CAPTAIN'S BLOG
I have loved many people with neurological personality orders in my life, and I've been close to many more, including myself. Perhaps there is an as-yet undiagnosed personality disorder rattling around in my head - or maybe my ADHD is as disruptive in my interpersonal life as it is with my work life, making an additional disorder unnecessary.
I know what it is like both to struggle with impulses, thoughts, and feelings that are hard or impossible to control. To be so overwhelmed with emotional intensity as to have no other recourse but to relieve it directly, regardless of the consequences. I've been an angry teenage boy punching holes in the walls, and a heartbroken teenage girl experiencing terrible emotional pain crying for hours for weeks at a time. Trying to make people love me - and trying to hurt people any way I can. Trying to seek help any way I can - and trying to protect myself anyway I can. Sacrificing too much to get too little, while the people without disorders look on in confusion. It can be hard for onlookers to understand the nature and impact of someone's disorder on their behaviour. It can be even harder to figure out what to do about it - oftentimes the person seems locked into behaving a certain way. No matter the input, the output remains the same. Rage, sadness, or anxiety of a level that your average person has never experienced. The way that these emotions twist the behaviours of people in the moment, and over time, is what is often misunderstood, and what is wanted to be understood by people like me and the people I've loved. Read More for my thoughts on what people ought to know about the people in their lives with a personality disorder of one sort or another. How should we treat our friends, family, and loved ones who have the type of disorders that make it hard to love them? How should we feel when we decide someone isn't in the right place for us to stay near them? Millions of people across the world are faced with this very decision - whether that behavioural disorder is among the Cluster B personality disorders, one of the other categories, or comes with the falsely legitimizing label of "Religion".
0 Comments
Is there an illusion of choice? Is this question any different from asking about the illusion of free will?
We know that we are not free in the broad sense because we cannot do that which does not occur to us, and that which does occur to us bubbles up from our subconscious in a way which we cannot control or be held responsible for. But most people's experience carries the feeling of choice. We have options, and we discern between them, and arrive on a conclusion. From what we're doing that day to what hair dye to get to investigating what our level of mental stability is like. Sometimes we're curbing our fights so we don't get into an argument before work - but sometimes, we don't. What is the operating function here? More fascinatingly - what is the chemistry like for someone choosing between two alternatives? There must be an accumulation of two competing chemical reactions. Perhaps different inputs from the brain feed into these reactions, growing or shrinking their chemical potential depending on how the other parts of the brain influence the reaction with neural activity. So you're choosing which park to go to. Maybe you go to the park at the bottom of the hill by the community garden, or maybe you go to the far park with the bench. You size things up: The first park is much more proximate than the other. The parts of my brain that might care about such things feed into the reaction, growing it. Maybe I reconsider how much I care about proximation, and the two chemical reactions equalize somewhat. Still other factors are factored in - I took that pretty redhead to the close park, but the second park is nicer and going there with Marion always feels special. The first park has raspberries right next door. The second park has more people, so that sucks, but today I'm feeling social - you get the idea. So the decision that is made is still composed of physical processes just like our sense of consciousness itself is. Whatever is controlling the brain and its ability to choose, it is based upon the physical structures and principles of the brain. This means that the this choice process is probably at least somewhat local in nature - it may not be a brain structure itself, but maybe a race condition between these two chemicals which are influenced by the regions of the brain invested in that decision. But what is to be made of neurological disorders - why is it that some people seem to have more freedom of choice than others? Would You Leave Your Partner If You Found Someone Who Was A Better Match? Or: Monogamy Vs Polyamory7/10/2016 This is one of the bazillions of questions asked by the OKCupid dating site.
I think it was worded somewhat more precisely like this: "If you met someone who was a better match for while in a dedicated relationship, would you pursue that person?" And my answer was Yes. And I would really expect anyone to do this if the same happened to them. This doesn't mean that I don't believe in commitment or working to make things work. In fact, I believe in them very much - I don't automatically think that the ways in which two people don't get along means it's not worth working at. The nature of gradual change works with this, as people tend to change gradually instead of suddenly, cushioning the shock of when people change for the worse, instead of the better. Often, some reflection can reveal a startling delta between the person one first met and the person they are with now. But here's where polyamoury comes into it, and changes everything, from a heartless and irrational endeavour to a loving and rational one. "I think there are times when it is appropriate to convey anger to someone. I think it's appropriate to be motivated by a feeling of outrage when something that has been done is truly outrageous, is truly a sign of a kind of callousness that is causing harm in this world."
-From Sam Harris on the James Atlucher Show One of the most uncomfortable things about the way I feel, and one of the reasons that it has taken me so long to get a handle on things - with progress continuing to be uneven - is how much anger and even hate I feel. I'm not an angry or hateful person - I could get carried away by my passions all too easily, but my intention was never to hurt anyone. Of course my Facebook arguments are as legendary as they are infamous, but they were driven not by anger, but really by a simple passion for the truth and for understanding. Frustration enters the fray once understanding cannot be found, as others are all too vulnerable to the feeling of fear and dread that is associated with being wrong, especially in a public forum. I think this is a public and social weakness - being wrong is in fact a great thing. When you predict(ed) some result, and get another, that means one of your assumptions is incorrect and needs to be analysed and updated or replaced. This is the maxim by which I've lived my life - being wrong or experiencing something unexpected is an opportunity to learn. So indeed, I often reflect on the things I ought to learn from the utter failure of Aria's and I's relationship - which is an unexpected result. It is certainly the best result - but that is based mostly on the person Aria has revealed herself to be, rather than my own desires. But Aria shows that person only to a select few, and good news: I am one of the lucky ones. Only the 'blacklisted' people get to see the real her - the her that shows up when the chips are down and the pressure is on and it's make-or-break time. She ruthlessly protects herself and is only looking out for herself. I don't work like that - I can without a doubt be selfish, but I'm not cruel. I may take an extra toke or drink a bit more vodka than is equal, but I never take everything. It's just a gross thing to do. I've never felt less like my true self than over the last couple of months. Yesterday, at last, I got a taste of something closer to the real me - the joy of helping Marion move with the help of the Pulsar was incredibly infectious and healthy. I should spend more time with people - the many small interactions I had throughout the day, making people laugh and smile, maybe some flirting here and there, and looking into Marion's beautiful eyes while we're stuffed in the elevator with all of our things - it reminded me of the person I used to be. Passionate, not angry. Loving, not suspicious. Trusting, not paranoid. 'Jessiethelover' is a username I chose rather seriously. The net and my mother tell me to keep the damage Aria has done to me to myself. Fake it till you make it. I just can't do that - I'm not ashamed of admitting that the things Aria has done has driven me to do things and feel things and imagine things and hope for things I never could have imagined before. I did those things - I'm responsible for my actions, and I regret them. I know I did my best in the moment and did my best to give myself time to normalize my emotions, and did my best to use the rationale and advice of others' to replace my own emotionally charged ones. I'm happy to apologize for the things I've done. I'm not ashamed of that because I know that those feelings aren't me and that I don't want to feel them. I do my best to think about positive things to break out of the loops of negative thinking. As neuroplasticity suggests, this is a time-consuming process, and the brain can work against itself here - Acute Stress Reaction disorder and C-PTSD essentially force the brain to relive those moments, thus reinforcing the stress reaction. It's a time consuming and difficult process to interrupt, hence the high suicide rates in people who experience PTSD; transpeople it seems, included. Mindfulness has been as critical a tool as it always has been, but against the tidal wave of emotions - increased by exposure to Aria's emotional extremes (BPD Fleas, a phenomenon confirmed by my therapist) - it has been a palm tree straining in the hurricane fruitlessly in the intensity of my emotions. But progress, however slow, especially to the outside world, is being made. I look forward to becoming the person I am supposed to be - and not the person Aria was trying to make me into. --- Some cool quotes from Sam Harris while I listen to his talk: "I think Godwin's law is socially harmful - there are some comparisons which can be made towards the Nazi's. There are some Nazi-like things in this world today. It's a shorthand way of thinking that I think is dangerous in this world." - Sam Harris An interesting statement. "If you were going to make one change in your life that would make your life and everyone's life around you better, it would be being radically honest across the board." Oh Sam. Marry me? Today was a wonderful day.
It started out like any other day: coffees and a joint in bed while watching the episode of Kitchen Nightmares we fell asleep watching the night before. Marion insisted as first that we put the TV in the living room, but once it actually came down to it, we ended up putting it in our room anyways. We gathered some things, and got ready to leave. While Marion was having a smoke, RE let me know that she would be moving out in a month. That sucks. It's hard not to wonder if it's because of me. I'm sure it must be hard to be around me these days. When I'm out and about and socialising, it's much easier to forget about things and just talk, but sometimes I'm in the middle of, well maybe I should start calling them episodes (all the cool cats have episodes), a sad or suspicious time. Every time I can't find something it's automatic to figure that Aria has taken it. And while it is most certainly not the case every time, it is sometimes the case. It sucks when I find something I've accused Aria of stealing - it definitely makes me look bad, too. Like a paranoid crazy person. And you know what: Sometimes I am a crazy person. I don't know why some people don't seem to understand my situation, other than a strange bias towards Aria that she mostly certainly doesn't deserve, but maybe a Wiki entry will help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_stress_reaction And indeed, my therapist has indicated that I perfectly fit the bill for ASR and now that my symptoms have persisted for over a month, C-PTSD. Yaaaay psychology. It's been interesting talking to the therapist about all of this. Unfortunately an hour is not enough time to explain that has happened - the last 6 months alone are an unbelievably dense adventure. If only the pre-Aria Jessica could have known what was in her future. And in our talks, that has been one of the key reasons that it has taken me so long to get over what Aria did and said. The extreme unexpectedness of everything has a strong impact on the way people react. I was expecting a poly-breakup: we're not really breaking up, but things need to change dramatically because I am not happy. Ever since that New Years party, maybe it was the LSD or maybe it was just me, but I saw Aria for who she was and doing the 300ug dose just reinforced that observation. Anyways. I need not defend myself anymore, despite my readiness to do so. It's a hard impulse to resist - I still feel unheard by many and gravely misunderstood by most. I don't know why her friends are harassing me even still - I'm having enough trouble as it is. What I've said has happened happened. Psychologically speaking, my reaction here is, somewhat amusingly, astoundingly normal. Being intentionally hurt by someone you loved and trusted suddenly and without warning and without expectation is traumatising for the brain. Now that I've established that fact, let's move on with the real interesting stuff: My day today. So it was pretty upsetting getting the letter from RE today, but Marion helped me deal with the irrational(?) fears and insecurities such an event digs up in me during my time of weakness. We gathered some bags, and headed down to the Pulsar. We drop some bags in the Pulsar, I grab the insurance papers, and we walk to the insurance place. Today was such a gorgeous day - truly the gods shined on us this day. It'd been raining for days and suddenly today happens, right when it's time to move! Meeting someone like Marion, the Pulsar totally killing it all day today, and such perfect weather so perfectly timed can make a girl wonder sometimes. We will see what the future brings though. I've definitely learned to be cynical, if nothing else. But hey - at this point, I'm ready for pretty much anything. Please, no one take that as a challenge though. I've never thought so often about suicide in my life. Nor have I ever felt less like myself and more like someone else - but sometimes, especially today with Marion, I've never felt more like myself in my entire life. I socialised like a motherfucker today - I'm making Marion look like the charismatic equivalent of a bunch of wet rocks. And wet rocks look cool as fuck- so you know I'm rollin' deep in the charisma. We get back to the car and suddenly I realize: I locked the keys in the car. There's no spare. Locksmiths are expensive, and take a long time. The car is, surprisingly, non-trivial to break into. It's like... fully locked. Windows up. T-tops on. Hatch on. Fucking. Hell. Given our lack of funds and time, it comes down to breaking into the car. We head upstairs, grab a few wire hangars, and head back down. Interesting shapes are bent, blind fumbling is had, and then like some goddamn movie, teamwork - me guiding Marion's ever-so-talented hands by looking through the window on the opposite side. After about 15 minutes of fiddling, I'm feeling like I'm getting close, but it looks like Marion's design is better, so I guide her towards the lock, and pulls, and... BAM! DOOR UNLOCKED! What a goddamn glorious moment that was. Fortunately, getting going after that went off without a hitch. Except that we couldn't get the hatch off. First the screws were too tight - again, Marion somehow managed to remove a stripped screw from a thin piece of metal. Then, the nuts were too tight. A blowjob seemed to help, but we still couldn't get the hatch off without a ratchet set. We borrowed Aaron's - I need a 14, his only went to 13. We had flat tires and just a bit of old gas - so we limped down to the gas station, the ass swerving a bit on the very low tires. Oops. :/ Hit the gas station, gas it up for the first time in over a year, rejoice that Aria isn't around to experience any of this, blow a kiss to Marion, and over to the air pump. Fortunately I check the tires before paying, and notice that one of the hubcaps is pinning the stem. Shit. Prying and pulling results in cuts at worst and failure at best. With few other options, the sunglasses come off and I ask for one of the guys in the gas station to help get the hubcap off. A few anemic tries later, he suggests he gets some gloves. He does, and tries anemically a few more times. Marion gives it a valiant effort, but alas, this hubcap can only be removed by one person: Me. So I throw the gloves on my (slightly) bloodied hands and give it to good tugs. It's firm in it's attachment - that sounds familiar - so I give it my all with one lat big tug and with a sound of relaxing metal it vibrates as I fall back onto the pavement. Profuse thanks are had, pressured air is added to four vessels, one of which was completely empty, and hands are washed. We jump in the car an sure enough, the car repair places are closed. So I try to figure out who does car stuff on a sunday.... and eventually I remember Lordco. Thank fuck for Lordco, everybody. They have saved my ass more than once. So we hammer down to the nearest Lordco, I bust inside and ask if I can borrow a size 14 wrench. The nice lady says sure, and I remove the remaining four bolts and two gas stays. The hatch can now be... detached. We drive it home, leave it in our neighbours' parking spot (with his permission) with the T-Tops and make our first trip to Marion's. My pills are kicking in - tune in for more TAELES OF INTRIGUE tomorrow. In Response To: "Aria's the real victim, you're a narcissist, emotionally manipulative, and evil."5/27/2016 In particular, this comment. 'Markus' said a bunch of mean things in his comment. The following is my response, plus some additional thoughts. Hey Gabriel! Strange to hear from you like this. What brought this on, exactly? Did she say something, or did you just randomly decide to read my blog one day? First, I'm concerned about your statements. You don't appear to know what happened. I'm not sure how one could construe Aria to be the victim in this situation. Sure things didn't go the way she wanted - but she forced things to go the way they did, every step of the way. Remember that time I calmly and politely emailed Aria about my collar and cuffs and the cat? Just so we're clear, she most assuredly gave them to me, and they simply /are/ my property. Still not sure why she took the lights, other than what she said: she felt entitled to them. As soon as she received that email, Aria turned and as far as I can tell, she hasn't turned back. Especially given your post. And besides, how can Aria be the victim if she's not upset about what happened? I heard she had already moved on, which makes sense given the 'white/black' dichotomy that people with BPD are commonly associated with. I'm simply a 'bad person' to her, which is true, because I value truth, kindness, and honesty - things which I learned recently are the antithesis of Aria. The very fact that you are here saying these things - exactly the same things Aria has said to me in her emails - tells me that she no interest in the truth whatsoever. Thank fuck I found out before we actually got married or had kids. The stories of people with BPD and marriages with children are fucking terrifying. Read one - I dare you. I do have some personality issues to work through, no doubt. Not as much as Aria - especially if she continues to deny to herself what she did to me and Riley - but I'm just a good-old-fashioned codependent person. I define myself via my partner, and I literally live for my partner. Aria was my /everything/. It turns out that's a pretty bad strategy if your partner is a shitty person - so establishing a true self-identity is what we're working on with my therapist now. It'd be all too easy to blame that lack of self on Aria - as that is a common trait of people with BPD - but I've lacked a clear self for a long time. Being a young suppressed transperson was hard. Fortunately, Marion is also a very independent person, which gives me lots of space to explore, and she's easy to learn from. Whereas Aria feared any changes in my personality, Marion welcomes them, which to be honest is a weird feeling, but I have been told it's a good thing, so I'm going with it :) I also have to undo the damage that Aria has done. This is proving to be a challenge, but it's something everyone has to go through if they've been close to someone with BPD for a long time - this goes for children, too, in case Ahki is reading. You have to relearn that people don't deal in extremes - most people have fairly average emotions and feelings, and it can be tough to relearn that. Complex PTSD also commonly presents itself after relationships with people with BPD. Being close to someone who can be triggered to extremes at any moment is very unhealthy for the brain, and especially after January, I was constantly on guard against setting her off. Anything relating to Riley would send her off on an angry rant at least for hours, and that lasted, well, right up until she moved out, and could then be angry at me instead. My therapist has reviewed much of my writing and she has stated that the science is very sound. I also put it up to your standard: instead of just spewing whatever Aria has managed to make you think, try thinking rationally and honestly about my claims - both scientific, and moral. I think you will find them well-constructed. Aria's behaviour is /textbook/ BPD. I honestly hope that you are right, and that karma is keeping track of the evil things that people do to other people. Ironically if I could fully believe that, I would find a great deal of peace - I could rely on the fact that Aria will get her comeuppance. But that is not so - manipulative people get away with lots all the time. In fact, one of them is running for president in the US, speaking of narcissists. Instead, she gets away with my things, and somehow manages to convince people like you - who are satisfied with knowing only half the story - to post nasty things on my blog, which you might notice, is mine, so I'll post whatever I want. And right now I'm going through some shit, and writing is how I deal. It helps me process. And I am making progress - I was barely able to be rational for any longer than a few minutes after I received that first email from her for a month and a half - it's been a major challenge to regain my neurological composure, but I'm making serious inroads as I continue to try to understand Aria's behaviours. I don't even really care about what she took any more. I've got a new collar, and we're plenty creative to not need cuffs. It's still stolen property, though. You know what's funny? I don't even know what Aria /actually/ feels happened - all I'm getting is "oh, she's the real victim here" from random people on the internet. I mean, it's true - Germany was the real victim of WWII, right? I mean: if so, she put herself there. I was more than willing to break up amicably. In fact, I don't know any other way to do it - until I had to defend myself from Aria. Each email from her eroded that willingness - and I think is pretty good proof of her, as you say, evil, manipulative bitchiness. Honest, truthful people don't say things like "I was going to give you your collar back but I decided not to because you asked for it and I now I want to withhold it from you". Sorry pal - you picked the wrong side :/ Feel free to Read More if you're curious. |
AuthorChristina Hitchens is a trans female writer living in BC, Canada. She loves computers, animals, and a good argument. Archives
March 2022
Categories
All
|