalie was called “a pathetic loser,” bitch,” and many other names a mother should never, ever call her daughter. Natalie seems to have forgotten the scenes with her mother “bitch slapping” her, as well as slamming her head into the passenger window of the car. She seems to have forgotten all the times the police were called to break up a violent fight between Natalie and her mother. On Al’s side – if Natalie could only remember the real truth, she would remember how her father tried to keep the sky from falling, she would remember that neither he nor Cheryl ever spoke poorly of Donna in Natalie’s or Althea’s presence. She would remember that Al and Cheryl never used demeaning words towards Natalie or Althea as Donna had, that Al and Cheryl encouraged Natalie and Althea to develop healthy friendships, value education and live productively. Natalie forgets that her mother used these attempts of Al and Cheryl to bring normalcy to Natalie’s life, to make it look like they were denying her freedom. Even if Natalie could remember it, she most likely would not admit it. And if Natalie has memory of even one of those incidents, she would still tell you today that her mother is a different person today, that she has changed. Althea would disagree. Natalie does not live with Donna anymore, and Donna has been able to fool Natalie, just as she was able to fool Al, maintaining the thin veneer of mental stability. When Natalie leaves, she does not know that Donna lights into Althea with the same vengeance as before. Althea is Donna’s lightning rod.
Al felt that it was important for a child to never hear a negative message about her mother from the divorced father. Therein lies the irony. Doesn’t it skew a child’s sense of reality when no one ever admits that Donna’s behavior was and is crazy and angry, and vengeful, and manipulative? Al just kept frantically running in circles, trying to catch the pieces of the sky as they fell, trying to keep as normal an environment as possible, pretending that everything was okay, for the sake of the children. At 22, Natalie now believes her mother is not mentally unstable, but rather that her mother is a “victim” in a vicious plot to ruin her life, and she’s become quite belligerent to Althea if anything different is mentioned. If there’s an elephant in the room while your child is growing up, but you pretend for long enough that the elephant is not in the room, there is a danger the child may believe she’s never seen an elephant, may be unable to identify future elephants, rendering all elephants virtually invisible to that child. If you admit the elephant is in the room, however, you would be accused of bad parenting for badtalking the mother. Al stayed with Donna all those years because he feared for the safety of his daughters. Donna can put on the act of mental stability when necessary and was able to fool the judge. Al finally left Donna because the marriage therapist took him aside, privately, and told him Donna would never get well, and that what he was doing was killing him, would kill him -- and Al would be no good dead, to his daughters. That got through to Al.
One apple, one irreparably rotten apple, one sly and manipulative apple was able to spoil the lives of all the other apples in the barrel. But, of all the victim apples, the ones that deserved their own chance at life, were the two little girl apples. Whether you speak of elephants or apples, the story turns out the same. There are national campaigns to help eradicate many diseases, there are programs to evacuate people from the path of a hurricane, programs to help survivors of disasters, but there are no national campaigns to educate the populace about BPD, to identify BPD parents, and to get their children help before it’s too late. Most BPD’s do not remain married for long, but you can bet that upon the couple’s divorce, the children most likely go with the mother. Besides, most people have never heard of BPD, much less are able to identify its symptoms.
So, how do we go about reinventing the world, as far as personality disorders go? When I last spoke with Al and Cheryl, they had some opinions and suggestions for everyone to consider. First, everyone should be informed about personality disorders. More often than not, if confronted with a situation like this, you will have to make an initial “diagnosis” or evaluation of the individual before you ever consult with a professional therapist. For this, you must know the symptoms. As Al said, “people don’t come with a certificate or stamp on their forehead that says, ‘Not BPD,’ or ‘Personality-Disorder-Free,’ or alternatively, ‘Beware: BPD!’ Second, if you are already in a relationship with someone, follow good-ole-common sense and take it slow, and take the responsibility for birth control. Give the relationship enough time, to be able to identify any of these traits BEFORE you get married. If you find out you’re dating a BP -- unless you’re a glutton for punishment for the rest of your married life (and after the divorce, too), Al says, “Get Out, now!” If you are not sure, get a neutral Third Party, such as a therapist to help you decide. Remember, as Al’s marriage counselor had said, “What are you waiting for? If you’re waiting for her to get better, it’s not going to happen. There will be days like this, and worse days, but never better.” Al suggests that if you identify these traits in a potential partner that you think long and hard about the long term, and what you might be getting into. Third, If you don’t end the relationship, and you choose to remain in the relationship, Al suggests that you take the responsibility to make sure that no child is born into this relationship. (He wanted to make it clear that he loves his two daughters very much, and if he could have, he would have had them with a different mother who could have brought stability to the family relationship, instead of a continual maelstrom of dysfunction and confusion. Fourth, If there is already a child, you owe the child the following: 1) serve the best interest of the child and end the marriage, 2) relentlessly, do everything you legally can to bring the child with you, if you can, and, 3)no matter what – get continual counseling for the child. Make sure that the counselor specializes in pediatric and family counseling and is an expert in BPD. It is vital that you find a counselor who is trained and experienced in this specific field. Fifth, bring this problem to the forefront. Speak the words to the lawyer, the judge, the court officials, and the counselor. Sixth, if you are an adult child of a BP, get yourself into counseling to start undoing the damage that was done to you. Finally, seventh, if you recognize the symptoms of BPD in yourself, don’t hide or make excuses for your symptoms. Listen to your intellect and not your emotions – get your children help, and get yourself help. Some sources say that, although BPD is a lifelong struggle, and most admit it cannot be “cured,” many agree that if the patient is forthright and willing to work on it through sessions for a consistent and lengthy period of time, BPD can be controlled, and the BP can have a better life.
In a way, BPD is like heart disease, a silent killer. BP’s are not the most seriously victimized – their children are. Borderline Personality Disorder silently kills the futures of little children.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Day of the Dead / Día de Los Muertos
“When the birds flock to the south
When the wind calls to the north
You are in the falling snow
You are beauty going forth
You are heat and you are light
Sun above the mountain's peak
I would give the sun and moon
Once more just to hear you speak
Wings of angels, tears of saints
Prayers and promises won't bring you back
Come to me in dreams again
Wings of angels, tears of saints
Prayers and Promises” --By Judy Collins
One of the biggest surprises I have had while living in Mexico has been Day of the Dead. It may be surprising to my readers that a teacher who is fluent in Spanish, has lived before in Guadalajara and Mexico City, and who taught all the Mexican holidays in her Spanish classes for years would make a statement like this. I guess this is the place to express the idea that living in those two large Mexican cities did not completely prepare me for living in a rural area on Lake Chapala. We live more than 12 kilometers away from “Gringolandia,” in a rural area, at the edge of a quaint little village, overlooking the lake. [“Gringolandia” is my term for the area of Ajijic and surrounding areas which during certain times of the year can contain as many as 15,000 Canadian and American ex-patriots. This area is occasionally Mexican. Ajijic is an extremely beautiful town with well-maintained houses, streets and services. Within this population there are those who occupy their houses only a few months, or a few weeks out of the year, as well as those who live full-time in the area, with their only house being in Mexico. It’s a wonderful place to visit and shop. But, living in Ajijic is not equivalent to “Living the Mexican Experience,” as you can go days on end without ever having to speak Spanish. When we first moved to the Lake Chapala area (which, by the way, at its fullest, is up to 100 miles long) when we were walking down the streets of Ajijic, I spied an older gentleman crossing the street close to us. He wore a Mexican woven straw hat which partially covered a tanned face. I greeted him with, “Buenos Días.” With an obviously irritated demeanor, he looked me firmly in the eyes and produced an absurdly enunciated form of “Good Morning!,” correcting me in a manner someone might pronounce words for a young beginner in the English language. I’m sure he felt that I had been chastised properly; I was not to greet this man ever again in the native language of the country, but rather in the “native language” of Gringolandia.] But, I digress.
In the same way one cannot make conclusions about all of American culture from knowing people from only one area of the U.S., the same is true for Mexico’s diversity. The area around Lake Chapala is vastly different from the citified culture of Guadalajara, starting only 25 minutes to the North of Lake Chapala. The Lake Chapala area is much more indigenous, with all that term entails. El Día de Los Muertos is much more akin to the ancient Celtic Druid holiday in which, on October 31st, the barrier between the spirit world and the world of the living vanishes and the souls of the departed are believed to return to Earth one time per year to visit those who still inhabit the Earthly plain. The Druids would build big bonfires to light the way, so the departed could find their way back home. Druids would dress in scary costumes of spirits and other ghostly apparitions in case they would come upon a not-so-friendly-spirit that had returned to cause mayhem and thus the Earthlings would blend in with the other frightening spirits. Instead of bonfires, Mexicans create an “altar” for their departed loved ones, designed to lead the spirits from the cemeteries to their homes for a visit. The brightly decorated altar frequently has several levels, representing the steps in life: birth, youth, adulthood, old age and death. Usually a picture of the departed is placed on the altar, as well as water to quench thirst from the long journey, salt, bread (called “pan de muertos,” a delicious, sweet bread sprinkled with sugar), some of the favorite foods that were enjoyed in life, candles to light their way, flowers (frequently the orange ones which are so abundant in the fields during this time of year, and marigolds, symbolizing the short duration of life), sugar skulls with names inscribed with frosting, treasured possessions, a basin of water with soap and towel to freshen up, and burning copal, (a tree resin) an ancient Aztec custom of loving healing and purification. The day after “El Día de los Muertos,” the food that was placed on the altar will look as it did the day before, it will look like the rest of it that was not placed on the altar, but those who eat the food that has been left for departed loved ones testify to the fact that it has changed, that the taste of it has been diminished, altered, as the departed loved ones have partaken of their most treasured foods of their previous life. Graves in the cemeteries are spiffed up and laden with bouquets and wreaths of fresh flowers. The Druid customs which had been incorporated by the Christian customs and brought to Mexico by the Franciscan missionaries as All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, adopted by the Mexicans, took on their own native flavor when mixed with 4 millennia of native traditions. On October 31st, unrepentant souls are believed to return. On November 1st, sometimes called “Day of the Little Angels,” or “Día de los Angelitos”, it is believed that babies and young children come to visit, with the next day, November 2nd, the “official” Day of the Dead, hosting visits from the adult departed. I cannot stress how much it is necessary to experience this yourself to truly understand it. It is a festive time of the year that truly feels sacred. When you stand before one of these altars in people’s homes and sometimes in their businesses, listening to someone speaking of special memories of departed loved ones, pointing out the significance of special foods or possessions, showing precious photographs, it will change you, perhaps subtly, but it will change you. It will also change you, if you make a Day of the Dead altar in remembrance of your own departed loved ones.
During these two days, families may even spend the night in the cemetery, but, regardless, families dedicate this time to remembering and honoring their dead loved ones. The importance of maintaining this memory is exquisitely represented by Victor Landa, from San Antonio, "In our tradition, people die three deaths. The first death is when our bodies cease to function; when our hearts no longer beat of their own accord, when our gaze no longer has depth or weight, when the space we occupy slowly loses its meaning. The second death comes when the body is lowered into the ground, returned to mother earth, out of sight. The third death, the most definitive death, is when there is no one left alive to remember us."
[As quoted by Judy King, in “Los Días de Los Muertos,”
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/jking/jkdayofthedead.html
Check out her e-zine at www.mexconnect.com/ ; a subscription is worth every cent, for the wealth of information it provides about Mexico.]
Last year, I made an altar for the departed of our household. It had been less than 8 months since my father’s death, less than eighteen months since my mother’s death, and less than 21 months since my older brother’s death. My husband’s father had passed away ten years before. On the altar I placed all the traditional settings, including pictures and favorite foods. I plan to make an altar again this year. The fullness of feeling around this time of year in Mexico defies words. It is so much more than the sentiment of the customary American fall harvest, more than Thanksgiving, it brings into play the joys of life and companionship and friendship, abundance, and most of all, the memories we have lived with loved ones. This fullness of feeling invokes reverence, reminding us that no matter how long we live, our time here is precious and fleeting. All this starts gradually, sometime towards the beginning of October, as the weather begins to change and families spend time decorating the gravesites and preparing the altars, the bakeries stock “pan de muerto,” grocery stores stock pumpkins, and candy skulls, and florists display a wide array of wreaths for sale. The weather in the Lake Chapala area has already begun to turn. Weather here is always pleasant, but there are subtle differences, even in this mild, subtropical climate. The distant lush green of the surrounding mountains and hills are suddenly peppered with “bouquets” of yellow-blossomed bushes that grow natively here. The nearby green that has been growing throughout the rainy season, suddenly, from one day to the next, bursts into bright orange flowers, sometimes covering entire fields, and lining the highway all the way towards the town of Mezcala. The air is different -- crisper and slightly cooler. During the day, the sun feels like a light, warm blanket that caresses your shoulders.
The Mexican attitude towards death and life may be different from American culture, but perhaps in the end it might be healthier. As Judy King so eloquently expresses, “The Mexican flatters and woos death, he sings to her, dances with her, lifts his glass to her, he laughs at her. Finally, he challenges her, and in the challenging, death loses her power to intimidate him. Once he knows death intimately, death is no longer wrapped in a cloak of mystery or causes him to fear the darkness. Once the fear of death has been defeated, the clutch she has on the hearts and minds of the living is lessened once and for all. Death's morbid side is buried under music and remembrances, while skeletons laugh and dance and sing as Mexico celebrates life in its embrace of death.”
This time of year has become a real favorite for me. I can feel it deep within my being. Now, in this month of October, I wake every morning pleasantly recalling the previous night’s dreams when one or more members of my departed family come to me and speak to me. Like the indigenous Mexicans who have incorporated ancient customs, of their own with those of the Druids, and Catholicism, I too am fortunate to have become something more than I was before I came to live here, incorporating all these ancient customs into the identity I now possess, this new identity that has made me stronger, this identity that will always reverently remember and honor the past, yet travel forward into a future where, finally, if I am fortunate, I will be remembered by loved ones and live on a little longer before I experience “the third death.” For now, I will do my part to remember departed loved ones so they will live on, and for a brief time each year, I may have the pleasure of their company as they return to visit.
When the wind calls to the north
You are in the falling snow
You are beauty going forth
You are heat and you are light
Sun above the mountain's peak
I would give the sun and moon
Once more just to hear you speak
Wings of angels, tears of saints
Prayers and promises won't bring you back
Come to me in dreams again
Wings of angels, tears of saints
Prayers and Promises” --By Judy Collins
One of the biggest surprises I have had while living in Mexico has been Day of the Dead. It may be surprising to my readers that a teacher who is fluent in Spanish, has lived before in Guadalajara and Mexico City, and who taught all the Mexican holidays in her Spanish classes for years would make a statement like this. I guess this is the place to express the idea that living in those two large Mexican cities did not completely prepare me for living in a rural area on Lake Chapala. We live more than 12 kilometers away from “Gringolandia,” in a rural area, at the edge of a quaint little village, overlooking the lake. [“Gringolandia” is my term for the area of Ajijic and surrounding areas which during certain times of the year can contain as many as 15,000 Canadian and American ex-patriots. This area is occasionally Mexican. Ajijic is an extremely beautiful town with well-maintained houses, streets and services. Within this population there are those who occupy their houses only a few months, or a few weeks out of the year, as well as those who live full-time in the area, with their only house being in Mexico. It’s a wonderful place to visit and shop. But, living in Ajijic is not equivalent to “Living the Mexican Experience,” as you can go days on end without ever having to speak Spanish. When we first moved to the Lake Chapala area (which, by the way, at its fullest, is up to 100 miles long) when we were walking down the streets of Ajijic, I spied an older gentleman crossing the street close to us. He wore a Mexican woven straw hat which partially covered a tanned face. I greeted him with, “Buenos Días.” With an obviously irritated demeanor, he looked me firmly in the eyes and produced an absurdly enunciated form of “Good Morning!,” correcting me in a manner someone might pronounce words for a young beginner in the English language. I’m sure he felt that I had been chastised properly; I was not to greet this man ever again in the native language of the country, but rather in the “native language” of Gringolandia.] But, I digress.
In the same way one cannot make conclusions about all of American culture from knowing people from only one area of the U.S., the same is true for Mexico’s diversity. The area around Lake Chapala is vastly different from the citified culture of Guadalajara, starting only 25 minutes to the North of Lake Chapala. The Lake Chapala area is much more indigenous, with all that term entails. El Día de Los Muertos is much more akin to the ancient Celtic Druid holiday in which, on October 31st, the barrier between the spirit world and the world of the living vanishes and the souls of the departed are believed to return to Earth one time per year to visit those who still inhabit the Earthly plain. The Druids would build big bonfires to light the way, so the departed could find their way back home. Druids would dress in scary costumes of spirits and other ghostly apparitions in case they would come upon a not-so-friendly-spirit that had returned to cause mayhem and thus the Earthlings would blend in with the other frightening spirits. Instead of bonfires, Mexicans create an “altar” for their departed loved ones, designed to lead the spirits from the cemeteries to their homes for a visit. The brightly decorated altar frequently has several levels, representing the steps in life: birth, youth, adulthood, old age and death. Usually a picture of the departed is placed on the altar, as well as water to quench thirst from the long journey, salt, bread (called “pan de muertos,” a delicious, sweet bread sprinkled with sugar), some of the favorite foods that were enjoyed in life, candles to light their way, flowers (frequently the orange ones which are so abundant in the fields during this time of year, and marigolds, symbolizing the short duration of life), sugar skulls with names inscribed with frosting, treasured possessions, a basin of water with soap and towel to freshen up, and burning copal, (a tree resin) an ancient Aztec custom of loving healing and purification. The day after “El Día de los Muertos,” the food that was placed on the altar will look as it did the day before, it will look like the rest of it that was not placed on the altar, but those who eat the food that has been left for departed loved ones testify to the fact that it has changed, that the taste of it has been diminished, altered, as the departed loved ones have partaken of their most treasured foods of their previous life. Graves in the cemeteries are spiffed up and laden with bouquets and wreaths of fresh flowers. The Druid customs which had been incorporated by the Christian customs and brought to Mexico by the Franciscan missionaries as All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, adopted by the Mexicans, took on their own native flavor when mixed with 4 millennia of native traditions. On October 31st, unrepentant souls are believed to return. On November 1st, sometimes called “Day of the Little Angels,” or “Día de los Angelitos”, it is believed that babies and young children come to visit, with the next day, November 2nd, the “official” Day of the Dead, hosting visits from the adult departed. I cannot stress how much it is necessary to experience this yourself to truly understand it. It is a festive time of the year that truly feels sacred. When you stand before one of these altars in people’s homes and sometimes in their businesses, listening to someone speaking of special memories of departed loved ones, pointing out the significance of special foods or possessions, showing precious photographs, it will change you, perhaps subtly, but it will change you. It will also change you, if you make a Day of the Dead altar in remembrance of your own departed loved ones.
During these two days, families may even spend the night in the cemetery, but, regardless, families dedicate this time to remembering and honoring their dead loved ones. The importance of maintaining this memory is exquisitely represented by Victor Landa, from San Antonio, "In our tradition, people die three deaths. The first death is when our bodies cease to function; when our hearts no longer beat of their own accord, when our gaze no longer has depth or weight, when the space we occupy slowly loses its meaning. The second death comes when the body is lowered into the ground, returned to mother earth, out of sight. The third death, the most definitive death, is when there is no one left alive to remember us."
[As quoted by Judy King, in “Los Días de Los Muertos,”
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/jking/jkdayofthedead.html
Check out her e-zine at www.mexconnect.com/ ; a subscription is worth every cent, for the wealth of information it provides about Mexico.]
Last year, I made an altar for the departed of our household. It had been less than 8 months since my father’s death, less than eighteen months since my mother’s death, and less than 21 months since my older brother’s death. My husband’s father had passed away ten years before. On the altar I placed all the traditional settings, including pictures and favorite foods. I plan to make an altar again this year. The fullness of feeling around this time of year in Mexico defies words. It is so much more than the sentiment of the customary American fall harvest, more than Thanksgiving, it brings into play the joys of life and companionship and friendship, abundance, and most of all, the memories we have lived with loved ones. This fullness of feeling invokes reverence, reminding us that no matter how long we live, our time here is precious and fleeting. All this starts gradually, sometime towards the beginning of October, as the weather begins to change and families spend time decorating the gravesites and preparing the altars, the bakeries stock “pan de muerto,” grocery stores stock pumpkins, and candy skulls, and florists display a wide array of wreaths for sale. The weather in the Lake Chapala area has already begun to turn. Weather here is always pleasant, but there are subtle differences, even in this mild, subtropical climate. The distant lush green of the surrounding mountains and hills are suddenly peppered with “bouquets” of yellow-blossomed bushes that grow natively here. The nearby green that has been growing throughout the rainy season, suddenly, from one day to the next, bursts into bright orange flowers, sometimes covering entire fields, and lining the highway all the way towards the town of Mezcala. The air is different -- crisper and slightly cooler. During the day, the sun feels like a light, warm blanket that caresses your shoulders.
The Mexican attitude towards death and life may be different from American culture, but perhaps in the end it might be healthier. As Judy King so eloquently expresses, “The Mexican flatters and woos death, he sings to her, dances with her, lifts his glass to her, he laughs at her. Finally, he challenges her, and in the challenging, death loses her power to intimidate him. Once he knows death intimately, death is no longer wrapped in a cloak of mystery or causes him to fear the darkness. Once the fear of death has been defeated, the clutch she has on the hearts and minds of the living is lessened once and for all. Death's morbid side is buried under music and remembrances, while skeletons laugh and dance and sing as Mexico celebrates life in its embrace of death.”
This time of year has become a real favorite for me. I can feel it deep within my being. Now, in this month of October, I wake every morning pleasantly recalling the previous night’s dreams when one or more members of my departed family come to me and speak to me. Like the indigenous Mexicans who have incorporated ancient customs, of their own with those of the Druids, and Catholicism, I too am fortunate to have become something more than I was before I came to live here, incorporating all these ancient customs into the identity I now possess, this new identity that has made me stronger, this identity that will always reverently remember and honor the past, yet travel forward into a future where, finally, if I am fortunate, I will be remembered by loved ones and live on a little longer before I experience “the third death.” For now, I will do my part to remember departed loved ones so they will live on, and for a brief time each year, I may have the pleasure of their company as they return to visit.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Practice Makes Permanent
Charles lives with depression. He has a partner who codependently maintains the “structure” of daily life while Charles is hiding under his pillow. The interesting thing about Charles is he seems to be emotionally attached to his depression. (No pun intended.) He started out with only minor bouts of depression, considering it part and parcel of a highly creative genius’ emotional makeup. He would describe aspects of his bouts with depression, speaking of them almost as one would speak of a good friend who is high maintenance, but fascinating and worth keeping around. Charles’ self-loathing and egotistical defense of his addictive habits are part of the curious mix of his personality. His extraordinary effort to saturate his communication with erudite vocabulary in an effort to convince people of his developed intellect contrasts with his self-expressed impostor complex – an ever-present fear that at any moment he would be discovered to be an inane incompetent. His reaction to the world vacillates between hypersensitive, extreme empathy and highly defensive verbal aggressiveness. He never seems to be able to keep this in balance – he may become extremely angry because a person stands an inch too close to him in a grocery line, and in the next moment he may stress all week over possibly having offended someone with an expression of a harmless opinion that he fears might have been misinterpreted. What does remain consistent is the attraction depression holds for him, -- and one more constant -- his worsening psychological state -- with each bout of depression, Charles goes a bit deeper, a bit longer each time. He disappears for longer and longer periods of time, explaining them away as being sick in bed with “a bad case of the flu.” It is progressive for him. In spite of what he has accomplished, he seems to never really own his achievements. There is only one thing he is very possessive about: his depression -- as part of his identity.
In the August 2000 article, “Why Practice Makes Perfect,” Anne Pycha (http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/practice) speaks of the brain mechanism that aids development of excellence in a skill. “When a skill develops or changes, the cortical maps also change, and neuron populations may be annexed for specific purposes, later abandoned, and sometimes annexed again.” “…Thanks to twenty years of research, we now know that the brain is plastic: it can and does remodel itself, sometimes within a remarkably short period of time.…Just as the migratory behavior of residents can change the map of a city, so can our learning behavior change the maps in our brain, causing neurons populations to synchronize their actions, respond to new inputs, and support new skills.” She continues to explain what it is that causes development of true excellence in a skill. ”So what differentiates expert seamstresses and bakers from the rest of us? They don't just practice their trade every now and again: instead, they have paid special attention to their chosen skill, and have perfected that skill with intensive, repetitive practice.” Returning to the example of acquiring skill at guitar-playing, she explains the critical factor that must be present to actually alter the neural pathways. “You can't really learn how to play the guitar if you pick it up once or twice a month, strum for a while, and then wander into the kitchen for a snack. In fact, it's pretty hard to learn anything this way, as your school teachers probably pointed out. When we approach learning casually, we're unlikely to become experts, and our brain is unlikely to rewire itself. When we approach learning seriously, however, something else happens: we attend to a task, we practice it over and over again, and we become emotionally involved. Under these conditions, brain plasticity happens - the winemaker can sharpen her taste buds, the blind person can learn to read Braille, the musician can perfect his pitch, and you can become an honest-to-goodness guitar player.…When we notice a part of our experiential world or take a selective interest in a new skill, we analyze it - specifically, we take the trouble to examine how it works in space and time.…As we've seen, brain maps change spatially by taking over neighboring neuronal populations on different parts of the cortex. But brain maps can also change in time, by synchronizing the actions of neurons more tightly so that a specific group of neurons may provide near-simultaneous responses to the same input. These timing relationships may actually help support the plasticity of existing cortical maps and the generation of new ones, because a single neuron can participate in the representation of several different sensory or motor representations at different times.” She equates a weak versus a strong neural connection to receiving a postcard once a year versus receiving a love letter every day from someone you are emotionally involved with. It makes a difference. The dark side of this is that when one cortical map grows, another one must shrink. But we know for sure, “Without our attention, without our willingness to practice intensively, the brain just won't budge.”
Living with depression is certainly a miserable existence, one we strive to understand and eradicate from the human psyche. Brain research has made great advances in the area of mood disorder in the last 20 years. We know that depression has biological “markers” in the brain. They now believe that some people have a biological predisposition in the brain which may lead more easily to depression. Research also shows that each bout with depression further damages the structure of the brain. Peter D. Kramer explains in his book, Against Depression, “…Chronic stress leads to the production of stress hormones. Stress hormones damage hippocampal (and other) brain cells, isolating them and pushing them to the brink of destruction. Further stressors push the cells over the edge. As damage progresses, feedback systems fail. Even minor adversity then causes the overproduction of stress hormones. What would otherwise be limited injuries extend, in the presence of stress hormones, into substantial brain damage. The hormones also dampen repair and regeneration functions, so that temporary injuries become permanent.” (p. 118) Kramer poses the possibility (based on the research of Yvette Sheline) that "the brains of depressives are less resilient than they should be", that "defects in the repair mechanism are to blame for depression becoming chronic, with recurring episodes lasting longer than previous ones."
Anne Pyche’s comment regarding brain pathways comes to mind again, “When we approach learning seriously, however, something else happens: we attend to a task, we practice it over and over again, and we become emotionally involved.” If this mechanism of repetition mixed with emotional involvement exists in the brain for acquiring a skill, could it be possible that it also exists when practicing a mood disorder such as depression? If, when practicing depression we damage the brain, as well as damage its repair mechanisms, it would be advisable to avoid even one or two bouts of depression. This must certainly sound simplistic, but if the brain does not discern the difference between practicing guitar and practicing depression, then it may become more efficient at either skill if exposed to the repetition with emotional involvement. The disadvantage of practicing depression would be that it damages the brain.
If we can redistribute the neural pathways in our brains, the question then arises: Could I reprogram my attitude towards an incident or incidents in my life, so that the memory of it doesn’t affect me negatively? Could I change the way I think about an experience, so that it does not control how I feel? And, ultimately, could I arrive at techniques that would steer me away from a negative approach to life experiences so that I am not adversely affected by these experiences in any way, so that I not only survive but thrive, so that I am happy instead of depressed? The answer to these questions could be “yes!” There are several methods for achieving this that are already developed and available. These methods are all related to one thing: getting the “garbage” out of your head, so that your approach to life, how you react to what happens to you, changes from your old, negative patterns to new, positive ones. For some, it might be as simple as reading The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale, or ridding the body of stress with Transcendental Meditation. Others prefer Biofeedback. Both TM and Biofeedback have been documented in scientific research to reduce stress in the physiology.
Years ago I came upon a technique called Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). (http://www.nlpanchorpoint.com/index.html) It is very difficult to define NLP in a few sentences. I do not claim any proficiency at NLP; I am just a novice, but what I know of it makes a lot of sense to me. NLP is a method of personal development for bettering a person’s approach to life. The method provides techniques for training yourself to react to experiences so they are put in a context that permits you to be happy and successful. These techniques enable a person to de-emphasize the negative effects and empower the positive aspects of life experiences and thoughts. The techniques used by NLP are helpful with interpreting present experiences, as well as with reinterpreting past experiences. Another champion of reinventing one's psychological/behavioral approach to life’s experiences for happiness, fulfillment and success is Tony Robbins. (http://www.tonyrobbins.com/Home/Home.aspx) He uses his own technique called neuroassociative conditioning which is an offshoot of NLP. If you’re not the kind that can get through a whole book (He’s written several.), you can buy one of his audio/video series. His products and seminars are a bargain at any price.
Think about the POSSIBILITY for Charles. He has already lived half of his life. Right now he could be living the old analogy of the glass – he could be facing a final half of his life that is full of happiness and contentment. Even if people who have only a few days of life left can learn to filter out the negativity from those life experiences, they will end their life in contentedness, emphasizing the positive experiences. The choice may be in Charles’ hands. Or, if Charles is too weak and damaged, perhaps Charles’ partner could get him help in finding out about learning these techniques for retraining his brain. Think about the POSSIBILITY for a parent, who could learn to recognize depressive symptoms in a child and help the child reframe experiences. A small child could learn to make the sad feelings go away and the happy feelings stay. Think about the POSSIBILITY for the future of our youth. School programs could be developed to help children acquire positive filtering devices for life experiences. A life is a precious thing to waste. If all you ever have is your depression, you will have nothing in the end. Maybe Charles could learn that depression is not such a precious possession after all.
In the August 2000 article, “Why Practice Makes Perfect,” Anne Pycha (http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/practice) speaks of the brain mechanism that aids development of excellence in a skill. “When a skill develops or changes, the cortical maps also change, and neuron populations may be annexed for specific purposes, later abandoned, and sometimes annexed again.” “…Thanks to twenty years of research, we now know that the brain is plastic: it can and does remodel itself, sometimes within a remarkably short period of time.…Just as the migratory behavior of residents can change the map of a city, so can our learning behavior change the maps in our brain, causing neurons populations to synchronize their actions, respond to new inputs, and support new skills.” She continues to explain what it is that causes development of true excellence in a skill. ”So what differentiates expert seamstresses and bakers from the rest of us? They don't just practice their trade every now and again: instead, they have paid special attention to their chosen skill, and have perfected that skill with intensive, repetitive practice.” Returning to the example of acquiring skill at guitar-playing, she explains the critical factor that must be present to actually alter the neural pathways. “You can't really learn how to play the guitar if you pick it up once or twice a month, strum for a while, and then wander into the kitchen for a snack. In fact, it's pretty hard to learn anything this way, as your school teachers probably pointed out. When we approach learning casually, we're unlikely to become experts, and our brain is unlikely to rewire itself. When we approach learning seriously, however, something else happens: we attend to a task, we practice it over and over again, and we become emotionally involved. Under these conditions, brain plasticity happens - the winemaker can sharpen her taste buds, the blind person can learn to read Braille, the musician can perfect his pitch, and you can become an honest-to-goodness guitar player.…When we notice a part of our experiential world or take a selective interest in a new skill, we analyze it - specifically, we take the trouble to examine how it works in space and time.…As we've seen, brain maps change spatially by taking over neighboring neuronal populations on different parts of the cortex. But brain maps can also change in time, by synchronizing the actions of neurons more tightly so that a specific group of neurons may provide near-simultaneous responses to the same input. These timing relationships may actually help support the plasticity of existing cortical maps and the generation of new ones, because a single neuron can participate in the representation of several different sensory or motor representations at different times.” She equates a weak versus a strong neural connection to receiving a postcard once a year versus receiving a love letter every day from someone you are emotionally involved with. It makes a difference. The dark side of this is that when one cortical map grows, another one must shrink. But we know for sure, “Without our attention, without our willingness to practice intensively, the brain just won't budge.”
Living with depression is certainly a miserable existence, one we strive to understand and eradicate from the human psyche. Brain research has made great advances in the area of mood disorder in the last 20 years. We know that depression has biological “markers” in the brain. They now believe that some people have a biological predisposition in the brain which may lead more easily to depression. Research also shows that each bout with depression further damages the structure of the brain. Peter D. Kramer explains in his book, Against Depression, “…Chronic stress leads to the production of stress hormones. Stress hormones damage hippocampal (and other) brain cells, isolating them and pushing them to the brink of destruction. Further stressors push the cells over the edge. As damage progresses, feedback systems fail. Even minor adversity then causes the overproduction of stress hormones. What would otherwise be limited injuries extend, in the presence of stress hormones, into substantial brain damage. The hormones also dampen repair and regeneration functions, so that temporary injuries become permanent.” (p. 118) Kramer poses the possibility (based on the research of Yvette Sheline) that "the brains of depressives are less resilient than they should be", that "defects in the repair mechanism are to blame for depression becoming chronic, with recurring episodes lasting longer than previous ones."
Anne Pyche’s comment regarding brain pathways comes to mind again, “When we approach learning seriously, however, something else happens: we attend to a task, we practice it over and over again, and we become emotionally involved.” If this mechanism of repetition mixed with emotional involvement exists in the brain for acquiring a skill, could it be possible that it also exists when practicing a mood disorder such as depression? If, when practicing depression we damage the brain, as well as damage its repair mechanisms, it would be advisable to avoid even one or two bouts of depression. This must certainly sound simplistic, but if the brain does not discern the difference between practicing guitar and practicing depression, then it may become more efficient at either skill if exposed to the repetition with emotional involvement. The disadvantage of practicing depression would be that it damages the brain.
If we can redistribute the neural pathways in our brains, the question then arises: Could I reprogram my attitude towards an incident or incidents in my life, so that the memory of it doesn’t affect me negatively? Could I change the way I think about an experience, so that it does not control how I feel? And, ultimately, could I arrive at techniques that would steer me away from a negative approach to life experiences so that I am not adversely affected by these experiences in any way, so that I not only survive but thrive, so that I am happy instead of depressed? The answer to these questions could be “yes!” There are several methods for achieving this that are already developed and available. These methods are all related to one thing: getting the “garbage” out of your head, so that your approach to life, how you react to what happens to you, changes from your old, negative patterns to new, positive ones. For some, it might be as simple as reading The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale, or ridding the body of stress with Transcendental Meditation. Others prefer Biofeedback. Both TM and Biofeedback have been documented in scientific research to reduce stress in the physiology.
Years ago I came upon a technique called Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). (http://www.nlpanchorpoint.com/index.html) It is very difficult to define NLP in a few sentences. I do not claim any proficiency at NLP; I am just a novice, but what I know of it makes a lot of sense to me. NLP is a method of personal development for bettering a person’s approach to life. The method provides techniques for training yourself to react to experiences so they are put in a context that permits you to be happy and successful. These techniques enable a person to de-emphasize the negative effects and empower the positive aspects of life experiences and thoughts. The techniques used by NLP are helpful with interpreting present experiences, as well as with reinterpreting past experiences. Another champion of reinventing one's psychological/behavioral approach to life’s experiences for happiness, fulfillment and success is Tony Robbins. (http://www.tonyrobbins.com/Home/Home.aspx) He uses his own technique called neuroassociative conditioning which is an offshoot of NLP. If you’re not the kind that can get through a whole book (He’s written several.), you can buy one of his audio/video series. His products and seminars are a bargain at any price.
Think about the POSSIBILITY for Charles. He has already lived half of his life. Right now he could be living the old analogy of the glass – he could be facing a final half of his life that is full of happiness and contentment. Even if people who have only a few days of life left can learn to filter out the negativity from those life experiences, they will end their life in contentedness, emphasizing the positive experiences. The choice may be in Charles’ hands. Or, if Charles is too weak and damaged, perhaps Charles’ partner could get him help in finding out about learning these techniques for retraining his brain. Think about the POSSIBILITY for a parent, who could learn to recognize depressive symptoms in a child and help the child reframe experiences. A small child could learn to make the sad feelings go away and the happy feelings stay. Think about the POSSIBILITY for the future of our youth. School programs could be developed to help children acquire positive filtering devices for life experiences. A life is a precious thing to waste. If all you ever have is your depression, you will have nothing in the end. Maybe Charles could learn that depression is not such a precious possession after all.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Squealing Pigs
Two years ago, we retired young and bought a house in a small town in Mexico, near Lake Chapala. Everything here in this rural Mexican town is a little more “visceral” than in the U.S. Several evenings ago, my husband and I sat down to watch the Fast Food Nation DVD, a multi-layered film about food processing, fast food, immigration, “meat processing” and myriad other issues. There were several slaughterhouse scenes. I was prepared for what I would see after having viewed several PETA video clips (http://www.peta.org/). Still, my husband, who had visited a slaughterhouse many years ago, commented that the scenes in this film were still quite “watered down,” so to speak. He said they could not, for several reasons, show the totality of the savagery and the “mess” that goes on in slaughterhouses. Yesterday, as we exited the nearest supermarket into the parking lot , for the first time in my life, I heard the cries of innocent victims having their throats slit and bleeding out. The high-pitched shrieks penetrated the very marrow of my bones, and I could not cover my ears sufficiently to stop the sound. I watched in amazement, pressing my fingers over my ears as hard as I could, as many people stood idly by, in groups, comfortably having a relaxed conversation as the screams penetrated the parking lot from the community slaughterhouse. It went through every atom in my body. My husband had warned me long ago that the screams that a pig makes before and during slaughter are eerie, and they sound like a human screaming for help, for mercy, screaming in horrible pain. I had never heard this sound first-hand until that moment. I looked over to see the skinned bodies of the previous victims already hanging up on the conveyer.
After leaving the supermarket, we were on our way to eat at Secret Garden, a local vegetarian restaurant in Ajijic. As we made our way down the highway towards the restaurant, I had to hold back the tears several times. It was so very personal, so very visceral. The screams kept running through my mind and through my body.
“It’s not as if Mexico is the only one that does this. They eat pigs and other animals in the U.S., and Europe, and most other countries. It’s just more hidden from the public in the U.S.,” my husband said.
I knew this. He knew I knew this. Nothing helped. I was unable to shake the feeling. I could hardly speak. I remembered the story of a Chinese student of mine at the community college. She had been raised in a strict Christian household. One day, walking home from school in Taipei, as she approached a warehouse , she heard the cries of pigs being slaughtered. She said that even as a little girl who had no knowledge of slaughterhouses, she immediately knew that the pigs were suffering greatly and begging for mercy in their cries. She felt a horrible sadness, a painful heart, and as a very strong feeling of compassion filled her being, she saw suspended in the air, in the ether, above the warehouse a figure sitting with legs folded, with the kindest, most compassionate face she had ever seen. A few months later, when visiting the house of a schoolmate, she saw a painting of that same figure. She found out from her schoolmate that the image of the compassionate figure floating above the warehouse was called Buddha. She told me she never forgot her experience by the slaughterhouse. I can understand why.
As we entered the restaurant I asked my husband if he would find a table for us, as I needed to stop at the bathroom. When I returned I found that he had ordered me a margarita instead of my usual iced tea.
“I normally don’t order for you unless I’m sure what you want. This time I made an executive decision. I thought you needed it,” he explained, apologetically and compassionately.
We sat together quietly at the table for a while , not saying anything, taking sips from the margaritas. As the afternoon progresses, I find myself able to participate in light, friendly conversation with my husband and people at surrounding tables.
I have been a strict vegetarian since 1977, and have managed to navigate my way through a sea of carnivores with the attitude that I am responsible for only my own actions, but still, knowing that what I do, what anyone does as a single individual, impacts the world in significant ways. I try to follow all the rules of compassion, and fairness and goodness, causing no harm, and I try to live the philosophy that, within reason, we each have to find our own way through life, trying to make sense of it. I try never to proselytize or preach to others. I find it odd that every time I sit down to eat with people who notice that I do not eat the bodies of animals, I am asked why I am a vegetarian. They must know that they are requesting information that they do not really want to hear. I have tried to answer that question tastefully, with information that is suitable for the dinner table, but I soon learned that the answer to this question is not dinnertime conversation. Now I answer with something like, “Ask me later, and I’ll be happy to answer that question when we’re not eating.” Even if some brave souls dare to ask me later, I find that the conversation becomes too “visceral” for them, and inevitably the discussion begins to enter the forbidden territory of what Will Tuttle refers to in his book, The World Peace Diet, as “the taboo against knowing who you eat.” They do not want to hear. No matter how gently I word the answer, many will become defensive and respond with thoughts such as, “I’m not participating in the death of those animals. I just buy the packaged meat in the store.” They don’t want to hear the response that removing even one of those meat packages causes the cruel treatment, suffering and death of another animal to fill that space in the meat case. (If you are not afraid to know the truth, I suggest you buy his book, absorb every word from cover to cover, and keep reading it until it truly reaches your intellect and your heart. Knowing the truth he speaks will change your life.)
As a human culture, we are living a lie. It is a lie that permeates who we are, what we do, and the excuses we make for the violence that begets more violence in our culture. It is a lie that we tell to our young, after we make sure that they handle that Easter chick or duckling with care and compassion. We try to teach them to respect life, while trying to separate this lesson from the reality of the suffering that the chicken undergoes before arriving on the child’s plate, or the cruelty that the duck experiences before its feathers go into that beautiful down comforter or jacket that is in our houses. We tell them a lie by omitting the truth that with every bite they are eating and participating in suffering and death. The lie permeates almost everything in our culture. Our houses stink of the furniture, and our feet stink of the shoes made of the skin of cows and other animals , as we excuse it away saying, that the skin is only a byproduct that would otherwise be tossed into the incinerator at the slaughterhouse.
When I met my husband about nine years ago, I arrived at a compromise, so that we could share meals together. I love to cook, and I decided I could compromise by buying soy and wheat gluten alternatives that had the texture and “mouth-feel of” animal flesh. I convinced myself that as long as it was soy or wheat, it didn’t matter that it had the crazy spellings such as “Chik’n” in its package description, as long as it was accompanied by the word “meatless” somewhere on the package. He was delighted with my cooking, and he found that he didn’t mind eating vegetarian at home and only having an occasional chicken or fish dish when we went to the restaurant.
A year and a half ago, with no urging on my part, he took the leap to total vegetarianism . At a restaurant in Guadalajara, after having eaten vegetarian for a few months, he ordered a chicken dish, thinking that was what he wanted. That was the last animal flesh that he ate. He told me afterward that it “didn’t taste that great.” He told me that he realized that tasty food is really not about the muscle flesh, it’s really about the seasonings and sauces. He has told me that before he did it, he was anxious about moving to total vegetarianism, in spite of the fact that he knew that the vegetarian alternatives were actually tastier. He said that once he took the leap, a lot became very clear. It was like passing through a portal and having a veil of ignorance ripped from his eyes. He began to see it for what it was.
This lie that much of human culture maintains, is very rigorously protected. I cannot relate this as eloquently and thoroughly as Will Tuttle, so I suggest you read The World Peace Diet to really understand this. The other day I was speaking with my sister about this. She is very respectful of our vegetarian lifestyle, but as we began to step close to “the lie,” she became defensive, saying, “Do you realize how a change to total vegetarianism would break the financial back of this economy?” What about all the independent ranchers whose lives depend on the sale of cattle? What about the farmers who grow the grain to sell to the cattle ranchers?”
We quickly changed the subject, knowing where this conversation was going, and not wanting to get into a struggle. Later, my husband said to me, “She doesn’t realize that this change could be subsidized by the government, charging a tax on meat that would go to subsidize the price of production and sale of meat alternatives. If the government had to, it could finance a switchover from meat production to production of tasty protein alternatives that tasted as good or better than meat that would cost one quarter the price of meat. Besides, there are so few independent ranchers and farmers left. They have been choked out by the meat and farm industries.”
I’ve been a vegetarian for over 30 years, so it is interesting to me to hear the fresh thoughts of a new vegetarian. He has made some fascinating and cogent points about the subject.
“If people would just try to substitute an alternative protein source in their recipes only once or twice a week, they might come to understand how easy it is to stop eating the bodies of animals and still enjoy the tastiest of dishes. If they have no time to cook because of a busy schedule, they could purchase one of many frozen vegetarian entrees already in most supermarkets. It’s already out there for the trying. Just doing this once or twice a week could change the world.”
My husband always brings up the example of the vegetarian chili that I made at his Mom’s house for a big family gathering in Texas. Many “meat-and-potatoes” family members came back for seconds and thirds remarking that this was the best chili they had tasted. He says that they didn’t care that it contained vegetarian protein crumbles instead of ground meat. They liked how it tasted.
Another point he made was, “Meat-eaters on this planet justify killing and eating other creatures because they consider those creatures less intelligent. We'd better hope that if we do encounter intelligent life on other planets that they're not meat-eaters like us.”
In the meantime, I try to do my best to live my life the best way I can, just like everyone else. I’ve made it my personal goal, at least once a month, to invite a carnivore over to our house for a delicious vegetarian dinner. You’d be surprised how many people we’ve turned on to vegetarianism with this simple method. No words about roasted animal flesh, and suffering, just a delicious meal to show how possible and how easy it is.
What had started for me as a journey towards better health, quickly turned into a desire to do no harm. I realized that I preferred to eat delicious, healthy food that did not cause cruelty, suffering and death to creatures in order to bring a small portion of protein to my plate. I quickly learned that I was making no sacrifice at all to eat vegetarian. I have always known that whether I hear it or not, the atrocities of creature slaughter still go on. But, after I’ve heard the squeals, I have been subtley and profoundly changed. I don’t know where this will take me, but I do know I am no longer the same after I heard those cries. After being a vegetarian for over 30 years, I thought I had gone as far as a vegetarian could go. But, I was changed by the marvelous job that Will Tuttle did in The World Peace Diet, and now, once again, I have been changed by the experience near the slaughterhouse yesterday.
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. We feel better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to their pain.” -- Paul and Linda McCartney
“If you're violent to yourself by putting things into your body that violate its spirit, it will be difficult not to perpetuate that [violence] onto someone else.” --Dexter Scott King
September 22, 2007
After leaving the supermarket, we were on our way to eat at Secret Garden, a local vegetarian restaurant in Ajijic. As we made our way down the highway towards the restaurant, I had to hold back the tears several times. It was so very personal, so very visceral. The screams kept running through my mind and through my body.
“It’s not as if Mexico is the only one that does this. They eat pigs and other animals in the U.S., and Europe, and most other countries. It’s just more hidden from the public in the U.S.,” my husband said.
I knew this. He knew I knew this. Nothing helped. I was unable to shake the feeling. I could hardly speak. I remembered the story of a Chinese student of mine at the community college. She had been raised in a strict Christian household. One day, walking home from school in Taipei, as she approached a warehouse , she heard the cries of pigs being slaughtered. She said that even as a little girl who had no knowledge of slaughterhouses, she immediately knew that the pigs were suffering greatly and begging for mercy in their cries. She felt a horrible sadness, a painful heart, and as a very strong feeling of compassion filled her being, she saw suspended in the air, in the ether, above the warehouse a figure sitting with legs folded, with the kindest, most compassionate face she had ever seen. A few months later, when visiting the house of a schoolmate, she saw a painting of that same figure. She found out from her schoolmate that the image of the compassionate figure floating above the warehouse was called Buddha. She told me she never forgot her experience by the slaughterhouse. I can understand why.
As we entered the restaurant I asked my husband if he would find a table for us, as I needed to stop at the bathroom. When I returned I found that he had ordered me a margarita instead of my usual iced tea.
“I normally don’t order for you unless I’m sure what you want. This time I made an executive decision. I thought you needed it,” he explained, apologetically and compassionately.
We sat together quietly at the table for a while , not saying anything, taking sips from the margaritas. As the afternoon progresses, I find myself able to participate in light, friendly conversation with my husband and people at surrounding tables.
I have been a strict vegetarian since 1977, and have managed to navigate my way through a sea of carnivores with the attitude that I am responsible for only my own actions, but still, knowing that what I do, what anyone does as a single individual, impacts the world in significant ways. I try to follow all the rules of compassion, and fairness and goodness, causing no harm, and I try to live the philosophy that, within reason, we each have to find our own way through life, trying to make sense of it. I try never to proselytize or preach to others. I find it odd that every time I sit down to eat with people who notice that I do not eat the bodies of animals, I am asked why I am a vegetarian. They must know that they are requesting information that they do not really want to hear. I have tried to answer that question tastefully, with information that is suitable for the dinner table, but I soon learned that the answer to this question is not dinnertime conversation. Now I answer with something like, “Ask me later, and I’ll be happy to answer that question when we’re not eating.” Even if some brave souls dare to ask me later, I find that the conversation becomes too “visceral” for them, and inevitably the discussion begins to enter the forbidden territory of what Will Tuttle refers to in his book, The World Peace Diet, as “the taboo against knowing who you eat.” They do not want to hear. No matter how gently I word the answer, many will become defensive and respond with thoughts such as, “I’m not participating in the death of those animals. I just buy the packaged meat in the store.” They don’t want to hear the response that removing even one of those meat packages causes the cruel treatment, suffering and death of another animal to fill that space in the meat case. (If you are not afraid to know the truth, I suggest you buy his book, absorb every word from cover to cover, and keep reading it until it truly reaches your intellect and your heart. Knowing the truth he speaks will change your life.)
As a human culture, we are living a lie. It is a lie that permeates who we are, what we do, and the excuses we make for the violence that begets more violence in our culture. It is a lie that we tell to our young, after we make sure that they handle that Easter chick or duckling with care and compassion. We try to teach them to respect life, while trying to separate this lesson from the reality of the suffering that the chicken undergoes before arriving on the child’s plate, or the cruelty that the duck experiences before its feathers go into that beautiful down comforter or jacket that is in our houses. We tell them a lie by omitting the truth that with every bite they are eating and participating in suffering and death. The lie permeates almost everything in our culture. Our houses stink of the furniture, and our feet stink of the shoes made of the skin of cows and other animals , as we excuse it away saying, that the skin is only a byproduct that would otherwise be tossed into the incinerator at the slaughterhouse.
When I met my husband about nine years ago, I arrived at a compromise, so that we could share meals together. I love to cook, and I decided I could compromise by buying soy and wheat gluten alternatives that had the texture and “mouth-feel of” animal flesh. I convinced myself that as long as it was soy or wheat, it didn’t matter that it had the crazy spellings such as “Chik’n” in its package description, as long as it was accompanied by the word “meatless” somewhere on the package. He was delighted with my cooking, and he found that he didn’t mind eating vegetarian at home and only having an occasional chicken or fish dish when we went to the restaurant.
A year and a half ago, with no urging on my part, he took the leap to total vegetarianism . At a restaurant in Guadalajara, after having eaten vegetarian for a few months, he ordered a chicken dish, thinking that was what he wanted. That was the last animal flesh that he ate. He told me afterward that it “didn’t taste that great.” He told me that he realized that tasty food is really not about the muscle flesh, it’s really about the seasonings and sauces. He has told me that before he did it, he was anxious about moving to total vegetarianism, in spite of the fact that he knew that the vegetarian alternatives were actually tastier. He said that once he took the leap, a lot became very clear. It was like passing through a portal and having a veil of ignorance ripped from his eyes. He began to see it for what it was.
This lie that much of human culture maintains, is very rigorously protected. I cannot relate this as eloquently and thoroughly as Will Tuttle, so I suggest you read The World Peace Diet to really understand this. The other day I was speaking with my sister about this. She is very respectful of our vegetarian lifestyle, but as we began to step close to “the lie,” she became defensive, saying, “Do you realize how a change to total vegetarianism would break the financial back of this economy?” What about all the independent ranchers whose lives depend on the sale of cattle? What about the farmers who grow the grain to sell to the cattle ranchers?”
We quickly changed the subject, knowing where this conversation was going, and not wanting to get into a struggle. Later, my husband said to me, “She doesn’t realize that this change could be subsidized by the government, charging a tax on meat that would go to subsidize the price of production and sale of meat alternatives. If the government had to, it could finance a switchover from meat production to production of tasty protein alternatives that tasted as good or better than meat that would cost one quarter the price of meat. Besides, there are so few independent ranchers and farmers left. They have been choked out by the meat and farm industries.”
I’ve been a vegetarian for over 30 years, so it is interesting to me to hear the fresh thoughts of a new vegetarian. He has made some fascinating and cogent points about the subject.
“If people would just try to substitute an alternative protein source in their recipes only once or twice a week, they might come to understand how easy it is to stop eating the bodies of animals and still enjoy the tastiest of dishes. If they have no time to cook because of a busy schedule, they could purchase one of many frozen vegetarian entrees already in most supermarkets. It’s already out there for the trying. Just doing this once or twice a week could change the world.”
My husband always brings up the example of the vegetarian chili that I made at his Mom’s house for a big family gathering in Texas. Many “meat-and-potatoes” family members came back for seconds and thirds remarking that this was the best chili they had tasted. He says that they didn’t care that it contained vegetarian protein crumbles instead of ground meat. They liked how it tasted.
Another point he made was, “Meat-eaters on this planet justify killing and eating other creatures because they consider those creatures less intelligent. We'd better hope that if we do encounter intelligent life on other planets that they're not meat-eaters like us.”
In the meantime, I try to do my best to live my life the best way I can, just like everyone else. I’ve made it my personal goal, at least once a month, to invite a carnivore over to our house for a delicious vegetarian dinner. You’d be surprised how many people we’ve turned on to vegetarianism with this simple method. No words about roasted animal flesh, and suffering, just a delicious meal to show how possible and how easy it is.
What had started for me as a journey towards better health, quickly turned into a desire to do no harm. I realized that I preferred to eat delicious, healthy food that did not cause cruelty, suffering and death to creatures in order to bring a small portion of protein to my plate. I quickly learned that I was making no sacrifice at all to eat vegetarian. I have always known that whether I hear it or not, the atrocities of creature slaughter still go on. But, after I’ve heard the squeals, I have been subtley and profoundly changed. I don’t know where this will take me, but I do know I am no longer the same after I heard those cries. After being a vegetarian for over 30 years, I thought I had gone as far as a vegetarian could go. But, I was changed by the marvelous job that Will Tuttle did in The World Peace Diet, and now, once again, I have been changed by the experience near the slaughterhouse yesterday.
“If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. We feel better about ourselves and better about the animals, knowing we're not contributing to their pain.” -- Paul and Linda McCartney
“If you're violent to yourself by putting things into your body that violate its spirit, it will be difficult not to perpetuate that [violence] onto someone else.” --Dexter Scott King
September 22, 2007
Making a Space in Your Life
Nineteen years ago, Susan, a bright, young high school teacher began an affair with a married man. This man taught in the same school, and over the years the two managed to participate in many of the same professional committees and sponsor some of the same school activities. They managed to get away on trips as sponsor and coach of athletic teams, to somehow end up at the same conferences, and to steal moments away from Ricardo’s family as they met for their titillating trysts at Susan’s house and various other locales. Ricardo, referred to by Susan as “a good friend,” managed to steal moments away from his life with his wife and children using one of many excuses related to his teaching and coaching responsibilities. Everyone knew about the affair. Teachers, the instructional assistants and the students on the athletic team and in classes whispered about it. It was rumored that Ricardo’s wife knew about the affair and just let it be. Being an "old-fashioned" Hispanic wife, she had been prepped by her mother, her aunts and her grandmother that men have these kinds of weaknesses, and if he was a good provider, she must look the other way, see to raising the children and wait patiently for the affair to burn itself out. Nineteen years later, Susan and Ricardo still see each other illicitly, still stealing moments away from Ricardo’s family. Ricardo’s wife still waits patiently for the affair to dissolve. Susan has retired, but still substitutes and participates in professional activities in the district. Every night she goes home to a pleasantly decorated house. She busies herself with professional and community activities, and, she waits for Ricardo to divorce his wife. She has contemplated ending the affair many times over the years, she has even brought it to a temporary halt a few times, knowing that there must be something better out there, but she never actually takes the complete step to rid Ricardo from her life. Somehow, she feels, if something better comes along, then she will make the move and end the affair with Ricardo. What would she do with her time? Most of all, she fears she would shrivel up and die with no matters of the heart to enrich her every day. She lives for the moments she spends with Ricardo, the moments (when he lies to her) when he tells her she is his only love, that he can’t bear another moment with his wife, that he counts the minutes until he can see her again. She is sure that once all of his many excuses for not leaving his wife are resolved, he will rush to her side, divorce decree in hand, and beg her to marry him and spend the rest of her life with him. Susan has now crossed over the threshold into the second half of her fifth decade of life, but, despite her intelligence, in this matter she is like a credulous, innocent child, she still waits as fervently and patiently for Ricardo to leave his wife, as his wife waits for Ricardo to leave Susan. It has become a kind of twisted religion for both females.
Susan’s coworker, Marilyn, on the other hand, would never see a married man. She sees that as quite foolish. Marilyn is just a couple of years older than Susan. The gentleman she has been seeing for the last eight years is a well-known, prosperous (and quite wealthy) lawyer who has artfully protected most of his assets through a nasty divorce, and is quite comfortable in a “long-term dating relationship” with Marilyn. A couple of years ago Marilyn asked me if my husband knew of any wealthy, single, marriageable men her age at his work that she could meet. She complained that she and Richard always “went Dutch” on dates, and trips that they took together. She confided that he had told her two years before that she would “never see his wedding ring on her finger,” and another time, stated clearly that he would never marry her. She felt it was a hopeless situation. I made the mistake of assuming Marilyn was confiding in me and asking for my advice. I asked her if she planned to stop seeing Richard. She said that she’d just continue seeing Richard until she found something better, and then she would dump him. After listening to her dilemma, I made the mistake of expressing my own philosophy. I prefaced it by affirming that this was only my approach, not necessarily what anyone else should do – just what had personally worked for me. I told her that I felt that I had to clear a path in my life, that the universe would not provide the right person in my life until I made a space for him. When I made a space, the right man did appear in my life. This was all I said.
I was clueless as to how angry she had become at this. Later in the day, she asked me if I had read the angry email that she had sent me and then withdrawn from the system. When I told her I hadn’t had time to check my email yet, she was relieved. She said she had said many things in haste and anger, and did not mean what she said, that she didn’t mean to call me a “smartass,” only a “smartypants” (!).
Certainly I had misread her candor, and learned my lesson. After this experience, I shared no more of my “philosophies” with her. Later, on more than one occasion, I watched her bristle and verbally attack colleagues when they expressed personal opinions. Oops! I wished I had witnessed this before I had opened my mouth.
But, that did not change my philosophy on “making a space” in your life for what you want most. This can apply to many, many aspects of life: friendships, goals, projects, and even how you proportion your day. A few times, I have had to “weed out” the friendships in my life that were not uplifting and healthy, leaving only the friendships that helped me strive to be a better person. I delicately separated myself from “friendships” in which there was no “give and take,” in which I was always the giver and the other person was always the taker. (It is healthier for me to be a “100 percent giver” in other ways in life. I’ve volunteered in many different ways, such as 5 years serving food to the homeless, 5 years reading for the blind, ten years serving as a Big Sister, etc., but, I know that this is definitely not friendship.) As in friendships, goals and projects can also become skewed if one is not careful. I try to ask myself frequently, “Am I spending precious time on what I believe are my most important goals and projects?” The wise, old 80/20 rule of time management applies to life as well as work. I have to stop and ask myself if the television program I’m watching, or the magazine I’m reading is really leading me somewhere, or is good for me in some way.
Of all the life lessons, my biggest test was waiting for Mr. Right. I didn’t find and marry him until I was in my 40’s. It really took a lot of faith. I remember praying to God, saying that I didn’t want anyone in my life unless it was the right person who would inspire me to be and do my best. This meant, I had to end a relationship before it started, if it was not heading in the right direction. I’m not talking about ending a relationship for superficial reasons, like a neighbor of mine who would not continue dating a man if he didn’t have straight teeth. I’m talking about serious reasons for labeling a partner “Mr. Wrong.” My requirements did not include straight teeth, a modeling career, a millionaire’s bank account, or anything of the sort. My Mr. Right would be smart, honest, respectful, hardworking, loving and compassionate. I believe that if you don’t make space in your life for your Mr. Right, you’ll never know if he was waiting for you around the corner, while you were delayed, wasting your time with Mr. Wrong. This might mean spending a few moments, or a few years, without a partner, finding tasks, projects and causes to fill your time productively, going ahead anyway with what you believe to be your life’s purpose, finding a way to make a difference with your life, to do something meaningful. I was willing to admit that there was a possibility that there was no Mr. Right waiting for me, but I believed there sure were a lot of things I could and should do with my life that made a lot more sense than hanging around with Mr. Wrong just because I feared being alone.
Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art of placement, deals with the flow of life energy. It speaks of the importance of controlling this flow of energy in your home and workplace by permitting it to move freely through important areas without obstacles. Many years ago I became a fervent student of Feng Shui not only because of its aesthetic appeal but also because of its common sense. At a very basic level it spoke to me of ridding home and workplace of clutter, arranging an environment so the energy can flow more effectively. I feel that life itself must also follow this rule. We must not clutter our lives, our precious time on Earth with that which does not uplift and encourage growth in some way. In the environment of our lives we must choose and place the key facets of our lives with great care, so that the energy may flow freely and productively. One time I complained to a student of mine that I never seemed to have enough time to get everything accomplished in my day. This wise student answered, “When I say that, my Mom always tells me, ‘we are all given the same time in a day, we all have the same 24 hours.’” I never forgot that. She was right. We all have the same 24 hours each day. We all have the choice, to decide what is important, what we are allotting our time to, our concern to, our priority to. It was at this point that I decided I could spend the rest of my life without a partner if I had to. I had decided I would fill my life with love and happiness, with good friends and positive productive activities, hobbies, travel, philanthropic activities, and anything that contributed to my life in a positive way. But I would also leave that space in my life for Mr. Right. I had learned how to be alone without being lonely. I did hope there was a Mr. Right out there who would enjoy sharing life experiences with me. Sunsets are very beautiful, even when you’re watching them alone, but they’re even more fun to share with a loving partner. It was not long until Mr. Right stepped into the space I had made. I found out that he was at the same point in his life that I was. He had decided he could be happy all by himself, if necessary, but he also wanted a partner to enjoy life with. He left a space for me to step into. Everything had fallen perfectly into place, or, that is to say, into space.
Susan and Marilyn are still afraid to be alone. It’s not easy for anyone – it’s akin to having the faith to jump through the void empty-handed. They may eat, sleep, travel and even watch sunsets in the company of Mr. Wrong. They may not be alone, but you can be sure they are lonely. If the spaces of their lives are filled with Mr. Wrong. There will be no room for Mr. Right. He may never have a chance.
P.S. The names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty
September 21, 2007
Susan’s coworker, Marilyn, on the other hand, would never see a married man. She sees that as quite foolish. Marilyn is just a couple of years older than Susan. The gentleman she has been seeing for the last eight years is a well-known, prosperous (and quite wealthy) lawyer who has artfully protected most of his assets through a nasty divorce, and is quite comfortable in a “long-term dating relationship” with Marilyn. A couple of years ago Marilyn asked me if my husband knew of any wealthy, single, marriageable men her age at his work that she could meet. She complained that she and Richard always “went Dutch” on dates, and trips that they took together. She confided that he had told her two years before that she would “never see his wedding ring on her finger,” and another time, stated clearly that he would never marry her. She felt it was a hopeless situation. I made the mistake of assuming Marilyn was confiding in me and asking for my advice. I asked her if she planned to stop seeing Richard. She said that she’d just continue seeing Richard until she found something better, and then she would dump him. After listening to her dilemma, I made the mistake of expressing my own philosophy. I prefaced it by affirming that this was only my approach, not necessarily what anyone else should do – just what had personally worked for me. I told her that I felt that I had to clear a path in my life, that the universe would not provide the right person in my life until I made a space for him. When I made a space, the right man did appear in my life. This was all I said.
I was clueless as to how angry she had become at this. Later in the day, she asked me if I had read the angry email that she had sent me and then withdrawn from the system. When I told her I hadn’t had time to check my email yet, she was relieved. She said she had said many things in haste and anger, and did not mean what she said, that she didn’t mean to call me a “smartass,” only a “smartypants” (!).
Certainly I had misread her candor, and learned my lesson. After this experience, I shared no more of my “philosophies” with her. Later, on more than one occasion, I watched her bristle and verbally attack colleagues when they expressed personal opinions. Oops! I wished I had witnessed this before I had opened my mouth.
But, that did not change my philosophy on “making a space” in your life for what you want most. This can apply to many, many aspects of life: friendships, goals, projects, and even how you proportion your day. A few times, I have had to “weed out” the friendships in my life that were not uplifting and healthy, leaving only the friendships that helped me strive to be a better person. I delicately separated myself from “friendships” in which there was no “give and take,” in which I was always the giver and the other person was always the taker. (It is healthier for me to be a “100 percent giver” in other ways in life. I’ve volunteered in many different ways, such as 5 years serving food to the homeless, 5 years reading for the blind, ten years serving as a Big Sister, etc., but, I know that this is definitely not friendship.) As in friendships, goals and projects can also become skewed if one is not careful. I try to ask myself frequently, “Am I spending precious time on what I believe are my most important goals and projects?” The wise, old 80/20 rule of time management applies to life as well as work. I have to stop and ask myself if the television program I’m watching, or the magazine I’m reading is really leading me somewhere, or is good for me in some way.
Of all the life lessons, my biggest test was waiting for Mr. Right. I didn’t find and marry him until I was in my 40’s. It really took a lot of faith. I remember praying to God, saying that I didn’t want anyone in my life unless it was the right person who would inspire me to be and do my best. This meant, I had to end a relationship before it started, if it was not heading in the right direction. I’m not talking about ending a relationship for superficial reasons, like a neighbor of mine who would not continue dating a man if he didn’t have straight teeth. I’m talking about serious reasons for labeling a partner “Mr. Wrong.” My requirements did not include straight teeth, a modeling career, a millionaire’s bank account, or anything of the sort. My Mr. Right would be smart, honest, respectful, hardworking, loving and compassionate. I believe that if you don’t make space in your life for your Mr. Right, you’ll never know if he was waiting for you around the corner, while you were delayed, wasting your time with Mr. Wrong. This might mean spending a few moments, or a few years, without a partner, finding tasks, projects and causes to fill your time productively, going ahead anyway with what you believe to be your life’s purpose, finding a way to make a difference with your life, to do something meaningful. I was willing to admit that there was a possibility that there was no Mr. Right waiting for me, but I believed there sure were a lot of things I could and should do with my life that made a lot more sense than hanging around with Mr. Wrong just because I feared being alone.
Feng Shui, the ancient Chinese art of placement, deals with the flow of life energy. It speaks of the importance of controlling this flow of energy in your home and workplace by permitting it to move freely through important areas without obstacles. Many years ago I became a fervent student of Feng Shui not only because of its aesthetic appeal but also because of its common sense. At a very basic level it spoke to me of ridding home and workplace of clutter, arranging an environment so the energy can flow more effectively. I feel that life itself must also follow this rule. We must not clutter our lives, our precious time on Earth with that which does not uplift and encourage growth in some way. In the environment of our lives we must choose and place the key facets of our lives with great care, so that the energy may flow freely and productively. One time I complained to a student of mine that I never seemed to have enough time to get everything accomplished in my day. This wise student answered, “When I say that, my Mom always tells me, ‘we are all given the same time in a day, we all have the same 24 hours.’” I never forgot that. She was right. We all have the same 24 hours each day. We all have the choice, to decide what is important, what we are allotting our time to, our concern to, our priority to. It was at this point that I decided I could spend the rest of my life without a partner if I had to. I had decided I would fill my life with love and happiness, with good friends and positive productive activities, hobbies, travel, philanthropic activities, and anything that contributed to my life in a positive way. But I would also leave that space in my life for Mr. Right. I had learned how to be alone without being lonely. I did hope there was a Mr. Right out there who would enjoy sharing life experiences with me. Sunsets are very beautiful, even when you’re watching them alone, but they’re even more fun to share with a loving partner. It was not long until Mr. Right stepped into the space I had made. I found out that he was at the same point in his life that I was. He had decided he could be happy all by himself, if necessary, but he also wanted a partner to enjoy life with. He left a space for me to step into. Everything had fallen perfectly into place, or, that is to say, into space.
Susan and Marilyn are still afraid to be alone. It’s not easy for anyone – it’s akin to having the faith to jump through the void empty-handed. They may eat, sleep, travel and even watch sunsets in the company of Mr. Wrong. They may not be alone, but you can be sure they are lonely. If the spaces of their lives are filled with Mr. Wrong. There will be no room for Mr. Right. He may never have a chance.
P.S. The names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty
September 21, 2007
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