Vet ni varför jag inte har skrivit på länge? Jo, för när jag har läst de texter jag har skrivit här tidigare, så har jag inte kännt igen mig! Varför då? Jo, för att jag har mått bra! I hela 5-6 veckor har jag fått leva ett liv som är värt att leva!! Underbart! Har inte varit hypomanisk eller manisk, utan bara mått bra helt enkelt. Började med Cipramil för 2 månader sedan och fick effekt, ingen honeymoon, utan en långvarig effekt som hållt i sig i ca 6 veckor.

Men jag kände i lördags att det hände något, en känsla som infann sig i kroppen, något svart som tagit sig in, något oroligt och tungt, men en väldigt diffus känsla som jag försökte ignorera. Men den diffusa känslan har blivit mer och mer tydlig och igår torsdag så blev den helt tydlig, jag är tillbaka i det mörka träsket igen. Idag fredag känns det ännu tydligare. Varje moment som ska göras är tungt och besvärande. Jag får ta sats för att orka ringa ett samtal, att svara på ett mail, att skriva ett dokument. Uppgifter som för en vecka sedan inte på något sätt var sammankopplade med några negativa känslor. Vad har hänt? Yttre påverkan? Nej. Inre påverkan? Nej. Något kemiskt i hjärnan? Ja, utan tvekan.

My personal opinion. It has a lot to me for this post. When it comes to my emotions and feelings, I am inclined to maintain, write it, someone says how I feel, makes me very uncomfortable. A video is a great way to express themselves and only air. Ah yes, .. Nothing is me, blah blah blah .. Concept for the subtitles! Images can be found on deviantART. Music by Sia. … Borderline personality disorder borderline personality disorder, sia breathe me mylo remix depression, anxiety therapy, self injury cutting harm …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3dJgDYEGu8&hl=en

I have been dealing with depression (or so I thought) for several years. Three years ago, while trying alternative treatments for depression (amino acids prescribed by a naturopatic doctor – ND), I had a couple of (hypo)manic episodes. That, and the fact that my depression does come in cycles, made me (and possibly W) consider the possibility that the actual diagnosis was bipolar. We considered it for a while, talked about it and ran it through a psychiatrist who discarded the theory.

The last six months have been hell and I got to the point of wanting to do anything to have some relief from the depression and anxiety. W brought up that maybe I would benefit from a mood stabilizer. I’m not sure if my anger was involved in getting her to that conclusion. I know she is NOT a psychiatrist and this is not her idea. A psychiatrist a few years back wanted to put me on a mood stabilizer and it didn’t happen because I got pregnant. Now W just brought it up again (after 5 years…). Of course when she mentioned that, I asked her if she thought what I had was bipolar and she said “what do you think?” The problem with that “what do you think?” is that there was NO WAY I would just do nothing, right? I was going to read and research as much as possible to try to get to the most complex conclusion and all this causing tremendous anxiety and panic attacks. While talking about the conclusion with W, I mentioned that I looked into other disorders (bipolar II, cyclothymia, dysthymia and major depression, borderline and a couple more personality disorders). I told her that it was probably either dysthymia or major depression. I did mention borderline and she DIDN’T say anything. She led me to think that it was bipolar and finally told me that it was probably “just” major depression.

A month later, still not satisfied with the diagnosis, I started to look for other possibilities – this time only personality disorders. I looked into borderline, schizoid, avoidant and obsessive-compulsive. I sent an email to W explaining why I thought I had each of them. She didn’t answer. The next time I saw her I asked her if she thought I had a personality disorder and I went through my whole thesis without getting to any conclusion. I finally asked her what she thought. She asked me if I was sure I wanted to know. I said yes and she said borderline. I’m still trying to find out when in the last 6 years that I have been seeing her, she decided that I had borderline personality disorder.

I got home to read more about my “new” diagnosis and went to the library to get the book “Get me out of here” by Rachel Reiland. I read the book in the next four days. While reading it, I became convinced that borderline personality disorder is what I have.

I feel angry, frustrated, betrayed. Why didn’t W say something? Don’t I have the right to know my diagnosis? She has been treating me for major depression or at least that what it was supposed to be doing. Did she change the treatment when the diagnosis changed? Was she supposed to tell me of any change in treatment? Do I have to do anything differently? Can I be cured? How is this affecting my kids? Why did this happen to me? A million other questions come to my mind as I’m trying to make sense of all this. And yes I’m really angry. Why did I have to find out this way?

Ik zou u graag laten weten
Wat het is om mij te voelen
Ik heb enkel geen bloed genoeg om mijn pijn te schrijven.

Ik kan mij voor de wereld’s voeten gooien
Mij aanbieden
Als wat ik ben
Weinig

Ik wacht nog steeds op de zon
De regenjaren hebben mij vervaagd
Er huist een lege storm
In mijn hart

22 nov. 09
©Tine

Saturday. 1149am.

Cold Venti Soja latte Chai and london Sandwich.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten 20liciuos boys and three 40hunks dads just around me… who cares about my london sandwich, i already got breakfast, a visual one. 

But trust me, when i woke up at 6am i didnt plan this. Im not always thinking in, you know… guys.

I just went early for my fancy car (it was on the hospital cars) and do some stuff you just can do on weekends, i even didnt take a shower before to go out. But i pass by here, this Starbucks and, i haven been at this one for a long time so… i get in and almost get off. Ok, to explicit for morning hours. 

So, im finishing my breakfast and bring my WICKED book and i just can’t concentrate. And i cant blame Starbucks (since they make you put your name in your cup is that they allow or even push you to flirt). Furthermore, i cant complain about the overpriced when they include you the “meetic rate” but  with an extra free live on site experience.

 So instead of reading i start diving YouTube and find a song i really like, special version, and like its saturday, and jews dont work on Saturdays, so lets just enjoy this great song, Boderline Madonna, Sticky and Sweet Tour.

God Bless Starbucks!   

Salute !

“Crada“, ein alter Bekannter aus HipHop Zeiten hat eine neue Produktion für “Curse” gelaced. Zu finden hier.

“Am Anfang war es Lifestyle und Image, ein bisschen Arme aufgeritzt weil es in ist“
Curse – Kein Leben

Es ist selten passiert, dass ich nach der ersten Zeile eines Curse Songs einen so starken Drang verspüre schreiend zu skippen. Curse, kennt ihr ihn? Curse ist eine Instanz im deutschen HipHop, Curse ist der Papst des deutschen Raps. Ich erinner mich lebhaft daran, als ich beim Headbangen auf “Hassliebe” zu meinen ersten Gigs gefahren bin, und als ich dann wieder auf Hassliebe abgehend in Bayreuth nen hübschen Unfall gebaut hab. Glück gehabt. Curse jedenfalls hat uns leuchtend-augen Kinder des deutschen Raps geführt, wir haben seine prägnanten Gedanken bewundert.

“Und was ist jetzt?“
Der Song “Kein Leben”. Released wird selbiger im Zuge eines “Joint Ventures” von der ARCHE-Stiftung und verschiedenen HipHop Künstlern, darunter Curse, Prinz Pi und auch Urgestein Spax; “Deutschlands vergessene<n> Kinder<n>” soll mit diesem Sampler ihre “emotionale Armut” genommen werden. (Vgl. Rapspot Interview)

“Immer Zuhause, immer die die Jalousien runter, nicht nur dein Licht, auch deine Stimmung wurde dunkler [...] Keine Lust mehr was zu essen, dafür acht Zigaretten in der Stunde, du bestrafst deine Lunge [...] Du warst immernoch schön, immer noch sexy, du hast gewusst wie du wirkst auf uns männliche Wesen, doch dich selbst hattest du aufgegeben“
Curse – Kein Leben

Abgesehen von der mangelnden Eleganz der Sprache, eine konzise Beschreibung der Situation “emotional verwahrloster Kinder”. Beschrieben von einem Verstand, der trotz seiner scheinbaren Klarheit nicht bemerkt, wie er stereotypisiert und stigmatisiert, wie er sich Klischees bedient und die prekären Lebensumstände von einer Empore aus mit dem Zeigefinger skizziert. Ich bin verleitet das eine himmelschreiende Heuchelei zu nennen.

Die “Depression aus der Dose” – ein unkontrolliert wuchernder Topos eines jeden deutschen Rappers, der etwas auf sich hält. Von Rasierklingenliebe (Casper) über Poesie von “depressiven Streetgangmembers” (Kollegah) wird die deutsche Amateurlyrik dunkelschwarz. Und auch Curse wusste angeblich schon in seinem Song “Struggle” ganz genau, was Jugendliche dazu antreibt aus einem Plastikkuli Pot zu rauchen.

Während Casper sein “Emo-Pony” legitimiert (Kidding) und Kollegah ohnehin nur Spaß macht, bleiben wir aber wieder bei Rappapst Curse, der es scheinbar bitter ernst meint und immernoch glaubt, dass er einen Zugang zu der Zielgruppe hätte, die er zu erreichen sucht. Nein, ich nehme keine Widerrede an, keine Diskussion.

Wenn ich in meinem verdunkelten Zimmer sitze, und den Schritt in die Treibsandgrube, die Spirale, den Strudel oder sonst irgendeine von Denkern erfundene Metapher für die Depression, getan habe, zieht mich da kein Curse raus. Denn was seine Songs kommunizieren sind Kälte, Eiseskälte. Eine sichere Distanz, ein schneidender Verstand, ein starres, apollinisches Konstrukt eines Gehirnes ohne jegliche Herzbeteiligung. Wie will mich so ein Mensch verstehen ?

Hand auf’s Herz – diese Tendenz zeichnet sich schon deutlich seit Sinnflut ab. Der tiefe Schrei auf dem Feuerwassercover ist längst verstummt. Was bleibt ist eine stoische Gestalt mit erhobenem Zeigefinger.
Curse hatte immer schon Oberlehrerambitionen mit Leidenschaft. Doch letztere Komponente verfliegt und hinterlässt einen schalen Beigeschmack von Ignoranz als er seine imaginäre Borderlinerin die letzten Worten “… was stand in dem Abschiedsbrief, wie du hast mich krass geliebt?” entgegenplärrt.
Nach so einer Vorstellung frage ich mich tatsächlich, ob Curse nicht mindestens genauso gefühlsverarmt ist wie die intendierten Hörer.

Ich für meinen Teil bin traurig darüber; zumal die große Aktion gegen die “emotionale Armut” aufgrund ihrer schon lächerlich unklaren Zielerklärung nach außen nicht mehr darstellt, als einen bravotauglichen Versuch der Reinwaschung im Rahmen der “social correctness”:  “Die Kids nehmen Rap-Texte sehr genau wahr und leben diese dann nach. Dazu gehören härteste Alkoholexzesse genauso wie mitgefilmte Gangbang-Partys, die dann über Handys weiter verteilt werden.” (<a href=”http://rapspot.de/interview.php?id=94″> Rapspot Interview, zweite Frage</a>.
Jedes gut gemeinte Motiv in Ehren, solche verbalen Emissionen sind weltfremd, anmaßend und widersprüchlich, hat man sich doch in jeder “Deutschrap Podiumsdiskussion über den Aufstieg und den Niedergang des deutschen HipHop” darauf geeinigt, dass kein Raptext Kinder zum Mord und Exzess bringen kann, deren junge und unstete Persönlichkeiten nicht vorher durch schlimme Erlebnisse geschwächt worden sind.

Ich für meinen Teil werde mir den Sampler trotzdem anhören, denn vielleicht ist trotz allen schlechten Vorboten ein Künstler vertreten, der sich nicht eine artifizielle Geschichte aus den Fingern saugt, sondern einfach das rappt was er am besten kann. Für einen “guten Zweck”. Und wenn er Müttern beischläft.

Gehabt euch wohl !

Der Germanist

Würzburg, 21.11.09

I keep thinking about a piece of my counseling from the other day.

It was one of the parts of the borderline description that was true for me.  It was the bit about pushing people away if they say or do one wrong thing (or I perceive that they did something wrong).  My counselor also helped me understand why I may have felt some similarities in the borderline descriptions versus PTSD descriptions.  PTSD usually lists more symptoms where Borderline lists behavoir and how it affects ones life…

I have a long pattern of trying desperately to get really close to people, then kind of spilling my guts about my life and past.  If they say something wrong I bolt.  Even if they say appropriate things I start inching back and it could be weeks, months or even a year before I eventually stop making an effort to stay in touch.  I get really scared about that vulnerability.  I show people that and then I start hating myself for showing them that.  Thinking ’shit why did I do that, no one wants to see that, I don’t need anyone to be that close’ and on until I decide I’m better off without those friendships.  So much so that at this point I don’t really have any friendships left.

I also started understanding why it was different with my partner.  We were immediately very close and I could see she didn’t want to leave my side as much as I didn’t want to leave hers.  I knew that when I showed her all my vulnerability and spilled my guts about my past she would still be there.  I knew with all (err most) of my heart that she would stick around the next day, and we’d be silly and goofy or serious or anything together and I didn’t have to feel obligated to talk about it more or feel weird about saying so much.

And now… All those instincts to hide and run away come back every now and then with her.  Because even when we have moments of closeness, or moments when I say hard vulnerable things, I never know if shes actually going to be there with me afterwards (not physically, but emotionally).  And that scares the shit out of me.  And I want to throw my wall up and decide that ‘I don’t actually need to tell anyone anything about me, I don’t need to be that close, I just need to be alone’.

Talking about all this in counseling made me want to hide.  It has been so hard for me during the times I’ve seen her to keep coming back even when I have those ‘oh shit, I showed too much’ moments…but somehow I have.

I don’t really know what to do with those feelings right now.

Tja, mal wieder was von mir.

Wie in meinem letzten Edit schon erwähnt,  hab ich am Dienstag dann doch noch gekotzt. Ich hätt mich erschlagen können, so unendlich enttäuscht war ich von mir. Dabei hab ich ganze drei Stunden gegen den Kotzdruck angekämpft. Aber gut… Ist vorbei.

Am Mittwoch wollt ich nicht kotzen. Ich hab mich dagegen gewehrt und es auch geschafft. Dafür hab ich geritzt. Scheiße man!!! Wieso fang ich mit dem Mist wieder an?!

Donnerstag hatte ich dann ein 1 1/2 Stunden langes Gespräch mit der Schwester C. Hab ihr paar meiner düsteren Gedanken erzählt, die mich meist an den Abenden einholen. Und das Gespräch tat echt sehr gut. Es war total anstrengend aber tat gut. Jedoch kann niemand die Flori ersetzen. Sie ist einmalig und ich hoffe soooo sehr, dass sie am Montag wieder in die Arbeit kommt. Aber ich denk schon. Hoffentlich geht’s ihr wieder gut!

Ach ja, gekotzt hab ich gestern dann auch wieder. Heut aber nicht. Und heut bleibt’s auch beim NICHT-kotzen!

Heut hatte ich ein kurzes Gespräch mit meiner Therapeutin. Und wir haben nen neuen Vertrag ausgehandelt. Und zwar sieht der so aus, dass ich pro Abend, an dem ich kotze oder ritze einen Tag länger teilstationär bleiben muss. Das heißt also, dass wenn ich z.B. heute kotzen würde, ich nicht schon am 02.12. entlassen werde, sondern am 03.12. Und das ist schon irgendwie ein Anreiz für mich. Ich brauch einfach immer bissl Druck. Aaaaaber andererseits bin ich auch erleichtert, dass ich vielleicht doch noch paar Tage länger bleiben kann. Irgendwie tut’s einfach gut zu wissen, ich kann, wenn ich weiterhin nicht klar komme, doch noch etwas bleiben und hab noch ein wenig mehr Zeit um nochmal mit meiner Therapeutin oder/und mit der Flori darüber zu reden, was es für mich so schwer macht, daheim wieder klarzukommen.

Man, ich glaub ich mach nen Freudensprung, wenn ich die liebe Flori am Montag sehe!!

Morgen und übermorgen am Abend “muss” ich wieder im BKH anrufen und halt Bescheid geben, wie ich so klar komme. Werd ich machen. Find ich sogar ganz gut so.

Heut war ich mit’m D. wieder draußen. Wir sind wieder abgehau’n. War ein total schöner Nachmittag. Wir haben uns super gut unterhalten und außerdem haben wir Leute beobachtet. Und *räusper* wir haben bissl gelästert. Aber manche Leute kleiden sich einfach soooo unvorteilhaft und unmöglich, da MUSS man einfach mal was drüber sagen. Aber es war echt schön heut! Ich hab übrigens ne Iced White Chocolate getrunken. Mei, war die lecker!

Man, es macht mir wirklich verdammte Angst wenn ich daran denke, dass ich in etwas mehr als einer Woche schon entlassen werde. Ich hätt’s nie für möglich gehalten, dass ICH das mal sagen werde. Aber diese Sicherheit der Klinik, diese Struktur und all das, das tut so gut. Und eben die Flori. Ich denk, wenn sie nicht wäre, würde es mir um einiges leichter fallen, wieder zu gehen. Aber sie hat mich immer soooo unterstützt, mir so viel Kraft gegeben und mir Mut zugesprochen. Sie wird mir so fehlen, das ist echt nimmer normal. Ich binde mich oft so sehr so stark an Menschen. Also ich bin zwar grundsätzlich immer lange Zeit sehr distanziert zu Menschen, die ich erst kennen lerne. Es dauert in der Regel sehr lange, bis ich mich jemandem öffne. Aber wenn das mal passiert, dann binde ich mich so stark an denjenigen. ZU stark manchmal schon. Oh man. Und der Flori hab ich sehr schnell vertraut und mich ihr gegenüber sehr schnell geöffnet und mich eben extrem stark an sie “gebunden”. Hm, naja.

Den D. werd ich auch sehr vermissen. Wobei  ich bei ihm nicht so ne Angst hab, dass der Kontakt abbrechen könnte. Wir verstehen uns so gut, da bin ich zuversichtlich, dass wir den Kontakt beibehalten. Zumal er eh in xx wohnt. Ist ja nur ne 3/4 Stunde bis dahin. Wir können uns sicherlich hin und wieder mal treffen, da hab ich keine Angst, dass das nicht klappen könnte. Nee, da bin ich echt zuversichtlich, dass der Kontakt bestehen bleibt. Aber man, die Flori wird wieder neue Bezugspatienten bekommen und weiter ihre Arbeit machen. Ich mein, ich denke zwar schon, dass sie mich sehr gern mag aber sie kann unmöglich zu jedem ihrer Bezugspatienten weiterhin Kontakt haben. Aber es würde mich sowas von traurig machen, wenn ich ihr einfach so “tschüs” sage. So dauerhaft. Das wär schlimm. Man, ich mag da noch gar net dran denken. Aber es ist ja schon bald so weit. Vielleicht kann ich nochmal ne Woche länger bleiben aber dann war’s das. *heul* Das ist echt schlimm für mich.

Grad im Moment fühl ich mich (bis auf die Gedanken an den nahenden Abschied von der Flori) ganz gut. Ich versuche grad so gut es geht, diese Gefühle von Sinnlosigkeit und Aussichtslosigkeit ganz weit von mir wegzuschieben und mich anderweitig irgendwie abzulenken. Und außerdem hab ich ja noch meine Medis. Also die, die ich jeden Abend und zur Nacht nehme. Und Bedarfsmedikation hab ich dieses Wochenende auch mitbekommen. Das ist schon gut zu wissen.

Man, übermorgen in einer Woche ist schon der erste Advent. Es ist der Oberhammer, WIE schnell die Zeit vergeht. Morgen werd ich beginnen, meine Wohnung bissl winterlich zu dekorieren. Jedoch werd ich heuer nicht mehr ganz so viel Weihnachtsdeko platzieren wie die letzten Jahre. Natürlich werd ich wieder dekorieren aber halt nimmer ganz so viel wie sonst. An die Fenster werd ich meine Sterne hängen, dann dazu noch paar winterliche Window-Color-Bilder. Und sonst vereinzelt ein paar Dekosachen. Die schönsten, die ich so habe. Ich hab soooo viele Kartons mit Dekosachen im Keller. Davon werd ich morgen die schönsten raussuchen. Während der Woche hab ich ja immer keine Zeit, daher muss ich das dieses WE schon machen, damit dann nächstes Wochenende schon alles geschmückt ist und ich mich wohl fühle.

Aber man, bei dem Wetter vergeht mir der Sinn nach Weihnachten eh total. Es ist doch echt alles andere als winterlich. Wobei ich da grad ganz froh drüber bin, da ich ja jeden Tag so 50 Minuten Auto fahre und bei uns liegt der Schnee immer recht schnell. Und ich hab halt keine Lust, im größten Schneegestöber ins BKH und wieder zurück zu fahren. Die Strecke ist nämlich unheimlich kurvenreich und da schlittert man oftmals nur so dahin. Daher kann der Schnee ruhig so lang auf sich warten lassen, bis ich endgültig entlassen bin.

Übrigens haben wir diese Woche nen Zugang bekommen. 170 cm groß und 37kg schwer, bzw. leicht. Sie lag bis vor ner Woche auf der Intensiv. Kurz davor wurde sie notoperiert, da sie nach nem FA beinahe gestorben wäre.

Morgen feiert meine Freundin in ihren Geburtstag rein. Natürlich werd ich hin gehen. Hab nur ziemliche Angst vor dem Essen und halt vor den anderen Leutchen, die da kommen werden. Ich fühl mich immer so unwohl, wenn viele andere um mich rum sind und noch dazu, wenn es Essen gibt. Aber sie ist meine Freundin und natürlich werd ich auf ihren Geburtstag gehen.

Am Sonntag muss ich in die Kirche. Wie mir schon davor graut. Aber es muss sein. Da ist nämlich Totensonntag und da mein Opa letztes Jahr gestorben ist, muss ich da halt hin gehen. Danach kurz noch auf’n Friedhof. Es gehört sich einfach so hier auf’n Dorf. Danach geh ich vielleicht kurz mal mit meiner Mum auf’n Jahrmarkt hier bei uns. Einfach mal durchbummeln. Eigentlich sollte ich ja meine Eltern dieses Wochenende mal nicht sehen. Aber da ich ja in die Kirche “muss”, lässt sich das nicht vermeiden. Daher mach ich das halt nächstes WE. Also dass ich sie am nächsten WE nicht besuchen werde.

Naaaa gut, für heut war’s das dann von mir. Ich werd mich wieder melden, wenn ich wieder was zu berichten habe. Schönes Wochenende euch allen!!!

Uau, momentul zero chiar a fost duminică… Şi azi m-a lovit din senin, când am rămas fără net [deloc grav/tragic/trist de altfel], am făcut un mic tur introspectiv după ce am terminat cele două cărţi, una începută prin august, cealaltă acum o lună. Ce mai, am zis despre prea multe lucruri: o să mă gândesc la asta/aia/cealaltă [atâtea!!!] după 15 noiembrie, acum am alte chestii mai importante, o să fac aia după 15 noiembrie, o să mă reapuc, o să termin, o să încep, o să trăiesc dupa 15 noiembrie, TOTUL-totul după 15 noiembrie… atunci începe adevărata mea viaţă. Căcat. E trist când mă gândesc că până acum, cel puţin ultimele luni [două, trei, 7] au fost doar cu minus în faţă, de genul numărătoare inversă. Puţine plusuri… sau?

Şi chiar am început să mă gândesc la asta/aia/cealaltă [atâtea!!!], şi vă zic eu, nu-i deloc plăcut, pentru că mi-am blocat sentimente, trăiri, manifestări, nevoi şi dorinţe atâta timp, şi acum când vreau/pot să fac ceva nu ştiu de unde să încep [şi eventual să repar TOTUL pe care l-am stricat prin a-l lăsa pentru după 15]. Sunt atâtea! Şi eu care m-am simţit oarecum fără un scop ultimele două zile, de parcă viaţa mea n-ar fi început atunci, ci s-ar fi terminat.

DAR sunt foarte fericită. Mi-am împlinit cel mai frumos şi cel mai longeviv vis, adică e doar începutul visului, dar e cel mai frumos dintre toate. Din lume! Ok, ok, mai e wish-list-ul, dar visul ăsta era o condiţie neapărat necesară ca să mă apuc de el. Acum ştiu că orice căcat s-ar întâmpla în jurul meu întotdeauna o să-mi fie ok, prin simplul fapt că mi-am demonstrat mie [şi nimănui altuia] că visele se pot împlini. Şi de fiecare dată când mă gândesc la asta rămân prinsă într-o stare de plenitudine şi serenitate cu topping de entuziasm, oricât de mult greu urmează şi oricât de non-roz o să-mi fie cândva [fie şi mâine].

Fără niciun mişto sau ironie, dragostea chiar cere sacrificii [umane?!?]. De răbdare nu zic nimic, n-am aşa ceva.

Verslavingen zijn slecht voor je. Maar ik ben gestopt. 90% van de tijd toch.

Nee, ik was niet afhankelijk van nicotine, alcohol (hoewel ik daar ook wel mee gestopt ben) of nog andere drugs. Mijn verslaving was onopvallender. Voor wie het niet wist toch. Wie me kent weet perfect dat het litteken op mijn arm niet door de kat kwam.

Ik ben automutilant. Zelfdestructief gedrag is mijn handelsmerk. 6 jaar lang heb ik mezelf gesneden. Ik heb er maar één duidelijk litteken aan over gehouden, maar geloof me, ik weet de rest perfect staan. De wereld ziet ze niet, maar ik wel. Ik ben automutilant. Het is niet omdat ik gestopt ben, dat ik het niet meer nodig zou hebben. Ik ben automutilant. Want ik wil het nog steeds. Ik ben gestopt uit schuldgevoel. Mijn ouders zijn de reden dat ik zo sterk lijkt. Ik mag niet terugvallen. Al wil ik het oh zo graag. Al heb ik het nodig. Iedereen denkt dat ik het overwonnen heb. Maar dat zal nooit gebeuren. Ik heb het onder controle, voorlopig toch. En als ik het niet meer onder controle heb, lieg ik er over.

Ik wil hervallen. Zodat ik het niet meer hoef te vervangen door te veel eten, gamen en uitgaan. Ik wil hervallen. Ik wil voort met mijn leven. Ik wil mijn gevoelens kunnen kanaliseren. Ik wil mijn borderline weer de baas kunnen.

Laat me weer het mes op mijn arm zetten zonder schuldgevoel. Laat me pijn lijden en dan weer doorgaan. Laat me functioneren.

Ik wil hervallen.

Narcissistic Injury

An occasional or circumstantial threat (real or imagined) to the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof).

Narcissistic Wound

A repeated or recurrent identical or similar threat (real or imagined) to the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof).

Narcissistic Scar

A repeated or recurrent psychological defence against a narcissistic wound. Such a narcissistic defence is intended to sustain and preserve the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof).

Narcissists invariably react with narcissistic rage to narcissistic injury.

These two terms bear clarification (also see note):

Narcissistic Injury

Any threat (real or imagined) to the narcissist’s grandiose and fantastic self-perception (False Self) as perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and entitled to special treatment and recognition, regardless of his actual accomplishments (or lack thereof).

The narcissist actively solicits Narcissistic Supply – adulation, compliments, admiration, subservience, attention, being feared – from others in order to sustain his fragile and dysfunctional Ego. Thus, he constantly courts possible rejection, criticism, disagreement, and even mockery.

The narcissist is, therefore, dependent on other people. He is aware of the risks associated with such all-pervasive and essential dependence. He resents his weakness and dreads possible disruptions in the flow of his drug: Narcissistic Supply. He is caught between the rock of his habit and the hard place of his frustration. No wonder he is prone to raging, lashing and acting out, and to pathological, all-consuming envy (all expressions of pent-up aggression).

The narcissist’s thinking is magical. In his own mind, the narcissist is brilliant, perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, and unique. Compliments and observations that accord with this inflated self-image (“The False Self“) are taken for granted and as a matter of course.

Having anticipated the praise as fully justified and in accordance with (his) “reality”, the narcissist feels that his traits, behavior, and “accomplishments” have made the accolades and kudos happen, have generated them, and have brought them into being. He “annexes” positive input and feels, irrationally, that its source is internal, not external; that it is emanating from inside himself, not from outside, independent sources. He, therefore, takes positive narcissistic supply lightly.

The narcissist treats disharmonious input – criticism, or disagreement, or data that negate the his self-perception – completely differently. He accords a far greater weight to these types of countervailing, challenging, and destabilizing information because they are felt by him to be “more real” and coming verily from the outside. Obviously, the narcissist cannot cast himself as the cause and source of opprobrium, castigation, and mockery.

This sourcing and weighing asymmetry is the reason for the narcissist’s disproportionate reactions to perceived insults. He simply takes them as more “real” and more “serious”. The narcissist is constantly on the lookout for slights. He is hypervigilant. He perceives every disagreement as criticism and every critical remark as complete and humiliating rejection: nothing short of a threat. Gradually, his mind turns into a chaotic battlefield of paranoia and ideas of reference.

Most narcissists react defensively. They become conspicuously indignant, aggressive, and cold. They detach emotionally for fear of yet another (narcissistic) injury. They devalue the person who made the disparaging remark, the critical comment, the unflattering observation, the innocuous joke at the narcissist’s expense.

By holding the critic in contempt, by diminishing the stature of the discordant conversant – the narcissist minimises the impact of the disagreement or criticism on himself. This is a defence mechanism known as cognitive dissonance.

Narcissistic Rage

Narcissists can be imperturbable, resilient to stress, and sangfroid. Narcissistic rage is not a reaction to stress – it is a reaction to a perceived slight, insult, criticism, or disagreement (in other words, to narcissistic injury). It is intense and disproportional to the “offence”.

Raging narcissists usually perceive their reaction to have been triggered by an intentional provocation with a hostile purpose. Their targets, on the other hand, invariably regard raging narcissists as incoherent, unjust, and arbitrary.

Narcissistic rage should not be confused with anger, though they have many things in common.

It is not clear whether action diminishes anger or anger is used up in action – but anger in healthy persons is diminished through action and expression. It is an aversive, unpleasant emotion. It is intended to generate action in order to reduce frustration. Anger is coupled with physiological arousal.

Another enigma is:

Do we become angry because we say that we are angry, thus identifying the anger and capturing it – or do we say that we are angry because we are angry to begin with?

Anger is provoked by adverse treatment, deliberately or unintentionally inflicted. Such treatment must violate either prevailing conventions regarding social interactions or some otherwise a deeply ingrained sense of what is fair and what is just. The judgement of fairness or justice is a cognitive function impaired in the narcissist.

Anger is induced by numerous factors. It is almost a universal reaction. Any threat to one’s welfare (physical, emotional, social, financial, or mental) is met with anger. So are threats to one’s affiliates, nearest, dearest, nation, favourite football club, pet and so on. The territory of anger includes not only the angry person himself, but also his real and perceived environment and social milieu.

Threats are not the only situations to incite anger. Anger is also the reaction to injustice (perceived or real), to disagreements, and to inconvenience (discomfort) caused by dysfunction.

Still, all manner of angry people – narcissists or not – suffer from a cognitive deficit and are worried and anxious. They are unable to conceptualise, to design effective strategies, and to execute them. They dedicate all their attention to the here and now and ignore the future consequences of their actions. Recent events are judged more relevant and weighted more heavily than any earlier ones. Anger impairs cognition, including the proper perception of time and space.

In all people, narcissists and normal, anger is associated with a suspension of empathy. Irritated people cannot empathise. Actually, “counter-empathy” develops in a state of aggravated anger. The faculties of judgement and risk evaluation are also altered by anger. Later provocative acts are judged to be more serious than earlier ones – just by “virtue” of their chronological position.

Yet, normal anger results in taking some action regarding the source of frustration (or, at the very least, the planning or contemplation of such action). In contrast, pathological rage is mostly directed at oneself, displaced, or even lacks a target altogether.

Narcissists often vent their anger at “insignificant” people. They yell at a waitress, berate a taxi driver, or publicly chide an underling. Alternatively, they sulk, feel anhedonic or pathologically bored, drink, or do drugs – all forms of self-directed aggression.

From time to time, no longer able to pretend and to suppress their rage, they have it out with the real source of their anger. Then they lose all vestiges of self-control and rave like lunatics. They shout incoherently, make absurd accusations, distort facts, and air long-suppressed grievances, allegations and suspicions.

These episodes are followed by periods of saccharine sentimentality and excessive flattering and submissiveness towards the victim of the latest rage attack. Driven by the mortal fear of being abandoned or ignored, the narcissist repulsively debases and demeans himself.

Most narcissists are prone to be angry. Their anger is always sudden, raging, frightening and without an apparent provocation by an outside agent. It would seem that narcissists are in a CONSTANT state of rage, which is effectively controlled most of the time. It manifests itself only when the narcissist’s defences are down, incapacitated, or adversely affected by circumstances, inner or external.

Pathological anger is neither coherent, not externally induced. It emanates from the inside and it is diffuse, directed at the “world” and at “injustice” in general. The narcissist is capable of identifying the IMMEDIATE cause of his fury. Still, upon closer scrutiny, the cause is likely to be found lacking and the anger excessive, disproportionate, and incoherent.

It might be more accurate to say that the narcissist is expressing (and experiencing) TWO layers of anger, simultaneously and always. The first layer, of superficial ire, is indeed directed at an identified target, the alleged cause of the eruption. The second layer, however, incorporates the narcissist’s self-aimed wrath.

Narcissistic rage has two forms:

I. Explosive – The narcissist flares up, attacks everyone in his immediate vicinity, causes damage to objects or people, and is verbally and psychologically abusive.

II. Pernicious or Passive-Aggressive (P/A) – The narcissist sulks, gives the silent treatment, and is plotting how to punish the transgressor and put her in her proper place. These narcissists are vindictive and often become stalkers. They harass and haunt the objects of their frustration. They sabotage and damage the work and possessions of people whom they regard to be the sources of their mounting wrath.

A Dream (Night of May 8/9, 2009)

Throughout my dream life, Nazism (the regime, its operatives, and its visual manifestations) represented my mental health disorder, the rot that is my being.

In my dream, a squadron of high-ranking Nazis invades my rented apartment with the aim of confiscating my collections (mainly books I had packed in cardboard boxes and stashed in what passed for storage space in my real abode in Israel many years ago). The physical premises in the dream are a combination between my parents’ house and the apartment I shared with my first wife. In other words: they represent the entirety of my life.

As they roam my home, fingering objects and evaluating them, I desperately try to explain to the them that I have abstained from other expenses to be able to afford my prized possessions. They ignore my pleas as they boisterously participate in the hustle and bustle, climbing up and down stairs and calling to each other. It then occurs to me that I envy Hitler who remains untouchable despite his vast library. Despite the dire circumstances, I am still hopeful that my things will be returned to me, unmolested, once the misunderstanding that is at the base of these ominous proceedings is cleared up.

Thus, even in my dream, I realize how my disease is set dead against everything I love and cherish: my privacy, my person, my learning, and the accumulated goods that make an existence. My narcissism is all-pervasive, hideously energetic, tyrannical, and unfair. It is a malignant manifestation of my self-destructive and self-defeating urges.

A senior Nazi orders me to join an SS doctor-officer in his rounds as he compiles an inventory of tangibles in the neighborhood. There are two of us detailed to this ostensibly pedestrian mission: myself and a street-wise and resourceful child whose face I never see, but whose presence is clear. His cheer and acumen immediately render him my competitor. It is clear that only one of us will survive.

This impish child is my True Self and to outlive my disorder (my Nazi tormentors), I have to eliminate him. The only way to come on top is to demonstrate to our indifferent slavemaster how profoundly and overwhelmingly more intelligent I am. I want to make it worth the SS officer’s while to keep me alive, even as he sacrifices my co-worker. In other words: terrified by my sickness, I choose to become the False Self.

I have a stomach-churning four-pronged epiphany right there and then: (1) This ordeal is not going to end soon; (2) I have to make it to the end of the War (another 2 years, as the dream inexplicably takes place in 1943); (3) As death is administered randomly and off-handedly by the Nazis, my chances to survive are not good; (4) I am ill-equipped to cope in an environment that values practical, or somatic skills above intellectual achievements and capacities.

The three of us proceed from one backyard to another, taking stock of all the physical objects in them. As we progress, I commit a mistake and the SS man notices it. Endowed with the gifts of gab and blarney, I assure him that it was intentional and that he has nothing to worry about, he can leave it all to me. “If this happens again, feel free to torture me!” – I protest to his bemusement. He seems skeptical, but doesn’t put a bullet through the back of my skull, as I dreaded he would.

The tour ends at a familiar site: the lane of semi-detacheds, among which is my grandparents’. The entire row of dilapidated houses (in reality, long demolished) is enclosed within a wire fence. The objects strewn in the weed-grown backyards are borrowed from my childhood. The door to my grandparents’ unit is ajar. The great commotion inside indicates that this is the Headquarters of the Nazis (read: where my disease originated). My streetwise and resourceful colleague enters it and at first I can hear his voice, but then it ceases. I know that he is dead.

The SS-officer turns to me and says: “It’s time to complete the ethics chapter of our report”. I seethe inside: “The hypocrite! What do the Nazis have to do with ethics?” Something in me, a sliver of sanity, rebels against the inane demands of my disorder and is revolted by its confabulated fakery. I flip through the notepad that we have used to take the inventory and mutely indicate that it has run out of empty pages. The officer dives into an inner vest pocket and emerges with a cheap, blue plastic-bound diary. He searches for an empty leaf. As he turns the pages, I notice handwritten comments about the genocidal activities of various “gangs”.

Next I know, the SS doctor is holding a baby in his arms, examining it in a clinically-aloof but thorough manner. The boy is deformed: the skin on the right side of his face is covered with a patchwork of purplish scales; his lips are bumpy; his eyes wander aimlessly, unfocused and dim.

The doctor takes meticulous notes and then rises from his crouch, the baby cooing, still in his embrace. He enters my grandparents’ house, I hear a shot and the baby’s pale body is hurled on top of a heap of still corpses in the garden.

Two Dreams (Night of November 6/7, 2006)

I dreamt that I am a child. I am surrounded by family members who pay scant attention to me. They go about their bustling daily lives and I merely exist on the fringes of their awareness. Suddenly I notice a pure white bird, a cross between a seagull and a quail or a magpie. It is strutting on a cabinet shelf, turning itself into an impeccably shaped ball and rolling with brio among the statuettes and vases. I finally succeed to draw attention to myself by pointing to this magical bird and its nigh-impossible exploits. The fowl does nothing of value or utility – but it still garners narcissistic supply for me. This bird is my pathological narcissism.

Seamlessly and gradually, the bird metamorphoses into a swallow – plain, grey, small, and inconspicuous. Still, it is far more clever and useful than its erstwhile transformation. It fulfills functions: it cleans the house, it turns electrical appliances on and off, it even communicates, perhaps via telepathy.

Despite the fact that the sparrow – the drab adult incarnation of the flamboyant seagull-quail – is helpful and charitable, the adults around me reject it cruelly and consign it to the weather-beaten porch, behind a glass partition. The swallow is baffled; why is it being so punished? It tries to prove its merit by sweeping clean with a broom the entire balcony. To no avail.

I point out to the adults how incredible this tiny bird is and how productive. “See how it has scrubbed the verandah sparkling shine!” – I implore. But they are uninterested. I stare at my hyper-intelligent bird, deeply pained and sad. I know that I will never ever have a bird like this again: so clever, so industrious, so functional. I can communicate with it from now on only through a glass darkly. And one day she surely would be gone.

When narcissists grow old, society forces them to let go of major facets of their hitherto unbridled pathological narcissism. This coerced transfiguration makes them very sad, angry and bitter. Narcissists find it difficult to give up their narcissism. They are shocked by the fact that they no are no longer able to attract attention and adulation to themselves (to their magic birds). They then realize that their True Self (the child) is immature and helpless and their False Self (the bird) is a social outcast.

In my second dream, there was a black kid. He inhabited a tiny cubicle, crammed to the ceiling with books, amongst them, prominently displayed, my tome, “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited”. This leads me to believe that this child is I, the author. But why black? And why a child? I am a white, middle-aged male.

Blacks were discriminated against, excommunicated, and persecuted throughout their sad history as slaves in the Americas and as natives under colonial administrations. I feel like that: a freak, shunned by one and all and victimized by “normal people“. My True Self (that does the dreaming) is an immature child.

The child is despondent and depressed. He shuts himself in his room and refuses to eat or drink and, most alarmingly, won’t even touch his precious books. A procession of adults gently force themselves into his living space in order to cheer him up. Among them is a white cheerleader (adolescent girl), beating a drum and blowing a trumpet and a colored magician with a top hat. They represent my defense mechanisms: narcissism (the cheerleader) and magical thinking (the magician).

The child in the dream is instantly reassured and uplifted by their presence. He says to himself: How wonderful for any kid to be surrounded by such support and love. My defense mechanisms, including my pathological narcissism, keep me alive. I need them in order to survive and function. By ignoring them or trying to suppress them, I place myself at risk.

The Sad Dreams of the Narcissst

I dream of my childhood. And in my dreams we are again one big unhappy family. I sob in my dreams, I never do when I am awake. When I am awake, I am dry, I am hollow, mechanically bent upon the maximization of Narcissistic Supply. When asleep, I am sad. The all-pervasive, engulfing melancholy of somnolence. I wake up sinking, converging on a black hole of screams and pain. I withdraw in horror. I don’t want to go there. I cannot go there.

People often mistake depression for emotion. They say: “But you are sad” and they mean: “But you are human”, “But you have emotions”. And this is wrong.

True, depression is a big component in a narcissist’s emotional make-up. But it mostly has to do with the absence of Narcissistic Supply.

It mostly has to do with nostalgia to more plentiful days, full of adoration and attention and applause. It mostly occurs after the narcissist has depleted his Secondary Source of Narcissistic Supply (spouse, mate, girlfriend, colleagues) for a “replay” of his days of glory. Some narcissists even cry – but they cry exclusively for themselves and for their lost paradise. And they do so conspicuously and publicly – to attract attention.

The narcissist is a human pendulum hanging by the thread of the void that is his False Self. He swings between brutal and vicious abrasiveness – and mellifluous, saccharine sentimentality. It is all a simulacrum. A verisimilitude. A facsimile. Enough to fool the casual observer. Enough to extract the drug – other people’s glances – the reflection that sustains this house of cards somehow.

But the stronger and more rigid the defences – and nothing is more resilient than narcissism – the bigger and deeper the hurt they aim to compensate for.

One’s narcissism stands in direct relation to the seething abyss and the devouring vacuum that one harbours in one’s True Self.

I know it’s there. I catch glimpses of it when I am tired, when I hear music, when reminded of an old friend, a scene, a sight, a smell. I know it is awake when I am asleep. I know that it subsists of pain – diffuse and inescapable. I know my sadness. I have lived with it and I have encountered it full force.

Perhaps I choose narcissism, as I have been “accused”. And if I do, it is a rational choice of self-preservation and survival. The paradox is that being a self-loathing narcissist may be the only act of self-love I have ever committed.

The Narcissist’s Clarion Call

Background

This dream was related to me by a male, 46 years old, who claims to be in the throes of a major personal transformation. Whether he is a narcissist (as he believes himself to be) or not is quite irrelevant. Narcissism is a language. A person can choose to express himself in it, even if he is not possessed by the disorder. The dreamer made this choice.

Henceforth, I will treat him as a narcissist, though insufficient information renders a “real” diagnosis impossible. Moreover, the subject feels that he is confronting his disorder and that this could be a significant turning point on his way to being healed. It is in this context that this dream should be interpreted. Evidently, if he chose to write to me, he is very preoccupied with his internal processes. There is every reason to believe that such conscious content invaded his dream.

The Dream

“I was in a run-down restaurant/bar with two friends sitting at a table in a large open area with a few other tables and a bar. I did not like the music or the smoky atmosphere or other customers or greasy food, but we were travelling and were hungry and it was open and the only place we could find.

There was a woman with other people at a table about 10 feet in front of me that I found attractive, and noticed she was noticing me as well. There was also another woman with other people at a table about 30 feet to my right, old with heavy make-up and poorly dyed hair, loud, obnoxious, drunk who noticed me. She started saying negative things to me, and I tried to ignore her. She just got louder and more derogatory, with horrible rude and jabbing comments. I tried to ignore her, but my other friends looked at me with raised eyebrows, as if to ask: ‘How much more are you going to take before you stand up for yourself?’ I felt sick to my stomach, and did not want to confront her, but everyone in the place was now noticing her confrontation of me, and she was almost screaming at me. I couldn’t believe no one was telling her to stop it, to be civil, to be nice.

I finally looked over at her and raised my voice and told her to shut up. She looked at me and seemed to get even angrier, and then looked at her plate and picked up a piece of food and threw it at me! I couldn’t believe it. I told her I wasn’t going to take one more thing, and to stop it now or I would call the police. She got up, walked towards me, picking up a plate of popcorn from another table, and upended it flat upon the top of my head. I stood up and said: ‘That’s it! That’s assault! You’re going to jail!’ and went to the cash register area by the door and called the police.

The police instantly appeared and took her away, with her resisting arrest the whole time. I sat down and someone at the table next to me said: ‘Now you can open up the dam gate.’ I said: ‘What?’, and he explained how the woman was actually pretty powerful and owned a dam and had shut the gate down years ago, but that now she was locked up we could go open it up.

We piled into a truck and I was led into a cavernous room and shown a small room with a glass wall in it and a big wheel, a control valve. I was told that I could turn it whenever I wanted. So I started to turn it and the water started flowing. I could easily see it through the glass, and the level on the glass rose higher the more I turned the wheel. Soon there was a torrent, and it was thrilling. I had never seen such an incredible roar of water. It was like the Niagara falls flowing through the huge room. I got frightened along with being thrilled, but discovered I could lessen the water with the valve if it got to be too much. It went on for a long time, and we whooped and laughed and felt so excited. Finally, the water grew less no matter how wide I opened the valve, and it reached a steady flow.

I noticed the pretty woman from the grill way across the huge area, and she seemed to be looking for someone. I hoped it was me. I opened the door, and went out to go meet her. On the way out, I got grease on my hand, and picked up a rag on the table to wipe it off. The rag had even more grease on it, and so now my hands were completely covered in grease. I picked up another rag on top of a box, and there were wet spark plugs stuck with globs of grease to the underside of the rag, lined up in order as if they used to be in an engine and someone stuck them in this order on purpose, and some of it got on my clothes. The guys with me laughed and I laughed with them, but I left without going to meet the woman, and we went back to the grill.

I found myself in a tiny room with a table in it and a picture window looking out into the area where everyone was sitting and eating. The door was open into a back hallway. I started to go out, but a man was coming into the room. For some reason he frightened me, and I backed up. However, he was robot-like, and walked to the window and looked out to the dining area, making no indication that he even noticed me, and stared blandly at the people having fun. I left and went out into the dining area. I noticed everyone staring at me in an unfriendly way. I started for the exit, but one of the policemen who had arrested the woman from the night before was off-duty in plain clothes and grabbed my arm and twisted me around and shoved me face down on a table. He told me that what I did to the woman was wrong, and that no one liked me because of it. He said that just because I had the law on my side and was in the right didn’t mean anyone would like me. He said if I was smart I would leave town. Others were around me and spit on me.

He let me go, and I left. I was driving in a car alone out of town. I didn’t know what became of the friends I was with. I felt both elated and ashamed at the same time, crying and laughing at the same time, and had no idea where to go and what I was doing.”

The Interpretation

As the dream unfolds, the subject is with two friends. These friends vanish towards the end of the dream and he doesn’t seem to find this worrisome. “I didn’t know what became of the friends I was with.” This is a strange way to treat one’s friends. It seems that we are dealing not with three dimensional, full-blown, flesh and blood friends but with FRIENDLY MENTAL FUNCTIONS. Indeed, they are the ones who encourage the subject to react to the old woman’s antics. “How much more are you going to take before you stand up for yourself?” – they ask him, cunningly. All the other people present at the bar-restaurant do not even bother to tell the woman “to stop, to be civil, to be nice”. This eerie silence contributes to the subject’s reaction of disbelief that mushrooms throughout this nightmare. At first, he tries to emulate their behaviour and to ignore the woman himself. She says negative things about him, goes louder and more derogatory, horribly rude and jabbing and he still tries to ignore her. When his friends push him to react: “I felt sick to my stomach and did not want to confront her.” He finally does confront her because “everyone was noticing” as she was almost screaming at him.

The subject emerges as the plaything of others. A woman screams at him and debases him, friends prod him to react, and motivated by “everyone” he does react. His actions and reactions are determined by input from the outside. He expects others to do for him the things that he finds unpleasant to do by himself (to tell the woman to stop, for instance). His feeling of entitlement (“I deserve this special treatment, others should take care of my affairs”) and his magical thinking (“If I want something to happen, it surely will”) are so strong – that he is stunned when people do not do his (silent) bidding. This dependence on others is multi-faceted. They mirror the subject to himself. He modifies his behaviour, forms expectations, gets disbelievingly disappointed, punishes and rewards himself and takes behavioural cues from them (“The guys with me laughed and I laughed with them”). When confronted with someone who does not notice him, he describes him as robot-like and is frightened by him. The word “look” disproportionately recurs throughout the text. In one of the main scenes, his confrontation with the rude, ugly woman, both parties do not do anything without first “looking” at each other. He looks at her before he raises his voice and tells her to shut up. She looks at him and gets angrier.

The dream opens in a “run down” restaurant/bar with the wrong kind of music and of customers, a smoky atmosphere and greasy food. The subject and his friends were travelling and hungry and the restaurant was the only open place. The subject takes great pains to justify his (lack of) choice. He does not want us to believe that he is the type of person to willingly patronise such a restaurant. What we think about him is very important to him. Our look still tends to define him. Throughout the text, he goes on to explain, justify, excuse, reason and persuade us. Then, he suddenly stops. This is a crucial turning point.

It is reasonable to assume that the subject is relating to his personal Odyssey. At the end of his dream, he continues his travels, continues his life “ashamed and elated at the same time”. We are ashamed when our sense of propriety is offended and we are elated when it is reaffirmed. How can these contradictory feelings coexist? This is what the dream is about: the battle between what the subject has been taught to regard as true and proper, the “shoulds” and the “oughts” of his life, usually the result of overly strict upbringing – and what he feels is good for him. These two do not overlap and they foster in the subject a sense of escalating conflict, enacted before us. The first domain is embedded in his Superego (to borrow Freud’s quasi-literary metaphor). Critical voices constantly resound in his mind, an uproarious opprobrium, sadistic criticism, destructive chastising, uneven and unfair comparisons to unattainable ideals and goals. On the other hand, the powers of life are reawakening in him with the ripening and maturation of his personality. He vaguely realises what he missed and misses, he regrets it, and he wants out of his virtual prison. In response, his disorder feels threatened and flexes its tormenting muscles, a giant awakened, Atlas shrugged. The subject wants to be less rigid, more spontaneous, more vivacious, less sad, less defined by the gaze of others, and more hopeful. His disorder dictates rigidity, emotional absence, automatism, fear and loathing, self-flagellation, dependence on Narcissistic Supply, a False Self. The subject does not like his current locus in life: it is dingy, it is downtrodden, it is shabby, and inhabited by vulgar, ugly people, the music is wrong, it is fogged by smoke, polluted. Yet, even while there, he knows that there are alternatives, that there is hope: a young, attractive lady, mutual signalling. And she is closer to him (10 feet) than the old, ugly woman of his past (30 feet). His dream will not bring them together, but he feels no sorrow. He leaves, laughing with the guys, to revisit his previous haunt. He owes this to himself. Then he continues his life.

He finds himself, in the middle of the road of life, in the ugly place that is his soul. The young woman is only a promise. There is another woman “old, with heavy make-up, poorly dyed hair, loud, obnoxious, drunk”. This is his mental disorder. It can scarcely sustain the deception. Its make-up is heavy, its hair dyed poorly, its mood a result of intoxication. It could well be the False Self or the Superego, but I rather think it is the whole sick personality. She notices him, she berates him with derogatory remarks, she screams at him. The subject realises that his disorder is not friendly, that it seeks to humiliate him, it is out to degrade and destroy him. It gets violent, it hurls food at him, it buries him under a dish of popcorn (a cinema theatre metaphor?). The war is out in the open. The fake coalition, which glued the shaky structures of the fragile personality together, exists no longer. Notice that the subject does not recall what insults and pejorative remarks were directed at him. He deletes all the expletives because they really do not matter. The enemy is vile and ignoble and will make use and excuse of any weakness, mistake and doubt to crack the defence set up by the subject’s budding healthier mental structures (the young woman). The end justifies all means and it is the subject’s end that is sought. There is no self-hate more insidious and pernicious than the narcissist’s.

But, to fight his illness, the subject still resorts to old solutions, to old habits and to old behaviour patterns. He calls the police because they represent the Law and What Is Right. It is through the rigid, unflinching, framework of a legal system that he hopes to suppress what he regards as the unruly behaviour of his disorder. Only at the end of his dream he comes to realise his mistake: “He said that just because I had the law on my side and I was in the right didn’t mean that anyone would like me.” The Police (who appear instantly because they were always present) arrest the woman, but their sympathy is with her. His true aides can be found only among the customers of the restaurant/bar, whom he found not to his liking (“I did not like … the other customers…”). It is someone in the next table who tells him about the dam. The way to health is through enemy territory, information about healing can be gotten only from the sickness itself. The subject must leverage his own disorder to disown it.

The dam is a potent symbol in this dream. It represents all the repressed emotions, the now forgotten traumas, the suppressed drives and wishes, fears and hopes. It is a natural element, primordial and powerful. And it is dammed by the disorder (the vulgar, now-imprisoned, lady). It is up to him to open the dam. No one will do it for him: “Now YOU can open the dam gate.” The powerful woman is no more, she owned the dam and guarded its gates for many years ago. This is a sad passage about the subject’s inability to communicate with himself, to experience his feelings unmediated, to let go. When he does finally encounter the water (his emotions), they are safely contained behind glass, visible but described in a kind of scientific manner (“the level on the glass rose higher the more I turned the wheel”) and absolutely controlled by the subject (using a valve). The language chosen is detached and cold, protective. The subject must have been emotionally overwhelmed but his sentences are borrowed from the texts of laboratory reports and travel guides (“Niagara Falls”). The very existence of the dam comes as a surprise to him. “I said: What?, and he explained.”

Still, this is nothing short of a revolution. It is the first time that the subject acknowledges that there is something hidden behind a dam in his brain (“cavernous room”) and that it is entirely up to him to release it (“I was told that I could turn it whenever I wanted”). Instead of turning around and running in panic, the subject turns the wheel (it is a control valve, he hurries to explain to us, the dream must be seen to obey the rules of logic and of nature). He describes the result of his first encounter with his long repressed emotions as “thrilling”, “incredible” “roar(ing)”, “torrent(ial)”. It did frighten him but he wisely learned to make use of the valve and to regulate the flow of his emotions to accord with his emotional capacity. And what were his reactions? “Whooped”, “laughed”, “excited”. Finally, the flow became steady and independent of the valve. There was no need to regulate the water anymore. There was no threat. The subject learned to live with his emotions. He even diverted his attention to the attractive, young woman, who reappeared and seemed to be looking for someone (he hoped it was for him).

But, the woman belonged to another time, to another place and there was no turning back. The subject had yet to learn this final lesson. His past was dead, the old defence mechanisms unable to provide him with the comfort and illusory protection that he hitherto enjoyed. He had to move on, to another plane of existence. But it is hard to bid farewell to part of you, to metamorphesise, to disappear in one sense and reappear in another. A break in one’s consciousness and existence is traumatic no matter how well controlled, well intentioned and beneficial.

So, our hero goes back to visit his former self. He is warned: it is not with clean hands that he proceeds. They get greasier the more he tries to clean them. Even his clothes are affected. Rags, wet (useless) spark plugs, the ephemeral images of a former engine all star in this episode. Those are passages worth quoting (in parentheses my comments):

“I noticed the pretty woman from the grill (=from my past) way across the huge area (=my brain), and she seemed to be looking for someone. I hoped it was me. I opened the door, and went out to go meet her (=back to my past). On the way out, I got grease on my hand (=dirt, warning), and picked up a rag on the table to wipe it off. The rag had even more grease on it (=no way to disguise the wrong move, the potentially disastrous decision), and so now my hands were completely covered in grease (=dire warning). I picked up another rag on top of a box, and there were wet (=dead) spark plugs stuck with globs of grease to the underside of the rag, lined up in order as if they used to be in an engine (=an image of something long gone) and someone stuck them in this order on purpose, and some of it got on my clothes. The guys with me laughed and I laughed with them (=he laughed because of peer pressure, not because he really felt like it), but I left without going to meet the woman, and we went back to the grill (=to the scene of his battle with his mental disorder).”

But, he goes on to the grill, where it all started, this undefined and untitled chain of events that changed his life. This time, he is not allowed to enter, only to observe from a tiny room. Actually, he does not exist there anymore. The man that enters his observation post, does not even see him or notice him. There are grounds to believe that the man who thus entered was the previous, sick version of the subject himself. The subject was frightened and backed up. The robot-like person (?) looked through the window, stared blandly at people having fun. The subject then proceeded to commit the error of revisiting his past, the restaurant. Inevitably, the very people that he debunked and deserted (the elements of his mental disorder, the diseased occupants of his mind) were hostile. The policeman, this time off duty (=not representing the Law) assaults him and advises him to leave. Others spit on him. This is reminiscent of a religious ritual of ex-communication. Spinoza was spat on in a synagogue, judged to have committed in heresy. This reveals the religious (or ideological) dimension of mental disorders. Not unlike religion, they have their own catechism, compulsive rituals, set of rigid beliefs and “adherents” (mental constructs) motivated by fear and prejudice. Mental disorders are churches. They employ institutions of inquisition and punish heretical views with a severity befitting the darkest ages.

But these people, this setting, exert no more power over him. He is free to go. There is no turning back now, all bridges burnt, all doors shut firmly, he is a persona non grata in his former disordered psyche. The traveller resumes his travels, not knowing where to go and what he is doing. But he is laughing and crying and ashamed and elated. In other words, he, finally, after many years, experiences emotions. On his way to the horizon, the dream leaves the subject with a promise, veiled as a threat “If you were smart you would leave town.” If you know what is good for you, you will get healthy. And the subject seems to be doing just that.

 Metaphors of the Mind

The Dialogue of Dreams

Treatment Modalities and Psychotherapies

Ok, so it has been a long time since I was diagnosed with depression. W has NOT mentioned anything about any personality disorder. I found some information about BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER and it definitely sounded like me:
- Avoid real or imaginary abandonment – yes
- A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships – unstable, yes; intense, no
- Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self – probably
- Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging – not sure
- Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior -yes
- Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood – yes
- Chronic feelings of emptiness – yes
- Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger – yes
- Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms – yes

I was convinced that BPD was what I had, but then I read SCHIZOID PERSONALITY DISORDER and again I was convinced that I had it:
A pervasive pattern of detachment from social relationships and a restricted range of expression of emotions in interpersonal settings, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
- Neither desires nor enjoys close relationships, including being part of a family – yes
- Almost always chooses solitary activities – yes
- Has little, if any, interest in having sexual experiences with another person -yes
- Takes pleasure in few, if any, activities – yes
- Lacks close friends or confidants other than first-degree relatives – yes, with a couple of exceptions
- Appears indifferent to the praise or criticism of others – no
- Shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affect – yes

Again, I was convinced that schizoid was it, but kept looking. Next I came across AVOIDANT PERSONALITY DISORDER:
- Be easily hurt by criticism or disapproval – yes
- Hold back too much in intimate relationships – yes
- Be reluctant to become involved with people – yes
- Avoid activities or occupations that involve contact with others – sometimes
- Be shy in social situations out of fear of doing something wrong – sometimes
- Exaggerate potential difficulties – sometimes
- Hold the view they are socially inept, inferior,or unappealing to other people – not usually…

This was it… However, in the back of my mind is still OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER. For a while I was convinced that I had it but then I realized that I have the O, but not so much the C… So I’m not sure if it can be. Maybe it’s a combination of all of the above? Or maybe is none of them and maybe the bipolar diagnosis is more accurate. Or maybe I should think that it’s depression and stop OBSESSING about this whole thing.

I sent many emails to W to find out what she thinks is an accurate diagnosis and she hasn’t answered which makes me think that she does think that I have one of these. It could also be that she wants to ENJOY looking at my face when she tells me…

Stop expecting change, he’s just a lost cause that you’re waiting on.
Take a look around, you could have anyone.
So leave him , undeserving.

Mitt hår börjar bli för långt. Eller i alla fall luggen, den hänger framför mina ögon som någon sorts gammal slöja jag egentligen inte vill ha där. Jag hade en vision om hur jag skulle se ut i håret när min lugg blev så lång som den är nu men det fungerade inte alls som jag tänkt mig. Mitt hår ger mig allvarliga komplex – jag vet vad jag vill ha på mig och jag vet hur jag ska ta hand om mig själv men jag har absolut ingen aning om vad jag ska göra med mitt hår. Det har jag aldrig haft. Att ha någonting fastväxt på huvudet som hela tiden motarbetar dig är bland det värsta som finns.

Hela dagen har känts mörk, som om solen aldrig gick upp. Djupa toner av grått som ackompanjerar kylan. Matchar mitt humör av fullständig hopplöshet. Den här jävla borderline-historien är som någon sorts forntida best. Den dör aldrig, men den kan bli tillfälligt bekämpad. Och erkänner den sig besegrad kryper den tillbaka till det smutsiga hål den kom ifrån för att lägga sig i ide, slicka sina sår. Bara för att vara dubbelt så stark nästa gång.

Det är en förändring i luften och jag tror inte den beror på vädret. Jag har överlevt ett slag. Gör jag det igen?

Some years ago I carefully, then quickly and without care, opened about one hundred plastic blisters, each containing 25 milligrams of diphenhydramine hydrochloride. That’s more than what they recommend for efficacy. The reason that I so flagrantly disregarded McNiell’s (makers of Benadryl) dosage instructions is simple, I’d planned to commit suicide.

And it would have worked, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids.

That act was followed by an awful scene of panic.  Sandra (my girlfriend at the time) was being her dry, academic self as she asked me over the phone, “Whatever did you do that for?” Meaning, of course, my overdose. The pain in my stomach was increasing, as was my determination to lie down and sleep. But there was Sandra, like a British officer in Shaka Zulu, acting like no emergency or brush with death was worth altering her very collected demeanor. For Christ’s sake, what would the Queen think?

Anyway, that was in 1998. Since then I’ve been trying, via therapy and medication, to overcome my illness. Not a single day has gone by since 1998 when I didn’t try to think of ways to improve myself, and control the manic episodes, suicidal depression and erratic behavior. In addition, there have been seven hospitalizations, 15 sessions of electro-convulsive therapy and all sorts of drugs taken. And talk therapy, which is an awful experience. For me, that is.

On that day in 1998, I effectively did die. The person I thought I was is no more. He is a dead parrot. What you see when you see me (rare sightings in public) is a dead parrot nailed to a perch. That’s exactly how I feel.

Up until that day, for 26 years, my name was Darren W. Lyle, student at UMass Boston majoring in evolutionary biology and ancient history, and an employee of the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston. Night Shift. The friends I happened to have were, and still are, very accomplished; Clare, Adam, Moisha, Linda, Sandra. They are all doing very well. Most are married, one has kids, three are working to get (or have gotten) a graduate degree.

Up until that day, I got up and did what I had to do, every day, just like everyone else. There was no “pass” that I could use, I was normal. My opinion of myself was low, but at least I was normal.

Normal.

My illnesses provide daily reminders of why I’m not normal anymore. Of why I could never speak in front of 75 people, like I did in 1992 at the convention of the Socialist Party USA in Milwaukee. As Chair of the Health Care Work group, I also self-published a newsletter. People submitted articles from all over. This was between 1991 and 1998.

While I was in Milwaukee, I met and worked with Frank P. Zeidler, that city’s “Sewer Socialist” mayor for so many years. He helped me get a motion passed, and I was at a dinner with him and a bunch of other Reds. The greatest honor of my life. Mayor Zeidler is gone now. Anyway, that was in 1992.

I made the Dean’s List at UMass Boston for all my time there. Early to mid-90’s. And I really loved every minute of school. Well, most minutes.

Naturally, there are many moments that I think on proudly. They are all from before 1998.

After you try to commit suicide, people have a tough time trusting you again. One must be careful not to build a nest in the heart of one who won’t be around for long. And the struggle of the illness itself is rather unpleasant. Two anti-psychotics caused grand mal seizures, and my memory is unreliable at best after the “shock therapy.”

When I walk about in the world, going to an appointment or buying bread, I feel like an old man. Withered. I’m here, but something that once was part of me is gone. It died in my bedroom in 1998, with my girlfriend on the phone as I drifted asleep.

Last night saw a week of  Motown celebrations in London kick-off with the stellar Funk Brothers  jamming at the Borderline….

Tonight sees the first of 3 hotly anticipated Motown sessions at the Jazz Cafe, featuring the Funk Brothers, Sherri Payne and Lynda Laurence.

Wednesday’s set features special guests, Mable John, Chris Clark and Brenda Holloway, and the final Jazz Cafe show on Thursday is devoted to Thelma Houston  and guests.

Not to mention the big Hammersmith Apollo show on Friday featuring all of the above! Christmas has come early, right?!

To continue our celebrations on Soul Food, we have some further delicious Motown specials for you to enjoy…

1. Mable John interview on 6 Music

Listen to Craig Charles’ brilliant interview with Mable John from Saturday’s Soul and Funk show on BBC 6 Music  here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/funk_soul/

2. Jack Ashford Interview on Solar

Great interview with Funk Brother Jack on Clive Richardson’s show. Also featuring the Divas!