5/5/04
I was riding the 2 train when it stopped at Park Place - like it has a million times before - and a rush of acid filled my stomach. I was having a sudden flashback to my days at That Internet Company, the one located downtown by City Hall, and Park Place was where I'd disembark to slog upstairs to one of the last dot-coms left standing.
I wondered what the rush of acid might be, and it was then I realized: it was shame. Remembering everything may help you with writing, but it's hell on your stomach, especially as you're forced to re-live every moronic thing you've ever done. That job was the last element of my life I completed before my nervous breakdown, and now the memory of those days are filled with all the petty, stupid, tiny-power-grubbing moments of ego in which I engaged. I comported myself badly, and now, even years later, I still feel in trouble when the 2 train stops at that station.
AA deals with this stuff all the time; I mean, they must. If there's one thing that marks alcoholics, it's the overweening sense of shame they feel about the way they've behaved when they drank. Untreated, it leads to more drinking - just because you're tired of giving a fuck about what the world thinks of you - or you lash out, telling the cosmos you're going to take your toys and go home. The latter leads to one of my favorite (overheard) statements in AA: "I'm the piece of shit the world revolves around."
Since I can't really stomach very much liquor and have too many control issues to try heroin, I wonder if there's another AA for me, something like BDA - "Bad Decisions Anonymous."
"Hi, I'm Ian, and I've made some really bad decisions."
"Hello, Ian."
soulful nodding ensues
Apparently the fourth and fifth step of AA is to make a "fearless moral inventory" of everything you've done wrong, and then admit these foibles to your higher power. By cataloguing your shame, it becomes knowable. Frankly, I wonder how people start. With a pad and pen, over a cup of coffee, staring out into the rain... perhaps that's how these things are done.
The later steps involve making amends to those you've wronged, but what if you're sure they don't care anymore, barely remember you, have no interest in contact, find the whole thing creepy - and you STILL feel ashamed of the way you behaved? Doesn't that make it about you again and then you're back to being a dime-store Narcissus?
note to self: call pharmacologist to see if Celexa still working
Having never been an alcoholic, but having survived a brief relationship with a good person who was saved by AA, I know about the "steps". And as a recovering "bad decision maker" I can relate to the problem of shame. In most of the cases that give me the kind of systemic shame reaction you describe, I really have put them to rest (and continue to work on it) by admitting them and putting them "out there" to whatever higher power exists, even if it's just the human collective.
It isn't self-indulgent to do so; it doesn't make it "about you" in a negative way. What it does is deal with those feelings, those past stupid actions, those people you've treated badly, those real or imagined sins, with the person who means most to you: yourself. And that's important, because yourself is the only person you can control, and the person that you will, after all, spend most of your time with.
Get it out, put it out there, and let it go. You're making progress. Celexia may help, but believe me the old "Hey... whaddaya know... I screwed up" admission is even more important. Admitting it to the people you hurt, betrayed, etc., may not seem as if it matters to them, but it often does, and certainly it does have an effect on you, and makes you a better, happier, more grounded person. And bear in mind that it never really ends, it just becomes part of your (as the Mormons would have it) "eternal progression."
Sorry to be long winded, but the world needs positive energy, and the forgiveness process (12 step or otherwise) just might be a small antidote for the current world craziness. It may just help mankind become more evolved as a species and the earth a more habitable planet. If I didn't believe that, I'd have to find a cave and live out my days eating bugs and cursing the dark.
Don't go there. Keep on keeping on.
I don't know the twelve step program, but I think an important step in life is to forgive everyone everything, including yourself. Compare your crimes to, e.g. Idi Amin, or Kenneth Lay, or Donald Rumsfeld, or Slobodan Milosevic (sp). Not so horrible now, eh?
The great thing about self-loathing is that if you do it right, others will loath you too!
Reading this entry gave me a tummy ache. Your blogs can do that...it's a painful something in common ache - In my case I was very fortunate to have gotten help as soon as my arrival in hell was apparent to the world.I was able to cover it up for a while. It was a period of time in our lives that high stress & grief was expected therefore accepted - then I crashed. I was even able to lie pretty well to the first doctor I saw, the family physician... "life can be hard, i'm stressed". My parents knew better. Got an excellent psychologist that didn't let me bullshit her and a psychiatist whom cared about the correct chemicals for my altered brain. My mom has the misfortune of being bi-polar, she was diagnosed at 26, lithium is a wonder drug... but not managed properly every four years or so she'd have a manic party that wreaked havoc, then she'd have the crash, feel the shame and have to recover from all of the above. Genetics are a funny thing. At 26 I was diagnosed clinically depressed, no party for you... a slow trip to hell to which completely alters my being. Being educated in "depression", I didn't acknowledge the signs, help myself or in anyway believe I was depressed. I was evil, mentally challenged, had lied my way through life, and was now causing my family great stress and I was a failure at ending it - couldn't even attempt it, instead I crashed. My psychologist spent patient hours listening to my reasoning, trying to prove me wrong. I was told to eat, sleep, survive and please patiently wait for the meds to work. Surviving can be painful but then the ride up begins and the best feeling is waking up one day and thinking "i'm not in hell anymore" Yahoo! oh, and by the way i'm a pretty good person too.
I was told that to feel shame means you care. True evil does not care a lick about shit. Do the inventory, take a deep breath and let it go.
Wow, can I have a mom like you, Mrs. Williams? I mean, I love my own mother very much, but the words you lent to your son is probably one of the reasons Mother's Day exists.
It's always easier said than done, isn't it? I want to tell you, Ian, that you've brought more good than evil into the world with your life, and to let go of the past.
But then, I remember my own bad decisions, many years old, that still give me nightmares now and then, and the good people from whom I badly need forgiveness and will never, ever receive it. It isn't easy to just get over guilt.
Sometimes, you need to hear it from other people before you can say it to yourself. For what it's worth, Ian, you bring joy into my life. Your writing consistently makes me either smile, or think hard, or both, and I'm glad you're part of this big crazy world we all share.
Think about it. You've brought more good than evil into the world with your life. Human's aren't perfect. A positive balance is the best we can achieve.
That's totally cool of you to write that, P... I don't mean these blogs as a cry for affirmation, merely a dumping ground for things I can't seem to control. So much of life is irrational, it makes me wonder how we discovered lasers.
If I may echo Kent, it's time to get past the self-loathing and start hating others.
Ian, just eat a ginger cookie or peppermint or licorice. The GI tract is binary, your thought feedbacks are infinite. There is still plenty of work to be had in this field, we just don't call them dot-coms anymore. Happy 4:20, that can help too. See you in Flatbush ninja
I think you could atone for your past poor decisions by plugging my play on yer blog.
Run, don't walk to see Joe Papp's play. For more info, just click on Joe's name above.
After reading the above posts today, I would not want anyone to think I take lightly the need to atone for prior bad deeds. My little rant of this morning... that took 11 years in the making - that kind of work or progress does not come easy, but it's worth the effort, the setbacks and the fear of going back again. My saying "let it go" was in refence to your thoughts on revisiting issues with some folks that may not remember or care and find it creepy... those are things you can safely let go with little worry. I also have to second the fact that while I don't really know you, you scored great family and friends. Be good to yourself and take care of yourself.