Posts tagged with "self-evaluation"

pana-vision

I chose to brave New Year’s alone this year. The tim­ing of my seda­tives worked out where the option of tak­ing one was avail­able, but I even­tu­al­ly decid­ed against it. Isolation was some­thing I need­ed to face head-on, when every­one else was cel­e­brat­ing with friends and loved ones. If I could make it through (rel­a­tive­ly) sober, I could sur­vive the great­est fear I’ve had since I was a child: aban­don­ment.

alfie

At the casu­al box­ing day gath­er­ing I had the plea­sure of meet­ing Alfie, Cristina’s dap­per res­cue mutt who deals with the same social anx­i­ety issues as I do. Maybe that’s why we got along so well.

Probably also the fact that we were both dosed up.

It did­n’t end up being any­thing spec­tac­u­lar. Just a night with a gen­er­ous three hour win­dow to catch up on Nolan’s lat­est work1 and some extra time to fin­ish a cam­paign in Halo’s Master Chief Collection2.

Normalcy end­ed up being a gift I did­n’t real­ize I need­ed. The approach of each hol­i­day sea­son has been a loom­ing spec­tre ever since I cut the pow­er cord off a stand­ing Ikea lamp and made a noose to hang myself from the ban­is­ter 10-ish years ago3, and the anniver­sary effect still hits me hard.

Being alone was a way to prove to myself that I’m not so help­less now, that I don’t have to be trapped in a past that still haunts me. I’ve come a long way since that fate­ful morn­ing, when I was inter­rupt­ed by two cops who would­n’t leave unless I agreed to let them dri­ve me to the hos­pi­tal. Developing a wider emo­tion­al vocab­u­lary, nur­tur­ing healthy rela­tion­ships instead of tox­ic ones, work­ing with a ther­a­pist every month, and con­sis­tent­ly step­ping out of my com­fort zone so I can learn and grow are all things that have giv­en me bet­ter tools and resources to sur­vive.

opening presents

A new set of match­ing paja­mas for the whole fam­i­ly each year is the kind of tra­di­tion I’ll nev­er get to have for myself, a fact that was much more painful for me to accept before I start­ed look­ing for ful­fill­ment in ways that don’t depend on oth­ers. Instead of feel­ing a tinge of sad­ness, I can now enjoy and appre­ci­ate expe­ri­ences like this.

Spending Christmas with Aaron and his fam­i­ly this year cer­tain­ly stayed any feel­ings of lone­li­ness.

When I told him how scared I was of being iso­lat­ed over the hol­i­days, he insist­ed I stay with them or risk dis­ap­point­ing the kids. It was a touch­ing threat, as well as a sign of how pro­tec­tive Aaron is of the peo­ple he cares about (and some­thing I would­n’t have noticed until Heather point­ed out).

A few years ago, I might have believed it was a ges­ture out of char­i­ty or pity. Now I’m con­fi­dent enough in my self-worth to know the invi­ta­tion was extend­ed because he gen­uine­ly enjoys my com­pa­ny and believes I’m a pos­i­tive influ­ence on his chil­dren (who have referred to me as “Uncle Jeff” ever since they could talk).

hand drawn Christmas cards

I col­lect my birth­day and Christmas cards, one of the few tan­gi­ble things I receive from the dwin­dling fam­i­ly I have left, and prob­a­bly a sign that there are lin­ger­ing inse­cu­ri­ties. Hand-drawn ones like these are par­tic­u­lar­ly spe­cial; I feel seen when some­one appre­ci­ates the meals I make them or my gam­ing abil­i­ties or sim­ply myself as a per­son.

To be loved by chil­dren and ani­mals — beings who are too inno­cent to have ulte­ri­or motives for express­ing such feel­ings — is some­thing I’ve come to cher­ish a great deal after a life­time of emo­tion­al manip­u­la­tion.

Being around four kids and five adults left me so wired that I had to leave a night ear­li­er than planned so as to avoid burn­ing myself out, even if years of unbear­able lone­li­ness meant I des­per­ate­ly want­ed to stay. It was com­fort­ing enough to see me through one of the most dif­fi­cult nights I’ve annu­al­ly come to dread.

When I thanked him after­wards, he told me it would mean a great deal to every­one if I joined them each year, but no pres­sure. Having a place to go, but more impor­tant­ly, know­ing it’s because my pres­ence would be val­ued instead of an oblig­a­tion due to rela­tion, has giv­en me a feel­ing of accep­tance and belong­ing I thought would be for­ev­er beyond my reach, and a sense of hope I believed was eter­nal­ly lost.

  1. Oppenheimer was the first of his films that was­n’t my thing, but as with Scorsese, Malick, Anderson, Tarantino, and Villeneuve’s oeu­vres, I’ll always be pay­ing atten­tion. []
  2. I’ve nev­er owned a Microsoft con­sole, so while some mechan­ics and lev­el designs are extreme­ly dat­ed, I’m still enjoy­ing my delve into the his­to­ry of such a huge cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non as the Halo series. []
  3. Dates and mem­o­ries tend to be very hazy around that time, espe­cial­ly when I try not to think about it too much. []

cum dignitate otium, or, les Cent Jours

At some point in my ear­ly adult­hood, I found it far more enjoy­able to par­take in some­thing for the first time when it was in the com­pa­ny of anoth­er – not only as an intro­duc­tion but a time stamp in the rela­tion­ship.

However, this habit even­tu­al­ly became a rein­force­ment (and tes­ta­ment) of a world­view that did­n’t leave room for feel­ings of inher­ent val­ue. I would deny myself any form of plea­sure unless I was with anoth­er per­son1. It’s like I need­ed some­one to val­i­date those expe­ri­ences, and did­n’t know how to give myself per­mis­sion to enjoy them oth­er­wise.

One might have believed that many painful years alone would give me the chance to devel­op a bet­ter sense of self-com­pas­sion, but a career has a way of con­ceal­ing such inad­e­qua­cies. That’s why I had as much grow­ing to do as Heather did, even though I was the one to ini­ti­ate the heal­ing sep­a­ra­tion. Three months would cer­tain­ly be far too long for me to tide myself over with chores or mind­less busy­work. An aver­sion to idle­ness would inevitably lead me to find ways of occu­py­ing my time in a more mean­ing­ful way, and I would be respon­si­ble to no one but myself.

Spending some time in exile also seemed like an effec­tive way for me to learn how to pri­or­i­tize myself, to fig­ure out my wants and needs, to dis­cov­er who I tru­ly am when the mask is down2. Unfortunately, it was­n’t prac­ti­cal for either of us to live apart, even though a com­plete break would have giv­en me a bet­ter chance to heal. As Heather was still work­ing from home3, I spent whole days with the office with the door closed and made it my goal to pass the time in enjoy­able ways.

Continue read­ing “cum dig­ni­tate otium, or, les Cent Jours”…

  1. Another rea­son los­ing L____ was so hard; she was the only oth­er per­son in my life who made it a point not to watch our shows until we were togeth­er. []
  2. How easy this is to for­get after years of cohab­i­ta­tion. []
  3. The pan­dem­ic was in the sec­ond wave. []

aporia of faith

In recent years I’ve been rumi­nat­ing on the ques­tion of whether or not humans have inher­ent val­ue, per­haps because my sui­ci­dal ideation caus­es me to won­der whether life itself is worth­less. The sub­jec­tiv­i­ty of such a idea means I don’t ask any­one for an answer, but I do probe for opin­ions. My friends have all told me that they believe peo­ple are inher­ent­ly valu­able; or, at the very least, they know they’re valu­able because they val­ue them­selves, even if they can’t say the same about any­one else.

This sur­prised me at first; I can remem­ber believ­ing that each per­son is a bur­den on soci­ety who has to earn their place, as soon as I was old enough to under­stand such a con­cept1. But a few years ago when I told this to Jesse, he expressed dis­be­lief based on the way he’s observed my treat­ment of oth­ers.

Being chal­lenged about my views by a per­son I so high­ly respect­ed cer­tain­ly gave me pause to recon­sid­er. When I thought about a stranger I might meet on the street, I felt that that life would be a ben­e­fit to the world, that that per­son deserves to be loved, hap­py, safe, and healthy as much as any­one else sim­ply because they exist. Suddenly, I real­ized that it was myself whom I believed to be worth­less, and I extend­ed this belief to oth­ers to soothe any pains I had over such a thought. I did­n’t despair about my worth­less­ness if every­one else had just as lit­tle val­ue.

I can trace this warped world­view to my child­hood, when my par­ents treat­ed me sim­ply as an exten­sion of their lives. They made it clear that their love was pure­ly con­di­tion­al, based on my obe­di­ence, achieve­ments at school/work, friends, roman­tic part­ners, and how those all com­pared to oth­ers. I was always work­ing from a deficit of love, try­ing to earn their approval and affec­tion by doing the “right” thing, which was defined as what they want­ed2.

This is no more appar­ent than when try­ing to show myself com­pas­sion (or per­haps mag­na­nim­i­ty would be the bet­ter word). Imagining myself as anoth­er per­son before me, every time I say to him “You deserve to be hap­py”, my mind can’t help but fin­ish the sen­tence with “…as long as you…” as if that hap­pi­ness is con­tin­gent upon some lev­el of per­for­mance at a work­place or achieve­ment in a career.

Unfortunately, aware­ness does­n’t resolve the issue. Even though I had an epiphany that helped me under­stand the fal­la­cy of my world­view, try­ing to sud­den­ly believe that I have an inher­ent val­ue seems as implau­si­ble as find­ing a ran­dom peb­ble on the ground and believ­ing that it’s worth the same as a pol­ished gem­stone. No won­der the opin­ion I have of myself has been so great­ly influ­enced by oth­ers; I’ve been rely­ing on the approval of my peers to give me the val­ue I so des­per­ate­ly desire3.

So if the worth of a per­son is sub­jec­tive and there are no absolute truths, how is it pos­si­ble for me to gen­uine­ly believe that I have val­ue after a life­time of believ­ing that I don’t?

  1. I’m sure that grow­ing up in a cap­i­tal­ist soci­ety that views any­one who does­n’t work (includ­ing seniors) as lazy and worth­less con­tributed to this belief. []
  2. Not only would this cause me to feel like I had to con­stant­ly earn my hap­pi­ness, this would also cause me to believe any dif­fi­cul­ties I faced were my fault — that I must be to blame if some­one did­n’t find me attrac­tive, or I must have deserved any­thing I suf­fered. []
  3. I even­tu­al­ly learn that exter­nal forms of val­i­da­tion like this are unre­li­able and gen­er­al­ly unhealthy. []

hello? is this thing on?

The world still turns, even when it’s in lock­down, and there’s been much to say.

If only writ­ing came as eas­i­ly as it used to. The bulk of my entries have been a com­pul­sion, a way to sort out thoughts and feel­ings when I had no one to talk to.

Then I start­ed dat­ing Heather — my first time cohab­i­tat­ing with a roman­tic part­ner — and sud­den­ly had an out­let that was both acces­si­ble and val­i­dat­ing1. It became eas­i­er to turn to her than find the words for a screen that nev­er spoke back.

My time in ther­a­py has also giv­en me bet­ter emo­tion­al mod­er­a­tion; a skill to deal with the dis­tress that comes from depres­sion and trau­ma. Instead of spi­ral­ing into pan­ic or rage, I’ve learned to embrace dif­fi­cult feel­ings and let them pass through me. Scary thoughts and painful mem­o­ries don’t con­trol me the way they used to. A healthy trade for the loss of inspi­ra­tion.

In that sense, I hold an evolv­ing style and sub­ject mat­ter to be pos­i­tive devel­op­ments. After all, I began this blog almost 20 years ago. If I was fill­ing the space with the same things as I was back then it would be an embar­rass­ing sign I had­n’t grown at all. I imag­ine I’ll always have more things to say as long as I con­tin­ue learn­ing, even if the impe­tus is lack­ing.

It makes me won­der why oth­ers stopped blog­ging (or why they start­ed in the first place). Checking my RSS feed is still a habit, but nowa­days I’m left invari­ably dis­ap­point­ed and feel­ing more dis­con­nect­ed than ever. Social media has become too shal­low for my tastes. Medium too imper­son­al. YouTube too obnox­ious and osten­ta­tious and increas­ing­ly com­mer­cial, with Twitch being even worse on all those counts.

And yet there’s relief to be found in the fact that no one knows I’m writ­ing any­more2. This space is no longer sacred when I feel oblig­ed to or inhib­it­ed by an audi­ence. Self-imposed exile became an impor­tant step towards reclaim­ing the sense of con­trol I’d lost. My sto­ry isn’t fin­ished, and per­haps enough time away has giv­en me the dis­tance I need to be com­fort­able shar­ing myself again.

  1. The fact that she’s usu­al­ly on the same intel­lec­tu­al lev­el (or high­er) is also an impor­tant fac­tor. []
  2. With a few notable excep­tions, I’m sure. []

nothing is something worth doing

When talk of COVID was hit­ting our shores and busi­ness­es were start­ing to shut down as a “tem­po­rary” mea­sure, I expect­ed the sit­u­a­tion to last a great deal longer than a month or two. Gut feel­ings sel­dom grace me, but some­thing told me the Western world was severe­ly under­es­ti­mat­ing the sit­u­a­tion. Maybe it was the mem­o­ries of my last trip to Hong Kong in 2009 — five years after the SARS out­break was declared over — when malls and streets that were once packed to the point of claus­tro­pho­bia were then lucky to see more than a hand­ful of souls each day. The ther­mal cam­eras at each bor­der cross­ing in main­land China cer­tain­ly gave me the impres­sion that a pan­dem­ic was some­thing to be tak­en seri­ous­ly.

cat on tree

A while back, the Humane Society host­ed a cat-tree build­ing work­shop, and we decid­ed to make a date of it. Percy, being a percher, is very pleased with the results (espe­cial­ly when com­bined with an emp­ty box).

It’s already been four months since Heather start­ed work­ing from home. The lit­tle space she has set up at the pub table in the liv­ing room offers her a view of the back­yard while she takes calls and makes quotes. Management has decid­ed to fol­low their own safe­ty pro­to­cols1, which means it’ll remain her office for the fore­see­able future. She com­plains to me about how Byron gets in the way of her video meet­ings every time he walks across her lap for atten­tion, but I know deep down she loves show­ing him off to any co-work­er who’ll lis­ten.

Taking lunch­es togeth­er has been an unex­pect­ed lux­u­ry2 — being avail­able for kiss­es through­out they day even more so. I no longer feel the need to fill the hours with busy­work until she can keep me com­pa­ny again. That’s prob­a­bly why the quar­an­tine has­n’t been as dif­fi­cult as expect­ed; this is noth­ing com­pared to the bouts of unbear­able lone­li­ness I’ve sur­vived with­out a fam­i­ly or part­ner on which to rely. Not that I was going out much before any­way. Depression and trau­ma had already kept me house­bound for years.

freestyle rap cypher

One of the last times I saw Jesse was at the fifth birth­day par­ty for Dominion City Brewing, where he was lead­ing the freestyle cypher.

The biggest change has cer­tain­ly been Jesse’s absence from my life. I’m thank­ful for the fact that he’s not tak­ing any risks (both for his sake and his house­mates’), even if it means I’ve gone months with­out his com­pa­ny. His inten­tions to be in bet­ter con­tact come to him when he’s falling asleep or sucked into work, and I feel strange­ly com­fort­able inhab­it­ing the space between; I know it’s not cause he does­n’t care or I’m not impor­tant, that he’s always strug­gled when it comes to man­ag­ing time and pri­or­i­ties.

Even with a life­long his­to­ry of aban­don­ment issues, I can feel secure in a rela­tion­ship where I have no idea when I’ll see the oth­er per­son again. It’s a sign that I’m not only recov­er­ing from emo­tion­al wounds, but grow­ing too. The fact that I could go this long with­out post­ing some­thing is anoth­er sign. I used to be such a goal-ori­ent­ed per­son with projects lined-up, one after anoth­er. Creativity, work, and self-improve­ment were huge parts of my life. But so much of that moti­va­tion came from the fact that I nev­er felt like a valu­able per­son unless I was mak­ing progress on some­thing, that I nev­er deserved to be hap­py unless I suf­fered a great deal for it.

After strug­gling with men­tal health for so long, I’m start­ing to under­stand that hap­pi­ness itself is a per­fect­ly rea­son­able goal. And now that the deci­sion to iso­late has been tak­en out of my hands, I’m try­ing to indulge the indo­lence. If I was ten years old, it would be a dream come true to be giv­en inter­net access, a com­put­er, and so much free time. Maybe one day I’ll fig­ure out how to live a life between the extremes of indul­gence and mor­ti­fi­ca­tion; for now I’ll stay in, try­ing to be that boy again.

  1. They don’t trust the var­i­ous gov­ern­ments where their offices are locat­ed. []
  2. She gets an hour, so some days I’ll go down for an ear­ly after­noon nap and she’ll pet me to sleep. []