A Heartbreaking work of Staggering Genius

 This was another post from May 10th. Apparently I just like to make drafts and not post them. It makes a little more sense in the context of a few weeks ago, before I came home.

With the semester coming to a close, it makes me nostalgic. I'm not quite sure what for, because i'm not sure if I want to go home, or if I want to relive this year.

There are times when you go back somewhere you haven't been for awhile and realize that it looks different. The room's a little smaller, and the walls aren't quite as bright as they used to be. It's funny how we create visions and images of what we expect out of  the places that were so familiar to us. We know, down deep, that those places were so big and bright as we thought, but we compensated in our minds.

This is an interesting idea, isn't it? That our brain can over-embellish the places that we miss? And when we don't miss them, or dread returning to them, our subconscious does a great job of making those places look shabby, broken-down, and stifling.

So why would our minds do this much work? Why would they go to so much trouble to change the images we have in our heads of our hometowns or other places that we're returning to?

This year kicked me, hard. There were moments where I wanted nothing more than to run away. But now i know that I never truly wanted to run away from the problems I encountered, but instead work through them. If there was one thing that this year taught me, it's that hard-work cannot be taken for granted. If you want something bad enough, you work towards it, and you don't give in until you have gotten it. That's the point. It's heartbreaking at times, and it will make feel crazy at other times. But in the end, it'll be worth it.

Our mind work hard to recreate the images we have of place we're returning to because it would be heartbreaking if they didn't meet our expectations. What if we really wanted to return home, but once we did, we found we didn't fit in there anymore. Maybe our mind want to over-compensate for  the fact that they know we have changed. As scary as that seems, maybe it's true.

But i'm glad our minds are looking out for our hearts. It's good to know someone is.
Until later,

Dat Shit called LOVE

I've been trying to write a post like this one for a while now. But I could never find the right way to talk about Love. You can look at it from a variety of perspectives: scientifically, socially, interpersonally, emotionally, etc. but Psychology Today wrote this beautiful article about how love is "an act of will", giving less power to the idea of "love at first sight", which has always seemed a bit farfetched to me. Attraction is at first sight. While I believe that Love at First Sight can happen, it's rare, and i've only experienced it once.

So read away, and take note. Goooooood Shiiiiiit.

The Power of Love

Love is the best antidepressant—but many of our ideas about it are wrong. The less love you have, the more depressed you are likely to feel.

By Ellen McGrath, published on December 01, 2002 - last reviewed on March 30, 2009

Love is as critical for your mind and body as oxygen. It's not negotiable. The more connected you are, the healthier you will be both physically and emotionally. The less connected you are, the more you are at risk.
It is also true that the less love you have, the more depression you are likely to experience in your life. Love is probably the best antidepressant there is because one of the most common sources of depression is feeling unloved. Most depressed people don't love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also are very self-focused, making them less attractive to others and depriving them of opportunities to learn the skills of love.
There is a mythology in our culture that love just happens. As a result, the depressed often sit around passively waiting for someone to love them. But love doesn't work that way. To get love and keep love you have to go out and be active and learn a variety of specific skills.

Most of us get our ideas of love from popular culture. We come to believe that love is something that sweeps us off our feet. But the pop-culture ideal of love consists of unrealistic images created for entertainment, which is one reason so many of us are set up to be depressed. It's part of our national vulnerability, like eating junk food, constantly stimulated by images of instant gratification. We think it is love when it's simply distraction and infatuation.
One consequence is that when we hit real love we become upset and disappointed because there are many things that do not fit the cultural ideal. Some of us get demanding and controlling, wanting someone else to do what we think our ideal of romance should be, without realizing our ideal is misplaced.
It is not only possible but necessary to change one's approach to love to ward off depression. Follow these action strategies to get more of what you want out of life—to love and be loved.

• Recognize the difference between limerance and love. Limerance is the psychological state of deep infatuation. It feels good but rarely lasts. Limerance is that first stage of mad attraction whereby all the hormones are flowing and things feel so right. Limerance lasts, on average, six months. It can progress to love. Love mostly starts out as limerance, but limerance doesn't always evolve into love.
• Know that love is a learned skill, not something that comes from hormones or emotion particularly. Erich Fromm called it "an act of will." If you don't learn the skills of love you virtually guarantee that you will be depressed, not only because you will not be connected enough but because you will have many failure experiences.
• Learn good communication skills. They are a means by which you develop trust and intensify connection. The more you can communicate the less depressed you will be because you will feel known and understood.

There are always core differences between two people, no matter how good or close you are, and if the relationship is going right those differences surface. The issue then is to identify the differences and negotiate them so that they don't distance you or kill the relationship.
You do that by understanding where the other person is coming from, who that person is, and by being able to represent yourself. When the differences are known you must be able to negotiate and compromise on them until you find a common ground that works for both.

• Focus on the other person. Rather than focus on what you are getting and how you are being treated, read your partner's need. What does this person really need for his/her own well-being? This is a very tough skill for people to learn in our narcissistic culture. Of course, you don't lose yourself in the process; you make sure you're also doing enough self-care.
• Help someone else. Depression keeps people so focused on themselves they don't get outside themselves enough to be able to learn to love. The more you can focus on others and learn to respond and meet their needs, the better you are going to do in love.
• Develop the ability to accommodate simultaneous reality. The loved one's reality is as important as your own, and you need to be as aware of it as of your own. What are they really saying, what are they really needing? Depressed people think the only reality is their own depressed reality.
• Actively dispute your internal messages of inadequacy. Sensitivity to rejection is a cardinal feature of depression. As a consequence of low self-esteem, every relationship blip is interpreted far too personally as evidence of inadequacy. Quick to feel rejected by a partner, you then believe it is the treatment you fundamentally deserve. But the rejection really originates in you, and the feelings of inadequacy are the depression speaking.

Recognize that the internal voice is strong but it's not real. Talk back to it. "I'm not really being rejected, this isn't really evidence of inadequacy. I made a mistake." Or "this isn't about me, this is something I just didn't know how to do and now I'll learn." When you reframe the situation to something more adequate, you can act again in an effective way and you can find and keep the love that you need.



Told you so. Keep the love you need. Surround yourself with people who matter and people who care. Search forever for those types of relationships. Until later,

Home

"Coming home used to feel so good, now i'm a stranger in my neighborhood"

It's true, I used to love coming home. There are always things about going home for summer that I love: mowing the lawn, seeing my dog, sleeping in a bed I don't have layer with sleeping pads and mattress pads, etc. But things have gotten different for me; difficult is a better world.

There's a moment when you realize that home doesn't fit the way you wanted it to. As child, you spend  your life imagining that you'll live in your hometown forever. It makes trips to other places feel like vacations, like you're an intruder in a foreign land. And what makes us feel comfortable is being home, and knowing that there is consistency in your life.

So what happens when your home is no longer the comforting place it once was?

What do you do when you can't relate anymore to the place where you thought you'd spend the rest of your life? Do you detach fully? Or do you try to save the damaged relationship? And how do you tell the people you love that it's not them, it's you?

It's fascinating, the idea of "growing apart". It's something that happens, though, as they say: a part of life. It's funny when they say that the place where you grew up is the biggest part of your life, and yet so is growing apart from that safe haven. Everything in it's due time, I suppose. There's things we have to let go of, though. As long as we're prepared to stay a certain distance from everything in your life.

Actually. Fuck that. Get emotionally detached. Feel terrible when you do. And be heart-broken every once in awhile. It's healthy to know you once had something worth holding on to that you can no longer have to call your own.

Until later,