I'll tell you, this whole thyroid thing is becoming the stuff of comedy. I wrote before about how the radiologist at the local hospital couldn't seem to read my thyroid uptake scan until his tech came back from vacation - suspicious, that! - and how after hearing some other stories about his lack of competence, my trust in him was so low that I took a copy of the scan to another radiologist to read.
Well, they both saw a "cold nodule" on the thyroid. Thyroids tend to be lumpy, it seems. If a lump is putting out extra thyroid hormone it's a "hot" nodule; if not, it's "cold." Most cold nodules are just cysts, but sometimes they're the big C. (Usually in men.) So my endo said I had to have an ultrasound to make sure it's just a cyst.
She's not much for direct communication; I had a whole battery of tests done when I first saw her and never heard another word until I called and asked and her assistant said "oh, your labs were fine." My regular MD likes to sit down with me and go over every result and gives me copies, but I guess my endo is more old-school. Anyway, her assistant was the one who actually told me I needed another test. She then said that all tests are arranged by Chris, their "scheduler," but she'd gone home sick, so to wait for her to call.
So I waited. Two weeks passed, and I went to Santa Barbara for four days for school. When I returned on a Thursday evening, I found several messages from Chris saying she'd scheduled the ultrasound at the hospital for the next Tuesday and to please call and confirm. The last message said she'd cancelled it because I hadn't called her back. I guess she didn't see my cell phone number. The office isn't open on Fridays, so on Monday I called her back and told her it was good she cancelled as I didn't want to have the ultrasound done at the hospital anyway, I wanted to go to the other radiologist.
Apparently this was a huge problem for Chris. "I don't have their phone number, and we don't have their forms," she said. I waited a bit to give her time to think, but when she stayed silent, I suggested that these were solvable problems. For one thing, I had their phone number right there and could give it to her. "But we don't have their forms," she whined. I suggested she could call them and get the form faxed. She resisted this until I said "Okay, I'll call them" and hung up. I called the other place and was told they don't have forms, the requesting doctor could use any form she wanted, even write it on a prescription pad and fax it. I called Chris back and told her this. She said "What's their fax number?" I said in a very quiet, precise tone: "Do you want me to call them back and get it and call you with it?" Apparently this got through, or perhaps it was me thinking really loud WHAT IS IT YOU ACTUALLY DO IN THIS JOB?, for she sulkily said she'd call them.
I didn't hear back from her for another week. Then she called at the very end of Wednesday before Thanksgiving and left another message on the landline that she had scheduled the scan for Tuesday and to please confirm - but of course the office was closed Thursday and Friday, and they don't have voicemail. I called Monday morning and said that was fine and by the way I DO have a cell phone number, it should be in the chart, please use it if you really need to get hold of me and I'm not at home.
Yesterday I drove to Poulsbo for the ultrasound. When I got there, they asked me if I'd brought the request from the doctor with me. Uh, no, Chris was supposed to fax that. I then expressed my opinion of Chris's ability to do anything at all. They laughed, called her and asked her to fax it, and half-an-hour later she did.
Finally, I had the ultrasound. The request from the endo only said "thyroid ultrasound." The tech asked me why I was having it, so I told her about the cold nodule. "What side is it on?" she asked, and asked some other questions about the scan. I had to tell her I had no idea what they saw, but that they should have a copy of the scan and the report they'd sent my endo. She did the ultrasound and found the nodule (on the left side, for those interested). I could see the monitor and it looked like a cyst from what I know, but of course the tech can't tell you anything even though they know full well, that's what the radiologist gets paid the big bucks for.
When she was done she asked me to wait while she made sure the doctor was satisfied with the results. She was gone long enough that I actually fell asleep on the table. When she came back, she said "the doctor needs the original scan to compare to the ultrasound." I told her again that they had it, that I brought them a copy to read six weeks ago. Well, they couldn't find it. She asked me to wait in the waiting room while they looked for it. I waited another 15 minutes, then went to the receptionist and told her I didn't see why I had to wait: if they found the scan, fine, and if they didn't, they could call me and ask me to get another copy from the hospital. She said "you picked the scan up and took when you were here before." I said oh no I did not, I brought a copy, clearly labeled as such, and left it with them, because the hospital had told me they did not need it back because it was a COPY. She said she would ask their tech if it was okay for me to go. At which point another woman who had been standing nearby through all of this said "Oh, we do have that scan, I found it."
To be fair, I'm now wondering if Chris did in fact fax the request before my appointment, and it went wherever the copy of the scan went. And now we'll see how long it takes for it to get read and for anyone to call me and tell me the results. If they even do.
Update Dec. 9 - Chris called and said that the ultrasound showed I have thyroiditis and a 1-cm nodule that Dr. M wants biopsied. I asked if the doctor could call me and explain a bit more. "Well, what do you want to know?" she asked. "What it means that I have thyroiditis," I answered. I told her I am a bit confused because apparently all the million lab tests I had earlier, including ones for antibodies indicating various kinds of thyroiditis, were "fine." She said that sometimes it only shows up on ultrasound. I tried to read up on this on the Internet but basically ended up more confused. My personal history does not seem to fit any specific diagnosis related to the thyroid. It does seem like a fine needle biopsy will tell us a lot more about what is going on, so I'm good with that. (Having a needle stuck into my throat, not so much.)
But I'm thinking it's time to go see a naturopath. There's one in town who reads all the medical literature and has an excellent reputation for being very science-based in his approach. And the naturopaths are the ones to go to for diseases involving inflammation, because they're up on how to eat right to cure that. My ex had a knee problem once that the MDs told him he'd have to live with the rest of his life and take tons of anti-inflammatories for. He went to a naturopath who cured him permanently in three weeks with diet alone. While he was on that diet he was also not bipolar! Unfortunately he fell off the no-sugar wagon a few weeks later. The knee problem never came back but the bipolar syndrome did as soon as he started eating sugar. My gut feeling is that sugar is a big part of my health issues. Well, I'm off it as of today!
Friday, December 4, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Letting go of the past
The other day I was talking to a good friend I've known for a long time. At one point I said something to the effect that I had stopped caring about what a certain person thought of me, that their negative opinion was their problem not mine. My friend let out a cry of joy, jumped up from her chair, hugged me, and said "Oh, you have come such a long way!"
This is part of the joy of friendship to me - that we can see and celebrate each other's growth over time. I have another friend who in the past few months has started to speak with a maturity and confidence I've never heard from her before. Every time we talk now I love hearing what she has to say, because it reflects the new person she is becoming.
It is very hard sometimes for us to see that someone we know has changed. Especially in families. How many parents still think of their middle-aged children as having the emotional maturity of 15-year-olds - and how many middle-aged people still react to their aged parents as the autocrats of their childhood? This same friend who jumped for joy is one of the most devoted mothers I know. She is 50 and her kids are now in their 20s - and yet her sister said to her only recently that she is still surprised that my friend wanted kids, because when she was a teenager all she ever thought about was sports. She still sees her sister as the person she was 35 years ago.
In a recent e-mail, someone in my family said some things that made me realize that what they want most of all is for the family, and me especially, to stop defining them in terms of our childhood family dynamics, but rather to see them in the context of the life they now lead. In other words, "see me as I am, not who I was." And yet this same person also held up to me things I had said in the past as proof that I am still the person I was in that same out-of-date context. And there's the problem right there. How can the two of us move on to a relationship based on the present as long as either one of us keeps accusing the other of the past?
George Eliot, in Middlemarch, says that one can be anything with a new friend, even begin to be a better person. My friends see me in ways my family doesn't, but even my old friends do not know me as the person I am with my graduate school cohort. It's not so much that my schoolmates see me differently; I actually am different with them!
A recent speaker at church said that as long as we keep bringing our old stories to a new experience, we'll keep having the old experiences. We keep the past alive through stories. That's good for providing us with a sense of history, a sense of relationship to our kin, our clan, our land. But there's a downside to stories. They can be a way of keeping feelings alive beyond their proper time. If we simply allow ourselves to experience a feeling as it happens, it's said that the feeling will dissipate in a matter of minutes. A friend who was caught in a very bad earthquake told me that he was terrified for two minutes, and then began to be kind of bored and just wanted it to end. We're meant to move on and stay in the present. The only way we can keep a feeling alive is to relive it through telling ourselves the story again and again. The problem is, that story belongs to the past. We're not living in the past, we're living now.
Depth psychology is mostly about how we have let a story control our reactions to certain things. A "complex" as the Jungians term it is simply emotions that we have permanently stuck onto something that happened in the past. So whenever we happen to feel those emotions again, we remember the story. For instance, I stuck on feelings of worthlessness to a particular event in my past. I brought this story up again and again to myself whenever I felt lonely or sad. Instead of the feelings of loneliness passing off in a couple of minutes, retelling the story to myself would exacerbate the bad feelings. I could become very depressed in short order when I did this.
Then one day I had a kind of epiphany. I saw the event almost like a split-screen at the movies, with my old version of the story contrasted with the other person's version. In that moment I saw that the other person involved in the event had been caught up in their own problems so much that they were simply unable to respond to me in a caring way. As a young child I had not been able to see what the other person's point of view was (children think everything that happens is about them). But finally my adult brain took over from the child-memory that I had been keeping alive for 50 years, and said "oh, that's not how it was at all!" As soon as I let go of the old story, those feelings of worthlessness instantly dissolved.
In my church we talk and sing a lot about letting go. Let go of expectations, let go of fear, let go of the past, let go of anything that keeps us from living here and now. I can be a new person with my schoolmates because we have no shared past. I can celebrate breakthroughs with my dear friends because we don't let the past define us. The feelings we once felt, the ways we once behaved, are history. We are here, now, and anything could happen.
This is part of the joy of friendship to me - that we can see and celebrate each other's growth over time. I have another friend who in the past few months has started to speak with a maturity and confidence I've never heard from her before. Every time we talk now I love hearing what she has to say, because it reflects the new person she is becoming.
It is very hard sometimes for us to see that someone we know has changed. Especially in families. How many parents still think of their middle-aged children as having the emotional maturity of 15-year-olds - and how many middle-aged people still react to their aged parents as the autocrats of their childhood? This same friend who jumped for joy is one of the most devoted mothers I know. She is 50 and her kids are now in their 20s - and yet her sister said to her only recently that she is still surprised that my friend wanted kids, because when she was a teenager all she ever thought about was sports. She still sees her sister as the person she was 35 years ago.
In a recent e-mail, someone in my family said some things that made me realize that what they want most of all is for the family, and me especially, to stop defining them in terms of our childhood family dynamics, but rather to see them in the context of the life they now lead. In other words, "see me as I am, not who I was." And yet this same person also held up to me things I had said in the past as proof that I am still the person I was in that same out-of-date context. And there's the problem right there. How can the two of us move on to a relationship based on the present as long as either one of us keeps accusing the other of the past?
George Eliot, in Middlemarch, says that one can be anything with a new friend, even begin to be a better person. My friends see me in ways my family doesn't, but even my old friends do not know me as the person I am with my graduate school cohort. It's not so much that my schoolmates see me differently; I actually am different with them!
A recent speaker at church said that as long as we keep bringing our old stories to a new experience, we'll keep having the old experiences. We keep the past alive through stories. That's good for providing us with a sense of history, a sense of relationship to our kin, our clan, our land. But there's a downside to stories. They can be a way of keeping feelings alive beyond their proper time. If we simply allow ourselves to experience a feeling as it happens, it's said that the feeling will dissipate in a matter of minutes. A friend who was caught in a very bad earthquake told me that he was terrified for two minutes, and then began to be kind of bored and just wanted it to end. We're meant to move on and stay in the present. The only way we can keep a feeling alive is to relive it through telling ourselves the story again and again. The problem is, that story belongs to the past. We're not living in the past, we're living now.
Depth psychology is mostly about how we have let a story control our reactions to certain things. A "complex" as the Jungians term it is simply emotions that we have permanently stuck onto something that happened in the past. So whenever we happen to feel those emotions again, we remember the story. For instance, I stuck on feelings of worthlessness to a particular event in my past. I brought this story up again and again to myself whenever I felt lonely or sad. Instead of the feelings of loneliness passing off in a couple of minutes, retelling the story to myself would exacerbate the bad feelings. I could become very depressed in short order when I did this.
Then one day I had a kind of epiphany. I saw the event almost like a split-screen at the movies, with my old version of the story contrasted with the other person's version. In that moment I saw that the other person involved in the event had been caught up in their own problems so much that they were simply unable to respond to me in a caring way. As a young child I had not been able to see what the other person's point of view was (children think everything that happens is about them). But finally my adult brain took over from the child-memory that I had been keeping alive for 50 years, and said "oh, that's not how it was at all!" As soon as I let go of the old story, those feelings of worthlessness instantly dissolved.
In my church we talk and sing a lot about letting go. Let go of expectations, let go of fear, let go of the past, let go of anything that keeps us from living here and now. I can be a new person with my schoolmates because we have no shared past. I can celebrate breakthroughs with my dear friends because we don't let the past define us. The feelings we once felt, the ways we once behaved, are history. We are here, now, and anything could happen.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
What is Myth?
I've just completed my sixth quarter of Mythological Studies, and one of our profs for the next quarter has asked us to submit a short essay to him on what we think myth is. Here's my answer.
What is a myth? There is no one single answer. Most people use the word to indicate something false--not exactly a lie, but a story or concept many people believe that is not true. A myth in this sense would be something like the idea that life was much better in our grandparents' time: simpler, more beautiful. Yet anyone who studies history knows this idea is false. There have always been wars, always been oppression, always been frightening diseases. The upcoming generation has always challenged what their parents and teachers stood for, and struck out on new paths. Yet still, we cling to the idea that there was once a Golden Age, a Satya Yuga, a time before we were expelled from the Garden. Most religion--and perhaps most politics--promotes the idea that we can find that perfect state of being once again.
Many myths are stories of the origin of the cosmos. Humans weren't there, of course, and scientists today can't agree on when and how the universe began, or even if it ever "began" at all, but has always existed. So all our ideas about the cosmos are myths, in a way. Most of them begin--and some scientific theories are no different--with the void, Chaos, undifferentiated energy without form. Something then occurs that allows form to come into being, the world is created, and eventually humans too. In some religions, a Word is spoken; in many others, the world begins when energy differentiates into male and female and those energies have sex. The beginning of the world is the beginning of communication between beings.
People tend to prefer their own origin myths and think those of other people are silly. Another definition of myth, then, as Joseph Campbell once said, is "other people's religion." It's easy to deride other people's myths, because almost all myths become ridiculous when taken literally. We know the sun is not a blazing chariot driven across the sky by a god; what a silly idea. But myths should never be taken literally. They are not lies but metaphors for what we observe of the world. All myths are grounded in empiricism. The sun is real and it moves; however fantastical the different myths regarding the sun may be, they do offer an explanation.
Taken metaphorically, myths are about why things are the way they are. They tell us why the world looks like it does; why people behave the way they do; why we love, suffer, and die. And therefore myths can provide insight into the outlook of a particular group of people. Their explanations of "why" reveal their attitude towards the world. Is there an active source of evil in the world, or is suffering just part of the deal? Is divinity inherent in everything, or remote from the world--if indeed it exists at all? Are women powerful or weak? To study myth is to study how people think, how they approach life.
Then there is the Jungian school of thought regarding myth. Myths are not just metaphors for how things are in the world, they are metaphors for us. Myths of the sun do not just explain that big blazing ball of light that travels across the sky, disappears and leaves us in darkness, then reappears once again, but our own individual journeys that always involve times of darkness and confusion. The amazing similarities between the myths of widely dispersed peoples are explained by the fact that we are all human, all share the same instinctual makeup.
Myths survive because even if we don't "believe" them, they resonate with us on levels we may not even be aware of. We identify with Theseus trying to get out of the labyrinth because we've had times where we didn't know where to go or what to do next. We identify with Arjuna's rejection of his warrior training on the eve of battle because we've struggled with a role chosen for us by our society. We identify with Vassilisa's enslavement by and escape from the witch Baba Yaga because we too have felt oppressed by someone powerful and cruel, perhaps a nasty boss. We rejoice in tales where the hero overcomes all odds and marries the princess because they give us hope that we too can succeed and find love.
And finally, myths survive because they are beautiful. That's why we keep retelling them and make them into movies: we love them. We never tire of hearing about Arthur and Lancelot and Guinevere at Camelot, no matter how many times we've heard the story before, because their story is beautiful and sad and inspiring. We know it is a myth, but we want it to be true.
This is why I study myth. Myths cannot be reduced to just one thing. They are complicated and rich. To study myth is to study literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, and psychology. Joseph Campbell said that most people only see with one eye most of the time. They only see what they look for. It is the artist who sees with two eyes, who sees things as they really are. The mythologist sees the world not just with two eyes but with the Third Eye, the eye that looks beyond things as they are to what they reveal about ourselves.
What is a myth? There is no one single answer. Most people use the word to indicate something false--not exactly a lie, but a story or concept many people believe that is not true. A myth in this sense would be something like the idea that life was much better in our grandparents' time: simpler, more beautiful. Yet anyone who studies history knows this idea is false. There have always been wars, always been oppression, always been frightening diseases. The upcoming generation has always challenged what their parents and teachers stood for, and struck out on new paths. Yet still, we cling to the idea that there was once a Golden Age, a Satya Yuga, a time before we were expelled from the Garden. Most religion--and perhaps most politics--promotes the idea that we can find that perfect state of being once again.
Many myths are stories of the origin of the cosmos. Humans weren't there, of course, and scientists today can't agree on when and how the universe began, or even if it ever "began" at all, but has always existed. So all our ideas about the cosmos are myths, in a way. Most of them begin--and some scientific theories are no different--with the void, Chaos, undifferentiated energy without form. Something then occurs that allows form to come into being, the world is created, and eventually humans too. In some religions, a Word is spoken; in many others, the world begins when energy differentiates into male and female and those energies have sex. The beginning of the world is the beginning of communication between beings.
People tend to prefer their own origin myths and think those of other people are silly. Another definition of myth, then, as Joseph Campbell once said, is "other people's religion." It's easy to deride other people's myths, because almost all myths become ridiculous when taken literally. We know the sun is not a blazing chariot driven across the sky by a god; what a silly idea. But myths should never be taken literally. They are not lies but metaphors for what we observe of the world. All myths are grounded in empiricism. The sun is real and it moves; however fantastical the different myths regarding the sun may be, they do offer an explanation.
Taken metaphorically, myths are about why things are the way they are. They tell us why the world looks like it does; why people behave the way they do; why we love, suffer, and die. And therefore myths can provide insight into the outlook of a particular group of people. Their explanations of "why" reveal their attitude towards the world. Is there an active source of evil in the world, or is suffering just part of the deal? Is divinity inherent in everything, or remote from the world--if indeed it exists at all? Are women powerful or weak? To study myth is to study how people think, how they approach life.
Then there is the Jungian school of thought regarding myth. Myths are not just metaphors for how things are in the world, they are metaphors for us. Myths of the sun do not just explain that big blazing ball of light that travels across the sky, disappears and leaves us in darkness, then reappears once again, but our own individual journeys that always involve times of darkness and confusion. The amazing similarities between the myths of widely dispersed peoples are explained by the fact that we are all human, all share the same instinctual makeup.
Myths survive because even if we don't "believe" them, they resonate with us on levels we may not even be aware of. We identify with Theseus trying to get out of the labyrinth because we've had times where we didn't know where to go or what to do next. We identify with Arjuna's rejection of his warrior training on the eve of battle because we've struggled with a role chosen for us by our society. We identify with Vassilisa's enslavement by and escape from the witch Baba Yaga because we too have felt oppressed by someone powerful and cruel, perhaps a nasty boss. We rejoice in tales where the hero overcomes all odds and marries the princess because they give us hope that we too can succeed and find love.
And finally, myths survive because they are beautiful. That's why we keep retelling them and make them into movies: we love them. We never tire of hearing about Arthur and Lancelot and Guinevere at Camelot, no matter how many times we've heard the story before, because their story is beautiful and sad and inspiring. We know it is a myth, but we want it to be true.
This is why I study myth. Myths cannot be reduced to just one thing. They are complicated and rich. To study myth is to study literature, history, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, and psychology. Joseph Campbell said that most people only see with one eye most of the time. They only see what they look for. It is the artist who sees with two eyes, who sees things as they really are. The mythologist sees the world not just with two eyes but with the Third Eye, the eye that looks beyond things as they are to what they reveal about ourselves.
Friday, November 13, 2009
The MacGuffin of Marriages
I muse a lot about relationships. I've never had a really good love relationship (although I have managed to have fantastic friendships that last), so I spend a lot of time looking at other people's marriages and noticing what it is about theirs that works or doesn't, in the hopes that I'll be able to recognize a good bet when he comes along and then acquit myself well - something I sure didn't know how to do when I was younger, obviously.
What I've noticed is that the crazy-in-love stage doesn't last. This is probably no news to anyone. Those days when you think the other person is perfection and they think you are too, and all you want is to be together and gaze in each other's eyes; where the sound of their voice or a touch from them is all you need in the world - it's heaven - it ends.
What happens next is reality. You see each other's flaws. Your own flaws seem to become magnified. You start to get on each other's nerves. The next stage is usually what the marriage counselor folks call the power struggle. You want things to be done your way, to get your needs met; your spouse wants things done their way. You can end up spending years arguing over which way the toilet paper roll hangs and how high the thermostat is set. Not to mention the big stuff like how to discipline the kids or what religion to follow. Some people never get out of this stage.
What gets people through this, it seems to me, is a shared dream, a common goal to work towards. For a lot of people that's the children: raising them, launching them into the world, watching what they do there, enjoying the grandchildren. Although too often, once the kids are launched and the couple finds themselves alone together, it's not enough.
The happy marriages I know that have lasted have other goals that both people want to work towards. With most of my friends this seems to be moving out (or back) to a piece of land somewhere where they will live the life they really want. Usually that means a very simple life with time to do the things that one really enjoys. My dream life has always been one in which I do a lot of reading, writing, gardening, playing with dogs, and having great dinners with friends and family. With sunsets. That seems to be a pretty common dream. Another common one is taking off, shedding the shackles, selling the house and going around the world or to Antarctica or driving the Al-Can Highway or living in Paris for a year.
It has to be a shared dream. I don't think a real partnership can be built out of one person supporting another person's dream. Even if they pull it off, the supportive person may find him- or herself increasingly bitter over what they gave up for the other. And too often, once the dream is achieved for the other, he or she leaves! One of my teachers at Pacifica, Ginette Paris, sees this a lot in her counseling practice: a wife devotes herself to getting her husband through medical or law school by holding down a full-time job AND doing all the cooking & cleaning, the deal being that as soon as he's earning the big bucks it will be her turn to go to school or they will have children, but as soon as he graduates he dumps her for a trophy wife. Ginette's take on this is to ask, "who is it who cleans and does the laundry and cooks and keeps the house for a student?" Answer: That's what a mother does. And what happens when the student graduates? He leaves and gets married! When one spouse puts their own life in limbo to caretake another, it's no longer a real marriage, it's a parent-child relationship. (Which is why the sex life always dies - it's incest!)
I don't think it works to have parallel dreams either: I pursue my dream, you pursue yours. No matter how supportive each person is of the other, they're still playing the support role. Plus, those parallel tracks usually diverge, sooner or later. Think about celebrity marriages.
So the dream has to be a mutual one and both people have to work equally hard at it. It has to be something that provides setbacks both have to struggle through and victories both can celebrate.
Now here's the thing: what the dream is doesn't really matter. It's the MacGuffin of marriages. In a movie, the MacGuffin is the thing that gets the plot going, that causes people to do what they do. Alfred Hitchcock put it this way: "It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers." At the beginning of the movie, the MacGuffin is vital; by the end, it's almost forgotten, because what is really important in the movie is the relationships between the people and their own growth.
Two of my dearest friends have been working towards a dream goal for the last two decades. They are just about there. The kids are launched, the house is sold, they're ready to go. But they're not going. They've found a sweet little rental a couple of blocks from their old home and they're putting off leaving, because there is so much they want to stay in town for right now. The dream has lost the urgency it had when they had the responsibility for a houseful of kids and a mortgage. They are content right where they are. One of them said to me, "we've realized we don't have to do anything!"
That doesn't mean the dream was meaningless. What I think has happened is that in all those years of sticking it out together, getting past the power struggle (and oh, did this couple have a power struggle - it took them years of counseling to get through it), and working towards the dream, the couple has forged a relationship so strong and vital that it doesn't matter what they do next. They have come full circle to the point where all they really want out of life is to be together. And that is the point of being married, isn't it?
What I've noticed is that the crazy-in-love stage doesn't last. This is probably no news to anyone. Those days when you think the other person is perfection and they think you are too, and all you want is to be together and gaze in each other's eyes; where the sound of their voice or a touch from them is all you need in the world - it's heaven - it ends.
What happens next is reality. You see each other's flaws. Your own flaws seem to become magnified. You start to get on each other's nerves. The next stage is usually what the marriage counselor folks call the power struggle. You want things to be done your way, to get your needs met; your spouse wants things done their way. You can end up spending years arguing over which way the toilet paper roll hangs and how high the thermostat is set. Not to mention the big stuff like how to discipline the kids or what religion to follow. Some people never get out of this stage.
What gets people through this, it seems to me, is a shared dream, a common goal to work towards. For a lot of people that's the children: raising them, launching them into the world, watching what they do there, enjoying the grandchildren. Although too often, once the kids are launched and the couple finds themselves alone together, it's not enough.
The happy marriages I know that have lasted have other goals that both people want to work towards. With most of my friends this seems to be moving out (or back) to a piece of land somewhere where they will live the life they really want. Usually that means a very simple life with time to do the things that one really enjoys. My dream life has always been one in which I do a lot of reading, writing, gardening, playing with dogs, and having great dinners with friends and family. With sunsets. That seems to be a pretty common dream. Another common one is taking off, shedding the shackles, selling the house and going around the world or to Antarctica or driving the Al-Can Highway or living in Paris for a year.
It has to be a shared dream. I don't think a real partnership can be built out of one person supporting another person's dream. Even if they pull it off, the supportive person may find him- or herself increasingly bitter over what they gave up for the other. And too often, once the dream is achieved for the other, he or she leaves! One of my teachers at Pacifica, Ginette Paris, sees this a lot in her counseling practice: a wife devotes herself to getting her husband through medical or law school by holding down a full-time job AND doing all the cooking & cleaning, the deal being that as soon as he's earning the big bucks it will be her turn to go to school or they will have children, but as soon as he graduates he dumps her for a trophy wife. Ginette's take on this is to ask, "who is it who cleans and does the laundry and cooks and keeps the house for a student?" Answer: That's what a mother does. And what happens when the student graduates? He leaves and gets married! When one spouse puts their own life in limbo to caretake another, it's no longer a real marriage, it's a parent-child relationship. (Which is why the sex life always dies - it's incest!)
I don't think it works to have parallel dreams either: I pursue my dream, you pursue yours. No matter how supportive each person is of the other, they're still playing the support role. Plus, those parallel tracks usually diverge, sooner or later. Think about celebrity marriages.
So the dream has to be a mutual one and both people have to work equally hard at it. It has to be something that provides setbacks both have to struggle through and victories both can celebrate.
Now here's the thing: what the dream is doesn't really matter. It's the MacGuffin of marriages. In a movie, the MacGuffin is the thing that gets the plot going, that causes people to do what they do. Alfred Hitchcock put it this way: "It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers." At the beginning of the movie, the MacGuffin is vital; by the end, it's almost forgotten, because what is really important in the movie is the relationships between the people and their own growth.
Two of my dearest friends have been working towards a dream goal for the last two decades. They are just about there. The kids are launched, the house is sold, they're ready to go. But they're not going. They've found a sweet little rental a couple of blocks from their old home and they're putting off leaving, because there is so much they want to stay in town for right now. The dream has lost the urgency it had when they had the responsibility for a houseful of kids and a mortgage. They are content right where they are. One of them said to me, "we've realized we don't have to do anything!"
That doesn't mean the dream was meaningless. What I think has happened is that in all those years of sticking it out together, getting past the power struggle (and oh, did this couple have a power struggle - it took them years of counseling to get through it), and working towards the dream, the couple has forged a relationship so strong and vital that it doesn't matter what they do next. They have come full circle to the point where all they really want out of life is to be together. And that is the point of being married, isn't it?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Leaving Wonderland
Three of my closest friends got married (or remarried) in the last 10 years. Now, marriage is an adjustment at any age, but more so when one has a few years under one's belt. Our lives usually get more complicated the longer we live, seems to me. It's hard enough for two people who've been married all along to stay together; when two people try to blend what had been two separate and complicated lives - well, it's not easy!
One of these friends called me this morning and said the funniest thing, which I told her I was going to steal and use in this blog, thank you sweetie! She's had a rough time adjusting to some of the other relationships that form part of her husband's baggage, plus her workplace has totally changed since her boss has hired most of his family (talk about trying to blend two sets of complications!). Today she said "I realized that how I've felt the last few years is like going through the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Sometimes I was big and sometimes I was small, I got lost all the time, I didn't know what people meant by what they said, and I couldn't get out!"
I laughed and laughed over this. But isn't that true? Not just of marriage but of any new situation - a new job, moving to a new town - we think we know what we're getting into, like Alice thought when she chased the rabbit into its hole, and then bam, the bottom falls out and it's completely different from what we thought and we wander around trying to make sense and get our bearings, but things keep happening we didn't even know to expect and it can all make us crazy!
When she said "sometimes I'm big and sometimes I'm small," my laugh was rueful. Sometimes I've been too big too - for example, when someone has interpreted an action of mine as meaning something about them, when I never meant it that way. And sometimes I've been too small, even invisible, as when I feel ignored or unimportant. Sometimes I feel like I'm with the Red Queen who is talking backwards; when I can't seem to communicate with someone, it often feels like we're not speaking the same language at all.
[Time out - a flicker just landed on the fence - such beautiful birds. The Steller's jays like my neighborhood, I can see three of them in the nearly-bare trees right now. Lots of juncos lately.]
I've always thought that when we fall in love, we see the other person as they really are. Their true self without any of the baggage. And that's almost always a really beautiful person. When we see someone as beautiful, they feel it, and for a while they let go of their baggage and they are that person. Which is why the beginning of a love affair is so delicious. Not only do we fall in love with the other person and they with us, we fall in love with ourselves too - we feel ourselves to be that wonderful person that the other loves, and that's the most wonderful thing in the world.
But we can't step completely away from our pasts, from all our baggage, our other relationships. Sooner or later they start to reassert their ties to us. And sometimes those ties are painful or difficult, and they make us - well, cranky. Plus we have to deal with our new loved one's baggage too, and some of their relationships are completely bewildering to us, we don't understand the rules and end up feel like Alice at the Mad Hatter's tea party. It's not each other that makes us so crazy sometimes, it's the baggage! But sadly, we often start to lose sight of that, and become disappointed, and start saying things like "you're not the person I thought you were." We ARE those shining wonderful people still, but it gets harder and harder to see that - or to remember ourselves as that.
More and more, I'm starting to think we can't figure this stuff out to the point that it no longer is an issue. I realize some of you who know me well are falling over in shock at this point - but I still think counseling helps us to identify our baggage and see it as separate from ourselves, and that helps. Because maybe the only thing we really can do is have a sense of humor about it. We're all complicated, we've all got baggage. Maybe if we took that for granted, it wouldn't be so upsetting when we trip over each other's baggage again - when we find ourselves suddenly big or suddenly small, when someone sounds like they are talking backwards for all the sense they're making to us, we should just throw our hands and the whole pack of cards up in the air, and laugh. For when Alice did that, she found the way out of crazy Wonderland.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Loneliness and the room between
I'm reading a book* on loneliness, entitled "Loneliness" (how clever is that?), recommended to me by my friend Jackie. It's fascinating. The author, John Cacioppo, is a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the U. of Chicago, and he comes at the question of social interaction through hard science - brain imaging, physiological measures, and gene studies. I like him because he admits that "the natural universe, for all its complexity, is easier to understand than the human being." He's spent the last 20 years studying the question of loneliness, which he sees as a psycho-physiological response similar to pain, warning us that we're too far apart from the tribe and need to get closer again to be safe. We're pack animals, we humans. We can't survive on our own. Loneliness, he says, is conditioned into us as a warning system.
The problem is that, like pain, too much loneliness for too long can cause changes in our brains. If that happens we start to lose the ability to read signals from other people properly. We may not pick up on the signs that someone who is dangerous, for example. Or we may start to miss the signs that someone is inviting us to be closer. People who are too lonely may even start to read others' behavior as slighting or hostile when it isn't at all.
A few years ago, a woman I worked with started picking fights with people at work. I'll call her Sally. For a couple of years Sally and I were friends. We walked at lunch almost every day. I should have been warned by Sally's stories about all the people she'd gotten into fights with and never talked to again: most of her family, a former business partner, her old book club. But apart from wishing that we could talk about something other than Sally's grievances, I ignored the signs. I was pretty lonely myself at the time, as I was new in town & didn't know many people, and my loneliness made me too eager to be friends. Even after Jackie met her and said to me "that woman is not your friend," I continued to try to be friends with her.
At first it was just her boss that Sally couldn't get along with. Then she got angry with all the managers. Then one day she ripped into a coworker so vehemently that that person still shakes when Sally's name is mentioned. I was next; I received an e-mail from Sally detailing all the things I'd done that were "hurtful" or "selfish" - including telling people that Sally would enjoy a phone call or visit when she was confined to home for a month with an injury; apparently this was proof that I was too "lazy" to carry messages from these people when I called or visited (which I did every couple of days)!
That's when I woke up to the fact that I was ignoring my own intuition (not to mention wise advice from someone who had my interests at heart). I learned my lesson; now when I meet someone whose conversation is all about how others have wronged them, or who just seems angry about everything, I edge away as soon as I can.
I bet you can guess what happened to Sally next: she was fired. This was years ago. Last weekend another woman who once worked at our company, but had left before all of this happened, ran into Sally at a workshop. She smiled and said hello; Sally turned away. At a break, the woman approached Sally again and said "don't you remember me?" Sally said "yes I do" in an angry tone and turned her back. A perfect example of someone who is unable to read signals from others any more, and becomes defensive at even a friendly overture. Sally may not be able to connect with anyone any more, and that is sad.
Another thing Cacioppo said struck home with me. He talks about how each of us has a different level of need for connection. Jackie & I once came up with the metaphor that every relationship, between every two people, is like a room. Each person has a door into the room that they open or not as they choose. In the room are the supplies and furniture appropriate to the relationship as it is. Which may not be what either of them really wants, and they both may keep trying to bring new things in or get rid of something. But in a good relationship it's easy to agree on what's in the room and what happens there. For example, in the room of my relationship with Jackie there is a fireplace, two very comfy chairs, and a pot of tea on a table between the chairs. We can sit there and chat in comfort for a very long time!
According to Cacioppo, different people have different needs for how long and how often they connect with others. Some people may feel lonely if they are ever alone for a minute. My friend John once said to me that he cannot stand to be alone in the house for even a few minutes. If he's ever alone, he calls someone. But I adore being alone. And I adore silence. I almost never put music or the radio on when I'm home alone. My niece is comfortable being alone, but not with silence - when she comes to visit, she always has to have a CD playing in the background, even when she's reading. Different comfort levels.
Then there's the issue of quality of connection. While I don't need much time with other people, when I am with someone else, it's very important to me that we connect deeply. I like heart-to-heart conversations where each person reveals something of themselves and where each person listens to what the other person says and thinks about it before responding. Jackie and I talk on the phone for hours - a couple times a week - just to share thoughts and find out what the other person thinks. I love these conversations, because in the course of them each of us gets new insights. The conversation builds and shifts in response to each of us.
I don't get to have this kind of conversation with many people. Most of my conversations are either small talk, or - doom of the introvert - take the form of me listening while someone else talks. I don't always mind this; sometimes the other person is very interesting! (I do mind it when all they are doing is complaining.)
But sometimes I do mind the monologuists. It can feel like the room between us contains a single chair, a podium, and a microphone, and I am expected to sit in the chair while the other person stands at the podium and talks at me. I know that many of these people probably feel most connected to other people when they are talking - when they feel listened to. And who doesn't? There's a story about a woman who goes to a party; at the end of the party, the hostess tells her that all the people there were just enchanted with her and thought she was the wittiest, most interesting conversationalist they'd ever heard. The woman just smiled; all she had done all evening long was listen to others! The problem is, I get tired of sitting in the chair and wish I could talk too. And if I never get to talk, sometimes I just leave - which is interpreted as my not caring, when in fact it's just that our preferred ways of connecting are at odds.
(Not all monologuists care if they are heard. One woman I know who tends to corral the conversation told me "I don't know what I think until I say it - and I'm usually so interested in that, I just have to follow it to the end." I've run little experiments with this woman where I will talk at the same time she's talking. It doesn't slow her down in the least. She's listening to herself think. I can't really fault that, as I like to do that too - but I use this blog for that.)
Cacioppa states that in fact, many relationship problems boil down to a difference in connection styles. Say a wife wants to sit on the couch & cuddle in silence while her husband wants her to listen while he complains about his job: maybe she has a high need for physical touch, while he mostly needs to be listened to. Or perhaps two friends have had a hard week at work and want to forget their cares on Friday night, but one wants to go partying while the other wants to stay in and watch a movie: the typical extrovert/introvert dilemma as extroverts get energy from connecting to lots of people, while introverts recharge best alone or with just one or two people.
Like everything, the real problem comes when people put judgments on this - that my way is better than your way, that you should connect like I connect, or that something is wrong with you - or me - if you don't. For instance, the husband in the above case may say to his touch-starved wife "you're too needy," and she might come back with "all you do is complain!" This is not the way to overcome the disconnect in styles.
There is nothing wrong with any of the ways people like to connect. We just get into trouble when our styles don't mesh. If I'm at my best doing a tango to an orchestra and you shine when you dance hip-hop with the subwoofer blasting and strobe lights, probably we're not going to dance together very well. Maybe I could learn to hip-hop, maybe you could learn to tango, but it might be that it's too much of a stretch for either of us to switch styles completely. In which case, I think the answer is that we both learn a new dance; we decorate the relationship room in a way we both can at least live with; we each step a little ways out of our comfort zones so we can move a little closer to each other.
*Yes, I know I should be reading my school assignments.
The problem is that, like pain, too much loneliness for too long can cause changes in our brains. If that happens we start to lose the ability to read signals from other people properly. We may not pick up on the signs that someone who is dangerous, for example. Or we may start to miss the signs that someone is inviting us to be closer. People who are too lonely may even start to read others' behavior as slighting or hostile when it isn't at all.
A few years ago, a woman I worked with started picking fights with people at work. I'll call her Sally. For a couple of years Sally and I were friends. We walked at lunch almost every day. I should have been warned by Sally's stories about all the people she'd gotten into fights with and never talked to again: most of her family, a former business partner, her old book club. But apart from wishing that we could talk about something other than Sally's grievances, I ignored the signs. I was pretty lonely myself at the time, as I was new in town & didn't know many people, and my loneliness made me too eager to be friends. Even after Jackie met her and said to me "that woman is not your friend," I continued to try to be friends with her.
At first it was just her boss that Sally couldn't get along with. Then she got angry with all the managers. Then one day she ripped into a coworker so vehemently that that person still shakes when Sally's name is mentioned. I was next; I received an e-mail from Sally detailing all the things I'd done that were "hurtful" or "selfish" - including telling people that Sally would enjoy a phone call or visit when she was confined to home for a month with an injury; apparently this was proof that I was too "lazy" to carry messages from these people when I called or visited (which I did every couple of days)!
That's when I woke up to the fact that I was ignoring my own intuition (not to mention wise advice from someone who had my interests at heart). I learned my lesson; now when I meet someone whose conversation is all about how others have wronged them, or who just seems angry about everything, I edge away as soon as I can.
I bet you can guess what happened to Sally next: she was fired. This was years ago. Last weekend another woman who once worked at our company, but had left before all of this happened, ran into Sally at a workshop. She smiled and said hello; Sally turned away. At a break, the woman approached Sally again and said "don't you remember me?" Sally said "yes I do" in an angry tone and turned her back. A perfect example of someone who is unable to read signals from others any more, and becomes defensive at even a friendly overture. Sally may not be able to connect with anyone any more, and that is sad.
Another thing Cacioppo said struck home with me. He talks about how each of us has a different level of need for connection. Jackie & I once came up with the metaphor that every relationship, between every two people, is like a room. Each person has a door into the room that they open or not as they choose. In the room are the supplies and furniture appropriate to the relationship as it is. Which may not be what either of them really wants, and they both may keep trying to bring new things in or get rid of something. But in a good relationship it's easy to agree on what's in the room and what happens there. For example, in the room of my relationship with Jackie there is a fireplace, two very comfy chairs, and a pot of tea on a table between the chairs. We can sit there and chat in comfort for a very long time!
According to Cacioppo, different people have different needs for how long and how often they connect with others. Some people may feel lonely if they are ever alone for a minute. My friend John once said to me that he cannot stand to be alone in the house for even a few minutes. If he's ever alone, he calls someone. But I adore being alone. And I adore silence. I almost never put music or the radio on when I'm home alone. My niece is comfortable being alone, but not with silence - when she comes to visit, she always has to have a CD playing in the background, even when she's reading. Different comfort levels.
Then there's the issue of quality of connection. While I don't need much time with other people, when I am with someone else, it's very important to me that we connect deeply. I like heart-to-heart conversations where each person reveals something of themselves and where each person listens to what the other person says and thinks about it before responding. Jackie and I talk on the phone for hours - a couple times a week - just to share thoughts and find out what the other person thinks. I love these conversations, because in the course of them each of us gets new insights. The conversation builds and shifts in response to each of us.
I don't get to have this kind of conversation with many people. Most of my conversations are either small talk, or - doom of the introvert - take the form of me listening while someone else talks. I don't always mind this; sometimes the other person is very interesting! (I do mind it when all they are doing is complaining.)
But sometimes I do mind the monologuists. It can feel like the room between us contains a single chair, a podium, and a microphone, and I am expected to sit in the chair while the other person stands at the podium and talks at me. I know that many of these people probably feel most connected to other people when they are talking - when they feel listened to. And who doesn't? There's a story about a woman who goes to a party; at the end of the party, the hostess tells her that all the people there were just enchanted with her and thought she was the wittiest, most interesting conversationalist they'd ever heard. The woman just smiled; all she had done all evening long was listen to others! The problem is, I get tired of sitting in the chair and wish I could talk too. And if I never get to talk, sometimes I just leave - which is interpreted as my not caring, when in fact it's just that our preferred ways of connecting are at odds.
(Not all monologuists care if they are heard. One woman I know who tends to corral the conversation told me "I don't know what I think until I say it - and I'm usually so interested in that, I just have to follow it to the end." I've run little experiments with this woman where I will talk at the same time she's talking. It doesn't slow her down in the least. She's listening to herself think. I can't really fault that, as I like to do that too - but I use this blog for that.)
Cacioppa states that in fact, many relationship problems boil down to a difference in connection styles. Say a wife wants to sit on the couch & cuddle in silence while her husband wants her to listen while he complains about his job: maybe she has a high need for physical touch, while he mostly needs to be listened to. Or perhaps two friends have had a hard week at work and want to forget their cares on Friday night, but one wants to go partying while the other wants to stay in and watch a movie: the typical extrovert/introvert dilemma as extroverts get energy from connecting to lots of people, while introverts recharge best alone or with just one or two people.
Like everything, the real problem comes when people put judgments on this - that my way is better than your way, that you should connect like I connect, or that something is wrong with you - or me - if you don't. For instance, the husband in the above case may say to his touch-starved wife "you're too needy," and she might come back with "all you do is complain!" This is not the way to overcome the disconnect in styles.
There is nothing wrong with any of the ways people like to connect. We just get into trouble when our styles don't mesh. If I'm at my best doing a tango to an orchestra and you shine when you dance hip-hop with the subwoofer blasting and strobe lights, probably we're not going to dance together very well. Maybe I could learn to hip-hop, maybe you could learn to tango, but it might be that it's too much of a stretch for either of us to switch styles completely. In which case, I think the answer is that we both learn a new dance; we decorate the relationship room in a way we both can at least live with; we each step a little ways out of our comfort zones so we can move a little closer to each other.
*Yes, I know I should be reading my school assignments.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
I'm on Facebook. I'm part of the largest-growing group on Facebook: women in their 50s. I love it. I've connected with friends from childhood, people I went to school with, and relatives (I talk more with my brother Pete through Facebook than we ever do on the phone!). It helps me keep up with my cohort from school, and I enjoy the photos and videos people sometimes share.
But this, I think, is my favorite thing that's happened so far: the tomato conversation. It began innocently enough, became scientific and helpful, and then . . . well, you'll see.
Adam W Can anyone tell me why my green tomatoes are ripening, just sitting on the kitchen counter? I understood that ones w/no color at all would not ripen once picked. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
Loren C Perhaps they're picking up bad habits from the bananas next to them on the counter.
Jody B That could be. I know you can ripen tomatoes by putting them in a bag with a banana or two.
Adam W yes, or an apple. I just didn't realize it worked for totally green tomatoes as well.
Julie P Actually an apple works best. Produces ethelene , which ripens fruit. Tomatoes are in fact a fruit, BTW.
Andi S Cuz you're a VERY special boy, adam.
Reb R You can also uproot the whole plant and hang it upside down in the basement and the tomatoes will ripen, though not grow larger.
Dean B I've been having the same luck with mine. Ciscoe (sorry Cass) says it's heat, not sunlight that ripens tomatoes, so put 'em someplace warm.
Carol J Yeah, what Reb says. That's what we did at our house over on Alonzo and it was terrific.
Karen A It works even better if you put them in a brown paper bag.
Adam W Yeah, I know about the brown paper bag/apple/etc. stuff -- I'm just surprised that the TOTALLY green tomatoes are turning. Not what the literature would have me believe.
Reb R You're obviously reading the wrong books.
Have you tried The Tomato Code? How about Gone With the Tomatoes? The Tomato Who Came In From the Cold? And then there's The Catcher in the Tomatoes.
All talk about green tomatoes turning red.
Adam W Not to mention Tomato Mockingbird.
Dean B Or Tomato Two Cities.
Reb R Or The Tomato of the Shrew.
Jody B or Tomato Jones
Reb R Mark Twain's Tomato Sawyer.
Adam W Ow! Ow! Enough! Uncle!
I have gotten more comments about this than anything else I've posted on FB. What does this say about me? About my friends?
Adam W And when I say "uncle," of course, I'm referring to Uncle Tomato's Cabin.
But this, I think, is my favorite thing that's happened so far: the tomato conversation. It began innocently enough, became scientific and helpful, and then . . . well, you'll see.
Adam W Can anyone tell me why my green tomatoes are ripening, just sitting on the kitchen counter? I understood that ones w/no color at all would not ripen once picked. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
Loren C Perhaps they're picking up bad habits from the bananas next to them on the counter.
Jody B That could be. I know you can ripen tomatoes by putting them in a bag with a banana or two.
Adam W yes, or an apple. I just didn't realize it worked for totally green tomatoes as well.
Julie P Actually an apple works best. Produces ethelene , which ripens fruit. Tomatoes are in fact a fruit, BTW.
Andi S Cuz you're a VERY special boy, adam.
Reb R You can also uproot the whole plant and hang it upside down in the basement and the tomatoes will ripen, though not grow larger.
Dean B I've been having the same luck with mine. Ciscoe (sorry Cass) says it's heat, not sunlight that ripens tomatoes, so put 'em someplace warm.
Carol J Yeah, what Reb says. That's what we did at our house over on Alonzo and it was terrific.
Karen A It works even better if you put them in a brown paper bag.
Adam W Yeah, I know about the brown paper bag/apple/etc. stuff -- I'm just surprised that the TOTALLY green tomatoes are turning. Not what the literature would have me believe.
Reb R You're obviously reading the wrong books.
Have you tried The Tomato Code? How about Gone With the Tomatoes? The Tomato Who Came In From the Cold? And then there's The Catcher in the Tomatoes.
All talk about green tomatoes turning red.
Adam W Not to mention Tomato Mockingbird.
Dean B Or Tomato Two Cities.
Reb R Or The Tomato of the Shrew.
Jody B or Tomato Jones
Reb R Mark Twain's Tomato Sawyer.
Adam W Ow! Ow! Enough! Uncle!
I have gotten more comments about this than anything else I've posted on FB. What does this say about me? About my friends?
Adam W And when I say "uncle," of course, I'm referring to Uncle Tomato's Cabin.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
