O Tannenbaum: My First Christmas Morning Without Gifts

This is my first Christmas in my own home, and a few factors (like being broke and spending most of my time in treatment, work, or volunteering) meant that I didn't adorn my abode with very much festive cheer. Back in September when I had all the time in the world I dreamed about lights on the balcony and in the windows, an Advent wreathe on the table, tinsel, an evergreen wreathe with berries and a bow on it, and maybe even my first (small) real tree.

In the end, I put out my collection of snowmen and realized that between working overtime to cover all my hospital treatments without getting paid for it, and travelling to my brother's wedding in November, I was too wrung out to actually do a Christmas for myself.

I also decided not to go to my family's this year. I'd just spent six days trapped in a foreign country with them sharing a hotel room, and I didn't think I could bear any more of the old familiar patterns. I've also been doing a lot of difficult work in group and in therapy, and right before leaving for the holidays my psychologist decided to spring the phrase "your abusers" on me for the first time. Needless to say, this just wasn't going to be the year where I could sit around comfortably and pretend everything was normal, and happy, and that I have forgiven the hurts I've barely begun to acknowledge. 

Anyway, I realized about a month ago that the immediate impact of this decision would be that I wouldn't be able to have the traditional Christmas morning of everyone sitting around in their pajamas opening gifts. There wouldn't be a tree hung with ornaments I'd spent hours hanging, there wouldn't be stockings, or brightly colored ribbons, or arguing over how to fold the tissue paper. Most emotionally, I wouldn't have any presents on Christmas day.  At first I thought about buying myself some stuff and wrapping it up, but I decided that was stupid. I'm a big girl: I don't need gifts on Christmas morning. I'll just suck it up until whenever I end up seeing my parents. And anyway, I was going to church, and it wasn't like I'd be seeing other people receiving gifts to remind me that I wasn't.

Wrong.

To add to what my friend said when yet someone else gave him a gift: when you don't have a family, everyone gives you things, but if you choose not to see your family to try and protect yourself, nobody gives you anything. 

I had that sad, small, crushed feeling inside like a kid who finds out all their friends have been invited to a birthday party and they haven't. I've never been the most lovable person. I've never been the type to elicit unsolicited gestures of love. In my own family, I'm the one that everyone ignores, while my brother is the bright shining star. It's like that in every group I join -- some people help share the last of the Communion wine and I wash the dishes; I do the un-glamorous jobs without waiting to be asked and no one says thank you; I prepare the stuff for s'mores while other girls lead the campfire; I compose the prayer services and someone else leads them. I am the invisible girl, and I don't usually bring out the grand gestures in people without asking for them.

I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, but I went home and cried like a small child. This dovetailed nicely with the fact that I cry every time I come home from church now because I'm having some kind of crisis of faith. Only this time, it was all about Santa Claus forgetting to bring me anything. I know I brought it on myself by deciding not to go home this year, but I still couldn't help feeling sorry for myself.

At any rate, I thought I'd give you all a small gift this holiday season. I know it isn't much, but I'm going to share a little story about Christmas. When this happened I was about four years old, and this is one of my earliest memories.

My uncle R had come over to our house to celebrate Christmas, and he'd brought us presents. I unwrapped mine and saw that he'd given me a pair of brightly-colored Fisher Price roller skates that attach to your regular shoes. They were really cool, obviously. I said thank you while struggling not to cry, and then crawled behind the orange rocking chair to hide and sob. Since I was inconsolable, my uncle asked my mother what was the matter, and she had to tell him that they'd already given me the same pair of skates. My uncle apologized to me and said he didn't know. He promised to take me shopping at Toys R Us the next day and get me something else. Once I realized that he really understood that I was sad and wasn't angry about it, but wanted to make it better, I calmed down and stopped crying.

And he really meant it. The next day he took me to the store, and I made a beeline for the doll aisle. Faced with a dazzling array of Barbies, I picked the one with the long ponytail of hair that you could make even longer. Her hair was mesmerizing. It was one of my first Barbies and I was quite pleased with it. My uncle kept trying to convince me to get something else to go with it, but I was perfectly fine with my prize. They did eventually convince me to get her some accessories (sets of extra clothes and shoes), and I was really happy with her. I was excited that I got to pick my own toy, and I was happy that my uncle wasn't upset with me for being sad, and that he didn't think it was funny.

It was one of the best Christmases ever. And man, did I love that doll!

The Music Man: Prescription Amphetamines and the Worst Date Ever *trigger warning*

In the Fall of 2009 I was beginning my second year in Graduate school (thesis writing year) and my depression was still getting worse. I'd taken one seminar final paper deferral the Fall before, and three in Winter semester -- yes, that would be all of my courses. I didn't get as much research done over the summer as I'd hoped, even though I worked at it every day. I felt like I was sliding, falling, slowly suffocating. Everything was getting a little too difficult, a little too beyond my capability. Although I begged him to let me try ECT, my psychiatrist was unwilling to consider it as as option for me. I was maxed out on Wellbutrin XL and feeling like there was nowhere to go when my psychiatrist and I made the decision to try augmenting it with Ritalin.

On the face of it, Ritalin was actually the best antidepressant I've ever taken, at least for the first few days. I'd had consistent problems with tiredness, low energy levels, and an inability to concentrate, and Ritalin fixed that right away. I was able to focus on my research, to cut through the fog enveloping my brain and put ideas together, to understand what I was reading. I felt alert and awake, and had the energy to walk from one side of campus to the other, to get through my daily activities of worship and study. I took two doses of Ritalin a day, once in the morning and once in early afternoon, and suddenly I was feeling the way I'd felt when Wellbutrin SR had worked: I was feeling like myself. While I didn't really feel any better mood-wise, I could be productive; I felt I had a shot at maybe living my life the way I wanted to, the way that mattered to me. I believed that my mood would stabilize over time back to baseline if I could keep from destroying my life and my goals and my dreams in the meantime by being able to string words together into sentences.

The Ritalin crash was brutal, though, and ultimately an unmitigated disaster. For some reason I was taking regular Ritalin rather than the sustained-release kind, so it was all dumped into my body at once rather than evenly over time. I was fine while the drug was in there, but when it would wear off at the end of the day with no third dose to take its place, I found myself completely immobilized by exhaustion. I couldn't get up if I wanted to. After thirty to forty-five minutes the effect would be gone, but the initial come-down was crushing. In retrospect, I regret never agreeing to try Adderall, which does come in sustained release-form and has less overall drug interactions, but the times it was offered I still overwhelmingly blamed Ritalin for what had happened to me.

At the same time as my depression was worsening, I was coming to the conclusion that my relationship with MM had run its course, if I was being honest about what I wanted my life to look like long-term. I also, perhaps out of pride, had no desire for someone who hadn't committed to me to see me at my mood-worst, crying all over the place and unable to smile or laugh or take pleasure in my life. Sure, Ritalin promised me I could go on with my daily activities, but it wasn't going to make me into the person I was without Major Depression. It offered me a way to maintain a normal level of activity, but in terms of the depressive low, it seemed like the only way out would be through. So I decided to end it, even though I knew I'd miss him and wasn't sure that we'd still have a friendship after this second time around.

MM picked me up and brought me to his place for our usual date during my first few days on Ritalin. In his car on the way there I told him about what had been happening when it wore off and he remarked that, when he'd taken the drug, he'd experienced the same thing. I felt relieved knowing that someone understood what I was going through.

When we got up to his bedroom, I told him that I didn't want to have sex because I wasn't feeling well, and he said he understood. I'd intended to go home pretty much right away, but he suggested we take a nap, and since the Ritalin was wearing off I thought this might be a good idea anyway. And besides, I'd always liked napping with him because he was a good cuddler.

I got into bed and lay down on my side and he lay down beside me. My limbs were already so heavy that I knew I'd never have made it home anyway: if I hadn't stayed, I'd be sitting on the floor somewhere waiting for the near-paralysis to be over. I'd miscalculated my timing, I suppose. Falling asleep with someone snuggled warmly against my back and wrapped in someone's arms isn't the worst way to spend an early evening, after all.

I was confused at first when he started stroking my belly, but he knew I liked it, and I appreciated that he knew I was feeling bad and wanted me to feel better. I was confused when he pulled down my pants and underwear because I couldn't figure out what he was doing that for. But when I heard him taking off his underwear and realized he'd removed his pants even before getting into bed with me, after I'd said I didn't want to have sex, I felt a cold stab of fear deep in my belly, and I understood.

As much as I tried to move, to kick at him, even to open my mouth and scream, my body didn't do any of those things. I looked at my hand and couldn't will it to move. I felt so violated, and so ashamed. I didn't understand why he was doing what he did, knowing exactly that this isn't how I behave, that this isn't how I act. I couldn't understand why he would destroy our friendship over something as stupid as sex. 

I knew that I would never see him again, and I was so, so sad. I knew that I could never tell people that this had happened, because they would look at me and wonder why I didn't do anything to stop him, how this could happen to me again, what it was that I was doing to bring this on myself. I knew that no one would believe me, and that it wouldn't seem important, when we'd already had sex countless times. I wondered if I'd ever be able to forgive myself for climbing into the bed beside him, for going to his house knowing my drug would be wearing off, for not just telling him we were done over the phone, or over coffee, or any other day of my life but this one.

When he was finished and I was alone, I looked at the ceiling for what seemed like hours, and lost myself. I left knowing we'd never speak again, and it was the worst date ever. 

I Dreamed A Dream (And Remembered It!!!!)

I've always been jealous of people who have amazingly vivid dreams and then remember them, especially since I've been taking Effexor: it's one of those medications that can cause wild dreams, and I was kind of hoping that would happen to me. I don't doubt that I dream every night -- dreaming is something your brain does during certain phases of the sleep cycle. On occasion, I've even known that I've woken up from dreaming, or been awakened by a dream. But it's pretty rare for me to remember a dream even moments after I've just woken up, and I've always wished that wasn't true. So imagine my delight when I remembered this beauty that I woke up from the other day!

In my dream, we were all still living at my parents' house, and were in the process of getting ready to go somewhere. It was morning, and I must have been finished whatever I needed to do, because everyone else was doing stuff and I wasn't. I was looking out the window in my old room.

I could feel the earth rumbling beneath me, and hear sounds like explosions, like the earth shattering. I looked out the window, and in the distance I could see volcanoes exploding. The sky was filling with smoke, and I could see the fire pouring to earth. I felt a dull sense of dread and panic in my belly, and I was telling my family that we needed to hurry, that we needed to get out of there, but no one else was in a rush. I felt like no one was listening to me, that no one saw how dangerous the situation was, how we were all on the cusp of being consumed.

I went downstairs and put my hand on one of the external walls, and it was warm. I was totally convinced one of the volcanoes was close by and ready to explode. I kept pushing, telling everyone "let's go," until finally we were ready to head out to the car.

As soon as I stood outside, I saw a patch of dried lava in the front yard near the side of the house, near our neighbor's retaining wall, so right near the property line. The lava was oddly grey, and the patch was small, but I knew that I had been right. "You see," I told them, "there is it. I was right." I remember they were like "Where?" and I was like "Right there," and pointing right at it, but it was like they couldn't see it. My father was walking around the lawn, looking and looking, until he was practically right on top of it. And finally he was like, "Oh yeah, I see what you're talking about." So finally there was an acknowledgement that I wasn't delusional or seeing things that weren't there, but everyone was still acting like it wasn't a big deal.

I was telling them that we needed to leave, to get out now, that it was going to blow any minute, but my family was unconcerned. Finally we were getting in the car when my brother realized he'd forgotten some sort of important document. My father gave one of those long-suffering sighs he gives and told us to start heading down the hill away from the house while we went back for it, and that he'd meet up with us with the car. So we started walking quickly away, until suddenly we were at the bottom of the hill.

We were looking up toward the house, wondering when he was going to show up, when our house suddenly exploded, blowing violently outward and apart. I knew right away that my father was gone, but I didn't feel anything about it, not sad, or relieved, or anything. In that moment, everyone started to panic, and we all started to run. Objects and bits of things were flying through the air -- more like a movie about a tornado, really -- and my brother and I were dodging. I knew my mother can't run if her life depended on it (she just physically can't), but I wasn't looking back for her or thinking about her. I was just sticking by my brother, trying to make sure he got out of this alive.

Something was flying through the air toward us, and I knew it was the car from our house. It was coming toward us, too hard and too fast. We dodged, we ran, our lungs burned from the smoke in the air, and our eyes streamed from the fire breaking out of the earth in the distance. The car just missed me and hit my brother square in the back, and he was gone instantly.

And then I woke up.

I was like, holy shit I had a dream and I remembered it! Now what do I do? I felt sort of like the dog that finally catches the car.

Being me, I couldn't just leave it alone: dreams can be a treasure-trove of information, yes? I'm not saying that, like Freud and others in the psychoanalytic tradition, that dreams are a direct product of the unconscious mind shedding insight into repressed desires (dreams, and techniques like free-association, are particularly important tools for the analyst who proves to be terrible at hypnotism). But I am saying that the mind/brain is particularly adapted for finding patterns that make sense out of even random stimuli, so much so that we can perceive patterns where none exist as the brain tries to process dispirate and disjointed pieces of information. Even if neurons in the pons (a part of the brainstem) are firing randomly, that doesn't mean that the patterns the cerebral cortex uses to synthesize the information doesn't tell us anything about ourselves. It stands to reason that the brain is going to use patterns that are accessible, that fit into previous schemas and belief constructs, or that reinforce concepts we've already accepted.

Our mind can also challenge us, revealing ideas and patterns that we know are there but haven't consciously accepted. Sometimes, I find I really do have two ideas or two constructs that fundamentally contradict each other, or that I know on some level to be true, and I'm sure that's the case for lots of people: sometimes we don't notice the non-dominant one, or fail to pay attention to evidence that supports it, simply because our mind is using that as a strategy to reduce or avoid cognitive dissonance. It helps us go about the daily business of functioning. But it can be really unhelpful if the schema you're running around with is one that needs to change.

To make a long story short, I think dreams can be interesting and informative regardless of where we think they come from. And so: onwards with analyzing the crap out of it!

I think it's interesting that the events involved in the dream were events about explosion. That's often how I felt living in that house: that we were on top of something that was constantly simmering, constantly threatening to blow-up in some irreparable way. It was there beneath and behind everything we did. Obviously, that fear of explosion, of one thing too many or one day too much, causing a kind of violent destruction, is something I still think about, and also in some way know is inevitable. In the dream, I try to warn my family to escape, but already know there is nothing I can do to stop the volcano from happening because we are past the point of no return.

I think it's interesting that I was trying to tell my family something was wrong but no one was listening to me: there was no sense of alarm, no sense of having understood or believed what I said. Of course this reflects the reality of what it's like to live with my family. I keep saying over and over that things are not normal, not the way they're supposed to be, and my family either ignores me or tells me I'm basically delusional because everything is perfectly fine. In the end, everyone goes calmly about their routine while I stand alone, looking out the window watching the shape of our destruction.

I think it's interesting that, in the dream, everyone dies in the exploding volcano but me. On the face of it: this is the opposite of what actually happened: my family members are managing their lives pretty normally, whereas I am the one who has self-destructed with sudden and explosive violence. But in other ways that's not true. There are ways that they've been consumed by these patterns as something that just is true while I've had no choice but to try and desperately escape them. In the end, the net effect is the same: I am standing alone and the family I should have been able to rely on to weather the storm is absent.

I think it's interesting that the volcano I see on our front lawn is located on the property line, the boundary or limit that defines what belongs to whom, and beyond which you aren't supposed to go. There are major boundary issues in my family. I've spent most of my life confused about who and what I am to at least some extent, and as I think more about it I'm realizing that, given the circumstances of my life, maybe that's not such a surprise. My family has laid claim over my emotional and psychological life by telling me that my beliefs are stupid, that my emotions are wrong, that my memories are incorrect. I am porous, open to manipulation, the playground for other people's needs and perceptions. My boundaries have been violated by the people closest to me telling me my reality isn't real. My family has used their emotions and ideas inappropriately as well, using a lack of their own boundaries to try and blend the line between us and to create unhealthy relationships.

My family has laid claim over my space, time, and possessions, to the point that I could never be guaranteed privacy in my own room, or even in the bathroom. Nothing ever really belonged only to me, or was really mine -- not even my activities or decisions -- in a way that just wasn't true for the rest of my family members.

My family has laid claim over my body, saying things about my body and treating my body in ways that disregard any sense that I should have control over my own body, or even that my body belongs to me. My family has used their bodies to encroach on my space, to impose themselves on me, to make what should have been private to them into something public that pierces through my space. Suffice it to say, it doesn't come out of left field that the focal point of our destruction lies at the boundary of things.

I think it's interesting that the house is destroyed, and that I'm uncomfortable in it even before it blows up, because I don't have an archetypal image of "home" as a place that is comfortable, or stable, or safe. I think it's interesting that my father is the focal point of the explosion even though my mother is the more daily problem. I think it's interesting that she is the one telling us to take our time getting ready, to stick around, to be comfortable in a place that's about to kill us. I think it's interesting that I feel the heat from the outer wall in the basement, which I was always afraid of growing up.

I think it's interesting that I stay in the house as everyone takes their time instead of just running for it and saving myself. Because that's exactly what I did in real life, isn't it?

I think it's interesting that, when we finally do get out, I don't try to help my mother when it's time to run away. Over the years, I've had various dreams of having to save family members from our house as it burns, but I've never abandoned any of them before. But in this dream I absolutely know my mother can't help herself, but I easily turn my back on her and save myself instead. During the years I was in therapy with my original psychiatrist, we talked a few times about how I felt obligated to take care of my mother and needed to find a way to let go of that burden.

I think it's interesting that was trying to protect my brother, because that's something that was discussed, too. In the dream, I felt like I was trying to save us both. But I wasn't really, was I? We were just running side by side. In the end, I didn't throw myself in front of him, or push him out of the way, and take the blow of the projectile car myself. I dodged and lived.

I think maybe that's what I need to learn to do: to protect myself, really protect myself, without guilt or remorse. The reality is it all blew up and was consumed by fire. It happened. And I'm standing here, shaped and surrounded by those old patterns that tell me to go back into the flames, to keep standing still, to try and preserve everything the way it was. But being stuck in a house that's about to be consumed, constantly on edge, is no way to live.

I don't know exactly how to recover from barely escaping from an exploding volcano that swallowed my entire family. But I'm pretty sure it'll be a long and messy journey with scalding steam-vents along the way. And I'm certain that it will be a long time before I've gotten far enough away not to see the fire in the distance or smell the smoke clinging to my hair.

The Music Man: Of Course it Continues *trigger warning*

After I stopped seeing him, MM and I kept in touch sporadically, exchanging emails every once in a while and occasionally chatting on Facebook. I'll be honest, even though we didn't meet up again, we did flirt a little sometimes. A girl needs to practice her sexy, you know? And even though I found myself conflicted about the nature of our relationship, over the time we'd known each other I'd come to care about him a great deal, and wanted to keep in touch. I'd read drafts of the early chapters in the book he ended up publishing...I wanted to know how he was doing, know the general outlines of his life. I wanted to know that he was happy.

In 2009, I ended the most emotionally difficult intimate relationship of my life, and I wasn't quite sure how I was feeling. Although I'd loved my partner, I'd struggled for over a year-and-a-half with the dynamics between us that made me feel deeply unhappy and unhealthy. I'd always felt a little bit controlled and restrained by the way he seemed capable of taking over my life and my affairs; he didn't do it on purpose, but I ended up feeling incapable and small. After I had behaved particularly badly, my partner told me that he would feel better and trust me more if I dropped MM from my friend list on Facebook. So I did. For the first time -- and I hope the last -- I allowed someone else to determine who I could and couldn't be friends with.

When we broke up, one of the first things I did was get back in touch with MM. Part of it was revenge, I'll admit it: I wanted to do what I hadn't been able to while I was with my ex-partner. Part of it was a feeling of expansive freedom. Part of it was wanting to feel desired and desirable after feeling sexually unworthy, unattractive, unwanted, and messed up. And part of it was just wanting to be able to talk to MM again, about all things psychological, about our lives, about the parts of ourselves that people keep hidden for fear of being judged. I wanted to be vulnerable and have someone accept me.

As it turns out, MM had recently been missing me as well, and we quickly struck up a flirtation. We ended up meeting for hot chocolate soon after getting back in contact, and I was pleasantly surprised by how things went. We talked about our lives, our recent relationships, and what I'd learned I wanted. I found myself very different with him than I used to be: I was shy and deferential, but now I found I was expressing myself with confidence and behaving more like who I really am, instead of like a student trying to impress her teacher. He remarked on the change as I, too, was noticing it. I was older. I was more sure of myself. And I knew that, if I liked him, it wasn't because I was star-struck but because I knew him and I knew myself.

I often wonder what exactly it is he saw in me. I know he liked that I was smart and we could talk about a range of topics. I know we found each other insanely attractive. But, more and more, I think it was that I simply wasn't impressed by all the crap he usually impresses people with. I didn't care that he was the equivalent of a psychology rock-star, because I'd known him before that was true. I didn't care about his house, or his cars, or his clothes, or his job, or his money, although I knew that those things all represented success to him. And he knew that I didn't give a crap. I think what he liked most about me was that I looked at him and saw him with all those things stripped away, and was interested in him anyway. I got the feeling that he was surrounded by people who focused on what he could do or what he had and was, and I was part of a smaller number of those who took him for who he was. We seemed to give each other something we were both missing, along with a lot of desire and tenderness.

I 'dated' him from late spring through to early fall, meeting up once or more a week. I invented a fake graduate student working in a psychology lab so my family would know I was seeing someone and wouldn't constantly be asking where I was going. I wasn't sure exactly what our relationship was, but we were having a lot of fun, and I was getting to know both of us a lot better. I met and had dinner with one of his friends from out of town, and actually went to a block party with him. We had a lovely and memorable day trip. I knew I had feelings for him, and him for me, but it didn't seem important to try and define what we had or where it was going. I was much happier and more fulfilled dating him this time around than I had been the first.

But, as time went on, it started to bother me. I felt like, in a way, I was letting myself get comfortable in a relationship that would, in the long run, keep me from pursuing what I really wanted. I was still young and I knew I wanted children, and that he didn't. I knew one day I wanted a life partner, but I didn't think that was in his plans. Ultimately, I started feeling like I was selling myself short and allowing myself to be less than I hoped to be by choosing to be with someone who couldn't give me the kind of commitment that I wanted. I felt like we were both settling for less than we deserved.

I knew it would hurt, but after crying it out all over a friend in Dio's basement after a Friday morning Eucharist, I decided I needed to stop seeing him and re-evaluate what it is I needed in a relationship in order to feel like I was growing, like I was a real partner, like I could be fulfilled.

The Music Man: In the Beginning *trigger warning*

I first met The Music Man (MM) in the winter of 2004, when I was 21 years old. I was taking my first psychology class at McGill, and it was a massive, 550+ person lecture session about cognitive processes and the brain. I felt a bit odd and different at first -- I was the only person to attend class in pajamas, and one of very few not taking notes on a laptop -- but soon I got sucked into the material and didn't feel anything but enthrallment. It turned out I still loved psychology even after spending time in the mental hospital!

MM was our professor: engaging, funny, dizzyingly clever, and quite attractive to boot. I have to admit it wasn't hard listening to him tucked away in the middle of the room. After all that had gone on in college, it was nice to be anonymous in a big giant class.

After our first midterm (which, naturally, I aced) our teacher sent out e-mails to the top performers in the class, congratulating us and telling us we were free to come talk to him about any of the course material. As it happened (doesn't it always?) I disagreed with one of the models of attention that we were studying, and made an appointment to argue it out and see if my dislike was actually based in reason.

MM had a tiny wind-up brain on his desk that walked around, and was just as engaging in real life as at the front of a classroom. Talking about brains together, I realized that I was powerfully, magnetically attracted to him. I don't know if it was because he was so smart, because he was so good looking, because he was the teacher, or because he was 25 years older than me, but whatever it was it was totally happening. I had my first real teacher-crush, which I'd somehow avoided all through high school. Go me!!

At any rate, we met once more during the semester, and that was that.

Summer came around, and we somehow ended up planning to meet up and grab a beer together, talk about the course, how things were going as a whole, and -- of course -- brains and theories of mind. I thought to myself, sometimes it is good to score at the top of your class, and maybe there is something to not being totally anonymous after all.

We got along well, and it was a nice evening. I felt comfortable poking fun of him a little, and we started learning more about one another as people. I was totally, totally attracted to him. We went back to his office, hugged goodbye, and parted ways.

In early fall, we decided to meet up for coffee. It was a lovely day, and we took our paper cups out onto McGill's lawn to chat. Some stuff was just light, but other things were more serious: how I felt after the formal hearing against my college professor was fully behind me, his divorce. Eventually, he looked at me point-blank and asked me if I wanted to have sex with him. I was totally flummoxed -- it hadn't occurred to me that he might be interested in me back! I didn't know quite what to say, and ended up replying that I wasn't sure.

He talked about how it might be good for me to sleep with another teacher and have it not turn out the way it did before; that if I could teach my brain a new pattern using similar stimuli, living with the trauma might be easier. He even said that he was willing to help me out, and it's not like he'd be going out of his way, because he really wanted to have sex with me, too!

In the end, we went back to his house, and did all the obvious things. For a couple of months, we hooked up about once a week. Around February I started to feel weird about it all, and stopped getting together with him: it was all so...superficial. He e-mailed me a few times, and then eventually stopped.

I saw him again, from afar, during the spring of 2005, when we both attended Daniel Dennet's talk at the Montreal Neuro. I started thinking about him again, and it didn't hurt that I was pretty newly single and missing the intimacy. Over the summer, we got back in touch and started seeing one another again, but it didn't last beyond the start of school. I was in my last semester, and beginning the major depression that ultimately led me to try and kill myself in winter 2006. I just didn't have the time, the energy, or the interest. My psychiatrist kept repeating that he thought this whole casual relationship with him (him in particular) was a bad idea. And, frankly, I was feeling a little weirded-out by the way it began -- with his suggestion that it might be psychologically good for me. It started to feel a little...disingenuous...a little...manipulative...a little...maybe even unethical?

At any rate, I counted it as a learning experience and put it behind me. We were friendly enough -- keeping in touch on facebook and sending messages every few months -- so it seemed to have worked out for the best. I was happy that we could still be friends, and my life felt that small measure richer for knowing him.

I Like Small Spots and I Cannot Lie: Remembering a Childhood Spent Hiding in Things

Last week's post about visualization made me think of all the time I spent hiding -- or practicing hiding! -- in small spaces as a child. It wasn't always snow tunnels, you know. For one thing, they have a tendency to melt when the weather starts warming up. For another, it's good to have as wide a variety of self-concealment skills as possible if you're planning on living a life centered around paranoia, self-hatred, and regret.

Some of the most vivid memories I have of hiding aren't of hiding at all, but of playing at hiding. Like everyone else I knew growing up, I would drape scarves and blankets over tables, chairs, and assorted furniture in order to construct a private space for myself where I could play unobserved. I could read in there, hug a stuffed animal, play with my toys, or just be comforted by the muted quality of the light filtered through knitted scarves and thin blankets.

With other children, and sometimes adults, I built pillow forts and snow forts, indestructible precisely because they could so easily be rebuilt.

Although I don't remember it, I have many pictures of myself as a child where I've crammed myself into laundry baskets, boxes, and tubs from laundry detergent. I've played hide-and-seek and fit myself into hampers. And, of course, I know as well as everyone that if you cover yourself completely with your blankets, nothing bad can happen to you during the night because you are invisible.

This kind of hiding is more like playing at hiding than actually hiding. For one thing, most of the time you're only partially hidden. For another, sometimes people can actually see you. It's fun, and the whole objective is to have fun. It's enjoyable. You aren't hiding for any reason other than the pleasure it gives you.

As a child, I would sometimes spontaneously hide, and I'm not really sure why. Occasionally I would hide under my parents' bed, amid the boxes and dust, thinking that no one would ever think to look for me under there. Playing by myself outside, I would hide behind the shed, within the lilac bush, inside fur trees, high up in the maple, crouch down in window-wells, and below the driveway retention wall.

Inside the house, I would hear my father's footsteps coming down the carpeted hall and crouch down flat behind the end of my bed, or behind my brick-red stuffed chair, desperate for some reason that he not see me.

This kind of hiding wasn't really a game. I'm not sure what it was about, but I know I wasn't doing it for enjoyment. I didn't feel good, or happy, or relaxed while I was doing it. I just know I was gripped by this sudden intense fear and felt compelled to hide. Hiding made me feel...not so much safe as less bad. It helped take the edge off. In a way it wasn't really hiding either: as a child in a confined space like a house or a yard, it's likely that someone will find you sooner rather than later if they're really looking, and that they'll be pretty pissed off when they do. I think most hiding, in the end, is not like this.

This is the kind of hiding that's followed me into adulthood. I'm not sure why, exactly. I know that sometimes I feel driven to hide because I'm under a lot of stress, or experiencing other peoples' conflict around me. This has been worst when I am at my most depressed -- naturally, I've felt most compelled to hide when I've been hospitalized, thereby making my hiding habit super problematic for the psychiatric team trying to help me. It makes me the most annoying patient in the world.  

Back in St. Jerome, I hid in the closet that was in my room, eventually leading the staff to start locking it. I hid under my bed. I hid in the shower. One night, I caused a code white that had the hospital searching for me for an hour after I'd run past the (glass) nursing station unobserved to hide behind a chair in the games room. I hid in the elevator after running past the nursing station in the middle of the night. The night I escaped into the basement but couldn't get through the connecting tunnel to flee from the main building (which would be less suspicious) because it turned out you needed a code, four orderlies eventually dragged me away from where I was hiding among lockers (and clinging to them).

At St. Mary's, I hid behind a door. I locked myself in showers and curled up under their benches. I hid in my own bathroom, and under the covers. I eventually settled on routinely cramming myself into the cubbyholes in the wall that once held fire extinguishers. Some doctors thought it was hilarious. Some people thought I would fall out and hurt myself. One doctor walking past commented that he could still see me. My own psychiatrist thought it was an ingenious solution because I had somehow combined my need to be small and concealed with the staff's need to know where I was and what I was doing. I liked it because I could fit myself in there without the staff coming to unlock the door and extract me.

Now that I live alone, when I'm very distressed I still find myself hiding, especially when I wake up during the night. I hide on the balcony, under the table, in the shower, and any small corner I can wedge myself into. I have no idea why I would hide when I'm completely alone, but I guess it just goes to show that wherever you go, there you are.

As a child, I also used to practice hiding. I would climb into my closet, get as deep and as far into it as possible, and pull the clothes and boxes around me so that it looked like nothing had been disturbed. I remember how it felt to be in the dark with the doors mostly shut, the light only a thin sliver muffled by the clothes hanging softly around my face. I would pull things out from under my bed, crawl into the space under the headboard, and pull the stuff back in again. In the total darkness, I felt safe. Nothing could get to me here; no one could ever find me. I practiced breathing in the dust without coughing or sneezing, being as still and as quiet as possible. I would come out of my hiding spots after carefully listening for several minutes to make sure no one was around to discover where my spots were by seeing me emerge, dust-covered and prepared.

I don't know very much about developmental psychology, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that all these forms of hiding are completely normal for a child. The fact that I still try and hide as an adult, however, is somewhat more problematic. Since I don't know why I'm doing it, I don't have any idea how to fix it, either. Suggestions?

On a completely unrelated note, I've printed out 25 pages of the crappy book I'm writing. If anyone really loves reading incredibly drafty-drafts that end in the middle of a sentence, you're welcome to borrow it!

How to Get to Your Happy Place: Visualization in the Face of Difficult Emotions

Like many people who live with chronic and major depressive disorder, as well as trauma (lucky me!), I struggle with intense sadness, anxiety, hopelessness, terror, helplessness, and a host of other difficult thoughts and feelings about both myself and the world I find myself inhabiting.

I haven't always dealt with these feeling productively. That probably goes without saying! Before you can begin to process and resolve painful feelings and memories in a therapeutic setting, you should probably have better coping skills than cutting yourself with knives or trying to kill yourself. Probably. I mean, I'm taking a guess here, but I think that's the general idea. I seem to have somehow skipped this step in my previous decade-long attempt at therapy, which might partially explain why, in crisis, I return to harming myself, sometimes severely.

Anyway, this time we're approaching things a little differently. One of the tools I learned in therapy this week is called visualization. It involves thinking back about a time in the past when you felt completely calm, safe, and at peace. You then immerse yourself in the memory by recalling it through the five senses: sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell. You try and find as many aspects as you can for each of these senses, which helps to really activate the memory and give it depth. Once you've put yourself in that space, you rest there until the sense of calm starts to suffuse you and you find the difficult emotions you were experiencing begining to subside. This will keep you from doing anything rash and stupid, like eating all the dish-washing soap thinking that will stop the memory from endlessly replaying itself in my head while I run the scanner at work: problem solved!

For me, my happy place is hiding in the snow.

From the time I was a young child to the time I stopped wearing snowsuits -- so around the start of Junior High -- I loved to go outside and play in the snow. Of course, I had snowball fights, and built snow people, and forts, and went sledding and cross-country skiing, all with other people, but I regularly played by hiding by myself.

Due to the fact that this happened in the past, we used to get a lot more snow in winter than we do now. (Also, everything was uphill both ways, but I digress) When we shoveled our front walkway, the snow would pile up to the living room window where we dumped it against the side of the house: it was so high! It was also perfect for building a tunnel. I'd dig with my hands in the center of the pile, beginning at the driveway and working my way into it parallel to the window, digging myself a Kat-sized hideaway. Once I could burrow all the way in, I would make my way head-first into my snow tunnel and hide there for as long as I could, usually until frostbite started to set in or my mother called me inside. I liked to take naps in there. It was warm enough from my body being in such a small space that the cold didn't seem to work its way inside me so much. I loved the solitude, that no one could see me, that I had created a world for myself that was only mine and where I could be safe. I used to think about what it would be like to go to sleep in my tunnel and never wake up. It was just so peaceful.

Inside my space, I could see the dark outline of the snow around me, its closeness to my body. I could see the darkness in the middle of the day where very little light penetrated. Sometimes I could vaguely see an icicle I'd brought in with me from off the eaves-troughs, and the outline of my woolen mittens. I could see the inside of my eyelids as I began to nap, and the patterns of light and color from squeezing my eyes shut.

I could feel the rough wool of my hand-knitted mittens, and the string pressing against my back beneath my coat so I wouldn't lose them. I could feel the cold of the snow on my mittened hand, and the icy smoothness of my snow hollow when I took my mitt off to lay my hand against it. I could feel the end of the tunnel pressing gently against the top of my head through my hat. I felt the warmth of being enveloped by warm clothing and snow, and the chill of crisp winter air on my uncovered skin. I could feel my scarf against my mouth, and my breath against my skin, the dampness of my scarf where I had breathed on it in the cold. I could feel the length of my body supported by the packed snow, and the closeness of my snow walls around me.

On my tongue, I could taste the coldness and sharpness of the air, and the lingering coolness of an icicle if I'd eaten one. I tasted the inside of my mouth, and my lips where I had bitten them. I could taste the dampness of my scarf pressed against my mouth, and the anticipation of hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Inside my tunnel, I could hear the silence of winter, and the distant sounds of children playing. I could hear the muffled footsteps of someone walking by my hiding place. I could hear the slow deepening of my breath as I grew sleepy, and my soft heartbeat. I could hear the snow gently settling, and the sound of the breeze. I could hear my own movements against the snow, the swish of snowpants and the scrape of boots. Sometimes, I could hear the soft wisp-like falling of gentle snow, or the scrape of a shovel against pavement, the short thump of snow being thrown on snow.

I could smell the winter in the air, that smell you grow up with in the cold and never forget, and the way that it freezes inside your nose and smells clean and new and pure. I could smell the woodsmoke from fireplaces in our neighborhood, and the distinctive smell of packed snow. I could smell the dampness of my scarf from my breath, and the snow-dampness of my woolen mittens.

Inside my snow tunnel, I felt safe, and peaceful, and alone. I felt enveloped, enfolded by a space I had created that seemed like it could last forever but was really quite fragile. Enough snow piled on top of it, especially heavy damp snow, and it would collapse. But I knew I could always build it again after the next good snowfall. I felt content. I felt the closest thing I can remember to an uncomplicated happiness. I believe I was happy.

When I bring this memory vividly back to mind, I feel all these things again, and as I stay in the space, recalling it, I start to feel calmer, and the chaos and pain inside me ebbs away to where it becomes bearable. It also gives me back a vibrant piece of my childhood that I had all but forgotten, because I almost never take the time to sit and think about it, though declaratively it is always there. That's the magic of visualization.

I hope that the next time you're anxious or depressed or scared or homicidal you take a moment to find your happy place, go back there, and spend some time visiting with your own precious memories.