A crisis of faith

It’s just a feeling.

I’ve heard this line on countless occasions, rattled off like a proven panacea by well-meaning people who have found it sufficient to comfort them in trying times. But since I appear to be of a different evolutionary track from the rest of you modern humans, why on earth would this simple little explanation satisfy my unceasing ruminations?    

I think I have always believed that there is something out there, bigger than all of this mess, a power beyond anything mere humans can conceive. Sure, the particulars of my working theory have changed over time, evolving with me through the seasons of my life, but even when it felt cold and indifferent, that something still existed.

I have tried to remain as open-minded as I can be about the proverbial big picture.

And I have wholeheartedly acknowledged that all too often we plod along for what feels like eternity before that watershed moment when it all finally makes sense, when those seemingly random pieces come together and the higher order is revealed. We laugh and shake our heads at how foolish we were for either not seeing it all along or for ever having doubted there was a grand plan in the first place. We never know how long it will take and we don’t usually have much control over the way it all goes down, yet we persist in our belief because it brings order to the chaos. We desperately need to have that light at the end of the tunnel to make the bitterness of life palatable. We have patience because we have faith and we have faith because it keeps us sane. 

Up until recently, my master theory went like this: If I am suffering, then…

     a)    there is something amiss and I need to make a change to alleviate the suffering.

     (or)

     b)   there is some value in the experience of suffering and I must feel it because the only way over it is through it.

I guess I’ve been a little bit Serenity Prayer and a little bit Hanged Man. In either scenario, I have reasoned, suicide would be pointless. He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it. There are no shortcuts in my theory, so whatever comes next will surely include the same unresolved issues (in whatever form they may present themselves) that I intended to leave behind when I ducked out on them in this life. There are seldom accidents. Never say never.

My body is matter. When I die, those elements that comprised the whole of me will be tossed back into the cauldron and stirred around with the rest of the soup to eventually reemerge, synthesized as other things. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as it were. There is nothing individual or unique about my physical manifestation, parts is parts and I’m totally OK with that. However, if my feelings are nothing more than a function of this physical vessel, an equally inconsequential collection of raw materials with no meaning beyond my immediate perception, what’s left? How can I have a soul without love? How can this mysterious life force that animates me - this unexplained miracle that makes my heart beat out of passion as well as fear – not matter? Npi.   

So, if you’re going to reduce feelings to nothing more than a chemical released in the brain - minimize them as simple mechanical responses - then how does anything have any meaning whatsoever? If my guilt about harming others and my joy about helping others are just feelings, if my moral compass points to nowhere, why shouldn’t I rape and pillage my way through life? Take what I can when I can, kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out. I mean, if you take away the significance of feelings, the whole freaking structure of civilization falls apart. That reasoning has offended me every time I’ve heard it. So I silently scoffed and rejected on the inside, acquiescing and feigning relief on the outside as the easiest response. Just another reminder of how I’m impossibly different. Nothing to see here folks, move along. But now I’m beginning to wonder if this wasn’t contempt prior to investigation. It is only in the last day or so that I have honestly considered embracing utter nothingness as a valid and feasible possibility, and it kind of scares the living shit out of me.

But that’s exactly where I am now. I have doubts. What if there really is no man behind the curtain? What if the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about? We humans have a bad habit of making ourselves out to be far more essential than we actually are. Once upon a time we accepted as a natural and undeniable fact that we were the literal center of the universe. If we continue to chip away at that faulty notion of having some special significance, we will eventually cut ourselves right out of the picture. Maybe that’s for good reason. Maybe the truth really ends with that most logical and likely of conclusions. There’s nothing special whatsoever about any of this. Life’s a bitch and then you die.

If that’s the case, wtf am I even bothering for? I may as well just throw in the towel and call it a day. Why prolong pointless suffering? If I’m being completely honest, (when am I ever not lol), my checking out wouldn’t really leave that big of a void. Aside from my pets, my parents, and a few close friends, my absence wouldn’t leave that much of a ripple. I’m just not that important. I’ve never been much of a gambler. Experience has proven that my luck sucks. So why am I holding out for that unlikely long shot that maybe there’s a reason after all, when it makes so little sense under the microscope? That magical scenario of happily ever after is seeming less and less probable.    

I used to be the Queen of Swords personified. Negative, critical, cold, uncompromising, black or white, the glass is half empty and evaporating fast - it will undoubtedly be empty soon, just watch the level falling as we speak. It took a good long while for me to become aware of it and the ways it was holding me back, and I have worked long and hard to retrain my thinking and adopt a sunnier attitude. Fake it til you make it, like attracts like, smile for a change and you’ll automatically feel happier. I’ve made decent progress, but when the scale wobbles I still tend to lean in the wrong direction. Yesterday at work I observed this tendency leap out of me like a wolf shedding his sheep disguise and I looked over at DD to say how I hate that about myself. Maybe it’s a phase and I’ll come back around. Misery really sucks.

Symptoms revisited

I really didn’t think I was going to make it to work today. I went to bed at 22:30, but the itching and swallowing and whatnot had me in such a state that none of the cats even bothered to follow me in to bed. Tossing around in frustration I imagined a gang of tiny invisible faeries poking at me and laughing at my exasperation. The last time I remember looking at the clock it was 23:30. Rising and shining was out of the question when the alarm went off at 8:00, so I moved to the couch and set another alarm for 9:00. After hitting snooze several times I eventually forced myself up at 9:45. I fed the cats, washed my face, and brushed my hair but concluded that it was a hair-up kind of a day. I scrambled around to find the most recent (sic cleanest) clothes I had discarded about the house – yeah, all the laundry is still in the basement – and sat down at my vanity to pick myself ready. I’m trying to be quick, but oh how stupid can I be getting drawn back in over and over with just one more little spot over here. The clock is behind me, beaming a toxic anxiety ray through the back of my head and into my brain with those big ugly arbitrary green numbers. I can already hear the uncertainty in my supervisor’s response as I struggle to put it into words that might make some sense to another person.    

How am I going to get out of this one? My battery is dead, I can’t make it today. Yes, I’ve already called and I’m waiting on the truck. God, I just want to go back to sleep. Am I going to lose my job? Would it be more honorable to just resign now, before I ruin my reputation as a reliable employee? I can’t even manage one 4 hour shift a week? Has it really come to this? OK, I’m making myself move. I just have to push myself harder. It will be OK once I get moving. I can be 10 minutes late if I call from the car, right? God I don’t know how I’m ever going to do this. My crazy is sticking out in too many places right now. Maybe today will be the day that it comes out so undeniably obnoxious and uncontrollable that I make a real mess of things.

I chatted with Gus about the insanity of it all during the staff meeting. I was feeling super insecure about doing it, but the subject came up so I swallowed back my reluctance and shared a few of my irrationalities because I knew he would benefit from hearing the vulnerable testimony of a fellow OCD sufferer. Yeah, sometimes I’m codependent like that. We each do our own crazy shit to exert control over the meaningless things that we’ve convinced ourselves are essential. I only wish my crazy shit was more simple and straightforward like his.

I almost forgot just how crazy I am until he said that he couldn’t see the rash around my mouth. Well, no, of course not, nobody else can see these things like me. Just like that shameful scar on my face that I walked around sporting like an extra limb throughout my entire youth. That scar that nobody else ever even noticed. I know it. Sometimes I can pass by a mirror and glance over at myself quickly enough that my eyes miss the dozens of tiny imperfections that scream hateful demeaning things at me when I’m at home all alone with my tweezers. I have to be quick and it doesn’t always work, but sometimes I can take a step back and see the forest for the trees. I know I’m crazy that way, but at least I am aware of it.

  

I can remember first learning of the phenomenon we now know as body dysmorphia in the context of Karen Carpenter’s death, and wondering if it was like looking into a warped mirror that distorted her image into a larger version of herself. How else could you explain an otherwise lovely and talented young woman starving herself to emaciation? Turns out, if she was anything like me, it’s not so simple as a vision problem. She didn’t perceive herself as any fatter than she actually was, rather it was an error in judgment that had nothing whatsoever to do with the blatant reality of size. Her identical weight and build would have struck her as sickening on any other body, but somehow she was *different* from everyone else. The same rules didn’t apply to her; there were extenuating circumstances. While the literal image she saw with her eyes was identical to what everyone else saw in the mirror, it simply was not *good enough* to compensate for the ugly unlovable parts that only she could see, larger than life, announcing to the world her despicableness, compelling her to punish herself into conformity with whatever version of acceptable she could *control*. The devil is always in the details. It’s like looking at old footage of a successful youth enrichment program showing happy, bright-faced children wearing clean crisp uniforms, blissfully singing and dancing together out in fresh air, enjoying all of the benefits that their community could possibly provide. It looks idyllic if you don’t understand the significance of the crooked cross down in the corner of the screen, in which case your impression changes from delight to horror in an instant.          

During my shift I printed out some training materials on PTSD that caught my eye. Reading it over tonight I learned about complex trauma. Altered self-perception? Check. Guilt and shame? Check. Critical inner voice? Check. Self-destructive behavior? Check. Difficulty trusting? Check. Trouble managing emotions? Check. On and on it goes. “Self-soothing” really stood out to me. I had difficulty identifying ways that I know how to do this effectively. I also began to think about just how much I dissociate. I was rather alarmed when I did a quick self-appraisal. Great, another horrifying label that doesn’t help a lick. More tears, no more answers.

Instead of crying about it, I sat down to update my health spreadsheet. There were a few pills I stopped taking, and I added a category I’m calling “other symptoms” which lists problems that are not currently being formally treated by doctors or with pharmaceuticals. So far I only have three: Photosensitivity, chronic headaches, chronic back pain. Not sure how significant they are, but I do like to be thorough. And then I got comfy at my disaster of a desk and repeatedly pushed my cat away so I could write this. It’s going on 22:00 so maybe my broken brain will let me go to sleep. I’m meeting with a care manager for the first time tomorrow in hopes of getting access to services that could help me. Should be interesting.   

Drugs

I met DeAndre January 23rd around 19:30 down on Portland in an undesirable neighborhood. I had scraped and flaked every little bit possible and then some. My symptoms were at a literal all-time high and I was coming unglued. My loser neighbor BJ was no help (why would he be?) so, in an act of desperation I started cruising the city for some teotihuacán.

I pulled up next to a junky white pickup and hollered through my passenger window. The guy in the passenger seat hollered back but I couldn’t hear him, then I had to move because I was blocking traffic, then the driver came out and asked me if I was willing to travel. I was shaking when I jokingly replied that I wasn’t going to China. We drove a zigzag west through side streets and finally arrived I don’t even know where. That’s when DeAndre came over to my side of the car. I rolled down my window, looked him in the eyes, and asked him to hop in.

You’re an angel. I’m sick and I’m losing weight. This helps with the nausea.

I wasn’t lying.

I have a whole medicine cabinet full of pills. My doctors loooove pills.

Oh, so true.

I’m over-sensitive to stimuli, like light and sound. It dampens my senses so I can focus.

Again, I was being honest.

Yesterday I came home from acupuncture and lay down on the couch to sleep. I drew the blanket up over my head and let my mind go quiet, resigned to drifting away into the same gray nothingness as the day before, and the day before that.

I’m losing my life. The house just keeps getting worse. The litter boxes are an embarrassment. I’m losing more ground each day, each week. I need to get up and find a way to power through or I’ll never get it back to a manageable level. I need to try and have some kind of a life, tired or not.

I got up and dug in. I was determined. I kept at it for a good four and a half hours. It was like running uphill but I made good progress and felt inspired. My back hurt when I was done, but it was a good hurt.

  

Hey, I printed it all out for you. Not to change the subject, but is there any way you can hook me up tonight? Are you free right now? OK, On my way with turkey and mashed potatoes.

Thank God.

When I got home I went right back at it. I stayed up too late because I worked up such momentum that I couldn’t wind myself back down again. I got up this morning, felt tired and achy, and went to work at my job. And I’m writing this 24 hours later with no naps.

Do I worry? Of course. I am always monitoring my rate of consumption, questioning my motives, checking in with my higher power about it, taking time to reflect on it here, etc. And then there’s that ever-present guilty conscience I like to impose on myself.

Do I rationalize? Naturally. This helps like nothing else does right now. It is already medically approved and helping a lot of people. It will be surely be legal here soon. It isn’t nearly as dangerous as many the of the pills I’ve taken as prescribed.

And DeAndre? He deserves his own post.