Interpreting Music Through Skate Dancing

I find I can only endure so much time living in my head before I'm consumed with muscle aches and fatigue.  As a result, I involuntarily began looking for a balance – a physical activity to help me shift from head to body.  In 2006, I began to contemplate a return to my long forgotten world of skating.

Skating played center stage in my childhood and teenage years.  I lived and breathed it like freezing air.  It circulated my blood veins vigorously, so I only felt slight tinges of cold in my extremities… ears, nose, fingers and toes -- and the toes not so much until I got home and I actually began to thaw, then the pain intensified enough to make me question if maybe six to seven hours out in a frozen park may have been a little bit too much?!  Hmmmm?

You see, in Canada boys are born with skates on and therefore push the sport to its limits. The idea of skating in a run-of-the-mill way is inconceivably boring.  This usually translates into reckless skating or playing endless hours of hockey.  For me the fascination shimmered in its undomesticated artistic expression.

It all began by watching a classmate named Neil Hill manoeuvre effortlessly on ice skates in a way that combined grace and confidence. The music (60s and 70s) elevated my spirit with anticipation of capturing the heart of a pretty girl with some fancy footing and show of speed. I don't know why but I believed that artistic competence in this skill automatically guaranteed winning the ladies. It never happened.

Fast forward into adulthood:

Since I live in Central America, the arena switched from abstract ice to concrete rollerblading.  As I got bored of skating the way everyone around me conventionally skated,  I kept remembering Neil Hill from my childhood.  Through trial and error I began interpreting music through skate dancing once a week until I developed my own unique style. 

The magic is parallel to surfing on the high waves except in skate dancing you’re weaving in and out of people rather than through huge locks of water.  Part of the challenge is to swing to the music without bumping into anyone or knocking them down. It's making impromptu dance movements that require cat-like agility with heightened alertness, intuition, balance, beauty, grace and ease.  Music races through your body in liquid form, providing a sense of courage that would be otherwise absent.

The sense of wild abandonment depends upon the choice of music (thus the need to carry your own MP3 device).  Each movement rises from ear to heart throbbing through veins.  Skate dancing invariably has a matchless effect upon me.

What are the benefits of skate dancing?  How does it relieve my PSTD symptoms? 

The benefit could be called a flight of transcendence. For a few of hours each week, I experience a way to rise above the demands and cares of stressful life.  I take off into a flight of bliss. More importantly, the endorphins  help disperse the dark cloud of depression and anxiety symptoms of my PTSD.  As I experience the exhilaration from skate dancing, it changes the chemical processes in my body and therefore my anxiety and depression lessen their grip. 

I often question if living somewhere between imagination and reality sabotages me. As a dreamer, I get carried away.  As a highly sensitive person, I experience the emotional realm with hyper-vigilance.  Skate dancing is a safe channel where my intuition gets to run wild.  I love the serendipity that invariably unfolds.  

Once freed from my PTSD symptoms, I began to become more sensitive to the needs of my body -- eat less and less junky foods and began to replace them with fresh organic fruits and vegetables.  I stayed away from caffeine, white sugar, refined foods, MSG and alcohol.

Refle

Emotional Sobriety

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I’ve been a victim of my own emotions most of my life, yet possessed only a vague consciousness of its debilitating grip.  It’s as if once bitten, the serpent became a phantom.  It seems unfair to wage war with the invisible.  The slithering fears, anxieties and doubts loom large and out of proportion.  The more you want to talk about it, the more others want to shut you up.

Finally, one random day, the scales fall off and I see myself within the capsule of a few words: VICTIM OF MY OWN EMOTIONS. How simple.  Such a combination of words to anyone else would probably have been meaningless. 

I’ve never struggled with alcohol or drug addiction, yet I show traits of a dry addict who lacks emotional sobriety.  Negative thoughts consume me until I lose peace. Without meaning, I get reactionary and apprehensive without knowing why.  I push others away.

Once we catch a scent of what's going arwy, we're on the track to restoration. It's no longer the blind spot it once was.  Perhaps the list below resonates with you as it did with me:

What are the Signs of Emotional Sobriety?

•  Ability to regulate strong emotions

•  Ability to regulate mood

•  Ability to maintain a perspective on life circumstances.

•  Ability to regulate potentially harmful substances or behaviors

•  Ability to live in the present

•  Ability to regulate activity levels.

•  Ability to live with deep, intimate connection.

•  Resilience, the ability to roll with the punches

•  Ability to regulate behavior

Reference Source 

Spiritual Running Partner

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“I learned that experiences and circumstances do NOT define who or what I am but rather give me the opportunity to discover my true character when faced with challenges.”  -- Shari Alyse

“Our likings are regulated by our circumstances. The artist prefers a hilly country because it is picturesque; the engineer a flat one because it is convenient; the man of pleasure likes what he calls “a fine woman”—she suits him; the fashionable young gentleman admires the fashionable young lady—she is of his kind; the toil-worn, fagged, probably irritable tutor, blind almost to beauty, insensible to airs and graces, glories chiefly in certain mental qualities: application, love of knowledge, natural capacity, docility, truthfulness, gratefulness, are the charms that attract his notice and win his regard. These he seeks, but seldom meets; these, if by chance he finds, he would fain retain forever, and when separation deprives him of them he feels as if some ruthless hand had snatched from him his only ewe-lamb.” – Charlotte Bronte
 

“Don’t shift your life for anyone”

The above maxim sounds like wise advice, yet as a codependent person staying in charge is easier said than done.  We know the stronger we are as individuals, the stronger our relationships with others, yet how can we coming from a codependent background? 

We’re born into a cold world.  It does not consult us nor adapt to our preferences.  It assumes a posture of either judgment,  rejection, competition, envy and/or indifference.  These insular traits are hardly questioned, yet alas...

Jesus expressed the inhospitable nature of life when he described the multitudes.  He said they were like sheep without a shepherd.  If we let that sink in, it describes a pretty lonely, desolate picture of souls disconnected from care and nurture. 

If companionship offers some kind of relief to the otherwise harsh reality, some re-parenting is needed before the codependent personality can enjoy it.   To that person, companionship is defined as the all encompassing motive of life upon which all else hangs. 

For this reason, some of us need to build a base of independence before venturing into intimate relationships, because we either tend to lose ourselves or be too controlling otherwise.   I like the idea of having one or two spiritual running buddies.  This is an excellent metaphor to describe friends who meet or write each other intentionally to share about their spiritual journey.  For example, you can begin by tackling questions like the one below:

Sonya Boesse, a life coach asks,

“Tell me how you practice "getting out of your own way"?

What are your strategies to get you unstuck from a fear based reality?”

 -- Refle

Re-parenting the Inner Child

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I began life on an emotionally impoverished level, though I didn’t know it at the time. Between neglect and watching the constant drama between my parents, it has meant shedding many unhealthy beliefs that block intimacy with others as well as personal growth.  I became immersed in church ministry hoping it would raise my self esteem. It took some time to understand grace over repression.  Under this new light I began the process of re-parenting my Inner Child. 


Indeed, I loathed responding rigidly to life. It's difficult to show compassion to myself. I sometimes see my re-parented child unfolding, interacting and playing, yet other days when my wounded self overrides again.

I've been making an inventory of my faulty belief system by compiling two lists: old belief tapes vs. new re-parenting ones. I don’t feel it’s necessary to mechanically state the negative side of each positive point nor visa versa. Sometimes stating the new tape is enough. Sometimes stating the old tape helps one allude to the new. Here are some examples...

-- Refle

Re-parenting Tapes:
· “Even when we want to embrace compassion, structures of domination are deeply engrained in us. ” -- Miki Kashtan
· Generosity does not arise when we are forced into it. M. Rosenberg
· We can be whole and healthy through having an emotionally honest relationship with our self.
· We need to wean ourselves from sucking the energy of others and become vibrant transmitters of energy (Steve Pavlina).
· "Relationship is not about having another complete you; but to have another with whom you share your completeness." -- Vicky Jo Varner
· For every success or setback experienced, we can enjoy a spiritual advancement (Steve Pavlina).
· The more we have integrated a loving spiritual belief system, the easier it becomes to align healing through grieving instead of aligning with the belief it’s weak to cry or shameful to lose control.
· Each day we can wield greater inner strength through a higher level of consciousness to express love without holding back(Steve Pavlina).
· Love can live without physical attraction, but physical attraction cannot live without love.
· You can work on trying to change external reality (make more money, switch jobs, lose weight, find a mate, hang yourself, etc). Or you can develop your consciousness to the point where you’re able to wield greater control over your thoughts and thereby simply intend the pain to leave (Steve Pavlina).
· When you view the source of your pain as your own thoughts, then your solution is to change those thoughts.
· A man has the most under-appreciated yet critical strength of all. he has the strength of his feeling, his heart. Our society looks down upon people who are fully open, this trait is one that is demeaned and unwanted (Steve Pavlina).
· We accept full responsibility for our own intentions and actions, but not for the feelings of others(M. Rosenberg).
· "You can have no influence over those for whom you have underlying contempt." (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Old Tapes· We believe ourselves responsible for the feelings of others (M. Rosenberg).
· We are driven by repressed emotional energy. We live life in reaction to childhood emotional wounds (Steve Pavlina).
· When we fail to give ourselves love and acceptance, we look outwardly to others to get it.
· Since we cannot control the thoughts and impressions of others, we become anxious about managing people and situations to get approval or at least escape disapproval.
· Physical attraction equals love.
· We don’t know how to ask for our needs be met. We don’t even know what we need and won’t risk asking. It probably will not be met and we do not want that disappointment.
· In this society being emotional is described as falling apart, losing it, going to pieces, coming unglued, etc (Robert Burney).
· “Many parents hope to succeed through their children, while using the same beliefs that guaranteed their failures: that children will become well-adjusted when pressured by criticism, discounting, and shame; that control teaches skills in human relationships; that spontaneity and joy are suspect.” (B. F. Stan Monaghan)

The Doormat Feeling

“The kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.”  Matthew 11:12

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As mentioned in previous posts I've been taking time to do some grief work only to find this process escorting me into another related area referred to as "re-parenting the inner child" -- oddly enough an area I seriously hadn't considered before.

I've been coming to see how some beliefs can whirl around in the same muddy puddle. I never realized how much power subconscious beliefs could have to keep one helpless and devoid of life.

For example, somewhere in my childhood I learned it's perfectly okay for others to use coercion and equally okay for me to submit to it without objection. My ex-wife did not hesitate to impose her will on me in this manner. She did it openly and routinely, it passed through my detector system without raising any red flags.

My ex-wife deemed it her duty to coerce me to socialize even when I had no such desire. Rather than honoring my introverted nature (a nature that can handle only so much small talk or social interaction), she knew which buttons to push in order to shame me into submission. It was as if extroversion was the only permissible manifestation possible. I'm not exactly an introvert either, but an ambivert.  This means I manifest bursts of extroversion, but then need solitude to recharge.

To be anything less than oneself only stifles our sense of vitality. Wearing a mask drains emotional energy and eventually all sense of spontaneity becomes eroded. My ex-wife knew I was too compliant to contradict her. Rather than risk any nasty squabbles I constantly yielded to her demands. This placed me in a long term acting role where I feigned presence or enjoyment. After applying said measures, she’d later ask me why I looked so down or so distant. She used the same oppressive tactic whenever I showed any signs of wanting to go to bed at a decent hour (say 9:30 p.m.).

I stumbled onto an article that relates to this subject. The author not only has some empowering strategies, he is wise enough to understand some goals require extensive training and therefore shouldn’t be executed in one blow. We need to slowly condition ourselves the same way athletes condition their bodies. Here is an excerpt of one of his best recommendations.

-- Refle

"No matter how difficult it may seem, make the choice to live consciously. Do not succumb to that half-conscious realm of fear-based thinking, filling your life with distractions to avoid facing what you feel in those silent spaces between your thoughts. Either exercise your human endowment of courage and progressively build the strength to face your deepest, darkest fears to live as the powerful being you truly are, or admit your fears are too much for you, and embrace life as a mouse. But make this choice consciously and with full awareness of its consequences. If you are going to allow fear to win the battle for your life, then proclaim it the victor and forfeit the match. If you simply avoid living consciously and courageously, then that is equivalent to giving up on life itself, where your continued existence becomes little more than a waiting period before physical death - the nothing as opposed to the daring adventure." -- Steve Pavlina

Note: Steve Pavlina is an independent thinker with lots of fresh ideas. He has taught me some valuable ideas about being direct, courageous and to challenge conventialty with its self-limiting However, I want to make it clear I do not endorse his ideas about religion nor anything about open "love relationships". 

Grief Work

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“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”  ∼ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I’ve been feeling dead inside (if such a thing can be considered a feeling) and to me this deadness signifies emotional blockage. I’ve been quietly tucked away in my ivory tower making the most of this Christmas vacation time while my daughter is in Europe. I received an invitation from my family to be with them in Canada, yet as gently as possible, I declined. I know I’d be present only in body and nothing more.

Those struggling to find emotional healing often have limited choices about whom to turn to. Since people are generally threatened by emotional vulnerability, it’s the last thing I'm interested in revealing. As Robert Burney says,

“In this society being emotional is described as falling apart, losing it, going to pieces, coming unglued...”

Imagine someone asking you about your vacation and you reply you spent most of it doing grief work? Grief ...what? 

Whenever I open up to others on this note, a grey mist of discomfort typically sets over their eyes as if I had not responded at all. They fix their gaze into the far distance. This reflex is strongly aligned to society’s emotional dishonesty and insulation. In the same vein, the idea of grief work is just as foreign to the masses. The motto is unanimous “If you have deep pain, get over it. Move on.”


Grief Work
I’ve been listening to Tolstoy’s, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich" where the main conflict of the story deals with society's deep commitment to emotional insulation. Everyone wants the main character (Ivan) to believe he will pull through his sickness when all evidence proves contrary. It's the typical portrait of the denial of anything unpleasant. As one commentator wrote,

“The artificial life is marked by shallow relationships, self-interest, and materialism. It is insular, unfulfilling, and ultimately incapable of providing answers to the important questions in life. The artificial life is a deception that hides life's true meaning and leaves one terrified and alone at the moment of death.”

Burney has much to say on this topic of artificiality and deception. His website allows you to access many articles on the subject. He patiently explains in minute detail that our inner dysfunctionality stems from traumas sustained in childhood as we tried to navigate through a toxic environment of oppression and ignorance. Parents and authorities involuntarily mistreated us because they were mistreated by previous generations.  These unresolved traumas get swept under the rug and therefore interfere with our present adult existence producing codependence, addictions, depression, mental illness and anxiety. Here is what he writes,

"I Truly was able to see and admit to myself that I had been powerless to make healthy choices in my life because the emotional wounds and subconscious programming from my childhood had been dictating my emotional reactions to life, my relationship with myself and life." 

Grief work begins by first understanding intellectually what has gone wrong. Although the information is relevant, it is tedious in its complexity. In the midst of this sea of instruction, Burney shares glimpses of his own childhood trauma. He lowers his guard and opens his heart. He writes,

“By changing my attitudes, I was changing my perspective and giving myself permission to feel the feelings. I was starting to allow them to flow instead of putting all my energy into damming them, suppressing them. That is where the suffering really comes from - denying my own emotional reality.

I learned in childhood, and carried into adulthood, the belief that I am not lovable. It felt like I was not lovable to my mother and father. It felt like the God I was taught about didn't love me - because I was a sinful human. It felt like anyone who loved me would eventually be disappointed, would learn the truth of my shameful being. I spent most of my life alone because I felt less lonely alone. When I was around people I would feel my need to connect with them - and feel my incredible loneliness for human relationships - but I did not know how to connect in a healthy way. I have had a great terror of the pain of abandonment and betrayal - but even more than that, the feeling that I could not be trusted because I am not good enough to love and be loved. At the core of my being, at the foundation of my relationship with myself, I feel unworthy and unlovable.” -- Robert Burney

Burney struck me with the part about spending most of his life alone because he felt less lonely that way. Being around people threw him into conflict not knowing how to connect in healthy ways. Yes. He summed up my life-time struggle in two sentences. The sad part is few people admit being just as lost and resort to cosmetic remedies.
-- Refle

Grieving Loss as a Releasing Agent

“If we are grieving, it is because of our blessed capacity to embrace life and take risks. If we are confused, it is because we value meaning and order. If we are angry, it is because we have a backbone of will and belief. If we are lonely, it is because we feel our deep connection with the world, but are still seeking where and how. If we feel despair, it is because we have a deep capacity for faith and hope. If we are depressed, we are in the midst of a great transition of belief. We may not see through it all yet. But the more it pains us, the more we know we are in the active process of learning.” – Kathleen Hawk

Although writing usually helps clarify my thoughts, composing this journal entry isn't as easy as I imagined. I not only encounter multiple issues that resist translation, I come into collision with my own perceptions. No matter how the words arrange themselves, they look back at me with trifling glances. The deeper I excavate, the less justice accorded to the lived experience. I find I can only endure so much time addressing this topic before I'm consumed with nausea or fatigue.

I suspect I'm going through a post-traumatic-something-or other.

My Story

When we believe we are undeserving, we can involuntarily open ourselves to unsuitable company without understanding why. These unsuitable personalities have abilities to decode susceptibility and hoodwink others through false assurances. While being charming on the surface, they are volatile, combative, and disrespectful of boundaries. They maintain a persistent self-referential attitude and suck away energy like vampires. Yet, as one therapist put it,

"The abuser may be loving between abusive episodes, so you deny or forget them."


These abusive episodes operate within cycles and begin with measured doses of seductive sweetness, followed by days of increasing tension, then finally erupting into violent verbal and/or physical attacks. They're called cycles because the sweetness, tension and acting out become a recurring pattern played over and over again like a loop cassette tape.

This kaleidoscope of emotional contradiction is just one example of the drama I faced with Mdm (my daughter's mother). After each explosion I’d put on an antic disposition, not wanting to eat nor take care of myself. I breathed a peculiar kind of calm because I didn't have to walk on eggshells any more. I’d go for long walks alone; I'd interact with strangers on the street; I'd sit near my daughter's bed at night and cry as if to mourn an unforeseeable exile and I’d tuck away a small suitcase with carefully packed clothes, important documents and other essentials, in case I needed a quick getaway.

"It is in the grieving we find healing."

For many years, I strained as I listened to cheerful voices celebrating family achievements or special occasions, yet such joy seemed out of my reach.

Usually when society thinks of grief, it fails to acknowledge losses that are not death related. For many years I have been involuntarily experiencing what therapists refer to as “disenfranchised grief”-- grief that is not socially validated because of the stigma attached to emotional abuse.

Recovery from abuse is as elusive as it is profound. Although I've been on my own for more than five years now, the grieving process has only begun. The hardest part is having so few models to follow. You frantically seek help, only to realize the subject at hand is foreign to the general public. Just as support can hold you steady, the opposite can throw you into perplexity. The other day someone recommended I leave the past behind and move on. “Life is too short.” the person said. Unfortunately, this reflects the reasoning of our forefathers. They circumvented despair by disassociating themselves from it, thus obstructing the healing process.

Only when we embrace trauma, can we release it. Recently I came across a list of “grief” descriptions that I converted into questions with the desire of finally beginning the grieving process. To this end, dear reader I covet your prayers.

Who was I before the abuse began?
Why did I not take action when the abuse first happened?
What about the life I could have lived?
What about the dreams that never bore fruit?
What about the person I thought she was?
What kind of father would I have been had my marriage been different?
What kind of life could my child have lived?
How do I grieve a life I can no longer recover?
How do I come to terms with the way it was -- the way I wished it had been?

-- Refle

When Dreams Depart

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“If we are grieving, it is because of our blessed capacity to embrace life and take risks. If we are confused, it is because we value meaning and order. If we are angry, it is because we have a backbone of will and belief. If we are lonely, it is because we feel our deep connection with the world, but are still seeking where and how. If we feel despair, it is because we have a deep capacity for faith and hope. If we are depressed, we are in the midst of a great transition of belief. We may not see through it all yet. But the more it pains us, the more we know we are in the active process of learning.” – Kathleen Hawk

Although I finalized my divorce July of this year, yet words still falter and sway in conveying this news to myself.  I’ve been tackling this post in bits and pieces – saving it to draft and returning to it another day. Sometimes I spend so much time looking at the words, I lose sight of their essence. However I arrange them, the final product will always be an imperfect depiction of the events I lived. 

When it comes to emotional abuse, sometimes the underlying issues are obscured. The most anyone can do is to be as objective as humanly possible, trusting he has made the best evaluation possible. This is where the survivor flounders.  Self-doubt sabotages his own sense of judgment. He is forever second guessing himself leading to either building walls of protection or revictimization.  There seems to be no middle road where trust can take root. 

It's usually with apprehension he opens his wounds to anyone, for just as the support of a friend can hold him steady, the disparaging of the latter can throw him into an abyss. At first he seeks support from anyone who'll listen, but eventually comes to realize the subject at hand is foreign to the general public. He therefore devotes large chunks of time to understanding disordered personality and its effects upon interpersonal relationships, health and personal growth.

When I first discovered my daughter's mother's (Mdm) behaviour matched certain paranoid personality disorder traits (see list attached), I experienced an irrepressible mix of relief and perplexity. Relief to have discovered a name to this cycle of madness; perplexity in discovering how a disordered spouse can sow seeds of self doubt.

My Story

I move now into that nebulous realm called the subjective.  As a young adult, dreams pulsated in my veins. Their fragrance of promise filled the air. Although it wasn't like me to be able to articulate them well, they kindled warmly nevertheless. I cannot point to a day or a circumstance when they departed, however, I woke up one morning with only an egg shell of their memory. Though outwardly I appeared at a loss, inwardly I was shaken to the core. Pain screamed loudly inside, yet no one outside could hear. It wasn’t at all like the movies where good endings are guaranteed after the bad stuff happens. 


How did this paranoia unfold?  It started straightway when Mdm accused me of cheating on her. Her distrustful eye hovered over me like a vice grip.  Having to check my every glance; my every word choked the life out of me.  Any false move triggered a massive tempest of abuse as if I was pursuing another woman. This “Big-Sister” aura had an exhausting effect on my highly sensitive constitution, so I eventually withdrew from social activities to avoid being tagged.

I came to realize as long as Mdm and I lived our Gilligan-Island existence, all was love and peace. For in truth, apart from this pathology, she was a hard working woman, generally a loving mother and possessed an unquestionable awareness for culture, literature, nature, crafts and interior design. To the public eye it was impossible to perceive Mdm as incapable of sustaining any long term friendships (except nominally). Her chronic suspicions and lack of empathy quashed any such possibility. She therefore worked day and night to sabotage my connections. She did this by 1)seeking to poison my view of others and 2) absorbing my energy with her long list of demands. Attending to household chores had a magical touch of defusing her mistrust. This involuntarily induced me to become her personal domesticated steward.

Mdm also desolated me with her drastic mood changes, her outbursts of unpredictable rage, the verbal and physical attacks. She inflicted such terror, she eventually no longer needed to fling out of control. It was enough for her to flash her eyes at me. This neutralized straightway any potential conflicts. I barely had enough energy to make it through the day. To wage battle implied days of emotional collapse.  This blocked me from completing my daily functions at work.

The cycles of abuse consisted in measured doses of sweetness and calm, that eventually led to periods of tension and hostility, that eventually errupted into verbal attacks.  As Darlene Lancer says, "The abuser may be loving between abusive episodes, so that you deny or forget them." This shift back and forth, sometimes pushed me into a role similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet [minus the sublime poetry, royal intrigue, strewn corpses and tragic bloody ending]. After each “explosion” I’d put on an antic disposition for days not wanting to eat nor take care of myself. I breathed a peculiar kind of calm because I didn't have to walk on eggshells as I usually did. I’d go for long walks alone; I'd interact with strangers on the street; I’d get a small suitcase and carefully pack some clothes, important documents and other essentials, as if to prepare for a quick getaway; I'd sit near my daughter's bed at night and cry as if to mourn that symbolic exile...

The numerous sessions of counseling appeared to have only one motivation for Mdm -- to soften me up and therefore regain the leverage she had lost. One day she finally told me it was okay for me to see a therapist, but she was not interested in rummaging through her past. She wanted peace, while remaining oblivious to the dissonance her disorder created.

What most disturbed me was how Mdm misconstrued reality in a twisted manner as to make it impossible to arrive at any reasonable discussion. After expressing my frustration in this regard, a Christian counselor asked me if I was willing to live with Mdm as she was, for the chances of change were in all probability nil. I responded saying I couldn’t take much more.

My desire here has been to give you an idea of a much more complex and enmeshed reality… While to others the list below may seem to be a collection of cold clinical data, to me each trait is a condensed prompt that elicits more distressing personal stories.


-- Refle


Paranoid Personality Disorder -- ICD-10 is characterized by the following traits:


- excessive sensitivity to setbacks and rebuffs;
- tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights;
- suspiciousness and a pervasive tendency to distort experience by misconstruing the neutral or friendly actions of others as hostile or contemptuous;
- a combative and tenacious sense of personal rights out of keeping with the actual situation;
- recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding sexual fidelity of spouse or sexual partner;
- tendency to experience excessive self-importance, manifest in a persistent self-referential attitude;
- preoccupation with unsubstantiated "conspiratorial" explanations of events both immediate to the patient and in the world at large.


-- The World Health Organization

Medical Bullies

“We have been trained to be nice dead people or bullies. When you are in a position of authority you are justified in being a bully. You don’t call yourself a bully—you call yourself an authority. In domination systems authorities are given legal power to bully through the system of deserve, in which punishment, rewards and other forms of coercion get you to do things.” -- Marshall B. Rosenberg

As mentioned in a previous post, I had an accident this weekend.  It isn't enough to have to endure untold physical pain it seems, you also have to put up with the "mistreatment" of those who supposedly should be "treating"you.

A  gentle demeanor sometimes seems to bring out the predator in others, especially those in privileged positions. I remember a movie about this subject where a successful doctor had to suddenly face the horrid, impersonal medical system he once worked for (and had never questioned) until his health was at risk and the tables had turned against him.

Anyway, here was my personal "Jackal"experience:

First Jackal doctor: "What happened to you?
Me: "I fractured my wrist."
1st Jackal Doctor: *retorts in a distastful, angry demeaning parental tone* "NO. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU (IDIOT)? DID YOU FALL? WERE YOU IN A CAR ACCIDENT?"
Me: *shell-shocked*  "blah, blah blah..."

2nd Jackal Doctor:  "WHY ARE YOU HERE? WHO SENT YOU?

Me: "Another doctor from another hospital."

2nd Jackal Doctor: "NO. NO ONE DID ANY SUCH THING... and why do you have those MEDICAL REPORTS with you? You should have left them with the 1st doctor."

Me: "No one told me anything about any papers."

Jackal Doctor's Assistent *as he reads medical report*: "Doctor, it says the man was sent here by another hospital."

2nd Jackal Doctor: *totally silent*

-- Refle

Fractured Wrist

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“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

“It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.”

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.” “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”
― Victor Hugo

While rollerblading on Saturday, I got entangled with a small boy. As we fell I stiffened my body and extended my arm making my body a bridge to avoid crushing him underneath me. As a result my weight fell on my left wrist and straightway I could feel the undeniable sting of a dislocated fractured something.

In my host country it takes time to get anything done and more so when it comes to medical attention. I was transferred from one place to another, so that one clinic and two hospitals later, the doctors got my arm reassembled and gessoed. With the swelling, the heavy cast seizes me like a vice grip.

I realize how in an instant a lifestyle can be changed...   For 6 weeks I'll be typing with only one hand. The accident also forces me to change vacation plans as I cannot enjoy the usual sport activities of the dry season.  Fortunately, it was my left hand that fractured so I'm able to continue driving with a stick shift. 

I seek as usual, to see the silverlining in every set back. Since moving on from a destructive relationship, I tend to be too careful now. Skate dancing has been a somewhat symbolic form of my desire to break out of my fear.  Taking risks is scary when all you've known is disorder.  For those of us who have lived the blackhole existence of trying to make sense of a disordered individual, we go from one extreme to the other -- either we over-protect ourselves or move out on a ledge of a skyscraper.  No in-between place. The hole in the center of my being is there for all to see. There's a certain tremor in the voice -- a low tolerance for disruptive behavior and an apprehension toward social interaction.  Most people perceive it as deficiency of character.  Few look on with eyes of compassion.

Nevertheless, my desire is to become a more compassionate person amid the social upheaval and uncertainty -- to judge less and love more.

-- Reflector