Since You Asked

I have let it break down my mental state over the course of the past year and while I have been maintaining a positive social life, lately I have been having trouble doing basic things like sleeping and eating. I have tried many things to reverse the tides — reading self-help books, starting up yoga, seeing a therapist (he’s helpful, but busy), taking antidepressants and quitting, taking stimulants and quitting. While I feel like these things sort of make me able to hang on and shift the weight of things around on a day-by-day basis, I can’t tell if I’m getting anywhere. I’ve successfully overcome two depressive episodes in the past and I know a lot about positive psychology, but trying to become a student of it right now feels like spreading a veneer of platitudes over a “True Blood”-esque maenad-induced darkness that seems to keep cropping up in my life and getting the better of me.

The thing is, I don’t think that pushing away the darkness is the right answer. Perhaps I’m misguided in thinking this, but I have this impression that I have to go inside it and find out whatever is in there, and — strangle it? Chase it away? Pour boiling water over it? I don’t know because I can’t see what it is!

Anyway, I feel ashamed of myself because I know I could contribute good things to the world, but right now I’m not, and in fact, I feel like I’m on the path to becoming a detractor. Instead of putting things out into the world I let myself succumb to the seduction of my imagination, where everything is better and easier and more comfortable and yet more thrilling at the same time. I know I need to work harder on the thing that I’m passionate about but I feel like all this BS is clouding my ability to. I’m writing you this letter today because I’ve written a hundred letters to you in my head and, ugh, well, it’s a step. Any suggestions?

The Maenad

Dear Maenad,

So here you are, a remarkable individual, talented, passionate, seeking your unique place in the world. Meanwhile you are wasting away as an office assistant and finding for some strange reason you do not seem to feel vitally engaged. As you enter this crisis of soul, what are the “responsible adults” around you doing? Giving you pills? How very helpful.

There was indeed a memo on adulthood that you missed. You are getting it right now. Your distress is the memo. Adulthood — or your fate, shall we say — is staring you in the face, like a tiger that has crept up on you in the night. It is looking at you, wondering, When should I devour this child? Is it time?

You open your eyes in terror. The tiger looks at its watch.

Being devoured by the tiger that is adulthood is not so bad. The tiger eats you, digests you and drops you on the forest floor, not as a turd but as a cocoon. When you awaken and find the strength to break your shell, you emerge, eventually, as an adult and an apprentice.

You are transformed in the belly of the tiger. You are remade.

At least, that is my fanciful reimagining of the system of human transformation and growth articulated in the book “Nature and the Human Soul,” by Bill Plotkin. (I tell you, I am at present possessed by this book!)

“The process of becoming a true adult,” says Plotkin, “is the process of coming to know one’s ultimate place as an individual.” You have to know what he means by “place.” By “place” he sort of means soul; or, that is, by “soul” he sort of means “place.” Or, well, look, get this book and read it and see if you can find yourself in it. But I warn you: He also says, “A person must be psychospiritually prepared for the underworld journey, the descent to soul … Embarking on the journey unprepared is particularly risky and likely to result in failure.”

It is time to start wandering, as Plotkin would say. It is time to seek that one place where you uniquely belong.

My guess is that your great passion will guide you. Your great passion may not be the thing itself that you seek; perhaps your great passion is a vessel for the thing itself. You do not tell us what this passion is — perhaps to say its name desecrates it. Since you cannot say the name of this thing you seek, you must go and seek it by wandering, not knowing how to get where you are going, but going nevertheless.

So that is the mystery I propose to you. I cannot do much more. For though I’m 56 years old, in the scheme of human development that Plotkin proposes, I myself am basically still in adolescence.

It is a humbling realization but explains much — like my choice of clothes.

Adolescent though I may be, I think I can honestly assert this: Your problems are not of your making. You are being asked to live a meaningless life, and when you have trouble adjusting to this meaningless life, they give you pills to make the symptoms go away.

I find that scenario chilling. My generation was unhappy but no one claimed we needed pills. The World War II generation that looked on us with horror wanted to beat the crap out of us but they did not assume we needed psychological help, or that we were pathological. They thought we were crazy, narcissistic, ungrateful fools but they did not try to give us drugs. We did not grow up in a therapeutic culture; we grew up in a war culture. Many of us were destroyed by what we perceived as a war on us by our parents’ generation; many of us descended to the underworld prematurely and failed. Many of us became addicts of one sort or another.

And a great many of us remained adolescents, unable to earn the respect of our offspring, passing on to our children only the lessons of our own protracted adolescence.

To sum up: You know what time it is. The tiger knows what time it is, too. It is time for you to become an adult. But you do not know how to do it. Of course you don’t know how to do it! You are not really supposed to know how to do it.  The way you learn how to do it is by wandering. But you also need to find a guide. I suggest that guides are available, perhaps through the network of people in Mr. Plotkin’s world. I do not know. I have just begun to look into this.

One thing Plotkin proposes is that nature itself holds many answers; if you cannot find a guide, you may find some provisional direction in your connection to nature itself. I suggest you take a look at Plotkin’s book, and set out in a westerly direction.

How to become adults? Page 251 has a little bit to say on that — and 319, and 127 …

Makes a great gift. Can be personalized for the giftee of your choice. Signed first editions on sale now.

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Yeah, I know this isn’t all my fault, that it takes two to make a bad relationship, and all that. And certainly there are women — most of them — who wouldn’t even look my way. Great for them. But for those who are willing to look my way, don’t I have a basic human obligation to keep them safe from my horribleness and inevitable failures? Without exception I say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing or just collapse.

So. Given that I contribute nothing to the world but disappointment and misery, and I can’t control my desire for companionship and attention, shouldn’t I just kill myself? Isn’t that the moral thing to do at this point?

A Dangerous Nothing

Dear Dangerous Nothing,

You, my friend, are exactly perfect the way you are. You’re not a moron!

Look on the bright side: You have a technique. Don’t wait to show her your bumbling, fumbling, weak and incompetent side.  Spill your soup on her now! On the first date. Roll your car over your own foot and have her take you to the emergency room. Come out of the bathroom with tape all over your face. Why? Because a person with tape all over his face looks funny!

It’ll break the ice. She’ll thank you for it!

Pour it on  about what a loser you are! That’ll get her going about how you just have low self-esteem and you’re being too hard on yourself.

If you are asking women to marry you and promising to fly them in your private jet to your villa in Portugal and saying you’ll pick them up at 8 o’clock sharp the next morning and then you are not showing up, then women are going to bed thinking about your private jet and then not getting to ride in it. That’s bad.

You should slap yourself in the face once very hard if you are doing that. Then you should force yourself to sell your imaginary private jet at a loss of millions of imaginary dollars.

But killing yourself wouldn’t make any sense at all, and it wouldn’t make anyone happy, not even you.

Besides, there are worse people.

Thanks!

Dear Cary,

Hmmm. I won’t write this like a writer, more like the utterly confused person I am. I’ll sum up. I’ve been with BF/husband (I didn’t want to get married, he did) 15 years. He came with three daughters, all filling pages of the DSM. One is bipolar, one BDP, one ADHD etc., etc. At the time I was 30 and had just lost both my parents very suddenly, I was making a lot of money, had inherited some and was really trying to pretend nothing had happened. We were great. I still think he’s the funniest human I’ve ever met and that we share that thing all good couples do: We think we’re better than everyone else. Fast forward. His insecurity has dogged us from the beginning. Had I been more aware and noticing, I would likely have run.

Three years ago we lost our dog. He was our child. The one thing we had together. It was bone cancer and it was awful. It probably triggered for me the memory of losing my parents so quickly — I went a little nuts. I had an affair, I left, I ended the affair. I was so fucking sad I couldn’t stand it. I drank a lot.

Meanwhile, I’m a writer. Literary, but not totally insignificant. I’ve been sober for about four months, and working desperately to finish this new book I have due.

A week ago I learned that he was setting me up, saying, “Your phone rang and it was a blocked number, is there anything you want to tell me?” All this involves cappuccino and serious face. When I realized he was making it all up, I lost my mind.

I can’t take it anymore. Every day is a prosecution. There’s more, of course. A lot. I tiptoe around him, he’s angry most of the time and his three grown daughters don’t want to talk to him without a therapist in the room. He’s brilliant and tricky and there is no way to win. I can’t fill the black hole anymore.

And why now, besides the obvious? I’m sober, I’m working, this book is good … why would he tear it out from under me? I know it’s not conscious, but it’s incredibly twisted.

I love him, and we were better than everyone else, but he’s killing me. Dead.

Tormented

Dear Tormented,

You’re four months sober. You’re going to have to take this on faith. Nothing else matters. Nothing is going to be the way it was. There is nothing to do but stay sober. This other stuff will get sorted out later.

Four months sober is its own special condition. It may manifest as confusion or certainty, clarity or dullness, energy or lethargy, high or low, but it is an edge; it is a liminal state out of which a strange future is being born.

You can afford to slow down now and not try to figure everything out or fix everything. It wouldn’t help anyway. Your old fixes won’t work. Well, they might seem to work for a while, but the point is that you need to abandon them because they will not lead you where you have to go now.

No matter whether you finish the book or don’t finish the book, stay married or get divorced, as long as this sobriety goes on day after day you are going to reclaim your life, your childhood, your spirit. You are going to see and feel things that were formerly only a dull buzz or murmur. These dull murmurs of being will provide the sinews of a new construct. It will not be the you that you envisioned when you were busy envisioning yourself. It will be different. But it will be authentic and thus suffused with the energy of life.

Imagine looking at what your husband is doing and not needing to do anything about it.

You will shed many illusions. You will shed the illusion of being better than the rest of us — beneath which has secretly lain the illusion that you are worse than us. These troubling illusions of separateness and hierarchy will go away and you will be reunited with humanity on an even footing.

Guard your sobriety as you would guard your life.

Your husband and others will attempt to get back the old you who would engage their craziness. Observe this from a safe distance. Don’t engage their craziness. Stay safe in your four months of sobriety. Finish the book. Take long walks.

Your husband has lost you. You are no longer entertaining him in his madness. So he is reaching out to you. He is trying to get you back.

Don’t go there. You will just have to stand firm.

Guard your sobriety as you would guard your life. Finish your book. Take long walks. It will start to make sense.

I do want to marry and have children. Thus I’ve spent a fair amount of time on self-reflection, either on my own, in a therapist’s office, or on the phone with my sister. I’ve spent several years sifting through the finer details of my relationship with my father — yep, he’s emotionally distant and critical, has an on/off problem with alcohol, you know the drill. So now, I have all this knowledge about me, about my relationship with my father, about why I play the role that I do in my relationships, etc., etc. I’m grateful for this knowledge. However, I want this knowledge to do something for me, because, frankly, I’m really starting to bore myself.

Knowing what I know, how can I, or anyone, for that matter, truly change? How do I stop making the same old choices, drawing in the same old men, putting up with the same old crap?

Sincerely,

Ready for Change

Dear Ready for Change,

I only know one thing about this. When you have had enough then you will change.

Have you had enough? Have you truly had enough? Are you stumbling, blind and desperate? Are you lying on the sidewalk? Have you fallen to your knees and cried out to anyone who can hear that you cannot go on one minute more?

Then you will change.

Until then, you may acquire new skills and insights that alert you to your behavior. You may make better decisions. You may abort certain activities. You may begin to see the patterns in your life with greater clarity. You may become more cautious. You may get better at evaluating potential mates.

But you will not change in any fundamental way until you reach a breaking point. This breaking point may not be dramatic or even visible to others. It may be quiet, a moment  when something shifts inside. You may not even realize it at the time. But a transformation is not an adjustment. It is a shift.

Many desire deep, fundamental change, yet it is elusive. Certain life-changing experiences bring us to our core selves, or force us to make certain leaps — leaps of faith, leaps that take us out of the ordinary and expose us to a more authentic and searing experience of the self. But how does that happen? How can we make it happen?

I don’t think we can make it happen. But there are things that seem to predispose us to it.

Having a fatal flaw can be a blessing. Facing it may bring about the change you long for.

For me it was alcoholism.

That is all I know, personally. I have only experienced this once, when my alcoholism brought me to a condition in which I was willing to do the 12 steps. But people have adapted the 12 steps to other conditions. It seems reasonable that certain psychological conditions would produce the same hopelessness and despair that drive people to do the 12 steps.

Those of us who have found lasting help through the 12 steps can usually point to one defining moment. Such moments are usually preceded by years of difficulty and numerous attempts to change without experiencing any major disruptions in life or having to entertain foreign and sometimes empirically questionable notions. What happens in these moments is qualitatively different from the acquisition of new life skills or psychological insights. We had acquired life skills and understanding and insight but still could not stop doing what we were doing.

So I would suggest if you want such an experience that you entertain the notion that you might be one of those people for whom the 12 steps might work even though you do not seem to be an addict. I have heard people speak of being so demoralized by their behaviors that they “hit bottom” with codependence, sex, anger, etc.

It makes sense. It’s not my story, but it makes sense. Why should alcohol have a special place in the mechanics of human transformation? Why would the universal human experience of hitting bottom and reaching out for help and finding a new way of living be confined to addicts? The history of religion and consciousness shows otherwise.

The important point is that transformation is not acquisition; rather, it is loss. We do not pick up new tools for living first; we first abandon what has served us so far, and in that moment between abandoning what has brought us this far and stepping into a new vessel is a moment of profound terror and joy.

That moment of terror is what distinguishes transformation from mere adjustment.

Since you have are standing at a precipice, I suggest you look into the 12 steps as they have been applied to problems of relationship and family. Al-Anon is a group that started to help the family members of alcoholics but has now been found useful for a variety of human problems.

But the steps are just activities; the results can often seem miraculous but I continue to believe that change begins with some ineffable human shift, whether you call it raw desperation, ego deflation, a moment of clarity, incomprehensible demoralization, seeing the light … it doesn’t matter so much what we call it as long as we understand what we are talking about. So the problem remains: How are we brought to this point? How do we arrive at it? Can it be precipitated, like inducing birth?

Perhaps you will be brought to this point by continual meditation on your problem, or by continuing therapy, or by a sudden realization; perhaps it will come to you as nothing more than a passing thought that has lasting resonance. I urge you to begin with the 12 steps and see where that takes you; doing such activities, if nothing else, seems to keep us attuned and alert to the necessary moment, whenever it arrives, and it always arrives in its own time.

My problem is there hasn’t been a night that has gone by that I haven’t had a “nightmare” about this guy. And the new girl. And his parents, whom I adored. A recurring dream is that I move into a new place (which I did already) and I am so excited about it, and then I walk outside, and there they are, my next-door neighbors.

I have been on a couple of dates and met some really nice guys whom I really don’t think twice about.

I know I did the right thing, but I am so embarrassed and annoyed that my subconscious will not let it go. Any suggestions on what it might take to stop these dreams/nightmares?

My subconscious would really appreciate it.

Over It But Not Really Over It

Dear Over It But Not Really,

My subconscious had a conversation with your subconscious and found out that you’re still totally in love with this guy. Your subconscious is, anyway.

Your subconscious was telling my subconscious how attractive he was and what a good time you used to have until the conversation started to really irritate me and I had to break in and say some things to both of them.

“You’re all about you, aren’t you?!” I said to your subconscious. “Here this girl is trying to get over this guy and she’s asking me for help, but you just can’t get enough of him. You keep throwing him right back in her face. What’s wrong with you?”

Now, because my subconscious and your subconscious were speaking to each other in their own special language, I can’t transcribe exactly what your subconscious was saying. But here’s a rough approximation.

“You really loved him, didn’t you?” my subconscious said.  “You really loved him and she ditched him without consulting you. That’s it, isn’t it? You felt comfortable with him screwing up all the time, not being true, not being able to settle down, not telling the truth? How can you love a guy that much who treats her so badly? Aren’t you and she one and the same? Don’t you have any regard for her? You’re just out for a good time and nothing more?

“You don’t care? Really? You’re her subconscious and you don’t really care that much what happens to her? Oh, you don’t mean that you don’t care, but that you don’t take her fears seriously because they’re groundless ego fears? That she’s not really in danger even though she thinks she is? That she doesn’t really have a broken heart even though she’s crying for months? What are you talking about? [Your subconscious can be a little arrogant and obtuse -- like a lot of subconsciouses.] It’s just “ego fear”? Come on. Really?

“So riddle me this, Her Subconscious: Where were you when she was going through all this with this guy? You were right there? Why didn’t you tell her?

“What? You liked it when he wouldn’t behave? You liked the fact that he was out of control? That is crazy! That is perverse!

“Oh. Right. You’re the subconscious. You’re supposed to be crazy and perverse.”

After having this conversation with your subconscious, I understand you much better. Your subconscious loves the jester and the cowboy and the wanderer, who make for sketchy boyfriends but your subconscious doesn’t care. It’s not that your subconscious doesn’t care about you. In fact, you are all it cares about. But it considers many of your fears to be petty, society-based fears, not grounded in spiritual reality. See, your subconscious is coming from a perspective of pretty much timelessness, infinity, no death, that kind of thing. It’s not in a hurry, your subconscious. It’s got loads of time. It always has a parking space.  When it’s just parking, it’s into parking. If it’s making love, it’s just making love. It’s just interested in what’s happening before or afterward or in different locations. That’s meaningless to the subconscious: future, past, here, there — it’s all the same. Plus, when postage rates go up, it doesn’t have to adjust the meter, if you know what I mean. (That’s the most amazing thing of all, if you’re in a small business. But you don’t know what I’m talking about now, do you, because you’re not in a small business? Well, you should be. As a hedge against inflation and joblessness.)

Anyway, this explains why you are in such a tough spot.

So what can you do?

Well, I know one thing. You have to give your subconscious what it wants, or it will make life hell.

Think of your subconscious as if it were a child and you were the adult having to pay its way and drive it around.

It’s like, OK, if it were playing baseball, it would be the one guy out there who is just enjoying the sensation of playing and doesn’t care about the rules or the score; he loves the crack of the bat and the sliding into base; he loves the feel of the clay and the grass; he loves the uniform and being out in the sun and cheering when something happens.

That’s your unconscious, or inner child, or soul, or whatever. That’s the part of you that is alive and hungry.

Your subconscious misses him more than you do. It misses the sweets. It misses the chance to be on top of the world, in the moment, laughing in the bar, completely satisfied. It misses him, how he took care of things for you, how he made things right while he was making things wrong.

Your subconscious knew all along exactly what he was like and what he was doing and that was fine.

You have no secrets from your subconscious. I think that’s where people get the notion of “God” as somehow all-knowing; it’s our projection of our own unconscious.

Your subconscious is pure knowing. It sees and knows and shrugs. It shrugs, that is, as long as it is getting what it wants, for that’s the other part of it: Your subconscious is also pure longing. It doesn’t care about the rules he broke. It just wants him back. And it will keep serving him up in dreams until it gets what it wants, which is … whatever it wants … which it will tell you about in the cryptic and maddening language of dreams and coincidence.

So what are you going to do?

You have to own it, for one thing. You have to own your own desire. You have to say, out loud, here is my desire for that guy, and it is strong, and I do want him, I want the taste of him, I want the feel of him, I want to do the things we used to do, I miss feeling the way I felt after we did the things we did, and I miss knowing that he wanted me and was there, and all the things that happened while we were together.

Your hungers have led you into bliss but also torment. You are a Western person who takes it for granted that you are in charge and that there are rules, and that a lover can strike out if he violates the rules. What you are encountering, though, is the nature of desire and the subconscious, which does not care about rules and the violation of them but only cares about vision and passion and taste and touch and wanting.

Go easy on yourself is one suggestion. Admit that you are not in charge, that your desires are bigger than you. Observe that moving and changing jobs and changing bars did not eliminate the condition of desire. That is because desire does not inhere in conditions or locations. It is in you; it is your desire. It is yours. Own it.

Satisfy it.

We stayed in touch through the breakup process, which crushed him, and we tried to stay friends although it was awkward at times, to say the least. I stupidly thought that I could break apart from him but remain best friends. Everyone says that doesn’t work. He admitted he was wrong to have denied me a commitment. He told me he wanted kids now. He proposed to me, and swore he’d try everything to get me back. I held off, but stayed in touch.

I joined Match.com and went on a series of somewhat lame dates (but I tried not be so hard on them or myself — I hadn’t dated in 10 years!). My ex bought a larger, less flashy car because, he said, “It’ll be good for kids.”

I moved my life to another part of the city. He kept all the pictures of us up in the house.

I told all my girlfriends I was a strong, independent woman now on the prowl and that they should all fix me up. My ex quietly told only those closest to him.

I told him I didn’t see a future with him. He planned a trip for us to go to Napa, and I — needing a break from work and badly wanting to travel with my “old friend” — went.

We had a wonderful time: We ate, tasted wine, walked along the river, laughed, made love. Everything went smashingly well.

Now we secretly meet once or twice a week (when I’m not out on my Match.com dates!). We make dinner at our old house or my new one, and sleep together regularly. I’ve only told a few close friends, because I don’t want to seem like a flip-flopper. But those few close friends aren’t really shocked because they knew how close we were for so long.

This is not characteristic of me. I am known to be a hard-ass. I’m known to make decisions and stick to them. I don’t turn back. I’ve never even fathomed I would write a letter to an advice columnist. I’m the rock everyone usually goes to for advice.

But I’m flat-out still in love with him, although I’m very suspicious of his 180-degree turn in terms of kids and marriage. I don’t want to go back to him and end up playing the fool. On the other hand, I don’t want to lose the person I could live my life with and make a future with.

Is it just the excitement of the thing that’s getting to me, or is this one the real deal? I’m asking you: Can you think of a way I can test him or test myself to know the difference? Please advise.

Hardheaded in Love

Dear Hardheaded in Love,

You want to test him? You just did. He passed. The test is over.

Can you hear him talking? He bought a sedan. He kept all your old pictures up. He proposed.

He’s saying he’s ready. He’s saying he’s changed. He’s saying he doesn’t want to lose you. He’s saying come on, marry me, let’s have kids.

What more can he do?

He doesn’t want anybody else. He wants you. Maybe neither of you realized it but the whole episode sounds like a test.

Pencils down.

Get married. Quick.