Thoughts on ADHD

Note: I was diagnosed with ADHD, finally, at the age of 27.  Looking back on my experiences in school, work and in some of my social interactions, it is clear that ADHD was silently wreaking havoc on my life in so many different ways, but it wasn’t until I was finally diagnosed that everything finally started to make sense to me.  ADHD is a vastly misunderstood disorder, and I hope that by sharing my experiences, I can help others understand how widespread the difficulties from ADHD can be, and help show how the disorder is more than just not being able to sit still and pay attention.

I was always a bit of a daydreamer, and from the time I was little, I would often drift off into my own world, and my parents would say that I was off in “La-la Land” (which, apparently, comes from people referring to celebrities in Los Angeles as being in their own worlds–bet you didn’t know that.  If you did, I apologize for boring you with a fact you already knew. And with the sentence apologizing to you.)  I always did well in school, for the most part, and was actually in the gifted program in both writing and math during my time in elementary school.  I was a good student, who never needed to be disciplined all through middle school.  The main comments on my report cards from teachers were along the lines of “Michael is so nice!” and “Michael is a sweet kid who is always willing to help others.”  I would like to think that if I still got teacher comments on report cards (why don’t we get teacher comments on report cards in college? Wouldn’t that be fun?), they would probably be similar today.  My overall disposition hasn’t much changed since the time I was young, but my ability to perform well in school did start to slowly decline in 7th grade.  Therefore, it is unsurprising that there were no indications that I had ADHD when I was younger, especially since the disorder was not well understood during the early nineties, when I was in elementary school.  Additionally, I was not hyperactive in any way, which is the way the disorder was primarily understood for quite a long time, although it is true that I was never able to sit still–in my case, however, this inability to sit still tended to express itself as a constant need to bounce my leg or tap my foot, as opposed to, say, climbing on top of my desk and playing leap frog with my neighbors’ desks.

The first time that I can actually remember struggling with any subject was in seventh grade, during my pre-algebra class, where the concepts involved began to get much more advanced and difficult to follow, and I struggled to keep up with the work that was required of me.  Looking back at other assignments from seventh grade (my mom has saved things from every grade, Kindergarten through twelfth), I noticed that many of them were marked off for being one or two days late, or for being messy and hard to read.  Eighth grade continued the trend of late assignments and struggling with certain subjects, especially Algebra, as I once again found it more and more difficult to understand the concepts that were presented to me.  This was a little bit of a shock, as I had always been gifted in math, and had been able to do well until that point.  In hindsight, it is not actually all that surprising, as one of the areas most affected in those with ADHD is working memory, which is a crucial ability when working on math problems and utilizing the proper formulas and equations. Additionally, as was the case the year before, I would turn in assignments late, and forget to do book responses or weekly journal assignments.  It is quite possible that middle school, in general, is the worst time in any person’s life, so I am guessing that my parents and teachers just assumed that my struggles in a few areas were due to that horrible time when hormones are raging, social circles are constantly fluctuating, and our bodies are doing weird things that make us think: “Huh…that’s new!”

Knowing what I now know, it is not surprising that I started to struggle during this time period.  It is quite common for those with ADHD to start facing serious difficulties with school work during middle school, as concepts become more advanced, and the workload becomes a little bit heavier. In addition, middle school tends to be the first time that students have more than one teacher in charge of everything, and instead begin to change rooms for each class period.  All of these things make it hard for those of us with problems in executive functioning to perform as well as we used to in elementary school–more and more demands are being placed on us, and we suddenly find ourselves unable to get everything organized and taken care of like we used to be able to. Despite my few struggles in middle school, I did fairly well overall.

High school, however, was a different story, as I really began to deal with school work and schedules that were beyond my ability to handle effectively.  I find it interesting that, for quite a while, I remembered myself as doing fairly well overall in high school, but when I recently looked back at my old report cards, I realized that this definitely wasn’t true.  Despite graduating with an overall GPA of 2.9 (which, honestly, is far below my capabilities), my grades varied widely from class to class, and even from report card to report card.  Much of this is unsurprising, as my depression and OCD began to get quite severe in 9th grade (see earlier blog post on OCD).  However, with what is known today about ADHD and learning disabilities, the wide variation in my grades would most likely have been a red flag had I been a student even ten years later. A further barrier in getting properly diagnosed was the existence of my OCD.  Whenever I couldn’t concentrate, or whenever I got distracted by something, and lost my focus of attention, everyone (including myself) just assumed it was because of my obsessions.  The fact that I was not hyperactive in any way (aside from the constant restlessness that I felt), served to further the belief that my OCD was the primary factor in my difficulties.  Add to that the struggles of coming to terms with my sexuality, and my depression, and it hasn’t hard to understand why I wasn’t exactly an A+ student.

Outside of middle school, the transition to college is possibly the most difficult one for those with ADHD, whether or not they have been diagnosed.  People with ADHD are most able to succeed when they have structure, and entering the world of college tends to throw any previous structure that had been established right out the window.  Add to this the lack of a parent or guardian constantly being on hand to help the individual get organized, and it is most certainly not the ideal environment for those with ADHD.  While it is certainly also the case that many people struggle with adjusting to college, those with ADHD often find themselves floundering in a world that is completely overwhelming.

When I first attended college, the experience for me was always the same–I would start out really excited, sure that THIS would be the semester that I would succeed, but as the weeks went on, I would feel like I was standing in the middle of a downpour, and the water was slowly rising around me.  I had no idea how I got in such a bad position, and I had no idea how to escape, so I just did what I could to avoid drowning, which usually entailed failing all but one class, or withdrawing from all of my classes towards the end of the semester.  Every time, it caught me by surprise.  Every time, I wanted to do better, and thought that I could do better, and every time it turned out the same.  I started off well, I believed in myself, and then saw everything come crashing down around me as I found myself falling farther and farther behind, desperately wondering what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t seem to “get my act together” and start doing well.  The amount of shame that I felt whenever I received an ‘F’ in a class, or whenever I would go and fill out the withdrawal form was enormous, and I would once again have to face the fact that, despite my intelligence, I seemed incapable of ever succeeding in an academic setting.

The hard thing about having ADHD, and going for so long without a proper diagnosis, is that the ways in which it shows up often appear as problems with your core personality, or as a willful disregard for things that need to be done.  When you don’t do a homework assignment, people tend to assume  that you didn’t do it because you didn’t want to, or because you made a conscious choice to have fun instead of doing work. Even when you tell people, in all honesty, that you forgot, they typically think you are making excuses for yourself, not believing that anyone could genuinely forget something like a paper or a homework assignment.  When you forget to show up for a meeting, or forget to bring something that you promised a friend you would bring, and it happens repeatedly, people begin to think of you as unreliable, and begin to write you off as flaky, or someone who is always making promises they never intend to keep.  It is incredibly painful to know that you did not mean to do anything wrong, to know that you would have done your homework, or that you would have followed through on your promise, if you had just remembered it,  and to then have others criticize you because of their assumptions that it was all by conscious choice.  It is even more painful when you start to believe that the negative evaluations of you are correct, and that you are, in some deep way, fundamentally flawed as a human being, unable to achieve like others do.  When you are constantly trying, and are constantly coming up short, it doesn’t take long before you start to believe the bad things that others are saying about you.  Undiagnosed ADHD brings so much shame, self-doubt, and self-hatred, that it is a miracle more of us make it as far as we do, with our hope intact, before being diagnosed.

Much of this lack of proper diagnosis comes from a fundamental misunderstanding about ADHD, and it tends to be those like myself, who are “ADHD–Primarily Inattentive Type”, who go the longest without being identified as having the disorder (women are also much less likely to be be properly diagnosed, thanks to outdated assumptions that ADHD is primarily a disorder found in boys). ADHD does not always manifest itself as the hyperactive kid who is unable to pay attention in class.  It infuriates me when people talk about how ADHD is not an actual problem, and claim that we are just medicating kids who can’t sit still (and what kid CAN sit still, they say), pathologizing normal childhood behavior.  This is not what ADHD is.  As more research is being done, we are discovering that ADHD is, to use the definition utilized by ADHD expert Thomas Brown, “a complex syndrome of developmental impairments of executive functions” which are “the self-management system of the brain” that are “mostly unconscious operations.”  Executive functioning includes areas such as working memory, the sustaining and shifting of attention, monitoring and self-regulating actions (impulse control), managing emotions, regulating alertness, and activating motivation.  In other words, those with ADHD do not just have the inability to sit still; we have the inability to properly manage our cognitive processes in a way that those without ADHD can.  Look at all of the different areas that are under this domain, and think about how a problem with these areas would affect your life in a negative way.  All of the executive functions are crucial for success in all different areas of life, and it is not just about not paying attention in class, or not being able to sit still.  Additionally, when the diagnosis is properly made, people are compared to those of their age group.  Again, there is a difference between having a problem sitting still for a couple of hours, and being unable to control the need to get up and run around the room, or to blurt out whatever comes to mind, without the proper use of filters appropriate to one’s age group.

The diagnosis of ADHD changed my life in ways that I can’t even describe.  There are those, both in and out of the psychological community, who believe that the whole idea of diagnosing individuals is stigmatizing and problematic.  While I certainly agree that this CAN be the case, if it is not properly done, it is also the case that having a proper diagnosis can be a huge relief, and is often the first step towards understanding that you, as a person, are not flawed.  What is flawed is your ability to utilize your executive functioning in ways that other people take for granted.

There are certainly funny things that have happened as a result of my ADHD, and one of my favorite things to do is talk to other people with ADHD and share stories of these experiences.  One time, for example, I put water on to boil, and then went to the other room to grab something.  Fifteen minutes later, I suddenly thought, “oh shit! my water!” and ran to the kitchen, finding that the pot had boiled dry.  I started again, put the water on to boil, and then went to the other room to do something quickly.  Once again, fifteen minutes later, I thought “oh shit! my water!” and ran back to once again find that the pot had boiled dry.  The third time, I decided to not leave the kitchen until the water had boiled, and until the eggs I was making were fully hard-boiled.  There have been more times than I care to admit that I have left the house, realized I have forgotten something, gone back into the house to get it, and then left the house again, only to realize that I still didn’t have the thing that I had originally forgotten.

One of my favorite “ADHD moment” stories comes from one of my friends, who drove to the grocery store to pick something up for her mom.  While there, she noticed that a store next door was hiring, so decided to run in and grab an application.  After leaving with the application, she walked home–forgetting that she had driven to the grocery store.  Needless to say, she also did not pick up the item that had originally led her to the store to begin with.

While these stories are always funny in hindsight, there is usually an underlying pain to them, especially for those who are undiagnosed, or who are just learning about what it means to have ADHD.  Whenever something like this happens, your first thought is often “what is wrong with me?  Why am I so forgetful? How can I be so stupid as to forget that I had put a pot on to boil, not just once, but on two successive occasions?”  If something like this happens once or twice, it is easy to laugh off.  When these types of things happen every single day, and start to become part of who you are, you start to doubt your ability to be a fully functioning, productive member of society.  It is even worse when you interact with others who start to use these types of behaviors against you as signs of your inherently flawed nature.  “You are such a slob!”  “You are so thoughtless!” “How could you possible forget something like that?  What is wrong with you?”  “You’re so weird!” “Why can’t you ever do anything on time?” These types of statements have probably been heard over and over again by almost every single person with ADHD, and it never gets easier to hear them.

Over and over, when I was younger, I would be reprimanded for not cleaning up my dishes, or for not picking my towel up off of the floor, or for not putting away the things I had used to make lunch earlier that day. I would often have to be told several times before I remembered to follow through with whatever I had not done. And, honestly, I had to be asked again because I had completely forgotten that I had been asked before, and only remembered that I had been asked when someone asked me again (or yelled at me, or made a sarcastic comment to me about it).  I could not understand why people were so mad, when I had honestly forgotten, and it hurt to be yelled at for something I had no knowledge of doing wrong.  But, once again, when you say “I forgot!”, people tend to think that you are just making excuses, and tell you that you are just being lazy or selfish.  It’s one thing to be called a slob if you are a slob because you simply don’t want to clean, and don’t care about the cleanliness level of your house.  It is an entirely different thing to be called a slob when you don’t clean because you have no idea how, or because you get overwhelmed whenever you try. Or when you get called a slob because your house isn’t clean, even though you really want to, but every time you start cleaning, you get distracted by an article you pick up, which reminds you of a book that needs to be returned to the library, which reminds you that you need to go the store, which reminds you that you need to get gas.  Every time each of these things pops into your mind, you set off to complete that task, whether or not the previous one had been finished, because you have completely forgotten that you were doing something else that needed to be done, until you run out of gas on the way home to a dirty house, where an overdue library book is still sitting by the door, without the item you needed from the store.  Eventually, others no longer have to do the criticizing, and you become your harshest critic–after all, if you are the hardest on yourself, maybe it won’t hurt so much when others are hard on you, too.

Despite everything that I have had to deal with, I am in no way saying that I would get rid of my ADHD if I could.  In fact, I think that my ADHD has been a valuable part in making me who I am.  I doubt that I would have the sense of humor that I do, or the ability to empathize with others as well as I do, for example, if I did not have ADHD.  However, I sometimes can’t help but wonder how things might have been different if I had been diagnosed earlier.  At the same time, I recognize that I wouldn’t be where I am, surrounded by such amazing people, in an area I love, if I was able to succeed in my first attempt at college.  It would have been nice, however, to have been a little less bruised by the time I got here.

What I have gained, from my own experiences with ADHD, and from the experiences of so many others, is a passion and a drive to help adults with ADHD rebuild the lives that have so frequently shattered around them.  The following two quotes are from individuals who post to an ADHD message board that I participate in, and are, unfortunately, quite representative of the experiences of so many people in that community:

“I grew up thinking that I am rude, inconsiderate, and just plain dumb for not being able to achieve such a “simple” task like getting somewhere on time…My whole life I have felt different than everyone. I have always felt like I have a different view of the world. I feel like no one understands me. I feel like I am screaming , trying to get people to understand what I go through on a daily basis, but I feel like no words are coming out.”

“I guess I have no one in my life that understands me , divorced, depressed, alone litteraly , unemployed business owner, addict, is this starting to sound like an ok cupid profile or what? Just here looking for an outlet , im at such a screwed up point in my life.  I have no idea what to do.”

Every time I read posts like those, it reminds me that therapists who specialize in working with adults with ADHD are desperately needed.  It breaks my heart to know that the vast majority of these individuals are good people, who are often very intelligent, but who have struggled their whole life to succeed because of their ADHD, and who have no idea how to makes things better.  These types of stories are what keep me going when I have doubts about the career path I have chosen, or during the times when I feel overwhelmed by grad school.  I want to do everything I can to help these people understand that things can get better, that they can learn to love themselves, and that they are not broken human beings beyond hope.

Thoughts on Redemption

So, I know the title of this post sounds super religious, like I’m going to be writing about some deep moment where a life is changed as somebody realizes the errors of their way, and turns to faith as they embrace a new way of living.  But, in reality, I think that redemption is more of a life-long process that occurs over and over again, as we make up for past mistakes, or make healthier choices, and apologize to those we have harmed or mistreated (including ourselves).  And despite the religious terms, and the often religious nature of redemption, I don’t think that redemption occurs only in a religious context.  I believe that redemption lies in relationships, and in the ability of people to work towards making a better life for themselves.

About one year ago, when I was still living in Catonsville, I was hanging out at my apartment one night, and began to hear loud voices across the hall.  Not thinking anything about it right away (I had one neighbor who would have incredible outbursts of anger while talking on the phone, which were so loud that I could hear them from across the hall, between two closed doors), I went back to what I was doing, hoping it would settle down again.  A few minutes later, however, I heard a man screaming, and then a woman screaming, and it began to get to the point where it was concerning.  While in the middle of texting a friend about the situation, I suddenly heard the woman shouting in pain, and decided at that point that I had to call the police.  While waiting for the police to arrive, I tried to figure out what I should next, and I once again heard the man yelling at the woman.  I opened my door, hoping somebody else would have heard something and would come out to address the situation as well, and saw my neighbor yank his door open, throw the woman onto the ground, and raise his hand to hit her.  Not knowing what else to do, I yelled “HEY!” as loud as I could, in as strong a voice as I could muster.  The man paused for a second, turned, and then went back into his apartment, not even acknowledging my presence.

I never again want to see the image of someone cowering in fear as another person towers over them, ready to strike. It is a horrible image that I know gets repeated day after day in so many homes around the world, and it is absolutely devastating.  I looked at the woman, not sure what to do, and she quietly said “help…call the police.”  I let her know that I had already done so, and when she asked if she could come into my apartment while we waited for them to arrive, I didn’t give it a second thought.  I told her my name, and asked her if she needed anything, and got her a glass of water and ibuprofen. She told me a little bit about what had happened, letting me know that the man had hit her on the head, and that he was drunk and high.

I wish I could say that I was standing bravely this whole time, but I was absolutely terrified while we waited for the police to arrive, having no clue if he might try to enter my apartment, or if he had any weapons at his disposal that he might consider using. Despite this, I knew I was doing what I needed to do, because what the woman needed at that moment was to feel as secure as she could, and I figured that if something more happened, I would deal with it then.

To make a long story short, the police arrived, and when they did get there, the man involved in the situation had left.  They took the woman’s statement, and offered her a a trip to the hospital, which she did not take.  After the police left, I helped the woman take everything that was hers out of the apartment, and told her I would store whatever I could in my own place until her friends could come back and pick it up.  The whole time, I was incredibly frightened that my neighbor might come back, and might take out his anger on me, but I did what needed to be done, and he did not, in fact, return that night.  As some people probably know, I tend to have a wee bit of anxiety, and I was constantly anxious over the next week or two that my neighbor would try to get back at me for calling the police, perhaps by finding me outside one night and using me as a punching bag.  Unreasonable, yes, but trying to get my anxiety filled brain to understand that wasn’t easy.  Obviously, this did not happen, and I rarely saw my neighbor in the following months.

Now, thus far, I know that it may sound like I am boasting about how awesome I was, or something of the sort, but the truth is that I don’t really feel that what I did was all that awesome–I felt that I did what was necessary to do, and, as I mentioned before, I was absolutely terrified the whole time.  Perhaps that doesn’t matter, but in all honesty, I would hope that most people in a similar situation would do the same thing.

At this point, we will move a bit forward, to the end of September, when I was moving out of my apartment in Catonsville.  On the first day of loading things into my car, I had the first conversation that I had ever had with my neighbor across the hall, the man who I called the police on, and it was a doozy.  His exact words were “Do you have a dollar in quarters I can buy from you?”  Bum bum bum!

Ok, so that’s not actually anything exciting, or noteworthy, but it was a little odd to me that he had approached me and asked that question, since the only interaction that we had had at that point was me yelling “HEY!” at him in a loud and threatening voice.

A couple of days later, as I was cleaning out the last things from my apartment, he was sitting on the steps and smoking a cigarette.  As I was heading back into the building at one point, he caught my attention, and I could tell that he was struggling a little bit with something.  After a second, he said “Hey man, I just want to say that you did the right thing earlier in the situation with my girlfriend.  I wanted to thank you, and tell you that I am currently working through some issues with addiction, and wanted let you know that I’m glad that you did what you did.”  It was a pretty powerful moment for me, because it helped reaffirm to me that no one is beyond hope, and that behind so many acts of violence and cruelty there are terribly wounded, broken people–people who are not hopeless, who are not beyond the point of redemption.

I can not even imagine how difficult it was for him to get up the courage to say what he did to me,  but I am so grateful that he did.  I would imagine that the earlier occasion, when he asked for quarters, was an attempt to start up a conversation with me.  To his statement this time, I replied by saying: “You’re welcome, and I’m really glad to hear that you are working through those things, because I know it’s hard.”

I wanted to let him know, in some way, that I appreciated his courage, and to let him know that I accepted his apology.  And honestly, I did, and I was also really proud of him for being able to share that with me.  While it may sound relatively minor, I got the impression that it was really important for him, and I would like to believe that it was a form of redemption.  He needed to say what he did, to prove to himself that he could, and to find out that others could accept his apology, and forgive him for past mistakes.

For the rest of the night, my neighbor kept seeing if he could help me, and it was pretty touching to see.  At one point, I was sweating and clearly exhausted from cleaning, and he came in and gave me a bottle of Power-Ade.  When I thanked him, he said something along the lines of “Hey man, you did the right thing, and I want to do the right thing too.”  He helped me with a couple of others things that night, and I couldn’t have asked for a more meaningful way to finish the moving process.

This incident is one of the reasons that I believe so much in the power of forgiveness, and in giving people second (and third and fourth) chances.  I have no idea how my former neighbor is doing, but I very much hope that he is continuing to stay sober, and continuing to work on the issues that he was dealing with.  If I have helped him to move forward on his journey in becoming a better person, in even the smallest way, I am incredibly grateful for that opportunity, and hope that he will have the opportunity to do the same thing for others at some point in the future.

Thoughts on Giving

One of the major differences when it comes to living in a city versus living in a smaller community is the fairly regular presence of individuals asking for money on the street.  Different people have different opinions on how to deal with these types of situations, and I can respect that.  My philosophy is to try and give something to people who ask it of me, if I am able to.  I understand all of the reasons that people give as to why they don’t: If they really want help, they can find the services they need.  They are probably just going to buy alcohol or drugs with it.  I’m enabling them by giving them money. And so forth.  (Comedian Aisha Tyler writes in her book that when people tell her “You know, if you give them money, they are just going to buy alcohol with it” she responds by saying “If i gave YOU money, you would just buy alcohol with it.”)

While any and all of these may be true, for me the act of giving comes down to a simple concept:  I want those asking me for money to see that I value them as a human being, and that, when I walk past them, I do not view them as an annoyance to be brushed aside and ignored as I go about my day.  I can not imagine how painful it must be to have people treat you as if you don’t matter, and as if you are nothing more than a nuisance to be tolerated, at best.  When I give money to someone who asks me if I have any change, I am not doing it because I believe that what I give them will be the difference between life and death, or will be the difference between hunger and starvation.  When I give someone money, I am saying to them, “You matter as a human being.  You matter as an individual, who is worthy of my time and attention, for nothing more than the fact that you are part of the human family.”  Even if I don’t actually have any money on me to give someone, I try to stop and say “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything on me today.” It breaks my heart to see the amount of gratitude that I have seen in their eyes simply because I took the time to stop and talk to them, even when I am unable to give them anything, rather than just turning a deaf ear.  It makes me sad that the very act of acknowledging someone’s existence is so rare that homeless individuals are surprised by it.  When people grumble about people asking for money, or walk past them without so much as a nod or smile, I always want to say “oh, I’m sorry, is their homelessness inconveniencing you?”

In a similar vein to this, one of the things that I find most rewarding is to go back and give something to someone after being unable to do so previously.  On one occasion, I only had a twenty, and after stopping in Starbucks, I made sure to go back to the gentleman who had asked for money and give him a dollar after I had gotten change.  Once again, what was important to me wasn’t that I was helping him buy the “proper” things with the money I gave to him (I don’t care for the phrase “my money”), but how much it meant to him that I took the effort to go back and give him something when I was able.  It doesn’t matter what he spent the money on, if he bought cigarettes, alcohol, or food.  Once I choose to give the money to that person, it is no longer mine, and I no longer have any right to tell someone what to do with it.  Giving that comes with conditions attached is not true giving.

As I relate this to my faith, I am pretty sure that Jesus didn’t tell us to do a thorough background check on those to whom we are giving.  Maybe I’m missing a footnote, but I’m also pretty sure Jesus didn’t add “but only to those who you feel are deserving” when he told us to “give to all who ask of you.”  Did I miss the line that said “whatsoever you do to the least of these, so you do to me, assuming that the least of these aren’t people who drink or have substance abuse problems”?  The Quaker faith teaches us that all humans have “that of God” within them, often referred to as the light or the inner light.  This includes the homeless substance abuse addict, the homeless alcoholic, the veteran with schizophrenia and everyone else we deal with on a daily basis.  To ignore them is to ignore that of God within them, and to do so also enables them to forget that of God within themselves.

I believe that kindness begets kindness, and that when I ignore others, and treat them as objects instead of human beings, I debase and dehumanize myself in the process.  I would rather get burned a hundred times and still believe in the goodness of people than to be cynical and close myself off to the world.  It may be naive, but I’m OK with that.  What have cynicism and negativity ever done to improve the world?  What positive results does a rejection of the humanity of others ever bring to the world as a whole?  I believe that goodness begets goodness, and that the smallest spark can be enough to light a flame.  If my actions encourage others to be better people, my actions are worthwhile.  I know this has certainly been the case for myself, as I have been encouraged to push myself to be a better person because of the kindness and compassion that I have seen in others.

I don’t mean to imply that I am in any way a saint, or that I am even close to doing everything that I could be doing.  There are far too many times that I walk to class on the route that I know I am least likely to encounter people who will be asking for money.  I often look straight ahead when people walk past my cars with signs asking for money, even though it never feels good to do so.  We can all grow as people, and I know there is so much more I could be doing, especially on a systemic level.  What I try to do, however, is utilize the abilities that I have, in a way that I can, to make things a little bit better for others, and I hope that it helps.  I don’t view myself as better than those who may take a different approach, as we all have our stories, backgrounds and beliefs that guide how we live and what we do.  I can only share my story, and hope that others are willing to do the same.

Thoughts on Loneliness

I recently got back from two weeks at Long Beach, NC, where my family has been going since I was an infant. It is probably my favorite place in the world, and I always look forward to going there and spending time with my family and recharging my batteries. For the past few years, however, I have noticed an acute feeling of loneliness on and off during my time at the beach. These feelings tend to come on when I see a young couple together, especially when they are there with children. The beach has always been something I have wanted to share with someone that I care about, and I never imagined that it would take me so long to do so. If you asked me, ten years ago, where I would be at the age of 32, I probably would have guessed that I would be married with at least one child (Marriage has always been a part of my plan, even when I was in high school and legalized same-sex marriage wasn’t even a blip on the political map). I never would have guessed that I would still be single and in school, a family of my own at least a few years in the future.

I know that I am doing things the best way that I can, but it is sometimes hard for me to think about the fact that I am in my thirties and have never had a serious, long-term relationship. I know that I was not at a point in my life where I was emotionally ready to be in a relationship until fairly recently, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to accept. Sometimes it feels like just another area in my life where I have failed, but unlike in academics and work, it is one where I have not yet turned things around. I always dread it when people ask me “why aren’t you dating anyone?”, as if it is something as simple as not wanting to be in a relationship:
“Well, I’m not dating anyone because I made a commitment to myself that I wouldn’t look for a relationship until I had bested the realms of science, philosophy and mathematics. Stay tuned, I think I’ve almost bested two of the three!”
I always want to say things like “I don’t know, why aren’t YOU dating anyone?”, a strategy much less effective when the person asking the question has been married for the past twenty years.

There are plenty of people who are fully happy being single, and seem to genuinely be ok with not searching for a relationship. I secretly think that these people are somehow defective, and that they probably hoard snakes, waiting for the day when they will unleash their serpentine army on the unsuspecting masses. Then there are those who say things like “it’s only when you stop looking for someone that you find them.” These are the people that I want to exile to the island of Elba, much like Napoleon, who probably said similar things to his single friends (this may not be historically accurate). I do wonder, though, if this is true not only for relationships, but if it also works when I can’t find my wallet. If I stop looking for it, will I find it?  If so, it would really save me an awful lot of time and frustration when I am running late for class and/or work.

I do understand that looking desperately for a relationship is a poor way of finding one, and that you are not really ready for a relationship until you are comfortable being single and happy with who you are outside of a couple. It is a hard thing to do, especially when you have a lot of shame and self-hatred that has come from growing up in a culture that tells you that your desires, and the attractions that you have, make you a bad/dirty/sinful/sick person, and that the one thing that is supposed to be most beautiful in the world is the thing that supposedly makes you a pariah and an outcast. It really makes one want to skip past the whole self-acceptance thing and go right into a relationship, because at least you’re getting some sort of benefit from the supposedly bad/dirty/sinful/sick situation.  Navigating who you are, both alone and as part of a couple, takes a lot of time and energy, and it is usually in high school that people start to figure out how to do it.  Like many gay people, I never had a chance to date in high school, so when the rest of the people were trying on their dating shoes (available at fine department stores near you) I was still trying to figure out how to not hate myself.  It’s not surprise, then, that I and so many other young gay men enter into adulthood feeling lonely and uncertain about things like dating and building intimacy with another human being.  Unfortunately, the gay community often provides little support for those who finally find their way into it, telling young men (either subtly or overtly) that relationships and commitment are silly, at least when one is young and ‘free’. Instead, young gay men are often told that sex is the way to go, and that if you don’t have sex, it is because you are probably repressed, or you are a prude, or you are giving into the evils of heteronormativity. Sex is held up as the way to meet people, to connect with people, and to really get to know yourself.

The problem is, it doesn’t work. At least not for me, and for a lot of people that I have known.  Unfortunately, when you are surrounded by a group that tells you that the cure for loneliness is to make out with a stranger, or to find someone online to hook up with, you often begin to feel that something really might be wrong with you when these things only make you feel more lonely.  For all the kudos this approach often gets, I have also seen the loneliness and pain in the eyes of a lot of people who continue to tout this line, and I don’t think that many of them even understand what they are actually feeling. This isn’t unique to gay men, either. Men in general are taught that real men don’t get sad, or get lonely, or feel vulnerable. Real men have sex…lots of it, whenever they can, and that they have no desire to settle down, and will do so only grudgingly, if they are forced to. I honestly believe that when many men feel lonely, the first thing they do is look for sex. I think men often mistake the desire for human connection, the need to be loved and vulnerable, with the desire for sex. So many men don’t have the emotional awareness to examine what they are feeling, because they have never been taught how, and they have been told that what they are feeling is most likely just horniness. It took me a long time to realize that what I often thought of as physical desire was in fact a much deeper longing. I wasn’t desiring sex, I was desiring genuine human connection. I was desiring something that physical contact alone could never give me.  I was telling myself that my need for love and openness, the need to be heard and validated, the need to be vulnerable, was something to be ignored, or to be channeled into other, easier fixes.  The ways that people have found to do so are varied, but the more popular ones include drugs, alcohol, sex, and exercise. It was only when I learned to truly sit with myself and examine what I was feeling that I was able to understand that the first thing to pop into my mind when I felt a certain way was not necessarily the actual root emotion. Feeling lonely is tough, and it’s easier to pretend that you aren’t lonely, and that you are actually just horny, or angry, or desiring alcohol or drugs. Unfortunately, it isn’t until we learn to accept loneliness that we can fully begin to address it.

I have gotten much better at sitting with the loneliness, at understanding what it is, and reaching out to friends and family when I feel it. I know that these things will make it better, and that there is a huge difference between being alone and being lonely. For the most part, I am ok with being single, and I don’t mind that I am still searching for a relationship. However, it would be entirely dishonest of me to pretend that there aren’t times that I ache to be in a relationship with someone, to love and be loved by another person, to be joined in the sacred commitment of marriage, and to start a family with.

Unfortunately, I also have a competing fear of intimacy that comes from years of feeling that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t attractive enough, or that I simply couldn’t find love because being gay is bad and bad people don’t deserve and/or find love. Years of therapy have helped me with this, but it is something that I still work on, and I often think of a line from an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 (yes, I am about to quote Beverly Hills 90210 in my blog–and I’m pretty excited about it) where Valerie asks David, when he is thinking of committing suicide, “Scared to live? Scared to die?” In my case, it is “Scared of being alone? Scared of intimacy?”, but I am starting to understand that they are actually not dichotomous issues, and are instead directly related to each other. When I started to feel the acute loneliness at the beach, I tried my best to simply accept it for what is was, understanding that it was ok to feel that way. By accepting those feelings, I believe that I am also working of my fears of intimacy, because I understand that loneliness and intimacy are not either/or, all or nothing feelings. I think that those of us who fear intimacy are often the same ones who fear loneliness. After all, if we purposely avoid intimacy, we know where we stand, and we don’t have to worry about loneliness coming back after being in love. We often mistakenly believe that when we are in love, loneliness goes away completely, which isn’t true. Like so many other things in life, loneliness and intimacy are messy areas full of all sorts of shades of grey–a rainbow of greys, if you will (worst rainbow ever). Trying to ignore and push away feelings is never a good idea–one of the more ironic things that I had to learn when recovering from depression was that one of the worst things I could do was to freak out when I felt sad or angry or upset about something. The problem comes not from a particular feeling, but from trying to pretend that my feelings are something that they are not, or that they don’t matter, or that it is ‘wrong’ for me to feel a certain way in a certain situation.

So yes, I have gotten better in my ability to tolerate loneliness, and most of the time I am feel much like singer/songwriter Sam Phillips, who sings “when I’m alone now, I’m not lonely.”  However, I will continue to hope that next year will be the one when I can finally share the beach that I love so much with the person that I also love, and one summer that hope will come true.

Thoughts on Pride and other LGBT experiences

I want to preface this post by noting that it is indicative of my own experience, and is not in any way meant as an attack on anyone or any particular group.  I know that this can be a touchy subject that many people feel very strongly about, and my hope is that we can all share our experiences, stories, and histories in a respectful, open dialogue that allows everybody’s voice to be heard equally.

The time of year is coming up that so many people in the gay community, as well as their friends and allies, look forward to with great excitement:  Gay pride month, culminating in a multitude of gay pride festivals in major cities all over the country.  Unlike many of my LGBT brethren, however, I view the approach of pride events with an ever increasing dread, knowing that they will be the major topic of conversation on LGBT websites, and that many of my friends will be excited and want me to go with them to these events.  I dread that I will have to answer, a thousand times, questions like “why don’t you like Pride?”  and “why aren’t you going to Pride?”, or hear people repeatedly say things like “just lighten up and enjoy yourself” and “if you just give it a chance, you might really enjoy it.”  And yes, perhaps I am just a hard-headed, stubborn SOB who makes sure to put on his crankiest pair of cranky pants around Pride, but the reality of the situation is that I have no interest in Pride, and I have no interest in attending any events related to Gay Pride.

To be honest, I’ve never quite understood why it is expected that I will like gay pride (or any specifically LGBT events) in the first place.  I suppose the reasoning goes like this:  You are gay, this is a gay event, therefore you will like the event, because you are gay and this event is for the gays!  I know that many people get a lot from Pride, that many people start to feel less alone when they go to their first pride parades, and that these types of events have been important in the history of the LGBT community.  I don’t think that Pride shouldn’t exist, because I know that, as far as we have come, we still have an incredibly long way to go, and there are still a lot of people who need a lot of support, and who need to know that they are not alone in this world.

However, I also know this:  When I was coming to terms with being gay, and when I started to venture out and read gay publications and talk to other  members of the gay community, I started to feel more confused and more alone.  When I looked at the (gay) media’s coverage of pride events, and talked to people who went to pride parades, I started to feel more and more out of place in the gay community.  I didn’t see myself represented, and what I did see I often recoiled from, because it was very much at odds with my values, and my beliefs about who I was and the role that my sexuality played in my identity.

Don’t get me wrong: the first time that I heard about Pride, I was super excited, and thought that I might finally be able to be around people who would understand what it was like to be gay, how terrible of a burden it could be, and how so many people wanted to define you by it when you had always felt that it was just one part of who you were as a person.  I imagined a place where I could meet people and talk about music and books and feminism in an environment where I didn’t have to worry that I might let something slip that would indicate that I was gay and risk being outcast for it.

I had hoped that the LGBT campus support group I started attending my senior year in high school would be such a place, but it turned out I was wrong about that.  I hoped that gay bars might be like that, but I was wrong about that, too.  I didn’t feel like a human being with a brain at gay bars.  Instead, I felt like a piece of meat, or perhaps a piece of art that was constantly having my value appraised.  “Maybe,” I thought, “pride will be a place where I can meet people with similar interests, where I can make friends and maybe even find a person with whom I can go on a date.”  All I really wanted was a friend or two, and a chance to meet people that might hold potential for dating, but I could not find that anywhere  I went.  I still had hope, however, that maybe Pride would work out for me.

When I started to read more about Pride, however, I became more and more upset, because I realized that it was nothing like I had imagined it to be, or hoped that it would be.  Instead of being a place to make friends and connect over other issues, I realized that it was about defining oneself as gay first and foremost  (at least in that particular situation–I guess I didn’t quite understand the whole point of Pride), and I was uncomfortable that some of the most extreme elements of the LGBT culture were on full display.  I am at a point now in my life where this is not as much of a concern to me, but at the age of 18, it only made me feel more disconnected from the community I was supposedly a part of.  When I saw images from Pride, I kept thinking things like “I don’t like drag at all, but that seems to be a big part of Pride that people really love.  I think it’s weird that people are wearing only underwear at these events–why are they out in public in their underwear?  What does that have to do with being gay?  Why are people wearing ass-less chaps?  What is going on here?”

I didn’t see myself in a single person that I came across in pictures, or in the descriptions of pride that I heard from other individuals.  Even more confusing was the fact that I was being more and more open about my sexuality at Food Lion, where I worked, and no one seemed to have any problems with it.  In fact, my relationships with my co-workers tended to get better after I came out to them.  “Why,” I started thinking, “do I need to go to gay bars or to gay pride when I fit in perfectly well with my co-workers, who are mostly straight?”

I was also experiencing more and more friction with the members of the campus support group that I had been attending, as I began to feel more and more that I simply didn’t belong.  I didn’t understand why so many of the conversations revolved around areas that I had absolutely no interest in, and I was bothered when people would say things like “None of the guys in here have a pocket knife, but I bet all of us have chapstick in our pockets.”  Why would I have chapstick in my pocket? I was so confused, and I didn’t understand why those in the support group were peddling the same stereotypes that society had about them, or why they felt the need to live up to those stereotypes.

I didn’t understand why they all thought it was weird that I hung out with straight men and women, or that as a gay man, I had a lot of really close friends who were lesbians.  All I wanted was to be who I was, but I found that those in the LGBT community, especially the gay men I knew, were trying to box me in even more than the straight people I knew.  This was often the case with women who were best friends with gay men and were known as “fag hags”  (I won’t go into the problems I have with this concept).  I worked with one gay man whose roommate (his “fag hag”) also worked with us, and when she noticed that I was not exactly the neatest person in the world, said “I’ve never met a messy fag before.”  The more I heard these types of things, the more and more I felt like a pariah from the very community that was supposed to be a place of comfort for me.  I entered into the LGBT community with the hopes that I could finally be a fully integrated person where all aspects of my identity would be respected, and where I could simply be me, and I felt incredibly hurt when this didn’t out to be the case.

How was it possible that I felt even more lonely, and more rejected, when I was hanging out with the community that I had expected would be the one to help me accept myself?  I wondered if I should give up my values, and change who I was, to better fit in with the gay community.  I started to wonder if maybe something was wrong with me, and I wasn’t actually gay, because from everything I could tell, being gay was about a lot more than simply being attracted to people of the same sex as me.  It apparently came with certain artistic tastes, rejection of certain norms and values, the desire to hang out primarily with other gay men, and the desire to dance to repetitive, monotonic music that went “thump thump thump” for hours on end.

Why couldn’t I just be myself?  Why did I have to accept promiscuity and hate straight men because I was gay?  Was that a part of the gay biology that somehow got left out of my DNA?  Why did I constantly have people asking me “what kind of gay man are you?”, “Are you sure you’re actually gay?” and saying things to me like “Dude, we’re men.  Sex is like sports to us.”  I was so confused, and so lost, and it made my journey to self-acceptance so much harder, and actually made me more homophobic.  I even tried to convince myself that I was somewhat conservative, because from what I had read, you were either a radical queer activist or you were a pathetic “homocon” who was to be mocked and scorned.  Fortunately, the conservative charade didn’t last long, and I realized that my sexuality was just one of the plethora of reasons that I was (and am) so liberal, but it still hurt like hell every time my “credentials” as a gay man were questioned (especially since I wasn’t aware that I required credentials beyond being attracted to other men.  Were they part of this gay card I kept hearing about?  Is that why I didn’t get the free toaster when I came out?)  I once wrote the following line about my experiences with the gay community, and even now it still resonates from time to time:  “I don’t fit in where I belong.”

I now understand that I was expecting way too much from a group made up of human beings, and that what I was envisioning was a utopia more than a safe zone.  However, at the time, it didn’t make it less painful, and I still believe that the LGBT community does not always do enough to foster and support the unique views, values and characteristics of each and every person.  I am still asked “what kind of gay man are you?” from time to time, and I stopped going to gay bars because other men always seemed to assume that they could enter my personal space and touch me without me my consent.  When I would say something about it, I would often be told to “lighten up” or to understand that I was at a gay bar, and that’s just how gay men are.  The fact that I am not like this has apparently never registered as a challenge to these assumptions.  I was simply a freak, an outlier who was ruining everyone’s fun.

I know that my experience with the gay community is not everyone’s experience, but I also know that I am not the only one who has felt this way.  I also know that there are people who have felt like this who have still found a way to go to Pride and take what they will from it, but, even at this point, I am simply unable to do so.  I went to the second day of Baltimore Pride (which is more of a calm/family oriented event) in 2008, and that was enough for me.  I experienced it again, and while it was ok, I don’t have a desire to go back.

Additionally, there are still several questions and issues that I have with how Pride manifests itself and how the greater LGBT community continues to define itself.

What are the gender roles and experiences that are being played out at Pride and in the wider gay community? The LGBT community tends to pride itself on subverting gender norms, but I often wonder how far these subversions actually go.  Yes, there may be drag queens and kings, effeminate men and masculine women, but I still see so many dominate norms in play.  I still see an overtly sexualized, patriarchal dynamic based in the concept that men are largely sexual beings who relate primarily to other humans through physical contact, and whose first thoughts about their fellow humans are based on lust and not on the full humanity of those around them.  A segment of the gay male community has tended to embrace sexual freedom, promiscuity, and non-monogamy as liberation, and as an “F-you” to the dominant society.  While I find it very strange to define your values, decisions and life choices solely in opposition to that of the majority, I also find it utterly ironic that these men are doing exactly what patriarchy and hegemonic masculinity expects of them:  to be predominantly sexual creatures, to eschew commitment and emotional intimacy, and to think themselves constitutionally incapable of fidelity.  I am always amazed at the inherent sexism in statements such as “without a woman around, men aren’t going to be monogamous, because men aren’t naturally inclined towards monogamy and commitment.”  Further, it breaks my heart when I have conversations like I had with a young man who said that, while he had always wanted monogamy, he knew that it was impossible because gay men can’t be monogamous, and so he settled for an open relationship.

I am uncomfortable with the often quite pronounced divisions between gay men and lesbians, and believe that if we were actually concerned about opposing gender norms and the dominant society, we would be doing everything we can to ensure that the LGBT community does not let gender divide us.  I can not count how many times I have heard gay males say that they don’t like lesbians, or that lesbians scare them, or who simply find it weird that I have always gotten on quite well with lesbians.  I believe that if we really wanted to challenge gender norms and the dominant society, we would be marching together to end pay inequality and sexual violence, and pride parades would be just as focused on sexism as on homophobia and heterosexism, because the concepts are so intimately tied together.

I also wish that Pride would do more to actually celebrate our diversity in respectful and affirming ways, instead of being an event that has more in common with Mardi Gras or a block party than with other sorts of social justice movements.  I understand that community is important, and that being with others who share the experience of being a minority, in a society where minorities are frequently not welcomed, is an incredibly valuable experience for so many people. However, I don’t know if Pride is actually building community, or helping people deal with deeper issues of rejection, religious persecution, loss of family, and issues such as depression and substance abuse that often come with such trials.  I know that this may not be “the point” of Pride, but what exactly is the point?

And where do those of us who don’t feel comfortable in that type of situation go?

Where do members of the LGBT community who are recovering addicts go, when Pride is so often sponsored by major alcoholic beverage companies, and alcohol is the beverage of choice for so many people there?

Where do kids who don’t see themselves represented in Pride go to feel community?

Where do individuals who are struggling with weight issues go when the majority of those they see around them are either buff shirtless men or members of the bear community, and they don’t feel comfortable with either group?

Where do those with families go when they don’t want their children exposed to some of the more risque parts of Pride?  As my aunt once said, “I’m sorry, but my child’s level of vision is right at waist level, and I really don’t want him standing right behind someone in ass-less chaps.”  Another friend mentioned that in her city’s pride festival, no outside food or drink is permitted, which makes it incredibly difficult for those with young children to attend, as children often have special dietary needs, or may need small snacks to make it through the day.

I know that a lot these issues are sensitive, and I was hesitant to write about them, because I have been accused of being homophobic, self-hating, and repressed by many people when I discuss these subjects.  I understand why people might have these kinds of reactions, but it upsets me that anytime a particular norm or event or custom is critiqued, it is considered unacceptable and must be immediately shot down.

Despite the fact that I am uncomfortable with Pride, and do not have a desire to attend, I also know that it is a very important and liberating experience for many members of the LGBT community.  I do not want Pride to ‘disappear,’ but instead think that it is important for us to discuss ways to ensure that we are creating an environment that is truly representative of all members of the LGBT community, and where everyone feels comfortable being who they are.  I can’t say that I have the answers, but I think that it is important that we at least begin having the conversations.  I know what it is like to be a member of minority community, and to have that community make you feel even more isolated and alone, and I believe that we need to do everything we can to prevent this from happening to others.

Thoughts on OCD

To continue my series on my past experiences that have brought me to where I am today, this blog post is about my experience with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

I’m not exactly sure what the first sign of my OCD was, but the one that really stands out, and that everyone in my family remembers, happened at the age of six, shortly after my great grandmother died.  Shortly after we returned from her funeral, I began putting my hand over my heart to make sure that it was still beating, because I was afraid if I didn’t constantly monitor it, it might stop…you know, normal six year old kid stuff (wait, that’s not normal six year old kid stuff?!)  My mom tried to reassure me that if my heart did indeed stop beating, I would know it, but that did not help the situation.  “What does she know?” I probably thought to myself.  “She’s no expert on six year old hearts!”

After a while, this behavior faded, but not before other ones hopped on board to take its place.  I started to smell things a lot, like the board of a board game that I took out of the box, or a piece of paper that I was about to use.  It wasn’t just odorous curiosity that led me to do this, but some sort of a need that I couldn’t explain.  My family would joke about it, and I would pretend that I wasn’t doing it.  I remember one occasion where I took a game out and smelled the board, and my dad said something like “Michael always has to smell everything” and I tried very hard to convince them that I was not smelling the board, but that it just hit my noise when it came out of the box (I don’t think they bought it).

Getting ready for school frequently became quite a chore.  My poor parents had to drive me to school God only knows how many times because I would miss the bus because things weren’t “just right.”  When I was seven or eight, my much older neighbor told me that if I tied my shoes too tight, my feet would fall off.  Here’s a tip:  If the opportunity ever presents itself for you to say such a thing to an already anxious child, just say no (this advice also apparently works for drugs).  It would take me ages to get my shoes on in the morning, because if they were too tight, I would cry that my feet would fall off.  If they were too loose, they would be uncomfortable, and my shoes would fall off.  I had to weigh the options:  Feet falling off or shoes falling off.  I would gladly choose the shoes, but I wasn’t allowed to go to school without them.  Therefore, I had to find the happy medium, would could take quite a long time.  I’m not sure how I decided at what point of tightness shoes would induce the losing of one’s feet, but I managed to figure it out.  My parents tried to reassure me that there was no way that my feet would fall off, but that did not help the situation.  “What do they know?” I probably thought to myself.  “They don’t know anything about how well feet are attached to the body, and the damage that tight shoes can do!  They’re not podiatrists!”

I know what you’re thinking.  There couldn’t possibly be more after that debacle.  Oh, but there was.  I started developing behaviors surrounding the way that my socks felt.  I had those ultra-cool socks that came midway up the calf and had two colored stripes on them, but I had to make sure that I pushed them down in the exact correct way. I would put the sock on, push the part under the stripes down three times, fold the space between the colors over the bottom stripe, and then cover the top stripe with the part of the sock right above it, making sure that the top of the sock still sat properly.  Piece of cake, right?  Sure, except when you consider that if it wasn’t done exactly right, or if the folds weren’t even on the bottom, or if any of the color showed, or if it didn’t ‘feel right,’ I had to do it over again.  And again, and again and again.  I missed the bus on many an occasion. My parents tried to get me to hurry up, having no idea why an eight year old would be so concerned with the look and feel of his socks, and I would usually end up crying, telling them that I just COULDN’T leave until they were just right.  “What do they know?”  I probably thought.  “They’re not socksmiths!”  (Ok, that one didn’t really work).The fact that I can still remember exactly how I had to fold my sock is a testament to the strength of the behavior, and how greatly it affected me.

It is very clear to me now, looking back on these behaviors, that they were all early instances of compulsions.  I’m not sure if there were specific obsessions tied to them at the time (despite what is often assumed, obsessions and compulsions do not always go together.  They frequently do, but there are obsessions that do not always provoke compulsive responses, and there are compulsions that do not always occur as the result of an obsession).  The compulsions that I performed were certainly annoying, but they did not interfere with my life in major ways until I started high school.  Additionally, despite the fact that this was just over twenty years ago, very little was known about things like OCD.  Certainly the idea that children could be suffering from these types of disorders was not a common belief or a well-known fact.  It’s a testament to how rapidly psychological knowledge has advanced, thanks to advancements in brain imaging and research, that so much has changed in such a short period of time.

Things with my OCD started to get really bad in late middle school and early high school.  I continued to have compulsive behaviors that I had to perform.  Throughout middle school, it took me at least thirty minutes every morning to brush my hair.  I would put water on the brush, shake it out, then brush the back of my hair, the front and the sides, over and over again until it felt right.  My hair was not particularly long, and no matter what I did I maintained a sort of hip mushroom look, but the way it looked was the outward manifestation of things–it was also just as important that it ‘felt right.’  From the time I left the bathroom to the time I got home from school, I would constantly feel my hair, and smooth it down.  I realize now that it wasn’t so much a concern for the way my hair looked that mattered, but it was the tactile sensation, the repeated touching and smoothing it until it felt right.

Compulsive behaviors that involve touch are quite common in those with OCD, and I am certainly no exception.  As things started to get worse, if I had my hand on a table, and I walked away, and it didn’t feel that my hand had left the table properly (remember, these are all relative terms, based on how an individuals compulsions manifest themselves), I would have to go back and touch the table, over and over until it felt right.  It was usually done in a pattern of sorts that I would count out in my head. “na na na na na na na…na na na na na na….na na na…na….na na…na,” with each “na” representing a time I would touch the table, or the chair, or the wall or whatever it was that I felt the need to touch.  The elipses represent brief pauses that were very specifically timed, as well.  If the last touch I decided on didn’t feel right, I would have to start all over.  I would get trapped repeating a touch for five or ten minutes sometimes, unable to break away from what I was doing.  Sometimes if someone came along and interrupted me, I would be able to break free, but other times I would find a way to explain what I was doing.  “Oh, this?  I’m just thinking, and tapping the table helps me to think.  No, that’s not weird.  You’re weird!”

In ninth grade, I started having more and more intrusive thoughts that thoroughly disturbed and upset me.  Most of them were religious or violent in nature, or were related to health concerns, and I began wondering what the hell was wrong with my brain.  Of course, I didn’t think “what the hell is wrong with my brain,” because ‘hell’ was a a bad word that I was not allowed to think.  Or read.  Which, as you might imagine, made it hard to read certain books.  If I came across a swear word while reading, I had to ‘blot it out’ in my mind, by either reading it is a less intense word (i.e., “what the heck” instead of “what the hell”) or by placing a random syllable there in my head when I read it.

This began to extend to any words that could denote death, violence, or religiously unacceptable things.  ‘Bad’ words included death, dying, violence, kill, blood, stab, shoot, gun, knife, hate, devil, evil, etc.  I couldn’t end my reading on any of those words, or even words that I could relate to those words.  If, for example, I was reading a book, and a chapter ended with something as seemingly innocuous as someone sitting in front of a roaring fire, I might connect ‘fire’ with ‘hell’, and then would start having obsessions about hell and sin and the devil, and would have to say a litany to protect myself.

Did I mention that this is when I started getting very specific mental compulsions, including prayers and litanies that I would have to say?   If I thought the word ‘Satan’ or ‘devil’ I might have an obsession along the lines of “what if I actually want to be a Satanist?”, which, of course, I knew wasn’t the case, but which created a horrible anxiety that could only be resolved by repeating a certain litany, over and over and over again, until it felt ‘right,’ and I was ‘protected’ from the ramifications of the thought.  The litany was usually something along the lines of “the devil is the most foul, despicable, disgusting creature in the entire universe and only God is good, and the devil is disgusting and God is great.”  If I didn’t feel that there was enough intensity behind the negative parts of the litany (especially the word ‘disgusting’), I would have to do it over until I felt it was right.  These types of thoughts often happened during class, so you can imagine that I wasn’t the best student during this time.  While others were taking notes on geological time periods, I was making sure that I was properly vehement in my rejections of the devil.

What’s strange about this (ok, maybe that should read “one strange thing about this”) was that my family was not particularly religious, and I wasn’t either, at any point before these religious obsessions came along.  I also knew, during this time, that my thoughts weren’t logical, but that didn’t make any difference.  This is, of course, a hallmark feature of OCD, and one of the more distressing things about the disorder.  Those of us with the disorder know that our thoughts aren’t rational, and that our behaviors aren’t logical, but we still feel the need to perform our rituals, because what if something happens and we are to blame for it?  The intense feeling of personal responsibility is a defining feature of OCD, and even when I knew that I probably wasn’t responsible for the livelihood of all my friends and family, there was always that “what if” that would come to mind..

Even when there wasn’t something specific that I felt could result from neglecting my compulsions, I would still hold myself responsible for something.  “If I don’t do <blank> before <blank>, something bad will happen” became a constant theme for me.  “If I don’t leave the kitchen before the clock turns to the next number, something bad will happen.  If I don’t finish this paragraph before mom says something to me, something bad will happen.”  If I wasn’t able to do whatever I ‘had’ to do before the set event, I would have to double down on my compulsions to make up for failing the first time.  I might have to repeat the final word of the paragraph over and over in my head, until it felt right, until I was sure that I had canceled out the “something bad” that would happen.  I could get stuck on a word for five or ten minutes, saying it hundreds of times until it felt right.  Not surprisingly, I didn’t read very many of my assignments for school during this time.

Other strange compulsions appeared around the ninth grade/tenth grade period.  I became unable to turn my back on a mirror, and would back out of our hall bathroom, facing the mirror, turn the way I was going while still looking at the mirror, and then smile and nod at myself before allowing myself to break contact.  If it wasn’t right, I had to go back and do it over again.  Often I would get stuck smiling and nodding at the mirror repeatedly.  Believe me, it wasn’t because of any narcissism on my part.  I absolutely hated mirrors, and would do everything I could to avoid going somewhere where I might have to look in one.   Sometimes I would be able to walk quickly past it without stopping, but if I at all caught my reflection in the mirror, I would have to stop and do the damn ritual.  I would also repeat a particular word in my head with each nod that I did.  Originally the word was “God,” so I would smile and nod, each time repeating the word “God” in perfect rhythm with my head nod.  I started to worry, however, that I might start thinking that I was God if I kept doing that, or that God would be mad at me for doing that, so I changed the word to “love,” because that was still positive, but didn’t carry the risk of blasphemy with it.

I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without turning my clock radio off and on until it felt right.  I couldn’t do anything six times, because six was a bad number (666 was the mark of the beast, so six was totally off limits).   If I grabbed a handful of candy, I had to make sure that there were five pieces in my hand.  Six pieces would result in massive anxiety and some sort of compulsion to neutralize the negativity of grabbing six pieces of whatever.  If I was walking past a bookshelf and saw a book title containing any of my off-limits words, I would have to stop and search for another book title that I could not in any way connect to something negative.  I also had to have the book be the fifth one that I looked at, or at least be a multiple of five.  If I walked away and couldn’t remember the exact title, or wasn’t quite sure that I had the title exactly right, I had to go back and start all over.  I would look back and forth between the thermometer in the kitchen and the clock on the microwave in a pattern over and over until it felt right. “32 degrees, 11:54, 11:54, 32 degrees. 32 degrees, 11:54, 11:54, 32 degrees.”  If the number on the clock changed before I felt the compulsion was finished, I had to start all over, and if I felt the compulsion was properly finished, but the time had changed to one ending in a six, I had to keep going until it changed to one ending in a seven.  I would not be able to leave a room until I had felt that I had properly touched the doorknob, or the door frame, or whatever the last thing to touch was.  I would get stuck reading things on posters or signs, and had to make sure that I read them ‘correctly’ before I could leave wherever I was.  I remember one particularly agonizing morning when we stayed with family friends, and there was a poster that had a lot of information about baseball players on it, and I got stuck in the room for almost 30 minutes reading sentences over and over.  I would read a sentence, desperately trying not to see what the next sentence might say, and would start to rush away, but then start thinking “did the sentence say ‘they did well’ or ‘he did well'” and would have to go back and reread it again, to make sure that I knew what word was used.  The distress was incredible, and was so agonizing, but I simply could not leave the room until I was sure that I knew exactly what was written, in the exact form, of the last sentence I read.

Finally, at my uncle’s wedding on New Years Eve of my sophomore year in high school, I just couldn’t handle the anxiety and panic and fear and exhaustion that I was constantly dealing with.  I had discovered in the Merck Manual (note to those with health obsessions:  do NOT look at the Merck Manual to try and diagnose yourself) something called Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which seemed to explain a lot of my symptoms, and decided I needed to get it checked out.  One night on our way back to our hotel, I told my mom that I needed help.  I didn’t know what exactly was wrong, but I was suffering terribly.  A few days later, after a particularly bad spell of anxiety, I just started crying, and my mom called a therapist and set up an appointment for me.  I was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and the knowledge that what I was dealing with was a known, treatable condition brought tremendous relief in itself.  I started working with the therapist on a weekly basis, went on SSRI medications, and began the process of putting things back together again.

Now, seventeen years after that first appointment, I have come a long way in the treatment of my OCD.  I know that OCD is something that I will always have, but it no longer controls my life or holds me hostage.  In some ways, it can serve as a warning sign to me that I am becoming overstressed.  If I find that I am having more obsessions than usual, or that my compulsive behaviors are becoming more pronounced, I know that I need to start paying attention to my stress levels and do something to reduce my anxiety.  It is quite possible that I will always be on an SSRI medication (in my case, Celexa), and I am ok with that, because I know what life was like without it, and how my brain chemistry affects me when it gets a little out of whack.  There will, most likely, always be some sort of minor compulsions that I perform, but the difference now is that they do not cause distress or interfere with my life on a large-scale basis.  OCD has become a part of who I am, just one of the many parts that makes me up, instead of the all consuming, defining factor that it once was.

Thoughts on Loss, Grief, and the Importance of Feeling Your Emotions

Note: I want to write a few posts about some of the past experiences that I have dealt with and that are part of the journey that has brought me to where I am today.  There are two main reasons that I think this is an important endeavor:  1) I want to show, through my own story, why I am such a stronger believer in psychology, and in the healing and growth that can come when you work with the right therapist(s) to address the issues that you are dealing with; and 2) To give hope or strength to others, to help them see that even when things are incredibly difficult, and there seems to be no hope, there is always a way forward.  At the very least, I know how important it can be to find others who have experienced situations similar to your own, and to know that you are not alone.

The first experience I wanted to write about was losing my roommate to alcohol poisoning in 2004, when I was 22 years old.  It’s quite a long post, but I hope that it is valuable and helpful to others.

            It has taken me a long time to understand that emotions, in and of themselves, are neither good nor bad. I have long been the king of feeling that I “shouldn’t” be angry or “shouldn’t” be upset or that I “should” feel a certain way in a certain situation. In September of 2004, my roommate, who I’ll simply call “T” died of alcohol poisoning, just shy of his 23^rd birthday.   I don’t think that anyone, at the age of 22, would know how to deal with such a tragic event and I was certainly no exception. While other friends allowed themselves to grieve and come together as a community, however, I continued to deny my own feelings, insisting on some level that I didn’t have a ‘right’ to mourn or to feel the emotions that I was feeling.

When T died, I had not had much practice in understanding and accepting my emotional states, and being confronted with the emotional upheaval of his death was something that I was in no way ready or able to deal with. I often tell people that I “went a little crazy,” after T died, usually as a form of self-defense, a plea for others not to judge me for my actions at the time. I was constantly afraid that I would be told that my emotions weren’t rational, or that I shouldn’t be so sad, or that, even worse, people would say to me “something is really wrong with you. You are in deeper than you have ever admitted, and you may be downright insane.” At the very time that I most needed to allow myself to feel the feelings that I was having, I did everything I could to resist them, terrified that it would mean I had gone off the deep end. At the same time, I wanted to reach out to others, cry for help in a way that I had wanted to but never felt was okay.

There were many times, since starting my struggle with depression at the age of 15, that I wanted a reason to be sad, for people to validate the pain I was feeling, to tell me that it was ok to have sadness and sorrow and pain and anger and a feeling of emptiness. I always felt that I didn’t have a “right” to be depressed, didn’t have a right to be sad, when I had so many privileges and resources and so much support in my life. Depression apparently never got the memo, however, and a weird cycle was created where I would be depressed, then feel guilty because I had no right to be depressed, thus making me more frustrated and overwhelmed with guilt. Depression has never so much been an intense sadness for me, but has instead been more of a feeling of emptiness, an inability to have emotional states that veer too far from the paths of guilt, fear, anger and a general feeling of emotional numbness.

The irony of the whole situation was that when T died, and the normal reaction would have been one of sadness and grief, I did everything I could to invalidate those feelings. I found out that T had passed away on a Sunday night, and I went to work the next day, believing that I didn’t have the right to miss work, that the loss of my roommate to alcohol poisoning wasn’t an acceptable reason to take the night off. Grief had never been an excuse for me; I lived with an aching sorrow inside of me for years and years, so why should this be any different? I remember feeling so numb, so detached from everything at work that day, coming close to breaking down again and again, but telling myself that I couldn’t do that, that I didn’t have a right to leave work, because that would mean I was a bad employee, or that I was weak, or perhaps, God forbid, that I was human.

Being “human” was something I often struggled with, not necessarily in a conscious way, but I firmly held the distorted belief that I had to be perfect, that I had to have everyone like me, that I could never let anybody down, and that there was no reason to ever put myself before anybody else.   So terrified of disappointing others and having others see me as weak, as a failure, or as anything less than the best, I didn’t allow myself to really feel much of anything besides fear, anxiety, anger and guilt. If I felt guilty enough, and if I could make people see how guilty I really felt inside, maybe they wouldn’t be mad at me if I messed up, if I made a mistake, if I was somehow less than perfect. The problem came when all of those feelings that I was trying to repress would build to a breaking point, and I would no longer be able to take it, and I would feel the need to escape from the situation. In some cases, I would explode at people or say something that would hurt them, trying on some level to push them away and upset them. After all, if I hurt them first, they couldn’t hurt me, I reasoned. If I walked away, they couldn’t walk away from me.   In other cases, I would simply give up and avoid the situation altogether. This was a favorite tactic I used with work. Not allowing myself to deal with situations, I would reach a point where the very thought of going to work became so overwhelming and so crushingly terrifying that I would simply stop going. I would unplug the phone so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt of seeing my work phone number on the caller ID, knowing how disappointed and angry they would be with me. Avoidance allowed me to pretend those things didn’t happen. If I started to think about it too much, I could always shove it down, or get drunk that night and spend hours chatting with people online, interacting in a world where I never really had to deal with the repercussions that came with being human. Perhaps that is why I formed such solid attachments to people I would talk to online, while those attachments would often fade quickly when I met that same individual offline. Flashing text on a screen doesn’t come with a body and a soul.

After T died, many of his friends would get together to hang out, share memories, and be with each other, supporting each other during the grieving process. My other roommate at the time often invited me to go with her, but I always denied, saying I was ok. The truth was that I was anything but ok, but I felt that I didn’t have the right to be there, didn’t have the right to mourn, because I had only known T for a month, while everyone else had known him for years. Who was I to be sad? Who was I to feel that I had a right to my grief? Even worse, I was angry at him the night that he died, angry that he kept packing his cigarettes while I was trying to take a nap, keeping up a continuous smack, smack, smack sound that I could hear from my bedroom. He got a call from a friend, and I remember feeling relief knowing that he was going to go out with his friends, relief that I would have some quiet time alone so that I could nap before going out myself.

What right to grief did I have, I kept thinking, when I was a terrible friend who couldn’t wait for him to leave that night? I kept thinking, “just leave already,” wanting to be alone.

What right did I have to grieve when several times T had come home and wanted to have conversations with me and all I wanted was to be alone and not be bothered by a late night conversation.

What right did I have to grieve, knowing that just a few nights before, T had been so drunk that he had come into my room and tried to get into my bed, thinking that it was his own, and knowing that I had said nothing about it to him, thinking to myself “man, that guy REALLY has a problem with drinking.”

What right did I have to any sort of grief, to such a human emotion, especially when I was sober? Grief was fine when I was drunk, and there were several nights I sat on the steps of my duplex, sobbing, the alcohol lessening the fear of emotions that I carried around the rest of the time. The next day I would act like everything was ok, that I wasn’t as affected as I was.

The problem with my whole approach to the situation (well, ok, there were a LOT of problems with my approach) was that emotions don’t just go away because you don’t like them or don’t want them to be there. You can’t just pretend that sorrow and grief and anger and fear don’t really exist, and that you are a pillar of stoicism, and expect that that will be enough. Emotions will find a way to come through, and they will often come through in ways that are not what you might expect, and in ways that end up doing more harm than good.

I started to take everything out on myself, believing that I deserved to be punished for any and all bad thoughts that I had. The Thanksgiving after T died, my parents had two of my dad’s students over for dinner, and one of them was someone I immediately began to butt heads with. I did not like him, and when I returned to my apartment that night, I kept thinking about how much I disliked him, and how I might even hate him. Believing that hating someone (or even disliking them) made me a bad person, I felt the need to punish myself. I started writing about how bad of a person I was, and started listing the ways I was bad, talking about how much I hated a guy I worked with, repeatedly followed by admonitions to myself that I was a bad person, and a horrible individual, for feeling that way. I was still smoking at the time, and for some reason I got the urge to burn myself with the cigarette. I burned my left bicep several times, seeing how long I could handle the physical pain. I simply didn’t know how else to deal with the inner pain I was feeling, so tried to relieve it through the administration of some sort of physical pain. That was the only time that I ever inflicted any sort of injury on myself, but I still have the small scars as a reminder. I have an idea to get phoenix tattoo there at some point, as a way to symbolize the ability to rise from the ashes.

I still have not talked much about this experience with many people, because even now I am a bit afraid that they will look at me and say, “Oh my God, you are really fucked up. You were insane, and probably should have been in the loony bin.” A part of me doesn’t really want to acknowledge just how much pain I was in at that time. Why? I don’t fully know, not even now. It’s still easier, sometimes, to say, “I went a little crazy” than to say, “I was in so much pain I didn’t even know how to begin processing it.”

My brother had his engagement party in February, five months after T’s death, and on the way back from his home in Richmond, I had an intense attack of what I later learned was depersonalization/derealization (dp/dr). Driving down the highway in the evening, as the sky was darkening, I suddenly was gripped with the feeling that everything around me was a dream, that I was unreal and that nothing was real or solid. I desperately tried to grasp on to something, but I felt like my mind was escaping from my head and floating away, somehow still also attached to my body.

It is incredibly hard to describe the sensation of dp/dr, but the most important thing is that it was utterly terrifying. Wave after wave of panic and sheer terror hit me, and I gripped the wheel as hard as I could, sure that I was going insane, but an insanity that also somehow left me able to realize that I was insane. I pulled off at the nearest exit, and took some time to walk around, and felt better, but as soon as I got back on the highway the feeling would come back. Everything seemed enormous and unattached, and the taillights on the cars around me seemed to taunt me with their unreality and their detachment from anything that I knew to be real. I would pull off again and again, stopping at almost every exit, hoping to come back to myself. I thought about calling my parents and asking them to help me pay for a hotel for the night, but I thought that I had no right to ask for such a thing, and that I would be weak for doing something like that. I had to face this and get through it, or just suffer in silence, because I was Michael Fell, damn it, and I didn’t let my mental illnesses inconvenience others. I was the only one who should suffer. Besides, if that happened, my parents would be worried, and God forbid that I make them worry. Better to worry in silence, to let myself be hit by the waves of panic, than to bother anyone else. I was able to make it home by listening to Margaret Cho on my iPod, as laughing seemed to help distract me from the intense disconnection I felt.

Unfortunately, the depersonalization and derealization stuck around, and eventually I was unable to stay in my apartment by myself. I was constantly in a sense of fear, and I would panic going down the aisles of the grocery store, as everything seemed to close in around me as my mind felt like it was trying to escape into the universe. It was difficult for me to drive even a few miles without becoming paralyzed by fear, and I was always concerned that I would start to freak out if I was in a situation that I was not familiar with. When you have dp/dr, you are well aware that what you are feeling is problematic (as opposed to psychosis, where lack of insight is a defining factor), and you can even know what the disorder is and how it manifests itself, but unfortunately it is not something that you can think your way out of it. Getting drunk helped, at least for the period of time that I was actually drunk, but the next day would be bad again, as the aftereffects of the alcohol would lead to an increase in the feelings of depersonalization.

I honestly believe that one of the reasons that I started to get depersonalized was because I tried to disconnect myself so constantly from my own emotions following T’s death. I wouldn’t allow myself to feel anything related to his death, at least not while I was sober, and it was an epic battle that I waged to subdue the emotions that I was dealing with, and to pretend that they didn’t exist. Eventually, I think that I simply began to build a barrier between my true self and who I thought I should be.  By trying to detach from the emotions I was feeling, I started to detach from the very sense that I had of myself. I worked so hard to deny the reality and importance of what I was feeling that I eventually started to feel that way towards everything. The only way to really start getting better was to realize that it was ok to be myself and to really start to connect with my emotions. Anti-anxiety medication helped get me started, but it was a long time before I was finally able to really emerge from that sense of depersonalization and derealization.

Coming to terms with T’s death and my feelings surrounding it has also taken an incredibly long time. For a long time, if it related to something in a conversation I was having, I would mention it and then rush on to make sure that I didn’t really have to talk about it any more than I had to. I would think about him at certain times, such as when listening to Flogging Molly, a band he loved, or when I listened to the Horrorpop’s song “Miss Take,” because I saw the video for the song the night that he died, and couldn’t wait to share it with him, and I unfortunately never got the chance. I have had a picture of him somewhere in my apartment ever since he passed away, but I somehow managed to truly avoid dealing with his loss for quite along time.

There are two things that I think have been especially important for me in finding a healthy way to deal with my past emotions and struggles surrounding T’s death. The first was visiting his grave on a trip to Arlington National Cemetery, allowing myself the chance to apologize to him and to myself for the way that I dealt with the whole situation, and to let him know that I haven’t forgotten him and that I never will.

The second situation occurred in therapy, when my therapist noted to me that I never used T’s name when I talked about him. She noticed that I always referred to him as “my roommate,” and it made me realize that I was still not dealing with the loss of him as a person, and that I was still keeping walls up around my feelings surrounding his death. I made a conscious attempt to mention his name whenever I talked about it, and to allow myself to pause and reflect on my feelings about it when I do mention what happened, instead of rushing through it as quickly as I can.

This September, it will be ten years since T’s death, and as I think back to who I was then, and to how I dealt with his loss, I am so grateful that I have been able to grow so much and become such a stronger, more emotionally healthy person. Perhaps most importantly, I have been able to understand what it means to be happy, and to accept myself for who and what I am. I hope that in my future work as a therapist, I can use these types of experiences to connect with others and help them on the own journeys towards health and happiness.

Thoughts on Working Out

 

 

 

 

I have recently been going back to the gym regularly, doing my workout thing and trying to get in better shape.  I am very conflicted about the exercise, not because I don’t want to do it, but because of all the baggage that comes along with it.  I like the idea of exercising.  I know the benefits that it gives you, mentally, physically and socially (let’s not tiptoe around that fact…more on that later), and I know that our bodies need to move to be healthy.  I know that exercise can be as efficient in relieving depression as medication, and that it can help raise self-esteem and make you a more lovable, wonderful person who all the stars want to be with.

The problem is that I really dislike exercising.  I don’t mind doing cardio so much–45 minutes on the elliptical or the arc trainer is fine with me, and I am able to get into the groove fairly well.  Strength training, however, is something I hate.  I loathe it.  I don’t know quite how to describe the way that it makes me feel, but the thought doing it brings up  feelings in me that would be similar to those I would experience waiting to spend the day with the most annoying, awful person I could ever imagine.  The problem is, I want to look better in a way that only strength training can do for me.  I have very little qualms about admitting this, and this is perhaps the reason why I dislike it so much.  It doesn’t matter to me how much I know that strength training helps in all aspects of health, and that more research is showing the benefits of strength training in numerous areas.  I want to do it because I want to look better.  I have never exercised because of an intrinsic motivation to do so.  I don’t know how to enjoy exercise for what it gives me.  I don’t know how to get to that point.  I know that if I stop going to the gym for a while, I don’t’ feel as good overall.  That is enough motivation to get me to do cardio sometimes.  But exercise as a whole?  It doesn’t make me feel good.  I think my endorphins are broken, actually.  Every time someone talks about how much they love exercising, because they feel so great afterwards, I secretly want to push them down the stairs.  In the nicest way possible, of course.  Because, soon after they say that, the next line is usually “You just need to do it long enough, to do it right, to do it while crossing your eyes and singing the national anthem” or whatever the suggestion is.  I wish I got a runner’s high.  That would be great.  But I don’t.  After I exercise, I want to go home and take a nap.  And don’t tell me about how being sore after doing weights is ” a good kind of sore.”  It really isn’t.  It just makes me cranky.

I am not naive enough, however, to believe that I am just naturally incapable of enjoying exercise, that I was born that way and that I am biologically programmed to be that way (although I do believe that some people are more biologically inclined to enjoy and excel in athletics).  As I mentioned before, exercise has never come from a place of intrinsic motivation for me.  I exercise because I want to lose weight, because I want to look better to others, and, by proxy, to myself.  I want to look in the mirror and be happy with what I see.  I know a lot of people tell me that I look fine, that I don’t need to lose weight, but unfortunately that doesn’t carry the weight that I wish it did.  I know that a lot of my feelings about my weight and appearance are enhanced because I am a gay male.  I know what it is like to have people ignore you at bars, to ignore you in chat rooms or dating sites because you fit into the group they mean when they say “no fatties” or, in a slightly more PC way, “height/weight proportionate only.”  I know what it’s like to have people say “you’d be more attractive if you lost some weight” or to say “maybe you should try going to bear websites or bars.  They are more your type.” I also know what it’s like to feel the same way on some levels, to not be attracted to people who look like me, because I have been told for so long that being toned and ‘height/weight proportionate’ is what you should aspire to, not only in yourself but in those you date.  I know the frustration and guilt that comes from not being attracted to the body size in which you fit, because on most dating sites in the gay community, you are not going to find guys who work out and have nice bodies looking for people who are on the high ends of the “overweight” section of the body fat percentage chart.

When I am honest with myself, I know that this is why I work out.  I work out because I want to attract people that I am attracted to.  I hate the fact that no matter how good of a person I am, no matter how kind and compassionate, how funny, how smart I am, there are people who will ignore me because I am overweight.  That people who have shitty personalities and are generally bad people who start the occasional fire or club baby seals for fun will get more dates than I do because they have a smokin’ body.  And I know the response, that those aren’t the kind of people I would want to be with, and that is absolutely true.  My personality, the traits I have are what will lead to a lasting relationship, but unfortunately they aren’t always what leads to a lot of attempts at starting one.  One of the reasons that I believe in the tenets of feminism is because it works towards a society that values people for who they are, not for how attractive they are.  I know the biological arguments, that men are more attracted to this or that look because they are evolutionarily programmed to do so, but I think a lot of that is a way for us to try and justify our preferences with science.  There is far too much cultural variation in what is considered “attractive” for this to be the case.

I remember a fantasy that I used to have when I was younger.  I would think about getting in really good shape, and having so many people suddenly interested in me, and I would think about how great it would be to turn them down, because they had ignored me when I was overweight.  Then they would know what it was like to be shunned because they didn’t have the right look.  This is the kind of motivation that has often been behind my attempts at exercise, so is it really so tough to see why I dislike it so much?

A further question remains as to why I find cardio so much easier than strength training, and I think it is because I have found that many people who do a lot of weight training represent the ultimate form of this anti-overweight mentality.  Those who are buff and spend all of their free time either at the gym or thinking about the gym all to often seem to be interested only in other like-minded people.  And, to be honest, I say go for it.  If your idea of a dream relationship is talking about protein shakes and how many reps you did, brah, then may you find the one who also wants this relationship.  I also want to say that I mean this in a totally logical way.  Emotionally, I still wish on some level that I could get that person, that I could be ‘good enough’ for them.  I know that I would never actually date somebody with that kind of mentality, but it would be nice to know it is because of a personal choice and not because I have no option.

Additionally, I can’t stand the mentality and outward demeanor that I see so frequently from people who do a lot of strength training.  There seems to be an exponential increase in cockiness and contempt for others the more muscles one builds.  I know that is not always true, but I have frequently found it to be the case.  The more that people focus on their bodies, and the more they focus on getting built and gaining muscle mass, the less they look outside of themselves, and the less they seem to think about the needs and feelings of others.  To be honest, I am terrified of that happening to me. I am afraid that if I start to become more toned, if I build more muscle, I will forget what it is like to be on the other side of things, to know what a struggle it is, and to know that my value is in no way dependent upon how my body looks.  I know that it is in my control how I would react in this type of a situation, but I have seen so many people get swept up in themselves as their body improves.  Their conversations become more and more focused on their gym routines and how much protein they eat and how many reps they did, and suddenly they are talking about their friends Lars and Hans and Big Biceps Billy who really get them, because they can sit and talk about lean muscle mass for hours on end.  I see this change in people in the weird tendency they have to constantly feel their body, to caress their chests or flex in front of mirrors whenever they get a chance.  As if they are afraid their muscles might just dissolve one day if they aren’t paying them enough attention.  And to be honest, I’ve been guilty of this at times where I have been more consistent with strength-training. And don’t misunderstand what I am saying.  There is nothing wrong with being proud of the work that you have done, but it seems that this type of pride all too frequently becomes hubris, and it comes to matter more than so many other things in a person’s life.  They suddenly think that they can give others exercise advice, even if that advice is not actually wanted.  They can tell you what you should be doing, what you should and shouldn’t be eating, because they know…they are experts now, and they know that you are secretly miserable and hate yourself and have been waiting for them to come along and dish out health advice to you, the gym-rat equivalent of your knight in shining armor.  And God help you if you try to convince them that people can be healthy without the six-pack abs and the four hours of daily exercise that they find so important.  I once had a conversation with a friend who is really into working out that went something like this:

 

Me:  There was an interesting study published that analyzed a lot of different data and found that, as long as individuals do 20-30 minutes of exercise daily, they get the health improvements of exercise, even if they are still overweight.

Lars:  That might be, but its’ still really unhealthy to be overweight.  It’s not good for you.

Me:  No, thats what I’m saying.  This research found that people who exercised a certain number of hours a week, even if they were still overweight, often had excellent health.  They were found to be more healthy than people who were not overweight that did not exercise at all.

Lars:  But being overweight is bad for you.

Me:  I think we need to stop being friends.  In fact, I think Hans and Big Biceps Billy are looking for you

 

This is the kind of mentality that drives me crazy, and is the kind of mentality that has always made it hard to imagine myself becoming ‘one of them.’ So where does that leave me in relation to exercise?  The fact that I am starting to really examine these issues is important, because I am understanding that my aversion to exercise comes not from an inherent inability to do it, but because of layer upon complicated layer of social and psychological conditioning.  I am finding myself kind-of-sort-of-maybe-possibly starting to look forward to going to the gym, at least on days when I will be doing cardio.  I am also enlisting the help of one of my friends who knows what he is doing with strength training, to help me learn what to do and how to do it, because another problem I have with weights is my “if you don’t do the maximum amount you can, you are a terrible person who shouldn’t be doing this at all” mentality. The concept of slowly building my way up in weight training is foreign to me.  It’s why I’m a bad gardener.  I like the idea of growing beautiful, delicious tomatoes, but I want to plant them and then be able to go out and pick them a while later.  I don’t want to do the weeding and trimming and caging and other very important steps that lead to those wonderfully mouth-watering tomatoes.   I am trying to understand that knowing how to exercise is just as important as doing it, and that, in my case, knowing why I have been so resistant to it in the first place is just as important as the how-to part.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I suddenly have a craving for a tomato.

Thoughts on Becoming A Feminist

(Note:  I apologize for the binary view of gender that is contained throughout this post.  Unfortunately, that was the way I viewed gender for a very long time, and the way that many people today still do.  I decided, as limited as it is, to use that binary throughout this post, as it reflects the way that I viewed things for most of the time that I am writing about).

I was talking with a few of my coworkers at the Women’s Center a little while ago about our journey to feminism, and it turns out that none of us have a moment in time that we can pinpoint as “the particular moment” that we “got it” and realized the importance of being feminists.  Which, to be honest, is really quite disappointing.  There are always moments in books or movies when the protagonist has the proverbial lightbulb go off over their head, when they suddenly get it, and everyone rejoices and dances around together and makes plans on how they will put this newfound understanding into action.  Granted, that’s really not how the real world seems to work, but there are people who do talk about these defining moments, and to be honest, we all secretly don’t like them and wish they would take their lightbulb moments elsewhere.  Ok, that’s not actually true, but as I was looking back on my history in social justice work and social justice movements, I realized that it can be frustrating to not have one of those moments, because they really do make great stories.  “I was about to ask my girlfriend Jenny to make me a sandwich, and as I looked at the bread, I realized that the bread represented so much more than just bread.  It represented my selfishness and misogyny and the way that I had accepted the patriarchy and their definition of the ‘breadwinner’ and the ‘bread baker.’  And it was like woooahhhh, and from that moment on, I have been fighting the system with everything I have.”

I would hope that no one’s moment would be this ridiculous (if this is your exact moment of feminist awakening, I do apologize), but the point is that it is at least something tangible that can be told to people. When people ask me how I got involved in feminism, I have to ramble on for a while, feeling like I am disappointing them because I don’t have an elevator speech on the subject.  I think this focus on ‘moments of insight’ also denies the fact that for many people, acceptance of the need for social justice work is a long process consisting of many twists and turns, and the occasional u-turn or two.  It is frustrating, and challenging, and you sometimes feel guilty and helpless and exhausted, and want to give up and pretend you never learned anything about the whole damn subject, because at least things were easier back then.  But you also realize, on some level, that you always knew that things weren’t quite right, and that the subjugation of others is really the subjugation of self, and that privilege that comes at the expense of others is somehow robbing you of something valuable, too.  And you realize that through the work you have been doing, and through the self-examination, and through the dialogues with others, you have become a more authentic human being, connecting with others on more than a superficial level.  You begin to realize the power that comes from emotional intimacy, and from taking off that damn mask once in a while, the one that pleases others but never quite fits right and leaves you tired and cranky at the end of the day.

So what led me to embrace feminism, to open myself to the experiences of others, to accept that they were valid, and that they deserved to be listened to and taken seriously?  Honestly, I’m not entirely sure.  I do know, however, that there were many things that led me to that place.  I can’t deny that being gay was a big part of it, but that is certainly not the only reason, for I know far too many gay men who are frighteningly sexist and downright misogynistic.  Struggling with depression and OCD, as strange as it may seem, also helped me, I believe, because it made me understand that people often felt they knew what was best for you without actually trying to understand your situation.  That people could be careless about what they said, and that when it hurt, it was written off as your fault for being too sensitive or not understanding the joke.  Emotions and feelings are not jokes; neither are oppression and discrimination.  A lot of people, however, want to pretend they are, because it makes things easier on them.

I also know that I was lucky enough to be raised by parents who didn’t try to keep me away from my female friends, pushing me towards male friends instead.  My two best friends for many years were both male, but I also had very close female friends from the time I was in preschool, and my parents didn’t think it was weird or problematic.  I learned very early that my female playmates were not different from me in any substantial way, and it always baffled me why other boys my age thought girls were icky.

I grew up with a mom who had a PhD in chemistry, and who chose to stay home and raise her children while my father worked.  We were fortunate enough that my dad’s job was enough to pay all of the bills, but when I understood the choice that my mom had made, I admired that she made the decision because she wanted to, not because she felt forced to.  My dad told her that it was her decision to make, and I count myself lucky that she decided to stay at home with my brother and myself.  However, there was no doubt that she was just as intelligent as my dad, and was equally capable of helping me with my homework in any subject.  I’ve always loved that when she is asked “wasn’t getting your PhD and then staying home a waste?” she responds by saying “education is never a waste.”  The fact that she was also the second Dr. Atwater (her maiden name), after her dad, was also pretty cool, especially because she was the first of her siblings to do it (her brother completed his PhD a few years later).  My parents also never said that women were less capable than men in any area, or that something was “woman’s work” or “men’s work.”  I never remember either of them talking negatively about any group of people.

I know that I was also fortunate to be in a progressive university town, where I never remember it being problematic when girls were at the top of the class, or when their work was equal to that of the boys in class.  it never seemed weird to me that the all-star of my schooling career, Nisha Nagarkatti, was female.  She is an amazing person (one of Teen People’s 50 Teens to Change the World in 1990-something), and it never occurred to me that I should feel any differently towards her academic success because of her gender.  To me she was just Nisha, my friend since kindergarten who kicked some serious ass academically, and who was one of the nicest, most genuine people I knew.  Being surrounded by so many intelligent, high-achieving females throughout high school helped me realize that any of those stereotypes about women and math or women and science were complete BS.  If there was a difference in any sort of achievement or ability (which, by the way, there is not–the study that found the so-called gap in math abilities has long been discredited, and recent research has continued to find that boys and girls are more alike than different when it comes to math prowess) I knew that it was not from innate male/female differences, but was instead due to other factors that were most likely social in nature.

I also can not neglect the role that rebellion and the drive to be countercultural played in my embrace of feminism.  High school was an incredibly difficult time for me, and a lot of my friends at the time also struggled during their time there.  We found, however, that the Women’s Studies club meetings that we went to helped us feel like we fit in, that it wasn’t us that was the problem, but was instead the mainstream culture that was failing us.  Feminism empowered us, and it felt good to discover that we had a voice, a voice that carried on the work and message of hundreds of years of feminists before us.  I had one particularly conservative teacher in high school who was not shy about his political and social ideas, and feminism, anti-racism and gay rights movements gave me a life raft to hold onto when he would go off on a particular topic.  At first I may have been arguing some of my points as a way to argue against him, but I soon realized that I really was arguing for something different, something that empowered not only others, but empowered myself as well.  When I discovered and fell in love with the work of Yoko Ono, it wasn’t long before I knew that I was a feminist, and that I was taking part in a movement and a way of life that was still very much alive, and that was still very much needed.  I would drive around, blasting Yoko’s song “Woman Power,” singing along and thinking “right on, sister!”

My feminist journey continues to this day, and I am so fortunate that I have been able to work in the Women’s Center on UMBC’s campus, as it allows me to see up-close why feminism matters so much.  I have also broadened my understanding of feminism, developing a deep passion for what feminism offers to all men.  Many men have a belief that feminism is somehow man-hating or anti-male, or that, at the very least, it views women as superior and men as neanderthals.  The truth is that feminism cares about men enough to believe that there is a better way for them to live their lives, a way that doesn’t force them to suppress their emotions, and that values them for who they are, not for how violent they are, or how much money they make, or how far they can make it up the corporate ladder.  Feminism frees both men and women from the straightjacket of gender, and men have so much to learn from the feminist movement.  I consider myself fortunate that my journey led me to embrace feminism, as I have gained so much from it, and I continue to do the work of feminism because I know how important it is, and how much it can empower people to change not only the world, but themselves as well.

Thoughts on Graduation

I am in the last few months of my last semester of my undergraduate career at UMBC, and I have been having really mixed feelings about graduating and moving on.  While on the one hand I am very excited about going to grad school and starting my program in clinical counseling, I am also quite sad to be leaving a place that I love so much and that has meant so much to me.

This wasn’t the easiest thing for me to recognize.  My anxiety has been up this semester, and I have been struggling to get my graduate school applications filled out and submitted to the programs in which I am interested.  I originally chalked this up to burnout and the seemingly overwhelming nature of the task, but as I started to examine the reasons behind it, I began to understand that my hesitancy stems not from a lack of motivation, but from the reality that I must confront as I send the applications off:  My time as a student at UMBC is coming to an end.

It is an interesting thing to be dealing with the feelings of loss that I am having as I contemplate my next steps, especially as so many people I know seem to be so excited to be graduating and moving on.  I am aware that much of my reaction comes from what UMBC has meant to me, and the journey that brought me here in the first place.

Throughout much of high school, I struggled with my ability to be a student.  I enjoyed learning, but the structure of school and the expectations of the classroom were overwhelming to me.  I couldn’t concentrate, and I would constantly forget assignments and work that needed to be done.  At the time, I wrote it off as a result of my struggles with being gay, and my OCD and depression.  I had a grand vision of post-high school life, heading off to a college environment where I could comfortably be who I was, allowing me to begin focusing on my studies on my journey towards life as an adult.  I applied to (and got into) one school, Guilford College in Greensboro, NC, which I had idealized as a college utopia.  Everything would be perfect and I would not have to deal with all of the barriers that I felt were holding me back in high school.

Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out the way I hoped they would.  By the time school started, I was less and less sure that I really wanted to go to college, and the few weeks that I spent there seemed to reaffirm that I was unable to succeed in an educational environment.  I would stay up late, and when I could get the motivation to go to class, I would be doing everything I could to stay awake and to pay attention.  I realized it wasn’t going to work, and I withdrew after just one miserable month, moving back to my hometown of Blacksburg, VA.

After taking a year off, I decided to try the college thing again, and applied to Virginia Tech, my hometown university.  To make a long and involved story short, I once again failed miserably at my attempt at a college education.  I would start every semester with high expectations and excitement, only to find everything fallling apart as the semester wore on.   On several occasions, I would withdraw for the semester on the last possible day, with a crushing sense of defeat that I had once again failed.  On other semesters, I would pass one class and fail all of my others.  Eventually, I simply gave up.  I started to believe that higher education was not for me, and that I was incapable of succeeding in college.  I pretended that I didn’t care, and that my future path would be in an area that did not require a college degree.  I almost succeeded in convincing myself that this was true, but something always kept nagging at me that I really did want a degree, and that I really did want a career that required more than a high school diploma.

Flash forward to 2008: I am living in Maryland, have completed a program in audio engineering at Sheffield Institute, and am once again feeling lost and uncertain of what to do next.  A breakthrough comes when I am finally diagnosed with ADHD, and so many things in my life start to make sense:  my inability to succeed in school, despite my desire to do so.  Beginning each semester with the belief that I would succeed this time, only to see it fall apart as I found myself falling farther and farther behind.  Never living up to my capabilities, and hearing the constant refrain of “You’re so smart! If you could just apply yourself, you would do so well!”

Now, entering the final few months of my final year at UMBC, I look back on my educational history and realize how far I have come, and how much I have persevered.  I have succeeded far beyond any level that I ever thought was possible for myself, and I will be graduating Magna Cum Laude, on my way to a graduate program in clinical counseling.  If anyone had told me that this was what my future held, as recently as five or six years ago, I would have scoffed and told them that it was simply not possible.

UMBC has been a life-changing place for me, in all the best ways.  For the first time in my life, I found a place where I really felt like I belonged.  I found a place where I could succeed beyond my wildest dreams, and take on leadership roles that I never dreamed I was capable of.  I have formed amazing relationships with students, staff and faculty, and I am so thankful for each and every one of them.  They have all impacted the course that I have taken, and that I will continue to take, and for that I can never fully express my gratitude.

It is crucial that I mention the STRiVE Leadership Conference, because this is where my journey truly began.  Words cannot express my gratitude to Cara Jurney for nominating me for STRiVE, as all the amazing things that have happened at UMBC began with my decision to say “yes” to that opportunity.  My pod coach, Sara Leidner, and my fellow Red One pod mates also deserve a special mention for creating such an amazing space where I always felt comfortable being myself.

I know that for many people, UMBC is simply a place to get a degree, and perhaps a place to make some friends and have some great experiences.  But for me, it is so much more.  It is the place that allowed me to become comfortable in my own skin, to see what I am capable of, and to gain confidence in my ability to succeed.  I know that graduate school will also be an incredible experience, but UMBC will always hold a special place in my heart.  While I will always be connected to the university, and plan on making many visits after graduation, it is still tough to be moving on to new things.  Graduate school is going to be outstanding, but UMBC will always be the place that I call home.