Of A Different Kind of Crazy

Hello My Friend,

I recently had a conversation with a friend who sympathized with the relationship I have with my mother.  But she noted that I was dealing with a whole different kind of crazy.  I laughed, and I realized that she was right.  I do deal with a completely different kind of crazy than the majority of people ever have or ever will.  And I also realized why that's a whole different kind of problem for me.  You see, if that kind of crazy is your normal, well, it is very hard to know how to act in ways that other people view as normal.

My reactions to things are not always what the situation calls for.  Frankly, my reactions usually have no bearing in reality whatsoever to the situations I am in.  A part of this is my Asperger's, a part of it is my Bipolar Disorder, and an enormous chunk of it is the learned behaviors I got from my mother.

Or as I like to think of, how to look "crazy" in just 3 easy steps.

Step 1) Believe that no one is telling you the truth, ever.

Step 2) Believe that you are the victim, always.

Step 3) Act in a manner that combines the drama of an 19th century opera, the drama of Junior High School girls, and the drama of a Charlton Heston film such as Ben Hur or the 10 Commandments, as often as loudly as possible.

For extra "crazy" bonus points, self-mutilate in some fashion and threaten suicide, repeatedly.

Note:  These 3 easy steps can and should be employed, at home, during quiet times, or whenever in a public place and things are not going according to your plans, i.e. throw a temper tantrum until you get what you want.

Welcome to my whole different kind of crazy.

So, how does a 38 year old man act when life isn't going his way?  If I had been raised in a barn by wolves I would probably be more adept at this than I am.  However, I was raised in a renovated barn (no, really) by two people who were more like piranhas, crossed with boa constrictors, that had the emotional capabilities of a bear that has been prematurely awoken during hibernation.

The answer to the above question therefore has too often been Steps 1-3 with bonus points.  And no I'm not proud about this, however I am honest enough to admit to it.  And I do so because it is important for me to know where I have been, how far I've come, and where I want to be in the future.

Let's start with where I was, a desperate individual, driven by my own mental illness, responding to real or perceived situations with totally inappropriate and harmful behaviors, and feeling "crazy" much of the time.  This insanity began in my very early teens, and the results were swift and often unable to be altered.  I was figuratively and literally sitting in a pile of cherished yet broken possessions, relationships, and memories.  Those pieces of my life that my parents did not remove or destroy, I did in acts of fear, anger, horror, and illness.  I lived into the craziness that surrounded me by allowing my beast of mental illness to take over and crash through every moment of my life.  It and I did more damage than most people do in a lifetime over the course of just 6 years.  And writing those words is a stomach churning experience for me.  Perhaps because I know it didn't end there.

These behaviors and responses continued throughout my 20's and on into my 30's.  I have burned so many bridges in my life that I often believe I will be forever trapped on a desert island of my own making.  And because I continued to act in these ways I have missed out on a lot of my life.  Self imposed exiles are rarely the vacations that one hopes them to be, particularly for someone like myself who is an extrovert, but an extrovert out of necessity rather than true nature.  I was so desperate for love and attention from my parents that I developed a larger than life personality to gain access to human contact.  All I wanted was to be noticed.  All I wanted was to be loved.  All I wanted was to feel worthy of being alive.  So, I became as "out there" as possible in order to get what I wanted, because as every publicist, or 3 year old knows, negative attention is better than no attention at all.

And I got plenty of negative attention.  I was horrendously unpopular in high school, sort of OK in college, and back to ridiculous in graduate school.  I would say or do anything to get noticed.  Sometimes I was right, and made a good point, but more often than not I was outlandish just for the sake of being outlandish, and I lost so much from those times.  I was a never ending source of opposition just to be different and somehow special.  And I both loved the attention, and loathed the internal sense of self that I had created.  And having no inherent sense of core value or worth, I felt as though whatever people thought of me was me, I had a completely external locus of control.  I let the world decide who and what I was and my beast ate it all up with a hunger that could never be satisfied.

This darkness has been a constant in my life.  This reliance on others for approval and self-worth has been a keystone of my existence.  And my "crazy" embraces it with a ferocity that grows with each compliment or insult that I receive, whether real or imagined.

Through more than a decade and a half of therapy I have grown immensely in my abilities to filter what I say, use appropriate communication skills, and seek the more beneficial forms of attention.  And the pharmaceutical interventions haven't hurt either.  I have made enormous forward movement in learning to love and accept myself for who and what I am.  I continue to strive to expand my inner being and feel the abundance of love and hope that has been offered to me.

This not an easy task.

But for the past few weeks, as stresses have built up, meds have been altered, and schedules have changed dramatically I have begun to revert into my old behaviors.  I have begun to speak unkindly.  I have said things that weren't true.  I have become combative.  I have been crying.  I have been triggered by situations that were previously manageable.  And I have felt my beast stirring and growling, ready to pounce on those I love.  And my own anxiety about that has only served to fuel the fires.  I have been falling down those fiery rabbit holes into that whole different kind of crazy that has been my normal for nearly 40 years.  And I am frightened by own lack of control.

The good news is that I can recognize this and will be meeting with an appropriate resource in just a few days.  The not so good news is that I have again created an uncomfortable and harmful atmosphere for my family and they are responding with the anger and fear that is our beastly dance.  And I am sorry.  I am disappointed in myself.  I am saddened by my darkness.  And I am trying to calm my beast down, back into submission.

This is not an easy task.

However, all of this pain, and all of this work shines a light forward for who and what I want to become.  Where I want to be in the future.  How I want to see and be seen.  Why it is important to keep trying and keep working to be the better man that I know I am.

It is my life's work to walk through this world as a man of G-d who respects the G-d within everyone else.  And it is my life's mission to show each person I meet that they too have this life within them that can be shared with the world no matter how much doubt, or fear, or illness they believe they have.  It is my call to be an opener of windows and doors into others' different worlds of crazy.

And so, I want to be that man who others turn to, rather than away from.  I want to be that fun and happy man who shows love and respect for his wife, his children, all of his neighbors in this life.  I want to be a friend, a partner, a true man of integrity and honesty.  I want to be the Ari that I am called to be.

So, I am sorry for the ugliness I have been spreading.  I am worn through by trying to fight my own beast.  I am tired.  And it is time for me to let go again in order to get control back.

Today I will once again ask G-d to care for my beast and help me to walk away from the hunger that drives it to hurt the ones closest to me.

On Sunday I will go to a place of worship and listen for the still, small voice of G-d.  And I will ask for the help and support of that community as I return to being the man I know that I can be.
 
On Monday I will meet with my psychiatric nurse practitioner and discuss my medications, my fears, my current life situations, and ask for the help I need.

And during this school vacation week when I will not be at work for the next 9 days, I will rest, I will do things that are nurturing for myself and nurturing for my family.  I will put aside my expectations and instead experience the joy of children who have been given a break from the work of their daily lives.  Work that is often challenging and stressful, just as much as adult jobs are for the grownups.  I will enjoy my own break from my daily life as well.  And I will love myself, and I will show that love to my family who needs it most.

Thank you for your patience and your willingness to stay on board this whole different kind of crazy.

Be well, love your neighbor as yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari


 

Of Doors, Drapes, and Fiery Rabbit Holes

Hello Dear One,

Since we've recently experienced the blizzard "Nemo," which here in ski country actually amounted to a foot or two less than down south, I've had time to write.

In therapy this week I've been working through some memories, one in particular, utilizing a therapy known as EMDR or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.  It is most frequently used in cases of trauma and/or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  It is used widely by U.S. Veteran's Affairs and throughout much of the Western world.  The process is a complex 8 step therapeutic treatment, using memory recall, creation of a safe internal space, eye movements that follow a clinician's hand, and 5 other pieces that work to ease the distress that someone experiences from a memory or from a triggering event that elicits the same mental and physical response as the memory itself.  It eventually works to rewire the brain so that when a potential trigger is experienced a person can stop from feeling as though they are reliving that particular trauma.  The process is in fact far more involved than I could possibly explain here, however many excellent websites detail the specifics of EMDR and how to find properly trained individuals.

The nitty gritty of the work is being able to look at and experience a traumatic event in your life that is consequently linked to other events in your life, creating what is known as a "memory chain" and begin to reprocess how you respond to the memory itself and other stimuli that cause similar responses.  These secondary responses can best be described as "Rabbit Holes," dark, twisting, confining mazes of memories that create a response that mimics how you felt during the initial trauma.  It is sort of like an evil version of smelling homemade cookies, or whatever comfort food it is for you, and remembering the warmth, and love you felt at that moment.  Instead of love and warmth, you feel panic, fear, anger, sadness, and a host of other emotions and physical reactions almost as if you were right there at that moment living it all over again.

So, this week, I was completing my 3rd session on a specific memory and memory chain.  And not surprisingly it had to do with one of my mother's crazy actions that took place in my early teens.  It centered around a glass door, the drape on the door, and my mother lighting that drape on fire.

For the sake of background, in a very simplified form, my father took a mistress when I was 14, she lived on the second floor of our house as a "tenant" for 6 years, and the 2 halves of the house were separated by that old wood and glass door with a homemade drape that hung on "our" side of the door.  Although the above sentence deserves far more time and explanation than I have allowed at this moment, fear not, those stories are yet to come.

At any rate, the memory I was most traumatized by in that particular moment was when my mother began to light this drape on fire in an attempt to...burn the house down, kill herself, kill my father and his mistress, kill me, I honestly have no idea.  And of course, neither did she, her raging beast of mental illness was driving her at full throttle and there was no turning back from the insanity that was burning through her.

I have in fact reprocessed this memory to no longer be triggering, however I want to paint a small picture from my vantage point at that time.  I was standing behind her, having heard the commotion by the door, which incidentally was adjacent to my bedroom door, and I watched as she knelt down and touched the flame to the blue fabric.  It was a terrifying and truly traumatizing experience.  To be standing, feeling helpless, feeling out of control, feeling angry, scared, unsafe, and unloved, watching the person who was supposed to protect you from harm attempting to set your entire world on fire.  This was a pivotal moment in my life, and my actions in that instant have defined who I am in more ways than I could have ever imagined.

You see, in the horror of that moment I reacted first by confronting her, and then by putting the fire out.

And sadly, without my understanding it, that was exactly what her beast had wanted.

Her beast wanted, craved, begged for, and needed attention.  It needed to be seen.  It needed to be heard.  It needed to cry out in agony, much as it did each night during her nightmares and night terrors.  It needed fuel for its own fire.  It needed to feel validated for its loneliness, its panic, its horror.  Her beast was so driven to be acknowledged that it was willing and able to jeopardize it's own existence in order to feel that validation.  It was willing to burn itself in its own funereal pyre to demonstrate its power.

And I did just what it wanted.  I stopped it from causing harm to itself.  I stopped its madness from making a burnt offering of all of us.  But what I really did was to give it all the attention it could suck out of me at that moment.  And I continued to give it more attention for the next 20+ years.

At the time I did not realize that this was what I was doing.  And initially what I was doing was self-preservation.  I had to put that physical fire out in order to save myself, my mother, my father, my "step" brother, my home, my possessions, and my then current reality.

But, the later reality, the one I would perpetuate for more than 2 decades, was that I was feeding the beast with the fuel of attention that it so desperately needed to survive.  I was giving it my strength, my power, my ability to stand on my own two feet and pursue my own dreams, in order to keep it satisfied.  To keep it from killing itself, and consequently my mother with it, and potentially killing me, I gave it all that it desired and then some.  To feed the beast I allowed it to steal my light and leave behind  a pervasive and suffocating darkness.

And it was this darkness that ultimately drove my own beast's cravings and fears.  It was this darkness, combined with the darkness of my own mental illness that led to my Deconstruction.  It was the formation of a fiery rabbit hole that I have traveled down, over and over again, much like Alice in her fall into Wonderland.  And the terrors were just as vivid in mine as they were in her's, both Alice's and my mother's.

The burning drape came to be a metaphor for the brokenness and darkness of my relationship with my mother, as I would rush to put out yet another fire she had created, be it selling a house, having an affair, marrying a man she'd known for 5 days, or moving again, and again, and again.  I would confront her beast, give it the attention it sought, and then put out the fire to save her beast, to save her, to save my beast, and to save myself.  The fire of insanity burned brightly in that rabbit hole and I was scorched by the flames more times than I can count.  Living within an engulfing blaze of irrational, hurtful, harmful, and often dangerous behaviors created a heightened and anxiety driven reality for me.

Yet, this year, this new page in the book of my life, is one that is not charred by either beast's need to burn.  This year, which began for me in October 2012, has been the beginning of living outside the fire.  It is a time in which I am able to walk away from her beast, from its desperation, from its degradation, from its desire to consume everyone and everything in its path.  It is a time in which my own beast no longer pours gasoline on the fires within that rabbit hole, allowing me to dowse the flames of fear and terror with a love and compassion that neither beast ever knew.  It is a time when I no longer travel down the rabbit hole, either by trigger or by choice, because I have reasons to be above ground.

I have a beautiful, talented, and loving wife of nearly 15 years who has stayed by my side throughout all of the hells, and is finally able to begin to let down her guard.  She is a woman deserving of love, and it my privilege to support and love her throughout this life.

I have two handsome, gifted, and loved sons who need a strong, healthy, happy, and nurturing father in their lives each and every day.

I have a job where even on my worst days I feel respected, trusted, appreciated, and a part of a team.

I have friends and neighbors who have stayed with me, despite my own insanities, quirks, and foibles.

I have family, both blood and chosen, who love me, who love my wife, who love my children, and who time and again join and rejoin with us on this journey.

I have a faith community that continues to feed my spirit and surround my family with love and support through the darkest and the brightest parts of our lives.

I have a relationship with a loving and nurturing G-d, and I am truly blessed to be able to see and feel and know this, everyday.

And I have a place to share my thoughts, my dreams, my fears, my hopes, my insights, my longings, and myself.  And I thank you for sharing them with me each step of the way.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.



-Ari

Of Autism Spectrum and Naughtiness

Hello My Friend,

So I wanted to write about being on the autism spectrum, working with individuals on the spectrum, and working alongside individuals who are not on the spectrum.  As luck would have it, inspiration struck while at work the other day, although not in the way I might have wanted it to.

After a brief conversation at work, I was initially offended by a comment that was made.
After some thought and reflection I realized why I was offended, and also why
I ultimately ended up agreeing with the comment.  It had much more to do with my own personal experience with being on the autism spectrum, than my work with children
and youth on that same spectrum.  I realized that what had offended me was a truth about myself, and about how I and others like me can be viewed by individuals who are not on the spectrum.

So, the comment had to do with behavior, specifically that an individual was "naughty"
because they were unable to stay out of things, follow directions, follow the rules,
etc.  And of course my first reaction was that it wasn't "naughty" behavior so much
as that it was typical behavior for someone on the spectrum, and that it was an unfair
assessment.  I was feeling personally attacked even though I didn't realize it.  I felt as
though my inabilities to sit still, my overly curious nature, my intrinsic belief that the rules
applied to everyone else but me, were being scrutinized and labeled as "naughty." And because the comment referred to the person and not the actual behavior, I therefore saw it as though I must be "naughty" myself.  I was decidedly not happy with that designation.

So, like any good Aspie, I perseverated on it for awhile, then actually took some time to
think about it, and then went to the dictionary to either help or hurt my own cause.

The first words for naughty that came up were "disobedient" and "mischievous" and then a reference back to the origin word of "naught" from the mid 1300's which meant wicked, and has modern usage meaning "nothing" as in the phrase "...will come to naught..."
This was definitely not what I was hoping to find. Further, the synonyms listed included everything from "misbehaved," to "obstreporous." Again, not what I was hoping for.

So, I went back to the dictionary and looked up disobedient, which was one of those
useless definitions because it basically stated that it was the opposite of obedient. Time
to look up obey, which referred to the ability to comply or follow directions or restrictions.
This definition is indeed accurate, and also incredibly annoying to someone on the
spectrum. If there is one word that I dislike, that does not have to do with bigotry or
hatred that is, it is restrictions.  In fact, I hate restrictions, and not just the word.  I do not want to be told what I cannot do.  Ever.  And, as a transgender/intersex individual I suppose I have chosen to defy restrictions in a way that most people never will.

That said, as an Aspie, I believe in restrictions for everyone else, and find it traumatically
unfair when restrictions are placed on me. It is a part of being on the spectrum, and it
is a part of the intelligence and memory capabilities that come with it too.  Unfortunately, if
there is a certain way to do something, for example how to load the dishwasher, then
I believe that it must be done that way every time and when someone deviates from
the "rules" I am distressed and will complain bitterly about it. I know this wears out others
in my life, and honestly it tires me out as well. It isn't easy being inflexible. And yes,
the irony that I changed my entire physical existence, in an act of incredible flexibility, is
not lost on me.  I can laugh at myself.  I can laugh at the absurdity of it all.  I choose to laugh because it becomes a tool for learning, rather than a negative belief that burrows farther down into my being.

The second word in the definition of naughty was "mischievous" and I found what I've paraphrased as 'able or tending to cause annoyance, trouble, or minor injury, can be playful or malicious.'  So, yeah, again with the words that are accurate and yet annoying.

But it's so true.  Being "naughty" or exhibiting behavior that is "naughty" usually is annoying, troubling, and often injurious to others.  Even when it is at it's most playful level of curiosity, it can be downright frustrating to have to deal with someone who just doesn't seem to get that the rules apply to them and that they need to follow along, and stop distracting everyone around them.  Getting into cabinets, wandering around, talking out of turn, fidgeting, singing out of turn, refusing to do what is being asked, dancing, flapping, playing with toys when it is learning time, the list is truly endless.  It is challenging to enforce rules and restrictions with an individual who does not seem to notice or care that there are rules and restrictions.

And  yes, many, many teachers had that experience with me over the years.  I was one of those kids who just didn't get it.  And it was a problem for all parties involved.  Teachers lost valuable teaching time.  I lost valuable learning time.  Other kids lost valuable learning time.  I lost valuable recess time.  I never fully learned how to make friends with peers because I was either acting "naughty" or I was in my own little world.

Having older parents, no siblings, and cousins who moved when I was 6 or 7, I didn't have peers in my life other than at school.  I thought I had friends there, but in hindsight, well, I can see how much time I really spent alone, even in a classroom with 20 other students.  I don't necessarily see this as a sad thing in my life, more of a reality base that I was the kid sitting in a bathroom stall alone talking to my "pet" staple-remover named "Snake/Fang."  I did this because I was bored or frustrated with what was going on in the classroom and because the staple-remover didn't make fun of me, or tease me, or bully me, or correct me, or judge me for being different.  And everyone else seemed to do just that.

It reminds me of another individual on the spectrum who while in elementary school one day made a "new best friend" in the bathroom, meet Mr. Urinal.  And I understood completely.  Sure it's funny, weird, quirky, bizarre, and everything else, and it is also a truth that those of us on the spectrum live with every day.  Sometimes inanimate objects make far better friends than real live people who we don't understand and who don't seem to understand us either.

And maybe, that's why sometimes our behavior appears naughty to others, because we want so desperately to be a part of things, and we either can't or don't understand the rules.  We don't always understand the social rules that govern interactions between individuals.  We rarely know when someone is "joking" or actually means it.  Literalism can lead one down many dark paths.  And there are so many subtleties to human communication, from tone of voice, to vocabulary, to non-verbal cues such as facial and body expression, to the differences between sarcasm and sincerity.  Trust me on this, staple-removers are a lot easier to communicate with than 8 year olds.

And here's where the learning curve comes in for me as an adult working with others on the autism spectrum.  I can remember what it was like to be that little kid, and I know what a difference a supportive adult would have meant in my life.  And not just someone who understood me, but someone who wanted to help me get out of my own head.  Someone who was capable of showing me that it was worth it to get out of my own head and see what other people thought.  Or simply to understand the power of human connection that can change who we are and how we see the world.

So, I have come to accept that my students and I can act in naughty ways, or at least in way that can be perceived as naughtiness, and that there are reasons not to do this.  That there are benefits and privileges that come from playing by the same rules as everyone else.  That life can be far more fun, and enjoyable, and less stressed when we leave the safety and comfort of our own differently wired brains.  Yes, it is hard.  Yes it is change.  Yes, it requires an ability and willingness to be wrong.  And, yes, it helps everyone to have a more fulfilling and productive life when we find the middle ground where we work together for common causes.

And from a theological and Biblically historical perspective I see how these are the true gifts of a G-d who knew that naughtiness was a part of all of human nature.  Without Adam and Eve's naughty acts of disobedience we might have all been more comfortable in the Garden of Eden, but then we would have never had the opportunity to struggle, to fight, to grow, to change, or to be curious about who G-d is and how G-d is in our lives. And there is no greater gift than that.


Being on the autism spectrum and acting naughty are part and parcel of each other, and I wouldn't trade the curious, wonderful, imaginative, and playful pieces of myself and my students for anything in the world.  And I wouldn't trade the ability to learn, grow, and change into parts of the a bigger worldview either.  I am blessed to be who I am, even when I act a little naughty.

Thank you for staying the course with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Parenting, part 2

Hello My Friend,

So, after the last post about fatherhood, I felt that I needed to address the issue of motherhood and how I have been shaped by a mother with Borderline Personality Disorder, and how that has also informed how I parent.

That said, I've also had therapy since the last post and gained new insight into my own fathering/parenting.

But let's go back to the mother issue, first though I want to frame it within the understanding of role model/teacher and not just mother.  There is a greater difference than I realized in this and I have seen that I need to separate out that which has to do with parenting, and that which has to do with modeling appropriate behaviors, actions, and responses.  Because in the deeper analysis of things my mother was largely unable to be a mother and it was her modeled behaviors that I learned.

To begin with, as I have come to understand it, a mother's job is to unconditionally love her newborn and as she does this the infant comes to know love and be able to receive it and give it back.  The infant begins to incorporate love into their being and they gain an intrinsic belief that they are good, and worthy simply because they are loved.  This is something I have indeed witnessed as I have seen how my wife has been an amazing mother to our two sons.  She loves them fully and completely, and because of this, they know they are loved and in turn are able to love themselves and love others.

In the world of Borderline Personality Disorder, and some other forms of mental illness, it is nearly impossible for an individual with that disorder to be able to love another person fully, unconditionally, and in a way that does not reflect or create meaning for themselves.  To this day my mother is unable to see my accomplishments as being independent from her.  Somehow, my courage, conviction, and ability to change are direct results of her parenting.  My successes in career, art, parenting, music, writing, etc. are all jewels in her crown shimmering as though it were her input that created them.

If my mother had in fact loved me unconditionally and without the need for self-fulfillment, then I would say that my courage, conviction, and ability to change were a result of her parenting.  And if she had supported my activities, and risks, and projects without the need to to have them be a reflection of her own grandiose sense of self, then perhaps I would say that my abilities as an adult are due at least in part to her abilities as a mother.

But, my mother did not then nor does she now have those abilities.  Her entire world revolves around herself.  Consequently, I am one of the many lesser moons that have been cast into orbit around the narcissistic planet known as "J."  Everyone in her life will at one time or another find themselves at the center of her volcanic core and then suddenly rocketed out into the cold silence of a space that can kill a person's spirit, if you let it.  It is disturbing to be the most valuable person in the world to someone, and then out of nowhere you are loathed and despised.

As an adult this can be a devastating event that appears to have no rhyme or reason, and causes the object of total desire then complete hatred to question not only the person they thought was a deep and true friend, but also themselves, and their value as a human being.

As a child, this is a traumatizing experience that will most often lead to a lifetime of insecurity, fear of abandonment, low self esteem, hypervigilant behaviors, and a pervasive belief that one is not worthy of true love, affection, or possibly anything good at all.

It can lead to it's own form of mental illness, causing similar behaviors, creating breaking points in relationships, and destroying a person from the inside out, if you let it.

This has been my reality for nearly 38 years.  I have lived in the shadow of a woman with a narcissistic ideology for my entire life, and I have often been unable to see even a single ray of sunlight through her darkness.  I have lived my life in fear and anxiety, waiting for that proverbial other shoe to drop, and dreading  any moments of any day that would include my mother.  This has led to my own pervasive darkness that has shadowed my own life.  But it was how I learned to be with other people that was far more damaging.

There were so very many years of life spent behaving in the ways that I learned from my mother, and often parenting my children in ways that she parented me.  Too often I have threatened to harm myself or others in the way that she always has.  Too often I have run away from a situation, figuratively and literally.  Too often I have favored one person, idealizing and idolizing them to an impossible fantasy, that consequently leads to distrust, disappointment, disillusionment, and depression when I see them as the person who they really are.  They, like I, am human, and cannot ever be the god-like entity I have created in my mind.  Too often I have done this with friends, family, mentors, and those individuals who had real or perceived power over me.  I have mimicked the behaviors of a woman who is deeply mentally ill and believed them to be appropriate and socially dictated.  Even though, deep down, I knew this wasn't true.

It has been an incredibly difficult challenge to learn new ways to be, to behave, to think, to act, to be the man I am today and the father that my children need.  It has been only recently that I have come to see the consequences of the repeated behaviors in my daily life with my spouse and sons.  I have seen the fear, and the anxiety, and the trauma that I have inflicted on my loved ones, and unlike my mother I have not derived pleasure or power from it.  I have been horrified by the beast's and my ability to do harm when the fear and the self-loathing consume the rational me who is hiding deep within.  And it has spurred me to be better, to act with love, and to stop and wait when I am afraid.

It is the light of G-d that has broken through the shadow of my mother to illuminate my path and show me that there are vibrant colors, amazing views, and millions of people who are a part of the world around me.  It is the light of the G-d that is within me that I have allowed to shine out into the world to counteract the darkness of my youth and to show faith, courage, conviction, and the ability to change.  Even when the person who could never fulfill my needs continued to try to manipulate and control my inner core sense of self, there was light within me and I have chosen to shine in spite of her selfishness and sickness.

Nearly a month has passed since my mother drove away, as she so often does, and the calls have nearly ceased, save for a message on the answering machine to complain that her possessions had not yet arrived, and that she needed a recipe.  As the month has passed I have indeed felt lighter, brighter, and more able to see the world around me for what it is, broken, but lovable.  And I am able to see this in myself as well.  Yes, I am broken, but I am lovable.  In fact, I am completely deserving and worthy of love.  As is my wife.  As are my sons.  We are all broken by one thing or another in our lives, and we are all totally and fully lovable and loved by a G-d who always meets our needs.

Thanks be to G-d.

Thank you for continuing on this journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Parenting, part 1

Hello Friend,

I've been thinking about what it was like being raised by parents with mental illness and autism spectrum issues.  I've dwelt on what it meant for me, how I've struggled with feelings of inadequacy, low self-esteem, my own mental illness, and my challenges in being a partner.  I've looked at how the beast that is my mental illness has battled my mother's beast, and perhaps obliquely I have shed light on my father as well.

I've chosen not to spend much time on my relationship with my father because for all intents and purposes I don't have one.  Although I do not believe it is due to my gender, sex, orientation, etc., I'm sure that there is a level to which that does affect our relationship.  The deeper issues however are rooted in my father's own mental health issues, his anxiety, his marital relationship, and his own wounded self that was never parented with the love it needed and deserved.

He, like my mother, knew from an early age that his birth was unplanned, and he was marginalized within his own family.  He started school early, went through puberty very early, and was extraordinarily bright and largely unmotivated to succeed.  He graduated 5th in his class, ironically my mother was valedictorian of the same class, though he could have easily outranked or outscored her if he had wanted to.  He was interested in science, and adult things, and bringing alcohol to the school dances and spiking the punch.  He was brighter than his years, yet more immature than kids several grades below him.  He struggled to fit in on a daily basis.

He was also the first person in his family to ever go to college and even went on to get a Master's Degree.  He followed the path that he was supposed to.  But during my childhood he would spend summers doing what he loved.  My father was a chemistry teacher, and eventually college professor, and he was good at it, highly liked and respected at the junior high school level.  But every summer he would find work in a restaurant, or he would cook and bake at home, or make things with wood, or brew beer.  He was and is extremely creative, yet he chose a path of rigidity, and schedules, and inflexibility.

And like every Aspie, he both loves and hates the confines, the rules, and the discipline.  He is a man of structure and he is man with a free spirit that is trapped by his self imposed restrictions.

I understand.

And so, I've been thinking about how this has translated into my own parenting.  How have I brought my father into my role as a father?

I'd like to tell you that I have been able to only bring that highly creative and randomly nurturing part of my dad into my own parenting style.  And in many ways I have.  But of course, I have brought the rigidity, the structure, the passive-aggressiveness, the anxiety, and the fear of failure too.  It's true, I have parented my sons as both a nurturer and a dictator.

And I believe that in some ways this is how all fathers are with their kids.  We are funny, and goofy, and get admonished by our wives for being "worse than the kids."  We are grown men trying to be comfortable in a world of toys, and baby food, and diapers, and bedtimes, and not being the man in a suit and tie that the world expects us to be.  And sometimes it is just really fun to go running through the yard with the hose, or making fart jokes, or watching cartoons, or whatever.

And then the world pushes back.  Our "serious expressions in the middle of the night" to quote Peter Pan, force us to remember the way our fathers dealt with our silliness when we were little boys.  We remember being too loud, interrupting the game,  getting into things we weren't supposed to, and the consequences that followed.  We pull ourselves back into our paternal personae and teach our kids that men are more stoic, and sometimes frightening, and largely unpredictable.  One minute, laughing and playing around, the next threatening to remove valued possessions for no apparent reason.

Now, for me this unpredictability is what I have amplified in my life, in part due to my own mental illness, and in part due to the parenting I had as a child.  I learned very early on that my father's emotional state was in a constant state of flux, though centered largely around anger and disappointment.  I learned to be a man that was grouchy, and anxious, and wary with occasional forays into lavish gift giving, extraordinary care for baking, and a devotion to someone if they were in any way hurt or ill.  And sure enough, that is how I have been as a father much of the time.

I have tried to be a different dad, and for obvious reasons I am, but my parenting personality is deeply entrenched in my formative understandings of what it means to be a dad from a particular era.  My father seemed to channel much of the 1940's and 1950's of his youth, but also had a higher degree of liberal 1970's when it came to certain matters.  But here's where it gets interesting.  My father's father, my grandfather, didn't have a father in his young life.  The stories are complicated and deserve more time and space, but my grandfather never knew his biological father, knew several stepfathers, and was on his own by his early teens.  He had many strong relationships with male peers, but not a father-son one with a relative.

So, 4 1/2 years after my Aunt was born, this unexpected little boy arrived, and my grandfather had no idea what to do.  And if you remember from earlier in the story, my dad was not the easiest little fellow in the world to begin with.  He was ultimately not like his father, though he tried, but was more comfortable with his mother and probably felt more accepted by her.  He stayed indoors with his mom, cooking, cleaning, etc., while my aunt, a true "daddy's girl" traded chores with him so that she could spend more time with her father outside, like doing yard work, gardening, and purposefully messing up the lawn mower so he would have to come over and fix it.

It was a complicated, and yet very simple arrangement for the 1940's and I suspect that it was one of the many ways that my father's and consequently my own trajectory was set in motion.

My father and I are indeed very similar people, not only intellectually and emotionally, but physically as well.  And therein lays the true crux of the matter for me.  When I look in the mirror, I see my father.  We could be carbon copies of each other, and it's not exactly what I expected when I began my transition into adulthood.  And even if it is entirely subconscious, I live into the look and become that man that I knew as a child.  I become a man who lives within himself, unsure of how to be a father, of how to be a husband, or of how to fulfill the "right" male roles in society.  And the irony is not lost on me in this matter either.

How is it that I, who began life one way, and changed so completely, would have the exact same issues with how to be a father as my own father did?  In some ways the answers seem obvious, that physically I became a man much later in life than most men do.  But I've always known myself to be male, so even though the body didn't always match, my mind was decidedly "all boy" from as far back as I can remember.  I may have lived outwardly as a female, but inwardly I have always been male.

And then there is my father, outwardly male, profoundly so by the age of 9, doing "women's work" from as early as he could remember and wanting a close relationship with his father that was somehow just always out of reach.  Even when my grandfather was in his 80's you could feel the tension between him and my father, how the empty space between them would always be larger than the connections they had.  They were two very similar yet different men, structured, yet creative, anxious, but often grandiose.  And their legacies of fathering have been passed to me and play out on a daily basis.

But what if I wanted to change?  Could I?  Would I?  Have I actually changed and don't recognize it?

There are larger answers that I can and will seek, but there is a shorter, more profound answer that I would prefer to give for now.

Today, my older son who is 9, cried at the ski slope because his friends were "dumping" him to ride the T-bar and he only had a Pony Lift pass.  I initially responded with a lecture, an attitude of my own, promises that he would get the pass next week, and that he should be grateful and supportive of his Mom, because she was on skis for the first time so that they could do something together.  And this really only served to make matters worse.

So, I stopped looking in the mirror, and I looked at my own heart, and what I would have wanted when I was his age, experiencing my own father's inabilities and anxieties.  And I went and got him the upgraded T-Bar pass.  And he rode up, and skied down victoriously multiple times.  And I realized that the measure of a father was not in his ability to make his children's lives safer, or logical, or fair.  I realized that the measure of a father is his true and unconditional love for his children regardless of who they are, where they are, what they are doing, or why they have chosen their paths.

My job as a father is complicated, especially when there will be those in our society who will claim that I can never truly be a father because I am not truly a man, and yes, there are people like that out there.  And I fear for how my sons may be treated because of this.  But not much.  Because I know that my job as their father is to love them, just love them, no matter what.  And they are surrounded by a loving family, a community that is accepting, and a faith community that is affirming.  They are held and lifted up in love every day and this is giving them the strength and resiliency to become incredible men.

And so the answer to my previous questions, is yes, I have changed without realizing it. Why?  Because tonight before I went to the show, my older son, my beautiful boy, came and hugged me, and kissed me, and wished me good luck.

And I knew that the space between us will never be like the canyons that have plagued my father, and his father, and on, and on, and on.  I love my son, I am his father, and I know that I, someone who embodies change on a daily basis, can continue to grow and change into the father I am called to be.  And I know that there is a G-d who is guiding me on that path with the same nurturing and unconditional love that I need.

Thank you for joining me on the journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Transformations

Hello Friend,

As I was contemplating what I wanted to write about I came across an old draft from when the mania was cresting and I was moving into the elevated high that is a key marker of Bipolar Disorder.  I was unaware of just how "nuts" I was going at that point, although I suspected that something was different.  When I began to notice the colors of the leaves and their immense brilliancy that brought me to tears, well, I knew for sure that I was falling off the cliff of sanity.  I didn't want to tell anyone, because I realized I sounded just like my mother.  I knew what that meant.

As I reread my own words, few that there were, I saw how disastrous my life can be when I don't take the proper medications.  And I also saw the anxiety that lives within me, especially when I do have a manic episode, and how it continues to invade my everyday life and thinking even when the medications are on board and working.

The anxiety is a huge part of my daily struggle, it is the heart and soul of my beast, and I battle it with as many tricks as possible, but I don't often succeed at keeping it in check.  And sadly, the worst offenses I commit are to my wife and children because I have an inherent sense of security that they will accept my bad behavior even if it is unwarranted.  This is an egregious error that I continue to try to prevent and remedy, yet I still fall back into the patterns when I allow the anxiety to take over and run the show.  This afternoon was one of those times, and I'll elaborate after the look over the words from the past.

So, here is the scant paragraph I composed before my complete break and subsequent hospitalization:

I had one of those times this morning when the clarity was blinding and I wondered if I could just close my eyes again.  The answer was no, but I suppose when we transform ourselves, we must be prepared for some illumination on our souls.  We might not like what we see, but you can't clear out the cobwebs in the basement if you never go down there, or you refuse to take the flashlight when you go.

Now, on the surface one could read this as simply a bad motivational speaker at a conference, but when the realities of mental illness are revealed there is an immense sickness that underlies these words.  There is grandiosity and a sense that I am on the verge of great personal revelation, and that I am about to enter some fantastical new part of my life.

And in a way this is true.  I am about to enter a fantastical new part of my life, but not the one that I thought I was at that time.  No, I am about to go sailing off the end of the real world into madness, and fantasy will in fact be the reality.  I will be driving myself to the crisis center, dodging telephone poles, screaming, crying, throwing things, and being observed in the local emergency room.  I will then be voluntarily committing myself to a mental hospital where the illness will fully bloom.  And after a few days in the hospital I will begin the work of resolving the baseline issues of mental illness that I have been avoiding and neglecting for nearly 18 months.

This was not the soul changing experience I had in mind.

There is also truth to the words about transformation, but again, not the ones I had when I was writing.  I saw myself as a phoenix about to rise from the ashes of darkness and depression and ignite the world with my intense luminosity.  I believed that I was about to begin a fabulous and famous new life as a speaker, healer, miracle worker, whatever.  I was flying into the stratosphere.

And I was about to crash land.  I was about to come falling down so fast that a good chunk of my sanity burned off on reentry.  Welcome to hell.  Welcome to reality.  Welcome to that moment when you actually hit bottom, know that it is the bottom because its lower than you've ever been, and there is no longer any way for you to climb out of the hole without help.

I remember that it was several days into my hospitalization and I was rapid-cycling moods from elated to suicidal and I couldn't stop.  I remember that the soaring heights I had been experiencing were now distant memories and frankly, embarrassments to myself and to my family.  I realized that I needed help more than I could express and that I was eternally grateful for the staff that came to my rescue and gave me the help I needed.  I am still eternally grateful for the presence of caring and knowledgable individuals and for a core sense of faith in G-d that grounded me enough to be able to begin making the necessary changes to get my life back.

And of course it certainly was a transformative time.  It was a time when I knew that I could no longer deny my mental illness, I could no longer refuse the help that I needed, and that I could no longer lie to myself or those around me.  I was sick.  I was very, very sick.  And thankfully there is treatment.

I look back at that time nearly 4 months ago and in some ways it seems like it must have happened years prior, and in some ways it feels like it just happened yesterday or last week.  I suppose that this is a good thing, that it does not haunt me daily, but it is still present in my current consciousness and I am able to access the memories for contrast and for change.

And this brings me back to today.  To my inappropriate, rude, disrespectful, degrading, and hurtful outburst at my wife when I let the anxiety part of my beast take control of the wheel.  There are days when I can remember how terrible I felt, and how terribly I acted toward my loved ones.  Then there are moments like today, when I crumble, and the frightened beast within me lashes out and attacks.

And there are never enough words, actions, thoughts, or deeds to undo what harm the beast and I have done.  There comes a point when "I'm sorry." has no meaning.  There comes a point when the only option left is forgiveness.

I must ask for forgiveness for my actions, and I must be willing to forgive myself and my beast for our misdeeds.  I must ask the ones I love to find it within themselves, or through G-d to forgive my hurtful behaviors and try to see the me that doesn't want to act like that or harm them in any way.  And I must have faith that this can happen.

This is the true transformation I seek.  Not a soul illuminating journey through the basement of my errors, but an ability to change what I do when I am faced with something uncomfortable, or frightening, or difficult.  I seek a transformation of self, where I am forgiven and I can forgive, and I can let that old beast keep sleeping.  I can let the beast rest and face my challenges myself, with the help of family, friends, community, and G-d.

That is my transformation.

Thank you for being on the journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Bullies

Hello Friend,

I need to address an issue about bullies.  Particularly on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, when we remember a man who faced intolerance, hatred and a level of bullying that would crush the heart and spirit of most any man or woman on this planet.

In school we teach our children that if they are ever bullied or see someone being bullied they can go tell an adult.  Bullying is not ok, and no one should hurt someone else simply because they can.  Bullying is wrong.

But what happens when it is an adult who is bullying another adult?

Who is the adult who is being bullied supposed to turn to?

Their spouse?  Their supervisor?  Their friends?  Their religious leader?

I don't have a good answer.

I know on an intelectual level the answer is that the adult is supposed to stand up to the bully directly and deal with the problem himself or herself.  The adult is supposed to be able to confront injustice and uncalled for behavior with strength and conviction, particularly when that adult is a person of faith.  One is charged with righting a wrong, and believing in their own inherent value and worth, regardless of someone else's attempts to diminish and demoralize you.

But what if you don't have the resiliency to do so?

What if it hurts, and your courage fails you, and you don't want to expose yourself to more hatred?

Today, that is where I find myself, being bullied by an insecure and vengeful individual who has chosen to single me out for their disappointment with how a project has turned out.  I find myself struggling to feel compassion for someone who is so weak that they must put blame on me, rather than be accountable for their own mistakes and lack of planning.

I am saddened, and I am angry.  And I am unsure of how to deal with the situation.  I know this is a part of life.  Life is unfair.  There are people in this world who must put others down in order to feel better about themselves.  And yet, at my core, I want to cry out, "Why ME?"  Why me?

And I know the answer to that question already, because I represent something that this person does not like, or does not understand, or fears.  I represent a time in history when the words I spoke to them were truth, not what they wanted to hear, but truth none-the-less.

More than a decade ago I spoke the words "Tolerance is NOT Acceptance."  And I have paid for my honesty ever since.  I have been treated disrespectfully.  I have been hurt.  And now I have been bullied.  And it is painful and degrading.

I have thought of a million things to say in anger and bile.  I have thought that I could work harder and prove myself worthy.  I have thought that there were others who could have and should have had my back.  And I have talked to friends, and family.

But I know that this individual will not hear anything I ever have to say.  Will not give me a true and fair chance.  Will have a hardened heart, because they cannot see beyond their own self doubt and fear.  It will not matter whether I could be perfect or not because they would find fault with me because that is what they want to see in me.

Tonight I will have an opportunity to express this to someone who could stand up for me, and I do not know if it will make a difference in the practical world, but at least I know I will have pled my case and stood up for myself.

The strength and courage to be true to oneself is the hardest job of all.

For bullies, this must be the greatest test, that they cannot seem to pass.  


And I am a man of G-d, and I will trust in who I am and who G-d is, and know that my dignity is stronger than any bully will ever be.

Thank you, Dr. King, for giving me hope, that one day we will be free.

Be well, love your neighbor as yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

  

Of Longing

Hello Dear One,

It has been nearly two weeks since my mother's beast drove her away again.  After nightly phone calls to alert us to her progress, Vermont, New York, Ohio, 2 nights in Wisconsin and at last to her destination of Minnesota, there has been, unsurprisingly little to no contact since.  Until tonight there were no phone calls, no emails, just an odd package with nicely wrapped gifts from a "Dollar" store she found in Madison, WI, which is even more strange given that birthday and holiday gifts are rarely wrapped properly, if at all.
I could make a quip here about caring enough to send the very best, but it would be gratuitous at best.

And how has this played out in my daily life?

Well, after the initial shock and sadness, followed by some relief, I found myself extraordinarily ill.  And, as my therapist will attest to, I became sickest in the part of my body where I keep and feel all of my stress, tension, and worst memories.  I became sick in my chest.

I also developed a raging fever and a tightness in my chest that continues to exist as only a cough, thankfully, over a week later.  It is an irony not lost on me that this is an area of my body that I have obviously struggled with.  Between unwanted tissue growth, two surgeries, nerve damage, scars, and sweater-like hair that now grows there, my chest has been a problem for me since I was a youth.

I must disclose of course that since I work in an elementary school setting I am exposed to more germs than Mother Theresa was exposed to lepers, and everyone in our family of 4 has now had some version of this virus.  I further feigned wellness for three days in an attempt to hide from the reality of being sick and of the psychological component of my dis-ease.

I have also been rehearsing, practicing, and performing in a local theater production (solo trumpet) and it has been challenging at best and recently demoralizing at its worst.  An aside here, as I need to mention that I am dealing with an individual who has expressed opinions about my performances that are less than complimentary and I believe that instead of being given a chance to "improve," my solos will simply be cut.  I could spend several paragraphs about the ridiculousness of this situation, however, the politics of local theater make Congress look like a love fest.  I will therefore do as I'm told, collect my paycheck at the end, and remind myself the next time an "opportunity" like this comes along, to politely decline and save myself.

At any rate, I was run down, vulnerable, exhausted, and feeling anxious.  So, I got sick.
Eventually and gradually I have gotten better, thanks in large part to rest, limited food intake, pain relievers, various and sundry remedies, and an openness to the fact that part of the illness was due to the psychological stresses of recent weeks/months/years/decades.

Instead of letting my true grief out, I held it tighter and tighter until I was forced to expel it with fevers, aches, coughs, mucus, and anxious pain throughout my body.  I was trying so hard to hang onto a make believe world that had never been, that the real one caught up to me with a vengeance.  My pain was literally oozing its way out of me and it was horrible.  I was uncomfortable, unable to breathe, and had lost control of my body.  Ah yes, that self-delusion of being in control of anything.

I know that this is not a pretty picture, trust me, I looked in the mirror and saw the ugliness in my own reflection.  But the truth of the matter is that it couldn't be a pretty picture.  Even though I had let my own beast have a rest I had kept guard, kept watch, and been hypervigilant waiting for my mother's beast to return.  I refused to answer the phone when she made her nightly calls.  And when I finally did talk to her, it felt like every time before. She "apologized" for calling so late, but she and her friend had gone out to eat, and whatever else was important to her, and the call had absolutely nothing to do with me.

I longed to hear her say she missed me, or my wife, or our kids, but no, her beast misses no one.
And right now, her beast is running the show.

For so many years I longed for freedom.  I longed for her to vanish from my life.  I longed to be someone who would not care that his mother had run off again.  I longed to be excited.  And that longing was in actuality one gigantic lie.

As my physical wellness unraveled, my mental knots and twists on the situation began to loosen as well.

I began to see that for better or for worse I missed my mom.  I still didn't miss the real person, and honestly I still don't, but the fantasy mom, that person who never was, well, I missed her.
I was sick and longing for comfort.  I had performances and I longed to hear that I had done a great job.   I was working my hardest to do so much, and I longed for a mom to tell me that no matter how hard it seemed, I could and would get through it.  I was longing for a comforting presence, and unable to see or feel the true ones around me.  My wife, my children, my friends, my G-d.

And that is the heart of my longing.  This unrealistic desire for some sort of fulfillment that comes from somewhere outside of myself, that drives me to seek attention, and praise, and recognition.  A gnawing ache in my chest that I have tried to fill with anything and everything tangible under the sun with absolutely no success.  And I mistakenly believe that I am supposed to be able to do this.  Over and over again I set myself up, that this time, this magic bullet, will fulfill this longing.

Longing, desire, want, dream.

It is a mantra that I know so well.

And until I ask for what I truly need and want, then the emptiness remains, and my ability to give back is empty too.  My mantra is not life giving, it is longing that cannot find peace.

So, tonight, as I put myself to bed, take my pills, brush my teeth, and say my prayers, I will ask for forgiveness again and again and again.  I will ask   G-d to fill me with G-d's strength, love, courage, and most importantly, comfort.  I could use some comfort.  I am longing for it.

Thank you for staying on the journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Endings and Beginnings, part 2

Hello My Friend,

It is nearly here.  The end of this particular cycle with my mother and the beginning of a new one with her.

She will be driving away, much like always, in the morning, with a few possessions, a dog, a new pillow, and a belief that she is engaging in another grand adventure, following her passions, embarking on a spiritual journey, having made peace with the fact that "she has done nothing wrong," to a place where she will be "needed."

And as much as I have dreamed of this day, this freedom, this release, and relief for myself, I am disheartened, I am saddened, that I am still not a "need."

To be absolutely clear, I do not want her to stay here.  

I do not want the actual person that she is as a part of my life, and I am truly hopeful for a future without her here that continues to trigger my oldest wounds and traumas.

And still, today is a bittersweet day for me.  There is little comfort that I feel as she prepares to abandon the fantasy me that exists in the recesses of my atypically wired mind.  It is a day of mourning, as the woman who was charged with loving me unconditionally and shaping my infant self into a secure and loved individual proves once again her inability and unwillingness to sacrifice the parts of herself that could have done this.  There is a tremendous grief and a grieving in my soul.  

She is running away from this place where she once again did not find fulfillment, and once again, I am a part of that place.

She has been running as long as I can remember.

And I have been chasing for just as long.

This time however, has been and continues to be different.  I have unconditionally offered sound financial advice and options, and she has not listened to a word I have said.  I have chosen not to impose my beliefs on her, straining and struggling to muscle her into doing things my way, because there is no gain in that for either of us.  There is only a diminishment of my own inner strength and resilience.

For my own health and wellbeing I am not pursuing someone who was never there in the first place.  

There is a telling memory that has been with me as I think of how I have chosen to deal with this situation.  It was an oft repeated tale, told by my mother and in fact verified by her mother, more than 25 years ago when my Grama was still alive.  

It was an early, yet apparently frequent event in my mother's childhood, beginning from the age of 4 or 5, that as a little girl my mother would threaten to "run away from home."  
My grandmother's response was always the same.  "Ok," she would reply, "I'll make you a sandwich to take with you.  Have you got everything you need?"  This would most often cause my mother to grumble, feel defeated, and give up her quest within a few minutes time.  Though she was given freedoms no 4 or 5 year old would be given today, her need to run was evidently already in place.

If I were to go into a psychoanalysis of this drama, I could pull multiple levels of power, control, autonomy, etc. and then layer those with mental illness, societal and cultural normatives, and an historical reference.  Likewise, I could do the same with the future events of her life that now constitute the past of my own childhood and create many scenarios that place guilt, blame, and explanations real or imagined onto them.  And perhaps this might explain my perseverance in chasing after her.  Perhaps, this might give insight into the decisions I have made over the years.  Perhaps, it might even cause me to have a compassion that I did not have before.

Yet, for whatever reason, all the answers in the world that I could extricate and extrapolate from this, will never be enough.  The reality of what was, and what is, and what will be have no true bonds with answers, or logic, or analyses that bring understanding or compassion at this time.

When mental illness is the root of someone's core, when it is left unchecked, untreated, and unaccountable, then that beast will consume what it must in order to survive.  I have lived with that beast within myself for decades and it has fought brutally with my mother's beast.  Her beast continues to scream and terrorize and destroy as it tears its way through this world.

Mine, well mine, has been given compassion, therapy, a host of medications, and a family that loves the man who has been asked to bring it along for the ride.

Sadly, that was not then nor has it ever been, truly done for her or her mental illness.

So, tomorrow, my mother's beast will be driving halfway across the country, snarling and snapping its ever hungry jaws, ready to devour and fill the helplessness and hopelessness it cannot satisfy.

And tomorrow, my beast, will be as at peace as it can be.  It will be sleeping.  And it will be forgiven.  

I will be at work, journeying with others whose beasts have yet to be understood or given what they need.  To be acknowledged for their passion, creativity, and genius.  To be cradled and comforted.  To be treated with compassion, medications, and a willingness to let go.

Tonight, I will let G-d take over watch of my beast, my mental illness, my gift and my curse, and forgive it and me for all the damage we have done together.

Tomorrow, with the grace of G-d, I will ask G-d do this for my mother and her beast as well, and have the hope that it could truly happen.


And I will say goodbye to the mother I never had, the mother that I did, and the beast she could not tame.  

It will be a time of mourning.  

It will be a time of release.

And I may sit Shivah, or I may roll the stone away, or I may do nothing at all.

But I will remember my own words.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari 

Of Resolutions

Hello,

It is New Year's Day.  It is 2013.  It is an arbitrary manipulation of time and space that imposes an order onto the world that has no religious, fiscal, seasonal, lunar, academic, or even social meaning.

The start of the Jewish new year, the Christian liturgical year, and the academic year in the majority of the United States of America all usually begin in September.

Lunar and seasonal changes are marked in separate cycles, none of which fall on January 1st.
January is in fact a word that comes from the root word/name Janus, an Ancient Roman god who possessed two faces looking in opposite directions to symbolize beginnings, endings, or transitions.  And as poetic as that may be, I doubt that it was geo-political world leaders that really had anything to do with it.

The "Fiscal Cliff" of which we have been inundated with rhetoric on both sides, seems out of sync with state governments and for that matter most corporations whose fiscal years end in June, not December.  But this "crisis" that has been so narrowly averted, really had nothing to do with what time of year it was anyway.  But it has acted, indeed right here in my own work, as a diversion from the real local, national, and global crises at hand.

The real crises in our world of poverty, hunger, homelessness, untreated mental illness,  untreated physical illness, access to affordable health care, clean air, clean water, safety, equality, justice, and the repair of so many broken systems that have failed to meet any of our truest needs.

Perhaps this can be more readily understood in less fatalistic sounding terms.

I, YOU, WE need to meet each and every person where they are.

Not where they want to be.

Not where you want them to be.

Not where they were.

And not where the limitations of a broken world might condemn them to.
For just as someone who is penniless, homeless or dying from an incurable disease, it is just as true that someone with billions of dollars could be perceived as limited and condemned to a life of avarice, narcissism, and profound loneliness.

Perspective is everything.  And that is our greatest gift.

It is our greatest gift as human beings to know what it feels like to live and breathe and walk on this planet in our own unique and individual experiences.  And we know that more than 6 billion people are doing the same thing every day.  

If we are to share just that gift, that gift of life experience perspective, I believe that we would transform our own pain, grief, and anxiety into a collective celebration that we are travelling this path together and we have survived challenges that have served to make us better than we were.

In the Northern Hemisphere this is the physically darkest and coldest time of our calendar year.  We need hope that this will change.  We know that it will, we have watched it happen time and again, yet still we need hope for longer, brighter, warmer days.  And even though there is no good "reason" for this time that we celebrate a New Year, I believe that there is this profound human need for hope.

So, we do what humans can do, unable to alter the physical realities of our universe, we commit to changing ourselves.

We make resolutions.  We resolve to do better than last year.  We resolve, meaning we analyze, answer, and determine to begin again and make what seemed difficult somehow easier.

We write down some ideas.  We plan a new diet.  A new exercise plan.  Education.  Religion.  Financial stability.  More and less of all that we found unsuitable about our past year's behaviors.

And I am no different.  I have thought about each one of those things, but I have decided to make a resolution that will require much more of me than self-control around sweets, or shiny objects in store displays, or whatever bandwagon I hear calling my name to come and join their party.

I resolve today, this 1st day of January, 2013 to forgive the people, places, and things that I believe have harmed me.

I resolve to meet each one of them where they are.

I resolve to share my gift of what it is to walk on this earth in the way that I do.

I resolve to listen to my own words and believe in the power and grace of a G-d that has already done so for me.

Happy New Year.

Be well, love your neighbor as yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Endings and Beginnings, part 1

Hello,

It has been 2 months since I have written, and although I have a multitude of excuses, such as a new job, continuing medication adjustments, and the onslaught of commercialism know as the "holiday season," the reality is that I have simply not believed that I had the time, energy, inspiration, creativity, etc. to write.  And all of those excuses are ultimately false, and my beliefs are false as well.

It is true that I spend a fairly large part of my work day writing as I take notes and attempt "verbatims" for the services I provide in an elementary school setting.  This is in part because I want as much documented evidence as I can provide for my students, and it is in part because I need something to do when my services are not needed.  I voluntarily have chosen to do this, and I feel largely certain that few people in my current position would without a specific request from a supervisor.  It is the nature of my educational over-qualification and my own personal need to write that have created this documentation system that I am doing, and I have been told that it is of great help to my supervisor as well as supervisors within the hierarchical chain.  It is also writing that must be kept entirely confidential and therefore cannot be shared with almost anyone, let alone expressed in a public forum such as this blog.  It is a "Catch 22" for me as I find myself writing pages and pages daily, yet for an audience that is limited to a select few individuals.

That said, nearly every morning I awake, just as I did today, with numerous thoughts about what I personally would like to write about and share here in my blog.  Each day I chide myself for not making notes, or writing.  And I know that this self-deprecation isn't helping emotionally or literally to do any actual writing.  Again, a "Catch 22" that haunts me.

And speaking of such, here is the real life "Catch 22" that I find myself in.  

My mother is moving to Minnesota.  Yes, Minnesota, Duluth to be precise, in the dead of winter.

Now, for anyone who knows me personally, you know that in some ways this is the answer to every prayer I have ever had regarding this woman.  I have always had a tenuous, stressful, exhausting, and otherwise hideous relationship with my mother.  And oddly, it has nothing to do with my own gender identity issues, life choices, religious beliefs, or really anything to do with me at all.

My mother is an artist, a poet, a musician, a free spirit prone to wandering wherever the winds of her desires may blow.  

My mother, like myself, suffers from mental illness, however it has remained untreated for her nearly 72 years on this planet and she has no intention of ever treating it.  She has a keen ability when it comes to lying to therapists, and I have not heard of one yet that has told her she needs more intensive interventions.  Then again, even if she did, it is remarkably unlikely that she would share such information with anyone, and she would, as she has in the past find a new therapist.

She happens to meet all the criteria in the DSM IV for Borderline Personality Disorder.  It has been said that many of the world's greatest creators have or had some form of mental illness.  But for those with certain functional abilities they are simply labeled as "eccentric," "quirky," or "creative."  Of course the old joke goes that the difference between "weird" and "eccentric" is money, of which she burns through faster than an oil tank here in Western Maine.

When these individuals are not your parent or loved one they can be the most fascinating people who can enlighten and enliven your own life for as long as they take an interest in you.  In reality it is what you can offer them, although they will in fact see their offerings as gifts to you.  They have been endowed with a sense of self that makes narcissists look like Mother Theresa in comparison.  

When these individuals are in fact your parent or loved one their ability to focus on you and provide the stability and unconditional love that is necessary for safe, nurturing, and healthy human relationships, you are often completely out of luck and on your own to pick up the pieces left behind when the tornado has passed on to another place.  Indeed, this tornado can be emotional, and spiritual, but it can also be physical, damaging to your space, your home, your personal body and others in your own life.  It is a burden that you live with, waiting for the next storm.  Waiting in horrified expectation of the insanity that is sure to come when their "next great adventure" presents itself.

And as an individual with mental illness myself, though of a different sort, it is not lost on me that my own loved ones may well feel the same about my past actions and fear for the future themselves.  I take solace in the fact that I do take medications, meet with therapists, physicians, spiritual leaders, and have voluntarily committed myself to a mental recovery hospital at one time in order to deal with the demons that I have been asked to battle.  Mental illness has many gifts, and it also possesses many horrors that can lead to profound harm to those you love the most.  It is a high-wire act that requires constant attention.  And luckily for me I have created, with help, a safety net to catch me if I fall, no matter the height I may mistakenly climb to.  Mania is a more dangerous drug than any street drug or prescription one can ever take.  Trust me, I know.

So, my mother is moving half way across the country, driving herself, one week from today.

And there is a part of me that is rejoicing.

And there is a part of me that is weeping.

Once again, my mother, the person who supposedly was charged at my birth with providing me with the emotional foundation to go out into the world and use my gifts and talents to their fullest with a self-confidence and pride that is brimming over, is putting herself, her needs, her wants, her mental illness ahead of me.  Again, and again, and again.

Once again, her insanity is the driving force for her forward motion into a situation that to a "normal" person would seem ridiculous even if they were to be the most optimistic person in the world.

She is driving to Minnesota, in a Toyota Scion, with a dog, who is not truly house-trained, in January, to go live with friends she has known for less than 2 years, in their rented home, to follow her, well who really knows what, dream, mission, fantasy, hope.

She has listed her home here to sell, and will be taking with her only that which fits in her car.  

She has told us that anything she leaves behind is ours to with as we see fit, although we are to box up some of her possessions and store them in our barn.  She always wants to have it both ways.

Did I mention she is almost 72.  And this is the 5th time she has done this, picked up and moved, in 18 years, to become something new and different and life changing.  She has these revelations on a nearly quarterly basis.  I have gently and not so gently reminded her of this fact, but her spirit and her mind are incapable of hearing my words.  I have decided that now whenever she asks my advice I simply reply that she will do what she wants to do regardless and she is an adult capable of making her own life decisions.  I do not believe that she hears this either. 

And so, I am relieved that she will not be my burden for awhile.

And yet, I am terrified that if, and mostly likely when, this arrangement falls apart I will be called upon to rescue her once again.

From the moment I was born it was programmed into me that it was my life's work to care for her, meet her needs, and fulfill her in ways that no infant, no child, no adolescent, no young adult, no adult, no person in this entire world can or should.  

And yet, when the chips are down, I have run.  I have run to her aid.  I have run to her brokenness.  
I have run to fulfill her soul.  

And I have run from my core sense of self that tells me that I do not need to do this.  I have run away from my wife.  I have run away from my two sons.  I have run away from my own brokenness.  I have run away from my own soul.  

And I am tired of running.  

So as this ending place in our relationship comes again, I will promise myself that it is a new beginning for me and for my family.

And I will pray that this time, it will be so.

And I will pray that I can hear my own words that I always end my blog posts with.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari