Disbelief

So, I go to group therapy. In the last session, one of the members described an unfortunate experience in which someone in a church group (I'll call him the Christian) asked her on the spot to explain why someone would want to kill herself, given God's grace.

(The purpose of the church meeting was to figure out whether killing oneself is a mortal sin. The members of the church group decided that it was not. How kind of them.)

Having heard this anecdote, I was angry on the therapy-group member's behalf because of the circumstances in which she was asked to explain. But maybe, I thought, the question of the offending Christian was a good one. If you believe in God, why would you want to kill yourself? Unlike the Christian who asked what it meant to want to kill oneself, I wonder about the belief side of the question. If you have wanted to kill yourself (as my fellow therapy-group member has wanted to do in the past) or even if you have been severely depressed, how can you believe in God?

These two questions are different only in the viewpoint of the questioner. The Christian didn't understand suicidal ideation. I don't understand belief. Or, rather, I think I get it but don't respect it. This puts me in a predicament because bringing it up in group might reactivate her feelings of shame, which is not my intention. But I really am curious. But one of the group members is a paster, and I don't want a lecture. But I'd like to know how it is possible to believe in the grace of God and still want to die.

My experience of trying to commit suicide clarified my position on belief. Before, I was an agnostic. Afterwards, I became an atheist. I realized that I believe in the everlasting darkness of death, with no concern for any afterlife or judgement. So the question remains: how can someone maintain two such contradictory thoughts, overwhelming despair and true belief? I mean, I know that people believe in contradictory things all the time. So, is it a question worth exploring?

Have to say this

I have to say that I'm disappointed in all of our former friends. I think the whole let's-not-tell-Sam-how-we-feel behavior is not just wrong-headed, it's hurtful. If you think that Sam's drinking too much or that he's mean when he's drunk, tell him directly, as a true friend would, instead of talking about him behind his back. It's group-think of insidious nature. It's the behavior of people without integrity. It's cold.

I also want to say that I'm put in a bad spot. I can't be friends with people who treat Sam with such disdain for his friendship. I can't believe that people who showed up for me at the hospital have cut me out, too.

I know I'm being a hypocrite for not saying this directly to the people I feel are responsible, but I'm afraid I can't do it without an anger that would be counter-productive. I'm being as direct as I can, in a space I feel safe enough to comment. And it's not like anyone's talking to me, either, anyway.

I'm deeply disappointed and, well, shocked that people I thought were friends could simply cut Sam and me out so cleanly and efficiently. It's upsetting, and it makes me feel isolated. So if that's the desired effect, consider it accomplished.

Disappointment

So Katherine disappointed me. I'm going to call her, and we'll talk about her issues with mental illness and suicide. That's fine. It's just not what I want in a friend. 

I'm trying very hard to be open to other people and their friendship, but I'm such a bad judge of others. I trust too much or too little, and I don't know which is happening until it's too late. 

Aside from Katherine's and my conversation, the party was fun. I enjoyed it, and I think my guests enjoyed themselves. 

A dirty secret

One of the mental habits I'd like to break myself of: hating just a little bit people with great experiences, like loving a hometown, enjoying the memory of grade school, having great parents. Sam and I watched most of Dan in Real Life, a lovely movie with Steve Carrell playing Dan. Although the main character is tortured and morose, his family is extraordinary. I guess they have to be for the movie to work, but I found myself tearing up. Is this self-pity in action? Is it longing? Is it evil? Whatever it is, I need to figure out how I can stop feeling this way and realize some of my own good luck.

Thin-skinned

Sensitivity is a word that moves in contradictory ways. If Tim (to pluck a name from the air) is sensitive, he may be careful about his own feelings or about someone else's feelings. Tim cannot perform both tasks of attention. 

I have a private set of beliefs about how people should treat me. If a person (Melody, to pluck another name from the aether) breaks Rule 3--it hurts when two other people leave the table and leave me behind alone--I experience that broken rule as Melody's insensitivity. I give Melody the agency to hurt me in ways I secretly define as insensitive. I'm on the lookout for Melody's cruel intentions. This requires a second belief, that I can determine why Melody would leave me sitting alone. 

Through power of my tacit belief system, I managed to isolate myself in an attempt to keep other people from hurting me so much. My self-quarantine blinded me to the feelings of everyone else. And my ability to intellectualize everything rests on something even more fundamental: I patrol a border between what I think and what I feel, a dichotomy constructed very early in my life. 

I'm still the 5-year-old cryer standing by the swing set with sand on the front of her sailor dress, waiting for her turn. I still want that moment of a bird-like freedom when it feels like I just might swing into the clear blue sky. Instead, I will fall back, feet plowing furrows in the sand, dirty hands held out in anticipation of being pushed off the swing again.

Ground rules

Okay, here are some ground rules in the crazy-person hospital: no alcohol of any type, including that which is found in shampoo, toothpaste, and deodorant; no computers, which means no working; no cigarettes, no laces for shoes; no belts; no personal connections among patients. Some of these rules worked better than others. I mean, there's a reason why deodorant has alcohol in it.

Some ground rules for this blog: no pulling punches; no publishing all of my nut-case journal entries; no editing for length when content is more important (in other words, I can be much more wordy than I am here); no hiding from myself or from you, my friends.

I must ask you to abide one rule: please comment, even if only to indicate that you've read what I've written. Blogging can be a lonely pursuit. I imagine that someone reads any of this and finds meaning in it, but in my heart, conjecture rules. I imagine the worst, and silence can turn into anything, really. 

So, please comment, please. Even if only to tell me that you get the message. It doesn't have to be complex. Just let me know you're out there.

First, some categorization

In the first few posts, I'm going to try to convey what happened in VITA (Vanderbilt Institute for the Treatment of Addiction). I was in that ward because the other adult wards had no available beds. It was actually quite useful to be in the VITA ward. For once, I was the sane person in a room full of crazies. More on the ward itself later. First, some sense of the schedule.

• Vital signs: blood pressure, pulse, and temperature. They collected these "signs" three times a day: 6:00a, 9:50a, 3:15p
• Meals three times a day: 7:45a, 12:00p, 5:15p
• Groups: 9:00a, 11:00a, 1:00p, 4:00p, 6:30p, 8:00p. The last time I list here was devoted to AA meetings. 
• Sleep: lights out at 11:00p, with little dispensation.
• Other activities filled up the spaces in between. Here are the times that were unstructured: 8:15a–9:00a, 10:15a–11:00a, 12:30p–1:00p, 2:00p–4:00p, 6:30p–8:00p, 9:00p–11:00p. A total of just over 7 hours, dispersed through the day. Part-time time you might say.

In the coming days, I'll encapsulate material from my journal. Much of it is raw. Some of it may be crude reckoning of my faults, but I hope that by evaluating it, I'll remember how dangerous and terrible were the events that got me to this point in time. Finally, I may give additional commentary on those journal entries that are unfair or unreasonable.

Please know that I do this to help, not to indulge in self-pity, or punishment, or in any way boastful. I deeply regret what I did.

Hiatus broken

I tried to kill myself. It's a senseless act, and the only one responsible for it is me. Now that I've figured some things out, I'm going to spill them on this blog. 

The first (and most important) issue is horrifying to me and to my friends: If a person wants to kill herself and thinks about death constantly, she's not going to let on how awful she's feeling. Otherwise someone could stop her. So, please don't think that anyone's at fault except for me. I struggled with bipolar disorder, thought I was don't all the right things (therapy + meds), and I still felt miserable. I'll always struggle with my illness on some level. But I must never again fall for the illusion of suicide as an answer to the constant questions that plague me. I'm making my promise here: I will not do it again. I plan to learn how to come up with solutions and how not to dwell on death as though it were a sweet exit from an otherwise terrible life. 

The second insight: I should have called someone first and I should have been emotionally open enough so that I could figure out who I should have called. I isolated myself. It's no one's fault but my own. I tend to deflect my feelings by intellectualizing them, like researching the best ways to killing myself. (It's actually quite difficult to do, apparently.) Too often have I tried to keep up my emotions at bay, until it's too much to bear. So I need to let my guard down. It'll hurt but not nearly as much as I have hurt in the past.

Third, suicide leaves no notes. It silently embraces the abyss. The abject punctures the myth of self-knowledge. As Kristeva puts it (and yes, I'm doing this even here), "The corpse, seen without God and outside of science, is the utmost of abjection. It is death infecting life." She believes that we trail our abjection through life, like the shadow one wants to flee but is always attached to us. 

Again, with a little less drama: each person carries her own corpse around, hurrying away from death as much as she fastens herself to it. I guess that is still a little too poetic, and I'll try to say it better next time. The long and the short of it is that my mistakes will dog me for life. My regret, my shame, my despair. 

S., I'm so sorry that I did this wrong to myself and to my friends and to you. I cannot say it enough. 

Hiatus

So, again, I wrote a long post and reconsidered. The length wasn't worth the subject. Basically, I'm again starting to feel really bad about myself; I'm hearing gossip about me; and I feel generally suspicious of people in my life, with few exceptions. It's a nasty little cocktail. Because I already have another blog in which I spill my stupid feelings and fears, there's no reason to do that here. Because I'm having trouble focusing on other things besides my stupid feelings and fears, I don't have a lot to say here. Also, I'm getting tired of all the Is. So. 

Please see attached: my breaking heart.

To interdict

According to my computer's Oxford American Dictionary, the word interdict is related to interdictum, a Latin past participial form of the infinitive interdicere, to interpose or dictate by decree. It carries with it a linguistic sense of a past prohibition against a grammatical object. Not object as in thing, but object as in Lacan's parle-etre.

Tedious? Perhaps. It speaks, however, to a key reason for my tattoos. They represent, to me, an interdiction against suicide. The locations are symbolic and maybe a little tawdry. (I've never slit my wrists.) Of course, you can't just going around saying the first thing that comes to your mind when someone asks, "What do your tattoos mean?" How awkward that would be.

Still. Something between remembrance and moratorium (mora, not morus). If I had one wish, truly, it would be not to be sick. Being sick, I'm not good at conveying my emotions, and I'm terrible at figuring out how to respond to others' emotions. (Those traits contribute to some people's sense that I'm odd.) So instead of trying to find a bigger, better way to tell Sam that I'm sorry, I'm writing about etymology, itself originating from the neuter singular adjectival form etumon, or true. 

shopping and the sister

I met Mares's boyfriend this weekend. Nice enough guy. I felt no click of recognition, the kind you might feel when meeting someone you can talk with. Not a lot of conversation. Here's a brief sketch of the weekend: 4-hour drive in the truck to Atlanta (mostly uneventful, which is good), brief visit at the apartment, trip to a pool hall/restaurant to play cut-throat, back to apartment to play Monopoly, early to bed. Sunday was a quick cup of coffee, then Mares told me that she wasn't interested in going with me to IKEA, which is understandable. I would have rather gotten brunch myself. Which didn't happen either. In fact, I felt that she ditched me in favor of going somewhere with the boyfriend. So to sum up: silent boyfriend, no sister-and-sister time, and a curtailed visit, all of which must have been motivated by a reason I don't know.

She had seemed like she was excited by my visit, and I was excited to see her. Instead, I'm saddened by the whole thing. Mary is the family member I feel closest to, and it hurts to think that my visit might have been a chore to her instead of a pleasure.

The IKEA part, the part of my trip that I dreaded, happened to be the most successful portion of my trip. Weird.

update

See post below for initial details of weird asshole old guy.

After one of my students left, the guy said, "So are your office hours over yet?"

And I mumbled something like, "We'll see, I guess." Then, I said, louder, "Since you bring up my office hours, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't interrupt me while I'm with a student." A request that I think is reasonable and appropriate.

Asshole says, "What, Vanderbilt doesn't give you people an office to do your shit in?"

Then, there was a stupid little "you were rude to me"; "no, you started talking to me first. you were rude to me." So, yeah, I could have handled it better.

To prevent a yelling match, I left to talk to the proprietor, Sam, about the escalating situation. This little asshole old guy followed me right up there, talking over me, and Sam said to him, "Just a minute."

Then, Sam talked to me about how I was a long-time, valued customer, and he'd take care of it. I went outside, Sam talked to the asshole, and the three of us sat together while Sam basically told us to play nice. Apparently, to the old guy, asking me to plug his computer in was less interruptive than just barging through. What would have been better would be for him to go around my chair and move the power strip so he could plug it in himself without bothering me.

While I appreciate the proprietor's need for diplomacy, the compromise he tried to create wasn't enough. I probably won't be coming here anymore. 

But at least the asshole old guy left. 

working at the coffee shop

I really like working at JJ's and meeting students here. Overall, it's a good experience. HOWEVER (didn't you know that was coming?) there's this older guy who often shows up, and he always sits next to me, which in itself is creepy. It's not like no other seats available near the powerstrip. 

Because of where he sits, he generally has to climb past me to plug his computer in, which also makes me uncomfortable because I don't like to be that close to strangers. He always apologizes for getting in my way, which isn't really an apology because it happens each fucking time.

There's a coffee table on which people rest their beverages. It's pretty big, which is great. So creepiness #3 is that he puts his stuff so close to mine that he has to lean toward me to pick up his coffee cup. Ew. And he tries to make conversation.

Now, if this series of events only happened once, that would be fine. It's easy to be generous and polite if the other person is as well. It's becomes less and less easy the more frequently it happens. I intended to ignore all of this as though this desperate old man just wants a little attention and perhaps camaraderie. The smile of an obviously married woman? The scent of clothes worn a third time, not really dirty but not totally clean either? Ick. Just ick. 

Today represents my last little nerve. I don't know what to do.

I was meeting with a student this morning when he sat down. Then, during an obvious conference (more obvious to someone sitting too close), he interrupts to ask me could I please plug his computer in so that he doesn't have to climb over me. Three things: 

1) don't interrupt my meeting/conference/conversation/whatever to make me do a favor for you. 

2) the favor itself is unreasonable because it is he who sat down after my student and I did. (He left for a moment, and my student leaned over and asked, "do you know that guy?" I explained that I didn't, and she said, "I thought maybe you did, but when you didn't say Hi, I wasn't sure. Yeah, he's weird.") Also unreasonable because the powerstrip is on a long cord, and he could move it so that he doesn't have to bother anyone ever.

3) Now I'm spitting mad, and I would say something, but I didn't at the moment, and now it's been about 10 minutes, and I don't really know what to do. The presence of my student made him sit a little farther than usual, so it's not like I can ask JJ's gunther to help me. When I look up, straight ahead in front of me (as I often do when I'm thinking and writing), he always looks at me. (It's pretty obvious.) I'm mad and creeped out, but I won't move because I don't want to cede my territory. This is where I sit. I shouldn't have to move, and this creepy guy is taking advantage of JJ's overall sense of decorum, so I feel I can't yell at him. Part of me is angry at myself that I didn't tell him immediately that he was interrupting a student conference (with the subtext that he could figure something else out about his stupid computer that didn't involve me plugging it in for him or him crawling over me to do it himself). 

What should I do? What would you do? If you know what to do, would you do it for me?

The pleasure of being anonymous

First: the eulogy of the world was written last Friday. Rest well, DFW. 

---

One of the aspects of living in a small town (that I hated) is that everyone knows you. Or your dad or mom. Or your mom and dad's car. At least, they think they know you.

One of the things I loved about moving away from Arkadelphia was that I could leave that misremembered history that others associated with me. I apparently was a mud-flinger in kindergarten. Another girl (who I graduated with) bit someone once, which earned her a 15-year nickname. She might still have it—she never left.

When I left town, adults no longer said to me, "Oh, you're Dr. Murphy's daughter. I've heard about you." Which they had because my dad liked to tell "funny" stories about his daughters, in almost every situation, including his classroom. More than a couple of my teachers had been in one of his classes, and some of them had seen at least one "Murphy girl" demonstration of Piaget's developmental experiments. (It wasn't until I was in college that I realized that the psychologist Piaget was the same person as P-I-J.) I hate to say it, but it's embarrassing for someone to tell a story about how you ran out of a classroom when you were five because you were confused by a test you weren't supposed to pass anyway, and wasn't it so adorable.

Anonymity is glorious. It means you can be no one's daughter, no one's test subject, no one's cute story. It means you don't have to wave at every passing car because one in five people knows your parents or was your nursery-school teacher or some shit like that.

Anonymity on the web is a little harder to achieve. But it is still glorious. You belong to no one, not even yourself because it's not your name. It's a different name, and the difference doesn't matter because you're speaking to strangers anyway. You finally write your worst memories, your worst parts of yourself even, to the world. Who writes back. Because who doesn't like to watch a train wreck? Who never is one?

Not a rhetorical question

A couple of weeks ago, I was having a conversation with Sam and two good friends over drinks after a nice dinner out. One of the topics that I keep thinking about is the way in which a blog's structure determines its content. Blog anonymously, and you can say whatever you like. Blog under your real name, and you have to think about whose feelings you might hurt or who might disapprove of your opinion or behavior. For example, I wouldn't complain about Sam. Not that there's anything to complain about. I love you, baby!

So that leads me to ask myself why I write these entries to begin with. My stated purpose is to construct a place for all of the jumbled ideas in my head that don't find exit in other ways. But when those ideas overlap with (for example) questions or problems with family or friends (my main audience), I find myself resorting to coded language. When you come across an entry that doesn't make much sense, it's probably evidence that I'm concealing something. I edit these entries (as much as it might seem otherwise), and sometimes I edit them out of comprehension.

That somewhat undercuts my purpose for doing this. Writing helps me work things out. But I need some kind of audience—implied or otherwise—to write to. So diary or journal writing isn't that appealing. Writing about some thought, idea, or situation using clear language helps me clarify my thoughts. Wanting to write about something but having to obfuscate the true subject may only muddle it more. I'm never really going to write something very raw on this blog, like a sonnet I'm working on, but I'd like to be more direct than I have been. 

How?

Flight

**Disclaimer: This post is not about anything that happens on an actual plane. If you're have any fears about the act of flying, read with impunity.

Sam and I went to Albuquerque this past weekend. It was lovely to see Rory and Kim, and I look forward to seeing them when they come to visit. Or if we drive out there. But I'm never flying again if I can possibly help it.

Everyone has a terrible airflight story to relate, mostly because it's an incredibly painful experience. But this one threw me into all kinds of mental directions. I'll give just a quick description of the very worst part and bore you with the wretched details later.

We went to the airport, got tickets, made it to security. I put my computer into a bin, as you're supposed to do. I went through the screener without problems. As I was reshoeing myself, I looked up just in time to see a woman knock my computer bin off the conveyor, with enough force that it landed upside down. The TSA did their best to intervene, and I didn't actually do anything unreasonable, even though the woman was not the least bit contrite when she acknowledged that she had, in fact, knocked my computer onto the floor. I cried the whole way to New Mexico.

Tomorrow at some point, the computer will be ready for me to pick up at Mac Authority, and then I'll send my receipt to TSA, and they'll eventually send me some small amount of money not equal to what this all actually cost. It's not the money, though. It's feeling out of control, out of touch, and away from work I've put hundreds of hours into. And I feel like a total ass for even talking about this because Rory and Kim's reception was beautiful and should be the focus, not my crazy-ass, yelling at strangers, crying in public, generally embarrassing self.

Sam was wonderful about the whole thing and continues to be supportive and caring. I'm using his computer right now. So although I don't seem like it today, baby, you are the turtles all the way down.

Serious language

I take language seriously. When Sam and I had lunch together this afternoon at B&F, we had a great conversation with Matt about writing, of all things, and I enjoyed hearing him talk about the writing he's doing. He's serious about it.

Being serious about language (and about literature) means that I can be a little intense, and it means that I read carefully, as I've been trained to do, as I've chosen to do. When it's rewarding, it's really rewarding. 

But taking language seriously can isolate a person or distance her from others. For example, no one's supposed to mention book club to me. I can deal with that. It hurts only a little to not have the option to say no. 

It gives the clarity to see when others are trying to use language to occlude an issue. It's not a seeing through the occlusion; it's a seeing because. 

I'm facing the salient fact that many of Sam's friends are not my friends. Maybe even most. I knew that before. (How could I not when I typically take a couple of Klonipin before going out?) And now that I'm feeling healthier, which makes me more me, I'd like to have my own friends, people I see outside of the context of the group. Going to brunch or a wine tasting with someone is a good start. I just don't want to waste even more time with people whose eyes glaze over when I begin to answer the question, "So how's your work going?" 

So, here's some Wallace Stevens, king of alienation:

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee

And round it was, upon a hill

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around it, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Not blogging from JJ"s

Two items: 

1. Happy belated birthday, Dan. And thanks for saying reassuring (yet true, I assume) information about taking the oral exam.

2. I have recently been thinking about Arundhati Roy's novel The God of Small Things. Few novels strike so deeply and so precisely: "The Big Things lurk unsaid inside." The novel's mostly from the children's point of view, but it describes (in part) what happens when families calculate the depth of each insult and keep a tally. I don't mean to be enigmatic—it's a side effect of keeping an online journal—but in more meditative moments, I remember what the twins' mother says to her daughter: "When you hurt people, they love you a little less." Rahel notes that "Love has been re-apportioned." In one of the most heartbreaking—and familiar—paragraphs from her perspective:

"Some things come with their own punishments. Like bedrooms with built-in cupboards. They would all learn more about punishments soon. That they came in different sizes. That some were so big they were like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. You could spend your whole life in them, wandering through dark shelving" (109).

It resonates. "The Big Things lurk unsaid inside." But you can still see the hurt and the re-apportioning. Despite a personal decision to put my thinking about difficulties with my parents on hold, despite their beliefs about how much they love me and always have, nothing was the same after I got sick as a child. Even now, 20 years later, it's hard. For years, the cost of my hospital bills and therapy was the excuse for not being able to afford things. My being sick hurts my family. And I believe it makes them love me less.

The hurt and re-apportioning work in both directions. 

Would you like some making strange, berserker

1. April 14. From 12:30–2:20 pm. In my department chair's office. 

2. I may be a little in love with Obama. His interview with Chris Matthews revealed both his considerable charm and his strategies for fixing much of what's wrong in the U.S. When any question raised a divisive issue, he kept bring it back to what Americans share, and it wasn't corny. I like to think that I recognize when I'm manipulated by political figures and cultural products (e.g., stupid tearjerkers). For example, in 1998, I went to the National Mall for the July 4 celebration. More than a million people (including me) sang the national anthem together. Even as I felt the tears well up, I thought about the politics of nationalism and my complicity in it. In contrast, Obama offers a kind of American politics founded on unity, not tribal, ethnic, partisan, or gender loyalties. (I'm looking at you, Clinton boosters. You know who you are.)

3. That said, I'd like to turn my more philosophical eye toward Verfremdungs. I don't like most of you. As I'm beginning to feel better, I'm beginning to enjoy being caustic again. I could give lots of examples from the past couple of weeks, like saying to a crying woman that her problems are boring. They are boring. My own problems are boring. I don't know why you people even read any of this. 

It may be alienation, but it's my alienation and I might remember how to enjoy it again. And now a poem, from the esteemed John Berryman:

Dream Song 1

Huffy Henry hid       the day,

unappeaseable Henry sulked.

I see his point,—a trying to put things over.

It was the thought that they thought

they could do it made Henry wicked & away.

But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like a woolen lover

once did seem on Henry's side.

Then came a departure.

Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.

I don't see how Henry, pried

open for all the world to see, survived.

What he has now to say is a long

wonder the world can bear & be.

Once in a sycamore I was glad

all at the top, and I sang.

Hard on the land wears the sea

and empty grows every bed.