222. abscond

While trying for the umpteenth time in the last couple of weeks to finish last night’s blog entry, it became clear while lying on the floor of my writing studio that I’m headed downwards into yet another depressive cycle. I’ve known this on a conscious level since probably Sunday, that this is coming, but like a weather forecast I wasn’t 100% sure when the storm was going to make land.

I’ve started keeping a list of topics to write about on the ever-handy Evernote. So after publishing the last entry about revising the narrative about my parents, I tried to start into the next topic on the list.

And all I could do was lie there on the floor, staring at the screen, just wanting to sleep. The thought of putting any more words to paper, of trying to form intelligent, coherent thoughts, felt daunting beyond all imagining.

The last couple of weeks have been good. I’ve had creative energy again; there’s been a lot of good things happening; I’ve been going like a marathon runner from scheduled event to scheduled event. It’s worn on me, but I’ve still felt “up.”

Now, I’m not feeling “up” so much. This is the “down” part of the cycle that inevitably comes around.

This seems especially apropos after the suicide yesterday of Robin Williams. I saw dozens of posts and news articles about his death and how sad and senseless it is.

All I could think when I first heard the news was a kind of sorrowful kinship with this man I’ve never met. Because I can grasp why someone would go to those lengths, out of exhaustion and pain, wanting to permanently escape the constant sadness and emotional weight of depression.

Later, I actually felt a little indignant—not at Robin, but at some of those posting about his death. Why is the only time it’s seemingly appropriate to talk about suicide and depression right after the act has been committed? When it’s too late? It almost seems like a guilt-ridden act of contrition.

And what would most of those people say or do if Robin or anyone else confided in them that they were having these dark thoughts and feelings? Because I can tell you what I’m always afraid of hearing:

• “What happened?”
• “Hang in there.”
• “But I thought things were going so well for you right now…”
• “You just need cheering up.”

I’ve actually had people essentially tell me that I have no right to feel depressed when there are people in other parts of the world who have it much worse.

• “At least you aren’t running for your life through some African jungle.”
• “At least you aren’t starving to death.”
• “At least you don’t have Ebola.”

All of which is really helpful. Yeah. Thanks.

It underlines the reality that we don’t have space in American society for mental illness, to talk about these things without alienating or even blaming individuals for their condition. It’s a squeamish issue for most people, probably because it’s still so misunderstood. We think “mental illness” and the opening and closing scenes from the film Amadeus, in the halls of the lunatic asylum, come to mind.

Growing up, depression was always a symptom of a spiritual disorder, evidence of some sin in my life that I had committed. Depression was my fault.

We often view people with mental illness as being weak, broken, dangerous to be around, and maybe even somehow infectious—as if one could contact schizophrenia from a schizophrenic.

There are even some who think that mental illness doesn’t exist; that it’s all a choice; that a depressed person just needs to stop feeling sorry for themselves, pick themselves up by their bootstraps and stop being such Debbie Downers.

I’ve heard all of those, too.

We desperately need to be able to talk about suicide and depression at some other time than just after someone has killed themselves. This is the next big closet door we need to kick down. Just as we had to create safe space for gay people to come out and create a cultural context for that, we need a better cultural context for mental illness.

We need space for depressed people to feel comfortable opening up about their feelings (and—yes—sometimes dark, destructive urges), where they won’t be blamed or pathologized for how they are. Hell, we don’t blame a child for developing leukemia or a woman for breast cancer.

Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It’s no one’s “fault.” So why do we still react as if depressed people are culpable for their condition?

That’s all I can manage to get out right now. If you’re still reading, no, there’s nothing you can do besides just be there. And no, I’ve no intention of hurting myself. This is why I write about my depression—so that it doesn’t get to that point, and so that people know.

It will get better. I rationally know this, though it feels like it’s going to last forever. I just have to hold on to my mood charts that confirm that, no matter how bad the darkness gets, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel will eventually appear.

220. tumultuary

I started seeing a new therapist on Wednesday. It’s through the same agency as my last therapist, but it’s the woman I initially got connected to back in 2012 through the Secular Therapist Project. Apparently I was the first client to contact her through that site, but due to our schedules not quite aligning it didn’t work out the first time. She said she now has about a dozen clients who are recovering fundamentalists, which is really awesome.

She’s also a recovered, ex-Mormon, which in some ways is probably a harder thing to be than an Evangelical fundamentalist. From what I know of them, Mormon communities are much more tight-knit than most Christian communities. Your family is the core of your world. Leaving that behind can be truly catastrophic.

Our first meeting went well. There’s always a first-date quality to an initial session. What’s going on, what brings you to therapy, etc. Thankfully, I don’t have to explain why I am no longer a Christian. That part is always annoying.

One idea I’ve been exploring lately, that I brought up in the session, is that my childhood wasn’t nearly as awful as I remember it. That’s not to say that it wasn’t traumatizing in its own right, or that my parents didn’t have a hand in causing some of the damage. But I’ve been doing some revision.

So far, the narrative is that, as the first born of the three kids in my family, my parents were the hardest on me throughout my life and that this is why I’m currently so hard on myself. I’ve pictured my parents as slightly less psychotic versions of the iconic stage door mom or angry soccer dad.

The truth is more nuanced.

From what I can recall, and from some of the things my parents have admitted, this is partly true. As the first born, they were a little harder on me, at least at first. They freaked out more when things happened, and were probably harsher in scolding me when I did something wrong. Expectations had to be adjusted as my sisters were born and they learned from their experiences, and by the time I reached middle school age, they’d chilled out a lot – at least when it came to pushing us to achieve.

Something I hit upon while discussing this on Wednesday was the idea that, because my early childhood was much more intense, when my parents backed off I essentially became my own crazy soccer dad. When I made a mistake and they didn’t yell at me, I was screaming from the sidelines at myself, to pick myself up from the dirt, to quit being such a fucking loser, to stop being such a disappointment.

How this played itself out as I got older was that I drove myself to be the absolute best at everything. I was determined to be the youngest published author ever, so I worked like mad at becoming a great writer. I was determined to be the best at piano, so in addition to practicing long hours and refining my technique and musicality, I eliminated any possibility of sibling rivalry by dropping subtle hints to my younger sister (who was taking piano lessons with me at one point) that she wasn’t any good and should quit. Which she did.

When I got to college and majored in music composition, I would write late into the night, sacrificing sleep and often my health to become the best.

However, the truth is that no matter how hard I worked or what I achieved, I was never satisfied. No effort was ever good enough, no progress far enough. The more disappointed I became, the more I hated and loathed myself. Even my efforts to force myself to be straight failed, although i can’t say that I regret that one too much.

This is why I’m particularly unhappy about being single right now, because almost everyone else I know is coupled, and it feels as if I missed learning some life skill that came easily to everyone else. My housemates have been together twenty years, and married for the last sixteen. Another friend of mine is getting married next month and has been with his boyfriend for fourteen years.

My longest relationship is barely nine months, the last three of which I was waiting for the right moment to end it.

My current refrain is that no one wants a thirty-one-year-old gay man. Some have said that this is ageist; that thirty is the new twenty; that age only exists in the mind. In the past couple weeks, I’ve realized that this anxiety is less about being single and more about an acute awareness of how “behind” I am compared to most people I know. At thirty-one, it feels as if I’m truly starting over at a point when most of my friends are coming into their own.

Being raised a fundamentalist Christian did stunt my growth. Now that I’m out as both gay and as an atheist, I’m finally getting to a place where I can begin to grow. It’s just difficult to do that while my friends are so much further ahead in their personal lives and careers.

On the surface, just as I fear being looked down upon for not driving a nice (i.e., adult) car, I worry about being viewed as less-than by those around me. Intellectually, I know this isn’t true; that everyone struggles with the grass-is-greener mentality. However, I do seemingly lack an internal locus of reference for my identity and sense of self-worth that most people develop in their formative years. So if I perceive someone as doing “better” than me, it means that I have nothing, that I’m an abject failure. If I am rejected, it’s because I’m worthless. Are these thoughts rational? No. But it’s what I feel. And depression is an illness of the emotions.

So what to do? Well, getting a handle on my depression seems the first step…

218. flak

Lately I’ve really been into John Green’s Crash Course: World History, a series of 42 videos that basically covers everything you should have been taught in high school about world history (but probably weren’t) in about eight hours.

There are a number of different courses on the Crash Course YouTube channel, from Psychology to U.S. History. There is also a course on Literature, which I’m watching (or often listening) concurrent with World History. I was particularly struck by this excerpt from the video on Sylvia Plath:

Dear suicide, You are a permanent response to a temporary problem, and you are a solution to nothing. I just want to say at the outset that there is nothing good or romantic about you, suicide. You are a tragedy. You are also, in almost all cases, preventable… So it’s very important to me whenever we talk about a writer whose life ended with suicide that we note that people survive depression—and also that Sylvia Plath wasn’t a good writer because she eventually committed suicide. In fact, her career was cut short, and I mourn all of the many wonderful books we might have had.

I live in the shadow of suicide. My grandmother committed suicide in 1960. As a writer, I’m cognizant of the corpses that litter the landscape of our profession: Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Yukio Mishima, Hunter S. Thompson, David Foster Wallace, Sarah Kane. To most, these are words on a page, a collection of letters and dates. But each of these human beings endured what must’ve felt like an eternity of bleakness and torment before finally gasping out their last breaths, whether head-first in an oven or looking down the barrel of a shotgun.

Up until a couple of years ago, I couldn’t fathom the idea of suicide. For one, it was an appalling sin, the ultimate act of rebellion against God. For another… well, I couldn’t even stick my own finger in biology class when we were testing our blood types. Plus, it seemed like such a cowardly way out, an option for those who just didn’t try hard enough.

Somewhere in my adolescence, probably around the time I started becoming aware of my sexuality but possibly as early as eight or nine, I started experiencing periods of darkness. As an Evangelical, these slumps in mood had a spiritual cause. The cure was more Bible and more Jesus. Once I started going to public school and took a psychology class, I learned that those dark moods had a name: depression. And it was different from “the blues.”

What I’ve learned over the years of living with depression is that it isn’t just a condition. It’s the way we view the world. Even the happiest moments are colored with gloom. The flavor of victory or celebration comes across more like sand than sugar. Well-meaning friends try to cheer you up and be supportive, not understanding that the problem is within, not without. It’s like having glasses inside of our eyes that pre-filter the light before it hits our retinas.

It took me a while to understand this and how depression was shaping my perceptions and moods; why the smallest setbacks loomed large like megaliths of personal failure; why tiny inconveniences would set me off as if they were crimes against humanity. Most people just associate depression with sadness. It’s much more.

You feel worthless. Powerless. Hopeless. Disconnected from everything and everyone in your life. At worst, it feels as if I’m trapped in a glass box, able to see everything going on around me but utterly untouched by all of it. Things that bring me joy and happiness seem gray and drab. Not even sex interests me. Forget about concentrating.

And this is how it’s going to be for the rest of your life.

In June of 2008, just months away from my decision to stop hiding from the truth about my sexuality, I started having random and intense thoughts of suicide. Things like driving my car into oncoming traffic. Slitting my wrists while working in the kitchen. Overdosing on pills I was about to take. At first, these thoughts were disturbing, as they should be.

Over the past couple of months, however, as I’ve settled more into the reality that death is merely the cessation of brain activity, that consciousness just fades, as I’ve struggled more with loneliness and exhaustion from dealing with the emotional minefield that is my past, the more alluring those thoughts of suicide have become.

For example, a few weeks ago I met this guy on OkCupid who seemed decent. We went on a date, had dinner and wonderful talk, and a few days later had a second date that seemed to go equally well. Then on Sunday night, I get a text from him saying that his ex boyfriend had just got back in touch with him and he was pondering whether he wanted to get back together with him. When I asked if he missed him, he said yes. They were together for eighteen months before the guy broke up with him.

Here’s how a normal person might view that: We went on two dates. It was fun. If he decides to go back to his ex, it wasn’t meant to be. Move on.

This is how all that looks through depression: I was crushed. Not so much by the (potential) loss of a prospective boyfriend. Yes, there’s disappointment. But it was more the persistent and growing thought that this is how my entire dating life has gone so far. I meet a guy who I like, and things might seem to go well for a bit, and then something like this happens.

Rinse, repeat.

So on Sunday night I decided that, if when I’m 35 and am still single, I’m going to kill myself. Because if I haven’t met anyone by that point, it won’t ever happen. I don’t want to be one of those single, older gay men constantly getting passed over or used as a one-night stand.

Again—there’s the depression talking.

The frightening thought is how comforting the concept of simply not existing is after all the struggle. Not having to worry about anything, anymore.

Then my reason snaps into gear again, like a bucket of cold water to the face. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? And the day after. Maybe I’m about to meet my future husband, and if I die, I’ll never find out. It’ll be like an O. Henry short story, where an ironic twist of fate causes two people to just miss each other at a train station. I think about that sometimes, while waiting at, say, stoplights. So much of our life is just waiting for the inevitable to happen. Then the waiting is over, and you’re off again to the next waiting.

But the depression is always there, casting Edward Gorey-esque shadows over those hopeful thoughts. “Who are you kidding?” they say as they turn crepuscular. “You’re holding out for a dream that might not ever come true. Your future husband could always be just beyond the next hill. Or the next one. And pretty soon, you will be wrinkled and gray, and your whole life will have passed behind you, and you’ll have nothing but white-hot regret to warm you…”

It’s like having a dementor for a best friend.

210. lontano

Went home feeling more alone than usual tonight.

Had a date at the Mall of America this evening after work. I’ve been talking to this guy for a while. He’s a pilot who works out of the Caribbean and happened to be in Minneapolis for a few hours between connecting flights. He was visiting family in the Fargo area and now is headed home.

I came home after work and managed to find a spot relatively close to my apartment. If I drove home after the date, chances are I’d be parking at least six blocks away due to Minneapolis’ inane, ongoing, “just in case” snow emergency. Parking is only allowed on the east and south sides of streets until April 1. This means that trying to find a spot after 6pm is like musical chairs, if the penalty when the music stops was being transported instantly to Siberia.

After changing out of work clothes, I headed out to get cash and coffee to break a $20 for bus fare. However, I missed the 23H by just minutes. My phone was already on about an 8% charge, but I was able to learn that a 4L was leaving at 7:04PM just eight blocks away. Luckily, the bus was about five minutes late so I made it in time. However, that meant I missed the connecting bus that would’ve got me to MOA sooner, but I had enough phone battery left to find a new connection to get me there.

Just as my bus got to the Mall, we got stuck at a checkpoint going in to the Transit Station. I’m not sure what was going on, and even the bus driver was confused. There was something going on with a taxi several cars ahead that backed everything up.

Fortunately, my date wasn’t too plussed. I managed to get to our meeting spot in one piece, and we had a pleasant dinner together. We talked about his flight career, our families, our hopes and dreams, and a bit about religion. We ended up talking until about 10:21PM, at which point we decided it was time to head out.

He was heading to the airport and was going to take the light rail back to be ready to make his flight in a couple of hours. We said our goodbyes in the transit station at the Mall – handshake, not a hug. Definitely in the friendzone.

The thing is, by the time we got there, it was about 10:30PM. Turns out a bus had left about five minutes earlier that would’ve got me home by way of the 4L. And my cell phone was dead.

After wandering around for a bit, I managed to find an outlet by some payphones in the Mall. It felt ironic, crouching on the floor beside those ancient, corded, handheld receivers while my relatively fancy smartphone charged. I finally managed to get enough charge to get an Internet connection, and discovered that the next bus wouldn’t be leaving until 11:17PM.

So I had some time.

In that interval, dark clouds began to descend, like Dementors, closing in. A metaphorical rain cloud formed, drenching me with its metaphorical downpour. In these moments, it seems like absolutely everything is wrong with my life. My phone dies because my battery is crap. I leave my gloves on the floor of my car, right in a spot where a bottle of motor oil leaked. I miss buses by mere minutes. I get stomach aches that keep me awake all night because of my allergies. The cute guy I’m crushing on has a boyfriend, or turns out to be a total jerk. Everyone I’ve dated or lived with, however briefly, is now either dating or married to someone they’re great with. And I’m perpetually alone, stranded at a metaphorical transit stop with no idea how to get home.

I know, mentally, that this is the depression talking – that my life could be so much worse than it is. Yet why do I go through life feeling a though I’ve missed that one crucial day in class that helped everyone else pass the big test with flying colors, while I barely manage a “C”?

On my last connecting bus home, I did witness an interesting exchange. There was a woman in her mid-40s, with blonde hair and wearing a black leather jacket and dark glasses – the very image of a Gen X rocker. Sure enough, there was a guitar case on the seat beside her. When I got on, she was saying that she didn’t like going out to a bar unless she was playing at it.

Then the girl across from her (they seemed to have been in conversation for some time) mentioned that she cleans for a living (she “puts her all into it”), and needs some kind of therapy to help her “develop a personality” because she has trouble talking to people. She started talking about her collage art and how it was helping her get over her fear of death. The rocker lady was packing up, becoming more uncomfortable with this conversation. Fortunately for us all her stop arrived, and she got off, took her bike, and gave a “peace” sign to the driver.

I wondered on the long walk home if I’ll ever be able to drop the practiced “keep away” look that I cultivated as a deeply closeted gay man in conservative Christianland. I wonder if I was unconsciously doing it on my date tonight, or with any of the other guys I’ve dated in the year since breaking up with Jason. I wonder how often I’ve missed opportunities to connect with someone, a friend or potential romantic partner, who couldn’t see past the thorny barriers I throw up to keep people out.

Walking home tonight, I passed apartment and second-story bedroom windows, flickering ghostly blue and white. We once huddled together in front of fires to keep warm. Now we huddle in front of televisions, alone.

205. moiety

I did not watch the Oscars last night. Something about watching institutionalized, self-congratulatory narcissism makes me nauseous. Ellen DeGeneres’ quip in her opening monologue about rain in Los Angeles dampening the evening seemed to sum it up. “We’re fine,” she joked. “Thank you for your prayers.”

Frankly, I haven’t seen any of the films that were nominated this year, aside from 12 Years a Slave, which made me feel guilty about having complained about anything, ever, in my entire life. For one, I don’t have the money. When faced with having to pay rent, groceries, phone bill, car insurance, and other essentials, spending what little discretionary funds I have available on what amounts to flimsy, cardboard representations of reality seems pretty ridiculous. Which brings me to the other reason I don’t go, which is that I find most films these days to be formulaic and predictable, as well as shallow and dull, and not worth my time.

Author Carlos Stevens wrote of the role of movies during the Great Depression: that they “offered a chance to escape the cold, the heat, and loneliness; they brought strangers together, rubbing elbows in the dark of movie palaces and fleapits, sharing in the one social event available to everyone.”

I don’t understand wanting to herd into darkened theaters to sit with strangers, or the desire to mingle gregariously. But I get wanting to escape from reality. It’s why I spent so much time with books as a teenager, preferring fictional universes where heroes overcame their demons. But it’s hard to relate to most of the stories presented for entertainment these days. Where movies of the 1930s were meant to give us hope in dark times, movies of the twenty-first century seem purposed only to numb us to the meandering banality of our own times.

Today I came across an article that explores the evolution of the horror genre and its use as contemporary commentary. The author writes of Wes Craven’s 1972 The Last House on the Left:

Scenes such as our female protagonist being raped and executed are meant to remind you of Mi Li or the notorious photograph of a Vietcong suspect being shot in the head outside a Buddhist Temple. Craven is telling us that the cinema is no long a safe heaven from suffering. ‘Look,’ his films seem to be saying. ‘This is what’s happening outside your door. Do something!’

Rather than attempt to hold a mirror to reality, most movies today promise shiny solutions to difficult solutions in fifteen, easy-to-follow “beats” (as per Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat). From opening image to that pivotal “dark night of the soul” at the end of Act 2, these stories promise that everything will be okay, no matter how impossible the situation.

Right now, it’s difficult to find much hope in these stories given my current circumstances. Sure, I’m not in living Russia, Uganda, or Nigeria, in real danger for my life. But I’m still looking for a job, my unemployment insurance runs out this week, and I’m not sure where money is going to come from in the next few weeks. My car is falling apart. I’m not sure how I’m going to force my unscrupulous landlord to return the security deposit without hiring a crackerjack legal team.

So you’ll forgive me if the avaricious characters in The Wolf of Wall Street or the charade of Dallas Buyer’s Club doesn’t assuage my anxieties. Hollywood loves to glorify the myth of the lone hero, the man or woman who overcomes villains and all odds to achieve his/her goal.

What’s so seductive about a story like 12 Years a Slave is that we know how the story ends. Even in its darkest moments, we know from the historical record that Solomon Northup will be freed. We know that Frodo will succeed in his quest. That Harry Potter will defeat Voldemort.

There is mythic truth in these stories. But that truth is only found in hindsight.

We are all heroes in our own narratives, which means that we are constantly in medias res – in the midst of the story. So I don’t know when life is going to calm down for me, and allow me to live a mode other than near-constant crisis management. As I said to a friend of mine today, it feels as if I’m always waiting for something awful to happen or expecting to be disappointed. One could say that this is how self-fulfilling prophesies are written, yet I’m tired of trying to play Pollyanna and paint a smiley face on a bleak situation.

What little hope I have actually comes from my atheism, and my layman’s study of cosmology and natural selection. In a recent NPR interview, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson said:

You will never find people who truly grasp the cosmic perspective … leading nations into battle. No, that doesn’t happen. When you have a cosmic perspective there’s this little speck called Earth and you say, “You’re going to what? You’re on this side of a line in the sand and you want to kill people for what? Oh, to pull oil out of the ground, what? WHAT?” … Not enough people in this world, I think, carry a cosmic perspective with them. It could be life-changing.

It’s hard to look at the Hollywood elite gathering in Los Angeles to give themselves awards in light of knowing how utterly insignificant we are, especially when there is so much need in the world and so much progress left to make. As Piper Chapman says in Orange is the New Black, “I cannot get behind some supreme being who weighs in on the Tony Awards while a million people get whacked with machetes.”

It could always be worse. And it’s a miracle that any of us are here at all, given how it could’ve gone countless times for our planet throughout its history.

But it’s difficult to stay hopeful or plan for the future when storm clouds seem to be permanently camped on the horizon.

204. static

It’s been a rough day, folks. Not only has it been blisteringly cold in Minnesota, but on Sunday the city of Minneapolis has declared a snow emergency effective until April 1. Or whenever they feel bothered to clear all the snow from the streets. For apartment dwellers such as I, this basically means that we’re screwed. Parking is not unlike musical chairs, if the loser of the round were transported to the middle of Siberia when the music ended.

The other night, I had to park three blocks away from my apartment and walk home in 4°F weather, walking right into the westerly wind, with ice crystals blowing into my face.

This, on top of dealing with my landlord, whose idea of fixing the gaping hole in my ceiling was to slop some spackle over the hole without coating the area with primer sealer first and letting it dry. This is the assessment my friend Amanda gave from looking at the picture I posted. And, of course, because my landlord decided to play incompetent contractor as well as negligent landlord, he hasn’t addressed the actual source of the moisture, which is why there was more wet plaster and debris on my floor on Friday.

Plus, there have still been no bites in my job search. Last week I reformatted my resume, editing it down to one page, with a second page of relevant, “FYI” work history information. But I worry that there are simply way more experienced and qualified candidates out there, ahead of me, and that my lack of specialized training (e.g., database, programming, project management) has come back to haunt me.

Yes, it’s a matter of rebranding the skills and experience I do have to fit the needs of a potential employer. But dammit, Jim, I’m a writer, not a nine-to-fiver.

Yesterday afternoon, one of the temp agencies called about a short-term civil government position that sounded like a great match for my skills – and would’ve paid $15/hr. (This is good news since my rate up until now has been $11-$12/hr.) The recruiter said he’d get back to me either yesterday evening or this morning. I finally got a call from one of his colleagues this afternoon who told me that they’d “decided to go in another direction,” whatever that means. But she had another position to discuss with me that would’ve paid $14/hr and also sounded like a good match. She called back a little while ago to say that they’d cancelled the position.

So… things aren’t going very well right now.

Ugh. I’m so tired of looking at job postings and thinking, “Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. I could probably do that for a month before wanting to walk into traffic.” Or looking at job descriptions and thinking that it seems like a great fit before getting to the bit where they say, “Must be bilingual.” Around here these days, the languages are often Spanish, Hmong, or Somali. Or they’re looking for someone with database experience. Or X+ years experience as an executive assistant.

The jobs I want require experience that I couldn’t get without back to school. Writing and editing jobs require either an English or journalism degree, or equivalent experience.

To say the least, it’s discouraging.

And now my car is breaking down. I have no idea what’s going on, but it’s been randomly dying when I pull up to stop signs. And then it works fine for a while.

In many ways, all of this seems to be a mirror to the state of my romantic life at present.

Sorry, just writing about all this is depressing me even more.

Here. Have some Stephen Fry.

The powers of the placebo are so strong that it may be morally wrong to call homeopathy a lie because the moment you say it then a placebo falls to pieces and loses its power. I am a great believer in double-blind random testing, which is the basis of all drug testing. People still insist on things like holistic healing and things that have no real basis in evidence because they want it to be true—it’s as simple as that. If you’re dying of cancer or very, very ill, then you’ll cling to a straw. I feel pretty dark thoughts about the kind of people who throw straws at drowning, dying men and women, and I’m sure most of us would agree it’s a pretty lousy thing to do. Some of these people perhaps believe in the snake oil they sell or allow themselves to believe in it.

That’s why James Randi is so good, because he knows what magicians know: if you do a card trick on someone, they will report that it was unbelievable, they describe the effect the magician wanted, and they miss out all the steps in between that seemed irrelevant because the magician made them irrelevant, so they didn’t notice them.

People will swear that a clairvoyant mentioned the name of their aunt from nowhere, and they will be astonished if you then play a recording that shows that thirty-two names were said before the aunt’s name, none of which had any effect on them. That’s because they wanted to hear their aunt’s name; they wanted the trick to work, so they forgot all the failures in the same way as people forget all their dreams that have no relevance to their lives, but they mark when they dream of someone they haven’t met for ages that they see the next day. I would be astounded if everyone had coincidences like that—yet people say that is somehow closed-minded of me!

— “Last Chance to Think” Interview (2010) by Kylie Sturgess in Skeptical Inquirer. Vol 34 (1)

198. Le Jugement

This was a card that came up yesterday, reversed, in the ninth position on the Celtic cross spread. It reminds me just how steeped the Rider-Waite-Smith deck is in Judeo-Christian mythology.

The imagery evokes the Resurrection before the Last Judgement from 1 Corinthians: “The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

In Pamela Coleman Smith’s artwork, the archangel Gabriel awakens the dead with a trumpet blast, who gesture reverently and welcomingly with open arms. The figures below are grey and ashen, while everything above bursts with color.

The banner on the trumpet is likely the Saint George’s Cross, which could be a reference to overcoming the dragon (Revelation 12:8). There’s also a connection in the red and white to the Magician’s clothing. The ocean swelling in the background could be a reference to the sea giving up its dead (Revelation 20:13), but there’s also the connection to the river that seems to flow throughout the Major Arcana cards, starting with the Empress. It mirrors the swelling waves in the foreground of the Fool, the river flowing through Death, and the water in Temperance, The Star, and The Moon. One could say that there’s also a connection to the High Priestess, with her blue robes flowing like water.

Grey is a masculine color in Tarot. The Emperor’s throne, the Hierophant’s church and Justice’s temple; the Chariot, the Hermit, the overcast sky in Death; the Devil’s wings, and the towers in The Tower card and The Moon are all grey (and, dare I say, phallic). The pillars in the High Priestess are black and grey.

The trumpet here has particular meaning for me, as my father is a professional trumpeter.

Some keywords that Waite associated with this card in its upright position are Judgement, Rebirth, Inner Calling, and Absolution. Reversed, it can suggest self-doubt and self-judgement.

Reversed, the Judgement card suggests that you may be indulging yourself in doubt and self-judgement. Your deliberation is causing you to miss the new opportunities that await. A certain amount of momentum has accumulated behind what you have achieved, which could propel you further. If actions are taken now, such momentum will not be lost. Therefore now is not the time for being cautious or introverted, rather it is time to move onwards with confidence and pride.

Additionally, this card suggests that you may be overly hard or critical of yourself and not allowing yourself to truly learn from your mistakes. You may have made some mistakes in the past but see these as learning experiences rather than failures or faults. (BiddyTarot.com)

When I laid out this card, it was in the ninth position in the Celtic cross spread, which indicates any hopes and/or fears of the Querent. One of the major reasons I really haven’t gone out or made any progress with the workshop of my one-act opera is this sea of self-doubt that I’ve been awash in the last couple of weeks. So many things life recently haven’t been working. Job interviews I’ve gone on have proven to be disappointments (the last one didn’t even give a reason: just “applicant was not chosen”); the guys I’ve seen on dates haven’t panned out; my grad school applications… well, that whole thing was rushed and poorly done to begin with.

Tarot scholar Tara Miller writes that “Judgment represents the House of Gabriel, the knowing that Judgment Day can come at any moment; live your life to the fullest, as the trumpet of Gabriel is at hand.” (Wikipedia)

It wasn’t until I renounced my Christian faith that I realized how truly precious and rare life is. As a Christian, I was taught from day one that life is a gift from God. To squander it by pursuing our own wants, desires, and pleasure is arrogance, and a sin. “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36)

What I was most angry about after becoming an atheist was not that I’d been fooled or that I’d believed lies my whole life. It was that I’d lost so much time and experience. Instead of learning about Creationism, I could’ve been discovering the wonders of science and our world. I could’ve been discovering who I am, what I care about, what my values as a human being are. I could’ve been exploring my sexuality as a gay man, making mistakes early in life (when you’re supposed to make them), all on the way to finding a partner—and more importantly, a groundedness in who I am as a person. My parents and teachers were wrong: our rock is not Christ. We have to become our own rocks that can weather the storms and arrows of life.

So if life is so short, why do I keep allowing these petty, negative scripts to dominate mine?

Why do I superimpose an inner monologue on everyone, assuming they’re thinking how unattractive, unoriginal, neurotic, unfit, unsuitable, incomplete, and poorly trained I am?

This is why I often stay at home—because, no matter how irrational I know it is, my lizard brain interprets every stray glance or comment as betraying what people really think of me. And the thoughts cascade into self-doubt, self-hate, and self-judgement.

Of course they rejected your grad school applications. You’re a poor excuse for a competent adult and musician.

Of course no one wants to date you. You’re complicated, selfish, difficult to live with, and you don’t enjoy going out to gay bars.

Why bother going anywhere when you’ll just feel like an outsider? No one understands you. Other people know instinctively how to interact with other humans. You? You’re broken, damaged, and worthless.

And so I shut down, retreat and hide myself away. I let my potential stagnate rather than risk having to confront these messages.

The inherent meaning in the Judgement card is transition, one of awakening from death to “new life.” But I need to face the illumination my subconscious is shining on these issues.

197. Huit d’Épées

The stories we are told as children are templates we unwittingly carry with us through childhood and into adulthood, on which we pattern most of our thinking and the way we ultimately live.

Growing up in the 1980s and 90s, my family watched television shows like Rescue 911. Stories like that of “baby Jessica” falling down a drain and getting stuck there for 59 hours, or a boy who was skewered by a pair of scissors after running with them, taught us valuable lessons for how not to get hurt — as well as instilling us with a certain sense of paranoia.

Anything could kill us.

Other stories were not so helpful. Having been brought up in church, I heard stories that fundamentally shaped the way I viewed the world, myself, and other people. To be a good Christian, I had to blindly accept everything in the Bible as absolutely true, ignoring all doubts, no matter how reasonable.

Anything “wrong” I did, regardless how insignificant, from telling a lie to disobeying my parents, put nails in Jesus’ feet and hands. And because God views all sin as equal (except for homosexuality), getting angry with someone is the same as killing them.

Certain activities and pursuits were satanic gateways into our home and lives. (We had several books about this; one was called Turmoil in the Toybox. He-Man, the Smurfs, Care Bears, and G.I. Joe were all discussed.)

Non-Christians will ultimately attempt to lead good Christians off the path of righteousness. Demons were everywhere, spiritually blinding people (including Christians) to more easily drag them to Hell.

And there were always Bible references to back up these claims.

All of these narratives, and more, were crammed into my head from a very young age. Before the age of seven or so, the areas of the brain responsible for critical thinking haven’t developed yet. Dawkins writes in The God Delusion:

A child is genetically pre-programmed to accumulate knowledge from figures of authority. The child brain, for very good Darwinian reasons, has to be set up in such a way that it believes what it’s told by its elders, because there just isn’t time for the child to experiment with warnings like “Don’t go too near the cliff edge!” or “Don’t swim in the river, there are crocodiles!”

There is a condition I learned of recently called Religious Trauma Syndrome. Dr. Marlene Winell, who first identified RTS, likens it to PTSD, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder. It’s brought about when one leaves fundamentalist religion—and often families and entire communities—behind. Symptoms include:

• Confusion, poor critical thinking ability, negative beliefs about self-ability & self-worth, black and white thinking, perfectionism, difficulty with decision-making;
• Depression, anxiety, anger, grief, loneliness, difficulty with pleasure, loss of meaning;
• Loss of social network, family rupture, social awkwardness, sexual difficulty, behind schedule on developmental tasks;
• Unfamiliarity with secular world; “fish out of water” feelings, difficulty belonging, information gaps (e.g. evolution, modern art, music);

Dr. Winell writes on her website:

The doctrines of original sin and eternal damnation cause the most psychological distress by creating the ultimate double bind. You are guilty and responsible, and face eternal punishment. Yet you have no ability to do anything about it.

In essence, Religious Trauma Syndrome is the void left when the support structures of religion fall away, revealing the deep scars and toxic thought patterns that fundamentalist religion is adept at whitewashing with pat excuses or victim blaming. “You just don’t believe enough!”

Swords in Tarot are associated with action, force, power, ambition, change, and conflict. They’re also connected with thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs.

The number eight (at least in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck) describes boundaries and limitations, as well as inner strength and power of will.

In the Eight of Swords, a maiden is bound and blindfolded, isolated from the distant town and surrounded by swords. The sense is one of gloom, despair, and hopelessness. One website interprets the card this way:

Your “ego” represents the non-trusting, doubting, over-analytical part of your mind which is unable to make any decisions… you have restrained yourself from activity long enough, avoiding the present by trying to convince yourself that there are no alternatives. These beliefs keep you hemmed in—they always provide reasons why nothing will work… You are not being held back by direct force, but by your training – this belief in your own helplessness and your blind acceptance of what you have been taught… Recognize that nothing prevents you from leaving—you are bound only by your own “illusions.”

For ages, my sense of self-worth and my self-image have been colored by stories from my childhood that told me my only value was in Jesus’ death. Nothing about me was inherently good. My purpose in life had been decided by God; to not seek that purpose was arrogance.

Self-denial is a cardinal virtue. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness.” I attempted to do this by shutting down my id, especially once my libido kicked in. Consequently, I struggle with actually wanting anything, or making decisions. I fear emotions, especially pride. I constantly doubt myself and my capability.

However, my perfectionist drive knows no bounds. For example, during a piano lesson in college, I burst into tears after failing one portion of the piano proficiency exam: black key minor scales. By extension, I was a failure in every other area of my life.

Actress Natasha Lyonne said of recovering from heroin addiction: “Not only do you have to smash down the house, but you have to then take out the Indian burial ground underneath the foundation of the house and then begin to rebuild.”

Actress Julia Sweeney describes her deconversion as having to “change the wallpaper of my mind.”

Mine felt more like burning the house to the ground.

Yet the message of the Eight of Swords is that the mental prison of my parents’ religion is only an illusion.

Time for some new stories.

196. Six de Coupes

Most years I skip observing my birthday entirely, concealing its very existence from friends and relations. Unlike most people, I don’t enjoy celebrating my birthday. Frankly, it feels like getting a participation award than a celebration of life, the general tone being: “Hooray, you didn’t die or get yourself killed!”

Growing up homeschooled, birthday celebrations were limited to immediate family. I never invited friends over to celebrate as I had none. I don’t remember if I’d even wanted one, or known of such things. Truth is, we were an insular family. As I got older and started making friends, there was always the fear that if I invited anyone that no one would come, so I never bothered. I’ve always had that expectation of others.

In college, my best friend Emily attempted to throw a surprise birthday party for me. I guessed this was what she was up to and consequently waited until the last minute to go, essentially standing up my own party. According to her, I dressed everyone down upon arrival, though I remember only taking her aside to sternly reiterate that “I don’t do parties.”

For my twenty-fourth birthday, I did invite several friends for a party and was shocked when dozens of people actually came. One of my friends even wrote a song enumerating my quirkier and more endearing qualities. I was, in some ways, very close to being… moved by it.

The last time anyone threw me a birthday party was in 2011, the infamous evening when my heart was irreparably broken and I renounced my faith. Seriously, it was bad. Consequently, for the last three years, I’ve forbidden any observance of my birthday.

When I was dating Jason last year, I don’t recall if we even did anything for my birthday. We did go to my sister’s house for dinner and was shocked at how well that went. But, as usual, he wasn’t feeling good, so I didn’t even get birthday sex that weekend. Just like every other year. Last night I learned that Jason is now dating someone, and they look very happy. That was a special feeling, still being single a year later, not to mention currently laid off from temp work.

This year, despite still feeling depressed, I decided to get together with some close friends. It was nice to know that people do care, but it was still… uncomfortable. I don’t really know what to do with that kind of attention. I’m used to getting noticed for the things that I do—music, writing, performance, etc—but not for merely existing. Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone enjoys my company, or thinks I’m worthy of their time and attention. Even today, I can still hear my parents’ voice: If people really knew who you are, they wouldn’t like you…

On Saturday, I did a Tarot reading for myself as a way of “checking in.” In the cross part of the spread was a vertical line of cups – Six of Cups below and Three of Cups above, both reversed – and a horizontal line of pentacles – King of Pentacles on the left; reversed Two of Pentacles on the right. In the center was The Sun, crossed by The Hermit.

Cups typically represent “the emotional level of consciousness and are associated with love, feelings, relationships and connections.” Pentacles “cover material aspects of life including work, business, trade, property, money and other material possessions” as well as “the physical or external level of consciousness and thus mirror the outer situations of your health, finances, work, and creativity.”

Reversed, cups suggest “being overly emotional or completely disengaged and dispassionate, having unrealistic expectations and fantasizing about what could be.” Also, “there may be repressed emotions, an inability to truly express oneself and a lack of creativity.”

The Six of Cups is a card of nostalgia, childlike love and generosity, and a carefree, naïve outlook on life. Reversed, though:

… [it] may indicate that you are clinging on to your past… it suggests that you may have had unrealistically rosy ideas about a particular stage of life, based on your dreams and ideals from when you were younger… Or you may be disappointed that you have reached a particular age but have not fulfilled your childhood dreams just yet…. Your ideas and beliefs that were established in the past may be prohibiting your progress. Use your past as a guide for your future, and focus on living in the present.

I delayed breaking up with Jason last March for months, terrified about being single after 30. Who would want a guy like me whose best years are already behind him? There’s a myth in the gay community that a man’s shelf life expires after 30—or earlier.

However, what I realized this weekend was that it’s not that I feel old. Rather, its more that I’m disappointed with where I am, having little to show for having lived thirty-one years. In many ways I’ve had to start over, figuring out who the hell I am after my Christian identity imploded. I’d planned after college to go get my Master’s in composition. Though I’m taking steps to make that a reality now, I’m worried those years spent aimless and wandering will work against me.

I’m frustrated that I still haven’t found a guy who I’m compatible with, that Midwestern gays have been utterly disappointing, but that relocating isn’t financially feasible. I’m frustrated over having unwittingly played matchmaker for virtually everyone else in my life, while no one has been able to do that for me. I lived with my sister for six months, during which she met her husband. All of my flatmates (current one included) found their partners after living with me. Every guy I’ve ever dated is now with someone long-term.

The message of the Six of Cups is to let go of the past. It’s difficult to do that, however, when the past is haunting me with virtually every step. Perhaps I need to meditate on The Sun.

194. sozzled

I have tried to start this one several times, the first attempt taking place around 11:50 PM on Tuesday. The reason it’s proving so difficult is that there’s a lot to say about 2013, and also not very much.

Good things have happened in the last year. I made a tremendous amount of headway in therapy towards overcoming my past. I made a number of very good friends, two of whom I’m house sitting for this December and the first few weeks of January. For better or worse, I reconnected with my family. We saw enormous gains in marriage equality and LGBT rights in the United States, particularly in my home state of Minnesota. I finally decided to make a change and pursue graduate study in music composition.

A lot pretty bad things have happened too. In March I broke up with my boyfriend of nine months as it had been clear to me for some time that we had vastly divergent goals in life and just weren’t right for each other. I got laid off at the end of June from my temp job where I’d been for fifteen months, and spent the next five months looking for work. Even this last job wrapped up a week and a half early. I applied to three different graduate schools, in the process waking every single demon of self-doubt, self-loathing, and depression that’s plagued me over the years. Then a few weeks ago I got a rejection letter from one of those schools.

Last week, for fun, I decided to do a Tarot reading for myself as an exercise in unconscious self-examination. Mind you, I don’t believe in mysticism. I view Tarot almost as an analytical tool, like an ink blot test, the random layout of cards in certain positions telling the “Seeker” a story that they can draw a message from, like we do with any other media.

Using the “Tree of Life” spread (so called because the position and significance of the cards follows a symbol from the Kabbalah), these are the cards I drew:

1. The High Priestess
2. Five of Swords, reversed
3. Knight of Swords
4. Ten of Cups
5. Seven of Pentacles, reversed
6. Ace of Swords
7. Four of Wands
8. King of Pentacles, reversed
9. The Fool, reversed
10. Strength, reversed

A friend of mine did a quick interpretation and had a few insights. Without going into too much detail, the main thrust of what he had to say was that there’s been quite a bit of misfortune lately, and those dark times aren’t entirely over yet, but that there’s still time to avert disaster. “You’ve suffered enough setbacks that it’s not letting you make the most of your talents,” he said, “a lot of wasted energy and lack of focus.” Basically, I need to change how I’m doing and thinking about a lot of things—in other words, adapt or continue in the same patterns that lead nowhere good.

The past couple of months I have been pretty withdrawn, at times almost hermetical. Aside from a few gatherings or going to work, I’ve taken to shutting myself away from the world and from people. Mostly this is because, as an introvert, other human beings exhaust me, especially in large numbers. But there’s also a darker reason. Part of it was being unemployed for so long; of sending in application after application and either hearing nothing or getting rejection notes. Then there’s the mountain of rejections I’ve had with my music, and feeling a total failure in that department. There’s also my love life, which has been a virtual wasteland.

I tend to internalize all of these things, interpreting the underlying proverbial message of the universe into pithy statements such as: You’re A Failure. You’re A Massive Disappointment. Nobody Wants You.

So I tend to shut myself away, terrified that people are going to see through me to the failure underneath. Whenever I do venture out, I interpret glances or lack of interaction as evidence of judgement, that even my friends think I’m not worth their time, that they’re all thinking what a horrible disappointment I am.

On New Years Eve, I see status updates from friends on Facebook and Twitter, going to parties and celebrating the coming year, often with significant others. There were several parties I could have gone to, but I couldn’t bring myself to go out. I didn’t want to be reminded yet again that I’m single, lonely, seemingly incapable of connecting with others. The roads were shitty, it was about eight degrees below zero, and I’d have to shut the dogs I’m looking after up in their room. So I stayed home, watched Spirited Away, wishing that such stories of being whisked away to some other world to discover one’s secret inner strength were possible. But they’re not.

It is this kind of thinking that needs to change in the coming year. It’s difficult when so many of the signs seem to point to what I fear is true being the case, but negative thinking tends to beget negative outcomes. For good or ill, we often write self-fulfilling prophesies.

I also need to be more social in the coming year. I’m always surprised, and even feel a little dubious, whenever someone says that I’ve been missed. “You can’t really miss me,” I think. “What is there to miss?”

Mostly, I just feel like a poor excuse for an adult, and with that comes a deep sense of shame. I spent so much time developing my musical talents that I neglected to develop other abilities, like self-discipline, learning to relate and talk to others, etc. etc. Maybe these expectations are mere fictions and most people feel a similar lacking within themselves.

2013 was one of the saddest and loneliest years that I can remember, and I certainly don’t want a repeat of it. It’s going to take a major change in thinking to make course corrections, but it’s also probably going to require community and the assistance of friends.