Vicarious Rising

Frozen with Fear

My fear gauge is all fucked up. I don't think I am properly set up to regulate my responses to danger or threats to my emotional well-being. I'm scared of stuff I needn't fear (phobia of the smell of skunks is a little irrational and fairly avoidable) and am not afraid of things that ought to scare the shit out of me (drinking wine until your blood doesn't clot properly is a reason to stop drinking, not drink more to forget not to think about all the unexplained bruises). I'm just starting to sort out my ass from my head, but the way I was raised taught me the wrong things to be wary of (my extreme fear of the silent treatment is a personal fave). Maybe because I was so anxious and terrified all the time, my fear response fritzed out on overload.

Generally speaking, fear gets a bad rap, but fear is necessary for basic survival. Excessive or unnecessary fear can cause a lot of problems. Sometimes you can get paralyzed by fear and do absolutely nothing then get consumed by whatever is endangering you. Sometimes you can behave rashly and cause a chain of events that cannot be undone.

The purpose of fear in nature is to prepare the body for fight or flight when under a threat. The very frightened can withstand more pain, which can be quite useful when in a tough spot. Scientific studies have shown that fear can improve attention and brain skills as well as change bodily functions. The emotion of fear has a tendency to supercede all emotions as a necessity for survival, and when it works properly, we learn from it.

If a body is not under an immediate threat, one should sit and wait things out. The fear response should not be triggered. I think this is where the "this too shall pass" comes in. Or, when things go awry, excessive fear kicks in. Some people have panic attacks. In my case, in a childhood of endless apprehension, at some point you can't keep firing up all cylinders. You start to sit and chill when you ought to be running for your life.

Or maybe it is because a child unconditionally loves her mother and the fight or flight urge doesn't gibe with a threat from a maternal source. Everything just goes higgledy-piggledy for the youngun from there. Who the hell knows.

I've had personal relationships on my mind lately. I'm feeling a little like I'm playing "wait and see" with a couple of them when perhaps I should be doing something. Waiting for a Higher Power to pass me a note in class, give me a hint. But I am not even sure I know if I am afraid or not. I have such a poor ability to know if I am struggling treading water until I realize that it's water not air in my lungs and I can't even scream any longer.

Fucking dysfunction. Am I suspended in fear when I should be taking a stand? Why do I feel so lost and alone? Why can I take on so much pain until I am ready to collapse, and only then I realize where I am and that I hurt? Is this fear? Am I going to miss everything while I am waiting for this too to pass?

What am I afraid of?

Unsafe

My friend Allen and I have been making wagers on our college sport teams since we've known each other. I'm really not a sports fan, having my head too much in the clouds. The whole bet thing started as a ruse on my part to get a chance to spend more time with him. Initially, I scored a couple tickets to a basketball game that our schools played against each other. The loser of the wager was to cook dinner for the winner. My team won. He made me dinner. I turned out to be the loser; he made me the dryest chicken and rice dinner ever masticated. I don't know how he managed to not burn it and get it that parched.

As the years have gone by, we have made various bets, but I have always won. The last big one was a trip to Australia in which he agreed to help pay the way for my sister to go with us. My typical request for my spoils has been something that involved spending time with him, particularly since he has lived far away from me for the past decade. It has been a fun and convenient excuse for us to get together - whether it was with romantic underpinnings or not. Since I was blissfully unaware of my feelings for him up until the last year or so, it was just a friendly rivalry.

Our bets have always been around basketball. My school generally has the better team - and I, being risk averse, usually don't make bets I can't win. This year he brought up the subject of a rival bet around a football game. My school has a terrible football team. But I inadvisedly took him up on a bet, knowing that I would lose. And lose I did.

His spoils request? A bottle of port.

What kind of person purporting to be a close friend who cares a great deal about you asks his alcoholic friend to buy him a bottle of port?

Fuck him anyway.

I did find someplace online to buy the damned thing and ship it to him so I don't have to step foot in a liquor store or even handle the bottle. I haven't been in a liquor store for two years. I avoid going down the beer aisle in the grocery store, for crissakes.

Insensitive ass. Man, can I pick them?

Of course, the process of buying the port still ended up being more complicated than I would have liked since the Colheita he requested turned out to be out of stock and then my credit card went all fraud-bonkers because I was buying booze from a wine distributor out in China. I had a nice email exchange with a dude named Cedric for the better part of this morning trying to get it all sorted out and fussing over vintage years. Just how this alkie needed to spend her day.

There I go... being all dramatic again. *theatrical curtsy*

A Little Peace of Me

I collected my two year coin Friday morning. Oh, did that little sliver of metal feel good in my hands. It's such a silly trinket to treasure, but treasure I do.

Some people gave me cards, and I was quietly stunned. They remembered. They thought of me in advance. Did they know sometimes my parents didn't get me birthday gifts just out of spite? That they did the one official family portrait when I wasn't available? (It still sits in their library, mocking me even though I never visit anymore.) That my mother would sometimes deliberately give my sister the gifts I put on my list for Christmas? No, I never mentioned these things. I have just said my childhood was kind of difficult. But I think they know. Lots of us have these troubled pasts.

I may not cotton to everything AA is about, but it is a more welcoming place than where my parents dwelled ever was. For that, I am forever grateful. It doesn't matter if I am a wounded beast or a privileged bitch, we're all alcoholics and for an hour it's a place we are safe to be ourselves.

Even more fortunate, I have this blog space where I feel I can open up even more. Maybe because being faceless means I don't need a mask. I've been able to put words to my feelings in a way I've not been able to do in meetings. It's not even about being an addict, mental or anything else; it's about being a human being. And those of you who have responded and shared in kind have meant the world to me. I am at home with myself and with others here.

Thanks for not calling me a Drama Queen.

These Times Are A-Changing

I managed to lead my AA meeting without turning beet red, melting into a puddle on the floor or making a general ass of myself. No one shot any arrows at me. All in all, that means success in my book. I talked primarily about the gifts I received from being sober. My drunk-a-log is so dull there's very little point in talking about it. It's funny, but when I was getting ready to go into rehab two years ago, a counselor asked my husband how my personality changed when I was drunk. He said the only thing that was any different from the norm was that I got a little louder than usual. Other than that, I was pretty much the same as I always am.

I'm such a rabble-rouser. *snort*

There is one person who likes to call me a Drama Queen, and I hate being called that because the people in my family are big time whiners and complainers and I don't wish to associate myself with that sort of behavior. As I mentioned a few posts ago, there is a big split betweeen how I behave on the outside and how I feel on the inside. But my friend is one of the few people who I have felt comfortable enough to let glimpse what is going on inside. Up until recently, this was fine, but then he started slapping on the Drama Queen label. It makes me want to pick up all my Crayons and go home. Of course, the fact that some of my feelings expressed have been anger towards him might be contributing to his name calling.

This person is the best friend/crush that has been causing me heartburn. I have been making a concerted effort to not think about him lately. It turns out, not dwelling on what's wrong with our friendship has taken a load off my chest. I figure that means I am headed the right way, even if it does make me sad. I feel a pretty solid resolve to stay away - at least this particular minute.

What I figure is that if I can go without drinking for two years, get in front of an audience of people and speak without losing my lunch and learn to deal with my mother in a manageable way, I can do damn near anything given time. All I have to do is keep myself open to possibility and continue to learn. Man, my love life ought to be a piece of cake compared to mommy dearest.

Today's an ok day to be me. I'm in transit and unsettled, but it's alright. Everything is gonna be alright.

Excusing Evil

“While nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer, nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” -- F. M. Dostoevsky ...

I like this quotation. I heard it for the first time as a voice over on the TV show "Criminal Minds." I usually despise the voice overs on that show. They are unnecessary, pretentious and heavy-handed in my not-so humble opinion. I'm also kind of glad Mandy Patinkin is no longer on the show. I never could stop anticipating him breaking into a song and dance routine or walking around without his noisy pants a la Chicago Hope. It's very hard to take him seriously.

The concept that it is easier to denigrate something than it is to find out how it ticks is not a new one to me. It reminds me of a conversation I had last summer where a friend of mine was saying he thought we should just wipe out all the terrorists and their friends before they had a chance to even think about attacking us. I responded that I'd rather dive into their heads and try to make whatever went wrong right. Of course, my response is exactly what I spent my childhood doing with my mother, and you all have read here just how brilliantly that worked out for me.

I've long been someone who sees the world in shades of gray. It's rare when I cannot step into someone elses' shoes and see the less negative reasons why they may have acted badly. I think the only person I have ever truly condemned is myself (ok, maybe my parents. pfffffttt I tried to get away with saying that). I have, however, gone through a few phases of hating my best friend in an attempt to dislodge my unwieldy affection. That hasn't done me any favors as any high emotion is just bubbling energy that agitates. It takes up too much of my headspace.

Right now, my headspace is doing alright. Not great, not bad. I like Syd's advice to me the other day, to focus on myself. I think I was doing this in a less straightforward way. I've started to look more closely at what I need and how to fulfill it instead of trying to force myself to fit the life I already have. There may be no true evil doers in this story. The wayward person I need to understand the most in this picture is me.

Assembly Abstinence

On Thursday morning I will be chairing an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for the very first time. It will be my two year anniversary. I am an astoundingly bad public speaker. My home group is rather large, and having so many eyes on me is unnerving. I am someone who spent most of her life trying not to be noticed. My brain and the words stumbling out of my mouth don't really connect, and my ears don't seem to hear much of either the inner or outer dialogue. It's usually a rather messy affair.

But I signed up because it is something I want to do. When I told my therapist about it, he asked me what is involved in chairing a meeting. I told him basically I read announcements, get things started, then I qualify myself as a drunk by giving a brief synopsis of my story. To which my therapist startled me with the question: "so what is your story exactly?"

That ought not to have stumped me, but it kind of did.

It will be better for me not to try to script what I will say on Thursday, just see what dribbles out. Last year on my anniversary celebration share, I did this sorta cool pilgrimage and in a single day did three meetings in three states where I got sober, then told the group about it. I guess I gave a good presentation because people still remember what I said (I barely do, but I think I grinned a lot).

I haven't felt much up to meetings recently. I'm not sure if this is typical two year apathy or what. I've only been making it to one or two a week on average. And when I do go, I find myself mostly waiting for them to be over with. Not very spiritual of me. It's not that I think what people are sharing is stupid or that I don't care. I just am not finding any new wisdom in it. Yes, it is me. I don't need to hear that I must have closed my mind or something. It doesn't change the fact that I am bored in the rooms right now.

And this does scare me. While I don't have any interest in drinking, I hear the ringing in my ears of all the people who have come back from a vicious alcoholic binge who said their first sign of the downward spiral was meeting avoidance. I know I have a chronic alcohol problem. I know I can never safely drink again. I do not think I am any different in that regard. Am I playing with fire?

I still get this thing when I look around the room and wonder if there is anyone present who I would like to have what they've got. Certainly there are elements of what AA has given them I'd like to adopt. But honestly? I think I have a strong case where I see the grass greener in my own yard. If I keep on this journey that I am on, don't drink and become the woman I am meant to be, I don't have to emulate anyone else's example in order to be happy.

Hello. You Have Reached the Winter of Our Discontent

I haven't seen the movie "Reality Bites" in ages. I've been keeping odd hours and it's playing on late night TV. This is a movie I actually saw four times in the movie theater. It came out right when I got out of college. It plays a bit like "this was your life." If I'd had a more cool life, that is. I still had a stick up my ass back then.

But I adore that movie. It's a hoot to see Ben Stiller talking on a cell phone in his car that has the big giant box attached with the spiral chord. I forgot how big those things used to be. And they were talking about revolutionizing TV with reality shows.

The movie has so many hysterical lines. And the soundtrack is awesome. I wish Jeanine Garofalo were doing more movies. She's wonderful.

It's funny, though. The movie was really hard to watch this go around. In a lot of ways, I've realized how emotionally frozen I've been. Perhaps how emotionally stalled my entire generation is. I don't know that many of us have progressed much past the state of the characters in the film. I find that disquieting.

I was joking with my therapist last week that I was due for my teenaged rebellion since I never had one. I said I could do it with my kid and wouldn't that be adorable? He laughed and said it was necessary for teens to go through that phase of testing boundaries and deciding for themselves what they believe and want for themselves. My willingness to allow my son to do that is a good thing. And I now need to allow myself the same latitude.

I'm super antsy today, one of those days when remaining in the day doesn't really fly well. I want to take the world by its throat and throttle it a little.

I've been ruminating over my expectations, wondering if they are in need of an adjustment downward in the love department. When I start thinking this, I get somewhat resentful. I came from having few expectations from my partner. Now I'd like something. Am I expecting too much? I'm not sure I am. Maybe only expecting too much from someone who cannot provide it. For example, my husband has never been a handholder, but I've always envied people who show small public displays of affection. Typically he leaves me to fend for myself when we are out, particularly when we are at any kind of party. I might as well have gone alone than have gone as a couple. I hate this. I've told him that I hate this. He says it's not the point of going to a party to spend any time with the person you spend all your time with. I argue that this does not mean you completely abandon them at the door.

I must say, one thing I like about not drinking is that this gives me the perfect out of going to shindigs that he would have pulled the disappearing act on me. I just say that the alcohol would put me in a bad place, and if he wants to go, he can go it alone. The fact that if I were drinking, I'd still not really want to go doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, I really don't want to keep him from enjoying himself at these gatherings just because his goals for the event are different from mine. I have never wanted to begrudge him anything. It may just be that we are at counter purposes. All I know is that I feel incredibly abandoned, and then I usually run into other couples whose significant others have not spent the entire evening avoiding their partner, and it just makes me feel.... well, a million ways rejected.

Although I could take advantage of the situation. There was one time we went to a friend's wedding and he ignored me and some nice looking guy parked himself next to me, clearly interested. We talked for a long while, he knew I was married but seemed a little appalled that my husband was AWOL and gave me his business card with the innuendo to "call him anytime." I didn't look at his card until the next morning and found out he was a vice chairman of one of NYC's biggest investment banking firms. I coulda had me a Sugar Daddy.

I don't know what an appropriate expectation is. I had terrible examples in my family, where I had no rights whatsoever. I guess I don't want to be a silent partner or an invisible one. I'd like to be with someone who enjoys my company enough to not jump ship the second new faces enter the picture.

Dejected from the Driver's Seat

The faux smiley has faded today. I'm glad for it. Stepping outside of myself to observe the schism of behavior and emotion alarmed me a little. DKThinker wrote in my comments section that this was likely dissociative affect, and I think she's spot on.

I can acknowledge that there are plenty of reasons for me to dissociate. I still crack up when I think of my dad telling me that he has proof I had a happy childhood because I smiled in all the photographs. One episode of the TV show Dexter had Harry, Dexter's foster father, tutoring the young serial killer Dex to smile for the camera in order to fake normalcy to the world. I can't tell you what chuckle I got out of that scene.

The emotion that is rising to the top today is rejection. My poor feminine ego has taken a bruising. That's a tough one to tackle under any circumstance. And when I am trying to move forward out of a dead end marriage without falling onto the crutch of a going-nowhere friendship, it weighs all the worse. My will wants to run amok when the reality is that I am helpless. These two men cannot and will not do as I wish. I cannot make them love me as I want them to. And that hurts.

I've never really understood the popular AA saying "feelings are not facts." For some reason that platitude comes to mind now as a particularly unhelpful piece of wisdom that might be tossed my way. But maybe I am thinking that whatever I do, I should not let the feeling of being jilted and unattractive become my reality. Just because these two schmucks don't know how to appreciate what they've got doesn't make me a loser.

Yah. I don't believe one word of it. I need a cheerleader. Some really hot guy doing backflips for me would do the trick.

On the up side, it is a new thing for me to feel sorry for myself. I never used to have this sense of entitlement before. Yea me. I like myself well enough to throw a pity party on my behalf. There's a silver lining in everything. Can't say I'm not an optimist to my core.

Pantomiming Paradox

Here's kind of a weird thing. I am in a foul mood today, but if you were speak to me you would never know it. In fact, you would probably think me quite an amiable and charming young woman. (heh)

It's not that I am faking a pleasant demeanor. I'm an atrocious actress and couldn't pull your leg on this if I wanted to. If I didn't want you to know I was grouchy, I'd most likely be quiet as a mouse or disappear. This is not grinning and bearing it in the least. I am able to converse gregariously, I may be even wittier than normal. The right words are sliding from my tongue with ease.

And as soon as the phrases leave my lips, I feel an equal but opposite internal backlash of anger. It takes a few moments before I stabilize back to the regular bad mood.

What the heck is going on?

Aside from seeming like sociopathic behavior, I think it's a bonus I can observe this. I know where this sort of pattern typically leads - if I continue this way for longer than a day or so, the pithy me will suddenly snap at the first person to rub me the wrong way and I will go ballistic, seemingly over something ridiculous. If the person is lucky, I will stop myself a few sentences in and sequester myself away for awhile.

I'm not even sure what precisely I am feeling all splenetic about at the moment either. Just generally cantankerous.

I'm not forcing the cheery wack job, it's an auto-response. That's what's so creepy about my behavior. I think in a sense, it's almost this congenial way of acting is to get whomever is talking to me to disengage conversation faster. Perhaps the more okay I seem, the less they will hover? I don't know. I guess I've spooked myself a bit with an early Halloween mask.

What a Sweet Little Serial Killer

So, I'm a little sick of all my loquaciousness regarding my love life. For a change of pace, I've been doing a marathon of Season One of the Showtime series "Dexter." Dexter Morgan is a sympathetic serial killer. The show is devilish fun, and I haven't gotten tired of watching just the opening credits yet. Dexter's Foster father, Harry, has got to be one of the most fascinating characters ever created.

I just watched an episode called "Truth Be Told" that I found an awful lot to relate to. At one point Dexter is remembering some repressed memories of his past, and he realizes why he has become a sociopath with no feelings. He has a moment of clarity in a voice-over where he says: "Because otherwise I would have to feel... this."

I know what he means.