Tag Archives: addiction

“The Mean Voice” – Facts vs Feelings

Posted on January 22, 2015 by | 33 comments

“You get to write about thinking feelings are facts,” Emma typed this morning.  Then she smiled at me, got up, and walked away.

Eight months into this whole homeschooling thing and I’m just now starting to figure out how I can work this blog into our busy schedule.  Emma wrote the other day that she would write a blog post once a week or, she thoughtfully added, “suggest topic for you to write about.”  Then last week she wondered if she might ask questions that she hoped readers would want to respond to.  The first of that series with all the wonderfully considerate, insightful and thoughtful comments and answers to her questions from readers, can be read ‘here.’

My goal is to carve out time Tuesday and Thursday to post something on this blog.  Only time will show how well I do with this goal.

But for today, Emma has given me an assignment.  “You get to write about thinking feelings are facts.”  When she typed this sentence I immediately thought of “the mean voice.” This is the voice in my head whose sole purpose seems to be to give a running critique of everything I’m doing and why it’s all wrong.  The Voice is harsh and can be very, very cruel.  It will say things to me that I would never say aloud to another human being, no matter how angry I might be.  The Voice feels real, it says things in a matter-of-fact way that makes me think the words it is saying are true.  When I believe The Voice all joy is deleted.  Any glimmer of hope is snuffed out.  The Voice tells me I suck and whatever I’m doing sucks.

But I’ve come to understand that The Voice is not to be listened to, which is easier thought than done.  It does not tell me the truth, it is mean and it says things that are not based in fact.  I call it “The Voice” but in fact, it is fear.  It is hopelessness.  It is anger.  It is a whole medley of emotions, some of which I cannot even identify or untangle to identify.  The Voice is feelings and it is most certainly not “fact”.

Feelings are not facts.  Feelings are not facts.  This is something someone said to me early on in my addiction recovery.   It was one of those “slogans” that at the time made no sense to me.  Well of course feelings aren’t facts, I remember thinking to myself.  Anyone knows that.   They’re feelings.  But what I didn’t know then and what I still forget now, is that when I’m upset or scared or angry, the conclusions I come to as a result of having those feelings are also not facts.  They are feelings and the two are very, very different.

So for example, if I’m afraid to do something that I really want to do, like write this book that Emma and I are working on together, I feel tremendous fear.   The Voice kicks in and will say things like, “What the hell are you doing?  Why are you even trying to do this?  The last thing the world needs is a book written, even co-written by you.  Who are you to write about your experience with this?  Who do you think you are?  No one wants to read what you think.  You think this will be helpful to someone else?  What kind of narcissistic, self-involved crap is that?  You can’t do this.  You suck.”  If that doesn’t stop me in my tracks The Voice amps it up a notch and gets even more vicious.

People have suggested imagining a volume control dial and mentally visualizing turning the volume down.  Others have suggested saying, Thank you for your thoughts and then doing the thing I’m terrified of doing anyway.  Others have said – just don’t listen to it or don’t believe it.  But none of that has had much impact or made a difference.  Logically I know this voice isn’t real.  It’s in my head.  I know it isn’t some divine, all-knowing voice.  I know it is mean.  I know all these things, but when the emotions come it is like being pulled under and the energy it takes to keep my head above the water, the energy it takes to just breathe is exhausting and sometimes, most of the time, I don’t feel able to fight it.

When I was an active addict The Voice told me to go and eat.  Go ahead it would say.  Oh go on, you deserve it, The Voice would encourage.  You’ve had a tough day, give yourself a treat, eat a dozen doughnuts.  If I fought it, it only got louder and more insistent.  Oh go on, GO ON!  And I would.  I couldn’t refuse.  I felt out of control and helpless.  I felt unable to stop.  Now, almost two decades later, I know to “out” that particular voice.  I know to tell on it.  The Voice doesn’t like that.  And saying to another human being who understands, who can identify, who can say – oh yeah…  wow, I so get that – is often all it takes now to give me that moment of grace so that I can pull away and not do that thing that will hurt me, the thing that it’s telling me to do.

While The Voice is usually no longer the boss of me when it comes to food and compulsive over-eating, it has never completely gone away.  It crops up when I least expect it.  It tells me things about myself that make me feel awful.  It makes me believe it’s telling me THE TRUTH.  I’m fifty four years old and I still find myself believing The Voice, not about food and eating, but about other things, healthy things I want to do or accomplish.  There’s another slogan used in addiction recovery – Progress not perfection.  And I am making progress, but it is very, very slow.  And to be honest, far slower than I’d like.  But then if I gauge myself from where I once was, the progress has been nothing short of miraculous, so maybe the next post will be about – progress, not perfection!  Unless Emma has another idea, that is…

I’m turning Emma’s topic over to all of you – “…write about thinking feelings are facts.”

The Mean Voice

The Mean Voice

33 Comments

Posted in Autism, emotions, Parenting

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Emma Interviews

Posted on July 30, 2014 by | 12 comments

Emma has been interviewing various family members.  So I wasn’t surprised when she wrote that she wanted to conduct another interview.  Except this time she wrote that she wanted to interview me.  This is part one of that interview…

Emma:  What sparks your imagination more? Words? Pictures? Music?

It depends on the situation.  I have been inspired and moved by all three at various times and can think of examples of each sparking my imagination.  If I had to put them in order of most moving and inspiring, I would have to say visual, whether experiential as in scenic or static pictures, painted, photographs, sculpture, visual art.  But even as I say this I’m thinking of music that has brought me to tears, and literature and poetry that completely captivated, even non fiction writing, particularly memoirs have completely enthralled me.  Each has inspired and sparked my imagination.  I don’t know that I can choose!

Emma:  Who do you wish you could have known and why?

My grandfather, your Great-Grandfather.  He is the one your granma, my mother speaks so highly of.   It would have been nice to have had the experience of knowing him.  He was also an extremely ambitious, smart and I’ve been told, fascinating man who lived a complicated and unusual life.  I would have liked the opportunity to have interviewed him the way you are interviewing me.

Emma:  What taught you more about life – notable happiness or terrible suffering?

In a strange way, both as they are both great teachers and I’ve experienced large doses of each.  I only wish I was a faster learner so the suffering didn’t have to go on for as long as it did.

Emma:  When were you decidedly happiest and when were you easily the most unhappy?

The most difficult time in my life was the years when I was bulimic.  I felt as though I was watching life pass me by as I remained stuck in my obsessive-compulsive addictive behaviors.  It was a terrible time of feeling I was betraying myself on a daily basis and couldn’t stop, though I wanted to more than anything. Sadly that period lasted for about 22 years.  That’s an awfully long time to be so unhappy.

This period of my life is by far the happiest.  I have learned and experience daily the power of gratitude, friendship, humility, family and the gift of giving back.  I am so grateful for the many gifts I’ve been given – Daddy, N. and you, extended family and friendship.  I have so much love in my life.  I am extremely fortunate.  Gratitude encourages misery to withdraw.  People say it’s harder to talk about unhappiness, but I have found the opposite to be true.  Misery came easily to me. Happiness I’ve had to fight for and once I caught slivers of it, I wasn’t willing to let it go.

Emma chose this photo of me to accompany her interview

Emma chose this photo of me to accompany her interview (I figure since I chose photos of Emma throughout her childhood, it is only fair that she now choose the photographs posted on this blog.)

12 Comments

Posted in Happiness, Interview, Parenting

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“Picky Eater”

Posted on April 23, 2014 by | 44 comments

“Picky eater.”  This is how Emma has described herself and gave me permission to quote.  Food and eating in relationship to my daughter are topics I have (in the last year and a half) avoided on this blog  for a variety of reasons, but the biggest being, because I spent twenty-two years of my life in the throes of an eating disorder documented ‘here‘ and ‘here‘ and so have very conflicted opinions about all of this.  I have no problem discussing my own issues regarding food, but I don’t have that leeway when talking about my daughter’s relationship to food.  It’s not my story to tell, it’s hers.

So this post will not be about her interactions with food as much as it will concentrate on my own as the parent of a “picky eater.”  Despite my better instincts, I became way too involved in my daughter’s food, what she ate, what she didn’t.  I made the mistake of believing there was a link between her inability to speak and what she was or wasn’t eating and that concern overrode my gut feeling that I needed to stay out of it…  twice.  As a result, this happened.  The first time I “managed” her food intake was when she was just two years old, despite all the medical tests showing she had no intolerances or allergies to anything.  The second time was far worse and more traumatic and it was because of those six weeks, when she stopped eating, lost a tremendous amount of weight, that I realized I had to stop trying to control what she did or didn’t eat.  Please remember I am writing this from the perspective of someone who has huge personal issues with food.  This is important.

I have heard from a number of people who have found from various tests done by their doctors or through their own experimentation that they feel better if they stay away from particular foods, others have been diagnosed as celiac or have specific food intolerances and allergies that when avoided has changed their lives significantly.  This is true for all people and not just a specific neurology, though it may prove to be more prevalent in Autistic neurology, or it may be that Autistic neurology makes some experience the discomfort they feel more intensely. Either way, it is absolutely a fact that some people are allergic or have an intolerance to some foods.

When I first put my daughter on a gluten-free/ casein free diet I was filled with trepidation because of my history as both bulimic and anorexic.  I worried about the unforeseen consequences of controlling her food choices, particularly as my eating disorder had nearly fatal consequences.  When I gave birth to my daughter I was so relieved when she ate just about anything offered.  As time went on and she began to narrow what she would and wouldn’t eat I became concerned, but wary of becoming too involved.  I was hyper aware of offering healthy foods to my children, while not becoming overly controlling.  So far so good.  And then Emma was diagnosed with autism and in my research I read about the GF/CF diet.  In the literature I read there were spectacular claims of “recovery” from autism and “losing their diagnosis.”  This was in 2004.  I was in the midst of my find-anything-that-will-cure-her- thinking.  I don’t know if that diet is pushed on parents now the way it was then.  But at the time it seemed many parents were implementing it, some with noticeable positive changes, but most were not, still, it seemed worth a try.

Like everything to do with autism, there are opinions, lots of opinions, but little real evidence that a diet was having the same massive effect on all children diagnosed with autism as it was on a few.  So when the diet did nothing, and despite the battery of tests showing no intolerance of any kind, in a moment of desperation I implemented an even more draconian version of this diet in 2011 as advised by a naturopath I took her to.  It was this final attempt that caused long-term and far-reaching damage.  It eroded her trust and it caused her a great deal of unnecessary pain and trauma.  It is this time period that Emma still refers to with great anxiety today.  As someone who almost died because of my eating disorder it is tough to reconcile the fact that I have caused my daughter such suffering.

I bring all of this up because over the weekend, Emma said she was willing to “taste a carrot.”  This was huge.  HUGE, as Emma has not willingly eaten a vegetable of any kind since 2005.  I have consoled myself over the years by reminding myself that there are populations throughout the world who subsist on an extremely limited diet.  There are indigenous people in Northwestern Alaska who live on seal and walrus blubber and little else, but whose health is actually better than their southern neighbors.  Various people over the years, particularly OT’s and speech therapists have tried to convince me to restrict Emma’s diet, but I won’t do it. Instead we discuss nutrition.  We talk about food choices.  I do my best to model good eating habits.  We talk about vitamin supplements and I offer healthy choices.

When I asked Emma, “So what did you think about that carrot you just tried?”  Emma wrote, “I think it’s sweeter than I expected.  So not as bad as I had anticipated.”

“Do you think you will try it again?” I asked.

“Yes, I will taste it and thank you for your suggestion,” Emma ever so politely wrote.

November, 2011

Having lost more than 10 pounds – November, 2011

44 Comments

Posted in Autism, diets, Gastro-Intestinal Issues

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“Self-Knowledge Avails Us Nothing”

Posted on April 15, 2014 by | 13 comments

There are things I forget to talk about with my daughter.  Things that someone will mention or I’m reminded of in some other context and suddenly I’ll think – Gosh, why haven’t I discussed this with her?  These are things a parent would typically talk to their child about, but that because my daughter cannot easily communicate her thoughts I, without meaning to, do not immediately think to talk about with her.  This is the impact my limiting ideas about language and not being able to communicate through spoken language have on my daughter.  It doesn’t always occur to me to discuss with her a great many things until I am reminded.   Out of respect for my daughter I am keeping this post purposefully vague.

I am moving along here, learning as I go and continue to make a great many mistakes.  I have never deluded myself into believing the – making mistakes – part will end, the most I can hope for is that I won’t continue to make the same mistakes, but even so, I do.  I seem to need to repeat the same lesson many times before I am able to make lasting change.  It is a mistake to believe non Autistic neurology does not have trouble with transitions, generalizing information, learning something taught and immediately changing behavior to demonstrate this knowledge.  I will often know something, yet it will take many attempts before I am able to put that knowledge into practice.  You could say that my actions lag way behind what I know or believe.

In the 12 step rooms there is a saying – “self-knowledge avails us nothing.”  What is meant by this is that we can intellectually know something and yet that knowledge does not produce a change in the way we behave.  The only way to change is by doing something differently.  How easy that sounds and yet, look around, people have struggled with this since the beginning of mankind.  Addiction is the obvious example, but there are other, far more subtle things that are great examples of how we want to do something – eat better, exercise, be polite, more friendly, etc –  we know it would be better if we did whatever it was, only to find ourselves unable to do it.  Behavior modification, were it as helpful as many seem to believe, should have helped anyone who has ever attempted to “just stop” and yet it has shown itself as useless.  Unless behavior modification is used in its most extreme form, which I would argue is not dissimilar to torture, in which case it will and does produce short-term change, though at a terrible cost to the person being “treated”, it does not help those of us who are trying hard to change our less than ideal ways of coping with discomfort, fear, pain, and suffering.

Change is hard.  Changing the way we act is even harder than changing a belief.  Yet, we expect and ask children to change all the time.  We tell them something and then when they do exactly what we’ve asked them not to do, we wonder why.  Except that they are behaving the way most of us behave.  Adults are no exception to this.  Now add a neurology that makes communicating more complicated and all kinds of misunderstandings develop.  Conclusions are drawn, ideas and theories are created to explain, and yet…

Recently Emma was asked about something that happened at school.  She wrote, “if every time you tried to speak, the wrong things came out of your mouth, how would you feel?”  We live in a society where people knowingly say and do hurtful things all the time, yet those people are not put in institutions, given random medications against their will, labeled as “low functioning, ostracized, given electric shocks, condemned and treated as though they were criminals.  I’m thinking of a number of radio and talk show hosts whose ratings soar the more outrageous and venomous they are.  These people are rewarded for such behavior!  I’ve never met a parent who said, “I want my child to grow up to be rude, disrespectful and a bigot.”  And yet…

Today I will suggest a few topics and ask both my children what they’d like to discuss.

Em & N. ~ 2010

Em & N. ~ 2010

13 Comments

Posted in Autism, communication, Parenting

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Shifting Our Beliefs

Posted on November 26, 2013 by | 7 comments

“It’s a simple program, but it’s not easy.”  These were the words I remember someone saying to me during those first few weeks so long ago when I entered a 12-step program.  As with most of the things people said during those first few years when everything was still a blur, I heard the words, but didn’t really understand or care what was meant.  Not really.  The slogans seemed trite and silly. I heard them, I read them, but I didn’t pay much attention to them other than to make fun of them.  And then as the days of not acting on my addictions piled up and my head began to clear, as life continued along and I with it, I started to make sense of this phrase and so many more that were said during those early days.

Like everything in life, things are rarely how I expect them to be.  The years since I walked into those recovery rooms have not unfolded as I thought they would.  I am not doing what I imagined I would be doing, my life does not resemble the life I once led nor does it resemble the life I imagined for myself.  All of it comes as a surprise.  Perhaps the biggest is how much I have come to love so many of these slogans that I once viewed with contempt.

The things I learned in those early days of recovery are things I continue to apply to my life now:   “Take it easy,”  “Keep it simple,”  “Practice the principles in all our affairs,”  “Circumstances do not make us who we are, they reveal to us who we are,” “Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle,”  “Compare and despair,”  “We’re responsible for the effort, not the outcome,” “Change is a process, not an event,” “resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die,” “sorrow is looking back; worry is looking around; hope is looking forward,” “serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm,”  “F.E.A.R. – False Evidence Appearing Real.”

There are too many program slogans to list here, but almost all of them can be applied to every aspect of my life today, particularly when it comes to autism.  There is so much that I feel discouraged by when it comes to autism, what is said, what we are told, what is believed to be “true”.  As I continue to learn, as my daughter continues to write, the farther away we drift from the commonly held beliefs about autism and my child and friends who are Autistic.  I read articles written about autism and Autistic people and I recognize none of my friends, daughter or anyone I know.   The articles and views seem completely disconnected from reality.  I read what so many other parents say and I have to remember to remind myself that I once believed these things too.

Recently someone sent me the link to a book review of Naoki Higashida’s book The Reason I Jump.  The review was written by someone who works in the field of autism and yet was incredulous that Naoki talks with such insight about his social interactions, speaks of feeling ashamed when his body does not cooperate with his mind.  The reviewer wonders aloud what (if any) the implications are for others who are non-speaking and Autistic.  Of everything written about Naoki’s book, this was the review that has continued to haunt me.  Here is someone who has spent his life researching and working in the field of autism and yet, Naoki’s book comes as a surprise.  How is this possible?

It’s possible because those who are in the field have been given incorrect information and then look for verification that align with what they’ve been told.  Yet this bias is not how research should be done.  Until we are willing to accept the idea that maybe, just maybe what we believe to be true is not, we will not be able to believe anything different.  And as a result all of our Autistic children, friends and people will suffer the consequences.

Emma – 2003

*Em 2003

7 Comments

Posted in Addiction, Autism, Parenting

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The Blurring of Diagnoses

Posted on October 9, 2013 by | 32 comments

There was a time in my life when I could not get through an entire day without throwing up.  I would get hungry, eat to the point of discomfort and vomit.  I went to therapists who tried to help me.  I tried various techniques, stalling methods, eliminating certain foods, but in the end nothing I did helped.  I couldn’t stop.  I remember sitting in my apartment, afraid to eat anything because to eat meant I would purge.  It was no longer a choice.  It was something I had to do.  All of this was complicated by body image issues, tremendous shame and the belief that who I was depended on how thin I was.  That I was dying inside seemed less important than how I looked.

“One major distinction between an addiction and a compulsion (as it is experienced in obsessive-compulsive disorder) is the experience of pleasure. While people who have addictions suffer all manner of discomforts, the desire to use the substance or engage in the behavior is based on the expectation that it will be pleasurable.

“In contrast, someone who experiences a compulsion as part of obsessive-compulsive disorder may not get any pleasure from the behavior he carries out. Often, it is a way of dealing with the obsessive part of the disorder, resulting in a feeling of relief.”  ~ About.com

When I read a description such as this one, I begin to question my eating disorder as addiction and wonder whether it was much closer to the definition for OCD  because though it all began with a desire to quell pain and seeking pleasure, by the time I found recovery, pleasure was illusive and no longer part of the equation.  “This can get a little confusing because there often comes a point for people with addictions where they don’t really enjoy the addictive behavior, and they are just seeking relief from the urge to use or engage in the behavior.”

“Although this can look like obsessive-compulsive behavior because the pleasure is gone, the original motivation to engage in the behavior was to feel good.”  ~ Helpguide.org.   So we have come full circle and are back to addiction.

I bring all of this up because as with anything whether we are talking about addiction, OCD,  anxiety or any of the other numerous issues many people struggle with, the labels can overlap.  So I was an active addict and when I was active, my addictive behavior mimicked pretty classic OCD behavior.  There was a point when the idea of sitting with my feelings, sitting and not tamping them down with food was inconceivable to me.  I really believed I would die.  This statement describes OCD almost exactly.  “OCD… characterized by uncontrollable, unwanted thoughts and repetitive, ritualized behaviors you feel compelled to perform.” ~ Helpguide.org

And yet, even though OCD looks a lot like addiction, there are differences.  Differences that make helping someone with one or the other tricky, but understanding the differences is important.  For example the two most common forms of treatment for OCD is cognitive-behavioral therapy and medication, though neither have proven to be entirely successful and often it is said that OCD, like addiction is something one must learn to manage for the rest of ones life, these treatments flourish.  Treatment options for addiction have proven to be equally challenging.  Some people have found help in working a 12-step program, but others have not.

“While the onset of obsessive-compulsive disorder usually occurs during adolescence or young adulthood, younger children sometimes have symptoms that look like OCD. However, the symptoms of other disorders, such as ADD, autism, and Tourette’s syndrome, can also look like obsessive-compulsive disorder, so a thorough medical and psychological exam is essential before any diagnosis is made.” ~ Helpguide.org

Someone whose neurology is autistic may have OCD AND a whole host of other things too, similar to the non autistic population.  Because there is so often an overlap, people mistakenly think that autism is the same as OCD or assume that ALL Autistic children and people have OCD.  The lines between the two become blurred and the distinctions get lost.  So much of what people believe IS autism, are actually co-morbids.  Without making the distinction between what is and isn’t “autism” we may be treating something that we should not be or are missing what we could treat, but aren’t.

Autistic neurology, like non autistic neurology needs to be separated from the co-morbids that affect some, but not all people.  Just as I am non autistic AND an (not active) addict, no one would leap to the conclusion that because I am both, ALL non autistic people are also addicts or that addiction is the same as being non autistic.  Yet, we see this kind of thinking over and over with autism and Autistic people.

Em on her pogo stick copy

32 Comments

Posted in Addiction, Autism, obsessive compulsive

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Peering into the Darkness

Posted on September 5, 2013 by | 23 comments

Sometimes there is such tremendous darkness, it scares me.  Sometimes my instinct is to go deeper into the darkness.  Sometimes my instincts are not helpful.  Sometimes my instincts lead me the wrong way.  Sometimes…

When I was in my thirties I went down into the darkness, so deep I began to wonder if I would ever find my way out.  There was a moment, a moment when I stood at the edge and contemplated the void.  It felt blissful.  The darkness seemed to hold the answers I sought.  The darkness held the promise of calm and peace and quiet from all the noise and pain.  It beckoned to me and I believed, for a moment, I believed it was the answer.

I would like to report that in a single instant I made the decision to step back from the edge, but it wasn’t like that.  It was hard to move away.  It was difficult and painful and there was nothing elegant or easy about it.  Stepping away was more like an agonizing scramble of falling, tumbling backwards and clawing forward, grabbing on to whatever scrap of hope I could find.  Some days felt like a slow, steady, groveling crawl on my hands and knees just to get through the hours that make up a day.  And on those days I believed this would be my life forever and I wondered how I could continue.  It was on those days, when I believed I knew what the future held, those were the days that were the hardest.

There are tricks I learned, little things I learned to do, some are silly perhaps, but I do them anyway.  When things feel like they are too much, I tell myself I can get through the next hour, just one hour without hurting myself or anyone else.  Just for the next hour, I will not do or say anything that will cause harm.  Just for this next hour.  And when that hour passes, I take the next hour, one hour at a time.  I have done this for many years now and funnily enough, this method of taking one small manageable segment of time and being present for whatever it may bring continues to work.  During those early days when all of this was new to me, I even gave myself permission to do whatever it was that I wanted to do, but knew it would hurt me after the hour had passed.  Then the hour would pass and I would see I had gotten through it and I would say, okay, just one more hour.  I can get through one more hour.  And I did one hour at a time, I did.

I learned to make phone calls or text people I trust and know are safe.  I let them in, I asked for help.  Sometimes help meant listening to another person, sometimes it meant they listened to me.   I learned I had choices, even when it felt that I did not.  People had to remind me to do the thing that everything in my being screamed at me not to do – reach out in kindness to another.  Sometimes even when I could not muster up the strength to be kind to myself I could show kindness to another, so I do at least three anonymous acts of kindness. (Using the present tense now.)  The anonymous part is important.  It’s imperative that my actions are not about getting thanks or being appreciated, but are about actively taking actions where I can be the person, even if only for a few minutes, I would like to one day grow up to be.

I look back on those years, so long ago now and no longer recognize that person who contemplated the darkness.  I do not know her.  She is unfamiliar to me and I’m grateful.  Mine is but one experience, there are countless others.  I have no answers.  All I know is that to keep the life I now enjoy, a life I could not imagine myself ever having, a life that, so many years ago, would have seemed too good to be true, I must do certain things on a daily basis to make sure that tomorrow and the next day will not involve being anywhere near the edge where I am tempted to peer down into that pit of darkness and contemplate its depths.

If you or someone you know is struggling, reach out for help.  Tell someone else, let them help and remember you are not alone.

23 Comments

Posted in Addiction, depression, hope

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The Quest

Posted on August 19, 2013 by | 4 comments

The quest for various potions and remedies kept the mother  separate from her child, though she did not know this at the time.  The mother believed it a valiant quest, and prided herself in her vigilance and determination.  She would single-handedly conquer what had thus far proven unconquerable to vast numbers of scientists, neurologists, neuropharmacologists, researchers and all those who had devoted their lives to finding a cure for autism.  She would save her daughter and she would prevail.  Call it arrogance, a lack of humility or simply being unable to understand; she would reflect on her own near miss with death as justification for her belief in her ability to do what no one else to date had.  (And yes, she began to forget that her sobriety and abstinence were not due to will power or because she tried harder, but was because of the help she received from a larger group/ a power greater than herself.)  All thoughts of something being more powerful than herself were temporarily forgotten, or put on hold, or, depending on the day, justified as being part of what she was trying to do.  As I said before, she was veering from the path laid out for her by thousands of addicts who had years of sobriety and abstinence and practiced humility, honesty, openness, willingness and acceptance as the basic tenets of their ability to stay clean one day at a time.

“Courage to change the things I can…”  she would often repeat this to herself during particularly tough times, neither saying the first part, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” nor the last, “and wisdom to know the difference.”  She believed herself to be courageous.  She knew herself to be courageous.  And she had learned over the years how to tap into her innate kindness, to foster it, encourage it and nurture it, though in her quest for a cure she felt increasingly out of touch with all that and began to struggle mightily with what it meant to take “the next right action”  or know what it meant to know any will other than her own.

Whether there is a G-O-D piece to all this is not something I can speak of, nor can she, as this is a word that never brought solace, so in the midst of all of this she abandoned even saying the word and stopped trying to make sense of what it may or may not mean.  She did, however, believe in something larger than herself, a power whose meaning shifted over the years and eventually evolved to mean – kindness, love, appreciation, gratitude – these were the things she knew to do and act upon when feelings began to feel factual, when feelings served to confuse her and make her believe them, despite what was happening and what she was witnessing.  Acts of kindness were the mainstay of her “practice” for no other reason than she knew her life was better when practicing kindness than when she did not.

So it was not a leap for her to believe that finding a cure for all that ailed her daughter was an act of kindness.   It’s important that I interject here that to this girl who had grown into a woman, had spent more than two decades of her life being an addict, found abstinence and sobriety through another way of being in this world, became a mother to two beautiful children, a “cure” meant removing all those things that caused her daughter pain.  A cure meant that her daughter would be able to carry on a conversation, the way non-autistic children do, that she would not have GI issues, she would not have sensitivities to texture and noise and pain, but that she would be relieved of all of that.  She told herself these were all things her daughter would want to have removed and be “cured” of if only she could tell her.  The mother believed this wholeheartedly and comforted herself that she was doing the right thing.  The only thing.  The best thing.  Not for a moment did she think of a “cure” as an eradication of her child, but more a version of her child.  A kind of fantasy, similar to believing in Santa Claus, of who her child would be if she were relieved of all or most of her physical pain and had the ability to get along in society and this world with ease.

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Once Upon A Time (Part 3)

Posted on August 15, 2013 by | 9 comments

Part one and two are ‘here‘ and ‘here‘.

So this woman who was once a troubled girl, now the mother to two small children, one of whom was a beautiful little girl with curly white/blonde locks and chubby cheeks and dimpled knees, wondered how she ever gave birth to such perfection.  She was filled with gratitude and felt each of her children were gifts, tiny gifts that she was being given the opportunity to influence and even direct, but who were their own people, with their own temperaments and personalities, unique and wonderful in their own right.  She believed this fiercely.  But do not forget, this woman lived for many years of her adult life, prior to giving birth to her two wonderful children, believing she was bad.  She imagined that inside of her there was darkness, as though there was a bad seed deep within her soul and for many, many years she had tried to purge that badness from her being.  She believed she needed to be “fixed” and that left to her own devices she was fundamentally flawed and that if people got to know her, they too would learn this truth about her and it was only a matter of time before she was found out until others who had once felt similarly about themselves, convinced her that this was untrue.  These people showed her over time that in fact there was tremendous goodness within her and they taught her how to nurture that goodness and how to behave in ways that fostered it and encouraged it to grow and even flourish.

But then, now years later, she saw aspects of herself in her daughter.  Behaviors she used to do, but no longer did.  Her daughter loved to look at photographs and there were a great many to view.  Her daughter liked to sit on the floor with more than a hundred photographs piled in front of her and quickly scan them.  If one was missing, her daughter knew instantly and began to howl in great distress.  The mother watched in confusion as this scene unfurled.  The daughter, perfectly happy one minute, and then in terrible agony the next could not be consoled and would hurt herself by punching herself in the face or biting her hand or arm.  And something inside the mother clicked.  She recognized this desire to control her pain.  It took her back to a time when she needed things to be a certain way and when they were not she felt her entire life was unraveling and that her very existence was put into jeopardy and the only release from the horror was to hurt herself.  There was a kind of twisted logic to all of this, her self-induced pain, a pain that at least she could control, though awful, was not as terrible as her rampant and erratic feelings and somewhere along the way that self-induced pain made her feel she could endure, at least for a little while.

Now here was her daughter behaving, it seemed to her, in similar ways, expressing the agony she once knew so intimately.  She had no words to describe what she was witnessing, but she thought she could feel what her daughter was feeling, the despair, the pain, the fear that if the photograph was not immediately found she might die.  The mother believed this was what her daughter was going through and because she had lived through similar feelings she thought she would be able to help her.  She would provide her with the same sort of safety net she had been given.  A place to land, as it were, a safe space where her daughter could feel comforted, except that the things she said and did, did not provide her daughter with the comfort the mother expected and hoped she would feel.

You see, the mother forgot that her daughter was not a mirror of herself.  The mother forgot the thing that she knew when she gave birth to each of her children – that they were their own unique beings, quite separate and individual from anyone else.  She forgot all of this in her fear and worry over what she was witnessing and imagined her child was feeling and doing.  So she began to look outside herself for answers.  People, many, many people told her that they knew what would help and she listened to them.  These people spoke of her daughter using language all too familiar to the mother.  They used words like “broken,” “disorders,” “pervasive” and likened her neurology to cancer, which to the mother sounded a great deal like what she once thought of herself.  They said her daughter was part of an epidemic and that various methodologies would “treat” her disorder and might even reverse and cure her if done quickly and everyday for many, many hours.  The mother listened to all of these people and nodded her head as these people put into words what she had once believed to be true about herself.

Had she done this to her child?  Had she somehow passed along the worst aspects of herself to this beautiful, innocent child.  Was this some sort of karmic payback for all those years the mother had spent living a selfish, self-involved life?  Was her daughter the direct result of every mistake she’d made?  Was this really how life worked?  She could not believe this, at least not logically.  She refused to believe her daughter was being sacrificed for the sins of her mother.  She refused to believe there was some greater omnipotent power that would cause her daughter so much physical, emotional and psychic pain and yet she was terribly, terribly confused and somewhere she could not fully let herself off the hook.  Somewhere, unconsciously, she believed she was to blame for all that was causing her child pain and turmoil.  And if she was to blame, then she knew she, and she alone must make it right.

(To be continued) contemplation

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There Once Was A Girl (Cont’d)

Posted on August 14, 2013 by | 10 comments

The first part is ‘here‘.

This woman, who was once a girl, learned a great many things once she stopped trying not to feel.  This was a huge surprise to her as she believed she already knew a great deal.  She learned that people terrified her for they were capable of doing tremendous harm and she came to realize she had spent many years avoiding all people as a result.  Most of her pain in her adult life came from the expectations she held and not from the actual people or things they did or didn’t do.  She learned that no one person could ever be all she wanted and hoped for, but that a group of people could.  She learned that a community with a shared goal was more important than individual grievances and that her ego often pushed her from the path she’d chosen.

She met a wonderfully, flawed human and together they had two beautiful children.  With each child her world expanded and grew.  She often reflected on all she’d learned during those terrible years of her earlier life and tried her best to apply what she was learning to her new life as a parent.  But her youngest child, a strong, independent, baby girl who held an uncanny resemblance to her mother had a dreadful time tolerating certain feelings, sensations and the world.  She could not communicate through words and her mother watched her in helpless despair as she saw herself, her early self, her former self reflected in her child’s upset and frustration.  The mother would do anything to take that pain away so her daughter would not have to go through what her mother once had.  The mother would walk to the ends of this earth if it meant she could alleviate even some of her daughter’s massive physical and emotional discomfort.

And so, without even realizing it, the mother veered off the path laid out for her by so many others.  She did not begin using substances again, but slowly over time, she found herself moving away from one of the key tenets of her new life –  she began to believe she had power over another human being’s neurology and that she knew what was best for another.  Instead of helping her child, she began to fight against her child.  She did not think of it in this way at the time.  She thought she was fighting FOR her child and for many years this is what she told herself and others who asked.  She was fighting for her child and it was a noble fight, she would go to her grave fighting, and, by the way, in fighting she avoided a great many feelings.  She did not know this at the time, but in fact this is what happened.  And while she was busy fighting and desperately trying to keep all those messy feelings at bay, her child was hurting and feeling increasingly separate from her mother, (we cannot know this for a fact, but in retrospect the mother sensed this to be true).

More to follow…

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There Once Was A Girl…

Posted on August 13, 2013 by | 28 comments

There once was a girl who was in tremendous pain.  Her pain was so great she couldn’t manage it.  She tried, believe me, she tried.  She immersed herself in books, particular those dealing with people’s neurology, but also dabbled in science fiction, mysteries, thrillers, horror, romance, this was before the age of memoirs, so she devoured studies of other people written by psychiatrists, therapists of every ilk and doctors.  Losing herself in reading was thrilling, but it didn’t help her sort through the intense feelings she had.  All those books couldn’t begin to heal her often overwhelming feelings, anxiety, sadness and fear.

She thought that moving away might help so she did that, and then she moved farther and farther still and eventually she found herself living in another country and all those intense feelings moved right along with her.  By this time she was using substances to quell the pain, on a daily basis.   She knew she could zone out and for a little while anyway she would feel nothing at all and it was a great relief.  But as soon as the substance wore off she was left, once again, with herself.  She went from seeking relief, to needing relief, to feeling that if she didn’t do those things that gave her even momentary solace she might die.

There is no other way to describe what she went through when she could not indulge in certain behaviors.  SHE WOULD DIE.  She did not know this for a fact, but she felt sure that she could not exist without the things that changed her consciousness.  She was convinced that these substances helped her cope and that without them she would not be able to, and all those feelings would overwhelm her, suffocate her.  She lived in terror of this.  Years went by and she did the best she could, but her need for calm and peace was never satiated.

As time went on she knew that if she was going to continue living in this world she would have to change, she would have to find other ways of coping, of just being.  And again her fears both mesmerized and caused her to stay stuck doing the same things again and again that now did not give her the relief they once did.  She knew in her heart she would die if she continued doing what she had been doing.  She knew it was only a matter of time now.  The thing that she once thought was keeping her from dying, was the very thing that would kill her.  Still, how to change?  What could she do?  How would she stop?

At first she sought help from doctors and therapists and the medical profession.  She tried the various things they told her to do.  She made charts and ate specific foods and took supplements and lots and lots of vitamins, but nothing she did made a difference.  She went to psychologists and talked and talked, for years she talked, and while that helped her understand some of what ailed her, all that talk didn’t help her stop hurting herself.  One therapist, someone who loved her very much and had been trying to help her for many years said to her, you must find others who do what you do, they will help you.  So she found them.  Hundreds of people just like her who did the same things she was doing.  They listened to her pain and shame and they nodded their heads and told stories of their own and they said, “Here. Grab our hand.  We will help you.  We will show you the way through because you cannot do this on your own.  This isn’t about will power, this isn’t about desire, this is about needing help.”  And so she did, though she was filled with abject terror and was not at all sure she would be able to follow them, she did.  They taught her to breathe when she was scared and they took her calls in the middle of the night and they came to her when she was too frightened to leave her apartment and they sat with her when she was too overwhelmed to move.  They taught her that she alone could not help herself, she needed others.  This was both a great relief and also her greatest fear.

Over time she learned to tolerate all those feelings she once believed would kill her.  It was incredible!  She could not believe she was able to sit with feelings!  This was a revelation and she grew stronger and more able to be in the world.  She learned to ask for help and she found some people were safe and others were not.  She learned to be in a relationship with another person and to respect them and to honor their boundaries and she experienced the joy of kindness and acting in kindness for no other reason than because it was a part of who she was – to be kind.  She experienced the joy of helping others who were in pain and came to believe there is no greater gift in this life than to offer a hand to another being who is in the depths of despair and pain.

(To be continued)

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Variations in Neurology and Other Ramblings

Posted on July 31, 2013 by | 7 comments

I say I’m an addict and you envision a bum passed out in a gutter on the lower East side.  I don’t look like that bum.  I don’t fit that image.  So you smile at me and say things like, “well, you can’t really be addicted to food, can you?” or “oh you’re not really an addict, why label yourself that way?” or “you just need to use a little more self-control,” or “why can’t you just stop?”

I call myself an addict, not because I am active, but because I cannot allow myself to forget that my brain is hard-wired that way.  Once active, I can’t “just stop.”  I call myself an addict because that is the best descriptor of how my brain works.  I accept this.  I know this about myself.  There’s no judgment, it is what it is.  I call myself an addict because I don’t have the wiggle room to say I’m not.  Whenever I delude myself into thinking maybe, just maybe I can do x, y or z just this once, I’ve opened the door to addiction and I can’t afford to do that.  Once I become active, I may be able to stop, but I may not and that’s not a risk I am willing to take.  For twenty-two years I lived as an active addict and by the time I finally found the support and help I needed, I was ready to end my life.  It is not a way of life I want to revisit.  (I’ve written about some of this, ‘here‘, ‘here‘ and ‘here‘.)  But people have a tough time with this concept.  People who aren’t addicts, find this difficult to grasp.  That’s okay.  They don’t need to understand it.  I just need to keep doing what I’m doing.

There are things I need to do that help me stay “clean”.  I need support from other addicts.  Those friendships and relationships are not only important, they are essential.  All of us have a similar vision for each other and ourselves.  We place our shared vision above individual personalities.  If a disagreement arises, we try to remind ourselves and each other that our common goal is far more important than whether we like or dislike someone.  We try hard to keep away from gossip, judgment and personal attacks as best we can.  We talk about progress not perfection.  We mentor each other and reach out to those who are struggling.

Within these principles there are a great many tools that help us.  For me, the single most important thing has been realizing that when I behave with integrity, and by that I mean, do not lie, cheat, take advantage of another, treat others as I would like to be treated, do my best to keep my energy directed at my behavior and actions, reach out to those who may be struggling, listen, learn, remain curious and tapped into the wonder of life and all that I do not know, then I will live a far better life than if I do not do these things.  This also is the only method I know of to stay free from my addictions.  It’s pretty simple, right?  Simple, but not easy to practice.  I often don’t get it right.  But I keep trying.

I bring all of this up because there are many of us who have neurologies that differ from the majority.  As I said, judging my own or anyone else’s as good or bad, better or worse is unhelpful.  It is what it is.  We can get caught up in semantics, we can argue about addiction or any other neurological variation from what is considered the “norm”.  But more importantly (to me anyway) is the vision.  Many do not agree with that either.  My vision includes a society of inclusion.  I am reminded over and over that compassion and love are actions.  Who I am and the way I behave have nothing to do with what others think of me.  There are people who need support to do things I can do without thinking.  Things I take completely for granted, like communicating.  There are people whose lives could be transformed from one of misery to one of purpose if their neurology was accommodated.

In yesterday’s interview, Tracy said, “The man I am today is because my autism is the gift I was given to be a leader to anyone who has ever felt less than human based on their appearance. Martin Luther King knew that hurt and he took it to the mountain of peace. My mind is more like a Mensa candidate than I can type. My life is a testimony to the lesson of humanity. Like Larry typed “More like you than not” is the guiding principle to inclusion.”

We are all more alike than we aren’t.

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Shame, Addiction & Autism

Posted on July 2, 2013 by | 9 comments

“We all have shame.  We all have good and bad, dark and light, inside of us.  But if we don’t come to terms with our shame, our struggles, we start believing that there’s something wrong with us – that we’re bad, flawed, not good enough – and even worse, we start acting on those beliefs. If we want to be fully engaged, to be connected, we have to be vulnerable.  In order to be vulnerable, we need to develop resilience to shame.” ~ Daring Greatly by Brené Brown

I’ve written about shame before.  A couple of commenters on my last post about shame told me to watch Brené Brown’s TED talks on vulnerability and shame, which I did.  B. Brown also has several books, Daring Greatly, is the one I’m currently reading, where she writes, “A sense of worthiness inspires us to be vulnerable, share openly, and persevere.  Shame keeps us small, resentful, and afraid.”

Shame is something I am intimate with.  I don’t know many addicts who aren’t.  I’ve written about addiction and specifically having an eating disorder ‘here‘, ‘here‘ and ‘here‘.  The self-betrayal implicit in addictive behavior exacerbates the pre-existing shame, creating depression and self-loathing.  Attempts to alleviate those feelings with addictive behavior only fuels them.  Shame heaped upon more shame is not a recipe for happiness or success.  Ignoring shame, trying to bury it, and trying harder to not feel it, doesn’t work either.

There have been a number of studies suggesting a link between addictive behavior and autism.  I don’t find this surprising given how feelings of alienation, isolation and fractured self-worth all contribute to wanting to seek refuge and escape. Except the thing we are trying to escape from is often ourselves.  Many of us have internalized our shame, particularly those of us who tend toward perfectionism.  Add to this obsessive tendencies, a desire to be loved, wanting to fit in, believing we are “less than” and addiction can feel like a perfect fit and the only way we can survive in a hostile, unaccepting world.

Oddly, we, as a society, tend to attribute laziness and a lack of will power as the reason people eat too much, drink too much or spend more money than they make.  Similarly, people seem to think autism is a choice or at least the behaviors associated with autism are.  These people apparently believe Autistic people can  “lose” their “autism” if they can just be trained to hide their “problem” behaviors or the things they do that make them obviously Autistic.  Many Autistic people talk about being scolded and punished when they were unable to produce the results expected of them when told they needed to “try harder.”  Trying harder will usually make the person feel more terrible about themselves.

I worry about a culture that is conditioned to believe we must ‘train’ our Autistic children to behave in ways that most cannot, or cannot without a massive cost to their self-esteem.  I worry about “autism treatments” and “therapies” whose underlying message is that our children are not okay.  I worry about what our children are internalizing.  I worry about addiction, depression, suicidal ideation, and how those things get set in motion at a very young age from feeling we are “bad,” not worthy and less than. I worry that because many do not understand autism is a neurological wiring, or do not take into account the experience so many Autistic people are describing, we are raising fearful children, filled with shame for who they are as human beings.  Instead of helping our children flourish, encouraging them to be all they can be, we are trying to make them into something they cannot be.

I love this photo of Emma because it captures her in all her Emma-ness!

Emma - 2002

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Accepting Ourselves So We Can Accept Others

Posted on April 23, 2013 by | 13 comments

Accepting myself has been an ongoing process and it began well before I became a parent and got married.  It began more than seventeen years ago when I was flailing about, bulimic, unable to stop using my substance of choice (food) the way a drug addict uses crack.  I have written about this period of my life before ‘here‘, ‘here‘, ‘here‘ and ‘here‘ so I won’t go into great detail again now.  Suffice it to say, I was out of control, scared, suicidal and I couldn’t stop binging and purging.  And then someone who had once been an active alcoholic and obese, with more than a hundred pound maintained weight loss, said to me, “What if you accept that this is where you are?”

I remember I looked at her in shock.  Even now, thinking back to her words I find I am holding my breath.  It was such a stunning statement.  Never had anyone suggested such a thing.  To me it suggested complete defeat.  It was blasphemous.  It was the single most heinous suggestion I’d ever heard.  I think I said something like, “Are you kidding?  What do you mean?”  I can no longer remember her exact words, but she said something like, “You just told me you can’t stop binging and throwing up.  You just said you are out of control.  You just gave me a detailed description of what you do, how completely depressed you are, how you’ve tried for twenty-two years to control yourself and yet here you are, still unable to.  What if you told yourself – okay.  This is where I am.  I am out of control.  I hate it.  I hate feeling this way.  I can’t stop.  I can’t stop hurting myself.  I can’t stop binging.  I can’t stop throwing up.  I can’t stop thinking about food.  I can’t stop abusing myself.  This is where I am.  I accept that I am here.  What if you did that?

I didn’t have an answer.  I couldn’t think.  I felt like I was being given a pop quiz I hadn’t studied for.  I stared at her and then she did the next thing that I could not understand or wrap my mind around.  She opened her arms in embrace and hugged me.  I remember my confusion, the feeling that this couldn’t be right, that she was unhinged, that the only thing that could save me from self-destruction was more self-criticism, more self-loathing and more self-recrimination.  But I also knew what she’d said made some sort of bizarre sense; for twenty-two years I’d been upping the self hate talk to no avail.  All that criticism I kept dumping on myself had gotten me exactly where I was – at a dead end.  So I took a deep breath, held onto her hand and took a metaphoric leap into the unknown.  The unknown of acceptance.

Just in case you’re wondering, it didn’t happen as quickly or as easily as this may sound.  That leap took years of practice, of gently reminding myself that whatever I was feeling, whatever I was doing, I could accept that in that moment I was where I was.  It took years and years of cultivating awareness, of being able to see when I took up the whip that I could also put it down again.  Kindness, compassion, gentle reminders and acceptance, this is the road I have tried to stay on.  As I said, this is very much a work in progress.  Some call it a ‘practice’ because ‘work’ sounds difficult.  My experience with acceptance has been that it is “work”.  It is not easy for me.  It does not come naturally.  I have stumbled along the way.  I continue to wander off at times, only to be brought back, gently, kindly and with compassion by others who are on the same path.  It takes gentle reminders, many nonjudgmental nudges to move back onto the path of acceptance.  But I have seen the light and know to follow it even when it grows dim.

My experience with acceptance regarding autism has followed a similar trajectory.  You might think – why didn’t she ‘get it’ right away?  Why did it take so long for her to remember that what had worked for herself would work with this too?   And the only answer I have is this – I forgot and I couldn’t see that they were connected.  I didn’t see the value in accepting autism because I didn’t see my child as Autistic.  I saw her as having been diagnosed with a word I feared and didn’t understand, and therefore was not going to accept.  Again it felt like defeat to accept.  It has only been a little over a year that I was able to make the connection.  And the thing that helped me make the connection came in the form of yet another person who accepted me and all my fear, guilt and shame with compassion.  Once I was able to make the connection, became aware of my lack of acceptance and allowed that to be, without adding criticism and judgement to it, was I finally able to begin the process of true acceptance.

Acceptance of ourselves and where we are in this moment opens us up to the wonder of all.

Pascal, Emma, Harvey & Henry typing to each other – April, 2013

H &E type

 

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Anger, Confusion, Doing the Right Thing

Posted on January 28, 2013 by | 13 comments

My father was born and raised in Paris.  He was actually Swiss, hence my last name, but he grew up in France and only came to the States in his twenties.  As a child I remember feeling ever so slightly embarrassed by my obvious “American-ness” something my father was often critical of in not so subtle ways.  One of his complaints was regarding what he felt was an American preoccupation with “happiness”.  One of his favorite phrases, repeated to my annoyance when I was a teenager, was “no one ever promised you a rose garden.”  (It was an interesting statement coming from someone who lovingly tended to his rose bushes that accented an enormous cactus/rock garden in front of our ranch-style house.)  I hated when he said that.  I can remember driving in the car staring out the window, talking about the injustices of the world and our society and feeling it was all too much to bear and he would come out with the thing about the rose garden or another of his favorites, “it’s a wicked world”  and I would silently scream in my head, while saying nothing.

It’s snowing right now.  My studio windows look north onto a bridge where hundreds of commuters barrel along to and from Manhattan.  On sunny days to my left the Manhattan skyline beckons in all its grandeur, to my right massive factory buildings rise up, grey concrete and windows where I can see heavy machinery, artist’s studios and manufacturing.  Often, on the street my studio building occupies, film crews shoot TV shows I’ve never watched, parking is suspended, barricades are set up and large tables laden with food, none of the actors will eat, take up space on the sidewalk.  But this morning it’s snowing.  Manhattan is completely obscured by heavy, grey clouds.  Different sized flakes whirl about as though unaware that gravity will eventually win out.

I spent most of my teens in a state of confused, directionless, rage.   Eventually all that anger found its target…  me.  For the next few decades I took my upset and sense of injustice and dumped it on my self over and over until I had all but forgotten there was anything else to be outraged about.  Slowly over time that changed.  I learned to have some acceptance, I learned that my anger was not the single worst thing about me, to be buried and beaten down and hidden.  I learned that other people’s anger, while uncomfortable, would not kill me.  I learned about myself and I began to see that my resentments led me to behave in ways that would eventually crush me.  My addictions (click for more on that) were all about rage, debilitating resentments turned inward.   I learned the only way I could crawl out from under my addictions was through honesty, acceptance, compassion and love.  I learned I could feel rage, but that I had to learn how to respect and care for it.  I am still learning.  I haven’t gotten it all figured out yet.  I still falter and make missteps, but I know the key points so that I don’t completely fall off into self-destruction.

Anger.  What is it telling me?  I have to keep my actions honest.  I have to keep conflicts centered on separating feelings from facts.  I have to try to recognize when I am responding with judgment, prejudice, privilege, superiority or defensiveness (this is no small feat!)  I have to step away and ask myself – am I being honest?  Am I being willfully hurtful?  Am I intentionally or unintentionally being manipulative?  Am I afraid?  If so, what of?  Am I speaking from truth or because I want others to think well of me?  Am I placing principles above personalities?  Am I practicing these principles in all my affairs?  Am I gossiping?  Am I feeling superior or conversely inferior?  Am I demonstrating any of these things in my behavior?  What can I do to support those I care about and love?  What can I do to be of service?  What is the next “right” action in the face of conflict?  Sometimes the answer to this last question is to be present and enjoy the snow falling outside my window and to see the beauty in its gathering on the rooftops and farther below on the ground.  Sometimes, not always, but sometimes, taking care of myself so that I can take action at a later point means doing absolutely nothing in this moment.

January 2013 – The Chrysler Building at night

Chryslar Building

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