I know it's tough to be close to me. It's tough to be the one sleeping next to me because that one person will inevitably feel like a yo-yo. If you are with me or have been with me, you either need a therapist from the start or you need one during and after the relationship. (warning: I contradict myself) I inadvertently get with unavailable men or men who I can fix, so I don't get overwhelmed. I think my friends and family would say that I've never been attracted to men, who they might feel are put together well. I get with the wounded souls, so I can love them through it and so i can be left behind (but not in vain.) I always sabotage the relationship enough so that to keep sane and to survive, it is the man who will eventually break up with me. The secret promise of that freedom allows me to get into relationships. Otherwise, I'd be too claustrophobic to even get close to being in a relationship at all. I am devastated at first, but shortly thereafter I get totally over it and feel so happy with the outcome and growth of the ex and enjoy being single. At the end of each relationship, I romanticize myself as Pablo Neruda's bike in the query, "How did the abandoned bicycle win its freedom?" in his Book of Questions. And the self-narrative of my history of relationships exemplifies the answer to that question, "Through my utility of course- the fruit of my love, the sacrifice for my freedom." And I believe in my usefulness to what has gone in the past so muc that I veiw myself as heroic-ready to love and seek out for what seems like a pure self-sacrificing love.
Of course, I didn't know these evolving pattern with my first two relationships. Then the truly unavailable men came. The first unavailable man was an anxiety ridden relationship as I was beginning to see my pattern. The second unavailable man came at a time when I didn't want the heaviness of thinking and freed myself with that false sense of freedom and bravery, the type that doesn't call on me to have responsibilities and fears. AND I enjoyed the unadulterated carnal pleasure. The relationship felt so light, so unburdened, and so far away from any coffin-sized-no-ventilation-type-elevator fear because I did not take it seriously and I imagined no future with the man. It was then that I diagnosed myself with commitmentphobia, but I didn't take that diagnosis seriously.
I got into another relationship with the mission to fix. I realize now that I would build him up, then I would tear him down through my instability and my uncertainties. At first it seemed like that pattern had a purpose- in fortifying his strength. But then the cycles of break-ups and good make-ups, started to increase in frequency. I hurt him really bad each time that I would break up with him (on a weekly basis). Now my unhealthy way of dealing with the unresolved inside and outside of me became a test to his love for me. And all this in the context of my mental and emotional pathology of numbness- of not being able to feel and be vulnerable to anyone or anything. Can you imagine how unloved and how inadequate he felt? Very much, but instead of leaving, he kept on letting me comeback. And yes, this is another contradiction because it is I who always came back and he that always took me back. And instead of giving up on me, he started getting stronger. By the time I revolted against starting to be attached to him, starting to feel tremendous fears about the future and therefore lashing out because of the irrational fears, he was starting to learn me. And maybe to give himself a break or something intuitive in him urged him on, he left for China on an adventure for himself, which gave me the space to breathe because at this point the phobia had overwhelmed me and I was no longer myself in the relationship (which is also a contradiction because i don't even know who I become in a relationship-just someone I am not proud of). It was a gamble because he left as that guy who I would never get into a relationship with, you know the kind who doesn't need too much fixing.
For about 10 days in the beginning of my 3rd block in medical school, I slept very little and cried spontaneously. I couldn't get any studying done. I didn't know what to do. I felt stuck, so I imagined my life without him for seven days. And although we need a lot of work together and need to work on ourselves separate from each other, I found that I really liked his soul. However, my fears of relationships make me revolt against needing and wanting him, so I push him away "by all means necessary" short of physically harming him. It is especially bad, when things get good in the relationship. When it comes down to one of the most important relationships in my life, I am nowhere in sight of my ideal. When I'm in a relationship, the Gandhi or MLK, Jr., in me somehow gets anorexia nervosa and quickly wastes away, so thin that he gets lost between the cracks of the callouses on the soles of my feet.
And don't think that I don't reason with myself at these moments of overwhelming fear, I do. It's funny, whenever, I tell someone my problem they tell me ways to think about my problem and offer solutions- "why don't I think about this and that...think about it this way...be positive." And they sound like a broken record because not only do others tell me the same things, but I also know it myself. I think I also believe those things to be true, but it doesn't help the fact, that I am gripped by fear and I feel like i am suffocating inside and I lash out to get rid of whatever is making me feel so paralyzed. And a friend recently described what I experience in relationship and given my history as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As Wiki describes it:
The diagnostic criteria for PTSD, per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (Text Revision)[1] (DSM-IV-TR), may be summarized as:
- A. Exposure to a traumatic event: CHECK
- B. Persistent reexperience (e.g. flashbacks, nightmares): CHECK
- C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma (e.g.
inability to talk about things even related to the experience.
Avoidance of things and discussions that trigger flashbacks and
reexperiencing symptoms. Fear of losing control.): CHECK
- D. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal (e.g. difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger and hypervigilance ): CHECK
- E. Duration of symptoms more than 1 month: CHECK, YES ALL OF MY ADOLESCENT AND ADULT LIFE
- F. Significant impairment in social, occupational, or other
important areas of functioning (e.g. problems with work and
relationships.) CHECK, IT'S HARD TO STAY IN RELATIONSHIPS
Notably, criterion A (the "stressor") consists of two parts, both of
which must apply for a diagnosis of PTSD. The first (A1) requires that
"the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or
events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a
threat to the physical integrity of self or others." CHECK
The second (A2) requires that "the person’s response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror." CHECK
The DSM-IV-TR criterion differs substantially from the previous DSM-III-R stressor criterion, which specified the traumatic event should be of a type that would cause "significant symptoms of distress in almost anyone," and that the event was "outside the range of usual human experience." Since the introduction of DSM-IV, the number of possible PTSD traumas has increased and one study suggests that the increase is around 50%.[19]
The other day, I was walking and thinking to myself, "you know you'd be a great partner, if you didn't have the experiences that you had as a kid." I just want to be held and to hold, but there's that dirty little secret of the wild rose, it has sharp, love-seeking, poisonous thorns right around where it's heart should be. In intimate relationships, I carry my battle gear in case it goes to the "intimate and vulnerable" zone- the attack or die zone. And I usually attack and they throw up the white flag or tailspin into depression while in the relationship and relieved on when I am freed from it. And in the end of relationships, I say to myself, I fought on the side of love (on God's side). In intimate relationships, I have to remind myself to meditate on the words by June Jordan in the poem "Do you do well to be angry?"(and maybe aptly dedicated to yours truly-eons ago when I thought I knew about love):"And I hope we will learn, soon enough, that sometimes there is no difference.
Sometimes I am the terrorist I must disarm.
Sometimes I am the Penalty, and sometimes I am the Companion of the Fire."
I am putting together what it is that I have been going through for a few years now. And I think it's the gradual realization of reality. And what is that reality?
In the guilded cage of youth, I believed in a God and the stories in the Bible. I believed in ghosts, spirits and saints. I believed in a world of magic and mystery. I lived with the conviction that the good will prevail and the Truth will never die and won't be hidden for long. I believed that nice guys may finish last, but they finish best. I believed that Lady Luck was biased towards the decent men and women of the world. In my young adulthood, I was introduced to spirituality instead of religion and God in myself instead of stories of a God external to myself. I learned of a beautiful godless world such as this that gave sunsets and an afternoon swimming after a sea turtle as breathtaking as any "high" from a religious weekend retreat. And it seemed like that was my saving grace- to be atheist/humanist and Godful at the same time, but as time went on and I felt empty and devoid of something crucial, I dug deeper into that abyss called suffering.
What I found in those spaces of darkness is not that brilliant or new at all, but something that could potentially be very dangerous. A realization that gave such mindblowing freedom that it is very scary to speak of and the responsibility to speak of it as accurately as possible is so great that I would have to plead the "Tao of Pooh" or the "Lao Tzu":
"He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know."
I feel like all major religions have alluded to it in the wholeness of their texts.
So now I am in the process of building a strong foundation for myself. I am picking and choosing what stories and myths I will hold close to my heart to live and create the world that I want. I am learning to be a true artist of my life and my world. I hope that with that freedom, I will have the strength and courage to always be true to myself (even though the "self" is still under construction). And I hope that as I am experimenting and trying on different outfits and constructing that foundation, people around me can continue to love me to give me strength and I hope that I can love deeply to give myself the courage to realize the life I am meant to live and to realize the person that I am and I am meant to be.
Chapter 1: Born to beauty that I could not see, but loved nonetheless: PI
Chapter 2: Torn from my Roots and Driven
Chapter 3: Wanderer Lost
Here comes Chapter 4: Untitled
It's too bad he lost, but I heard he got enough exposure to sell an album that you can find... read more
on America's Got Talent (Chicago) - Cas Haley