Gina Harris's Blog, page 56

A structure of healing

For all of the sadness that is coming up in future posts, it is going to be on the path of healing.

I want to pull one more thing each out of Chu and Herman.

Rebuilding Shattered Lives: The Responsible Treatment of Complex Post-traumautic Stress Disordersby James A. Chu, 1998.

Mind you, since this 23 years later, there could easily be better models, but Dr. Chu did put forth what he called the SAFER model in the book, elements that were helpful for progress.

development of Skills for Self-care and Symptom controlAcknowledgement (but not extensive exploration) of traumatic antecedentsFunctioningappropriate Expressions of affectmaintaining collaborative and supportive Relationships

Clearly it is a retronym, trying to force a word that makes sense, and not particularly memorably. It still contains helpful information. 

For many of the patients suffering from PTSD, they felt like they had no control. Finding ways that they could detect and mitigate symptoms would be a victory. Being able to know that their trauma was valid (and there) was necessary to sit with before diving into it. Knowing that pain and making it through routines anyway, being able to express feelings without losing control, building relationships that offered support -- especially in contrast to previous damaging relationships -- these were steps that could be managed. 

They prepared the ground for deeper work, and if they were not in place they were an indicator that bringing out more details (that extensive exploration) of the trauma was probably not a good idea.

This is the earliest use I have seen of "self-care" (without having researched). You may notice that in many ways these work as ways of the patients being kinder to themselves, which is often not the first instinct of someone with Complex PTSD.

Trauma and Recovery: The aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror, Judith Herman, 1992.

This quote from the beginning of Chapter 8 struck me:

“Recovery unfolds in three stages. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety. The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central task of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life.”

For the record, Dr. Chu referenced Dr. Herman frequently; it is not impossible that SAFER was a way of getting through that first stage.

It may seem like cruelty, but it is completely logical that you don't heal from a situation while you are still in it. There may be insights and tools acquired that will be helpful, but overall healing is impaired while the injuries are still being inflicted.

We may be more resistant to the logic of needing time to mourn. We have moved past the bad times, so it is only fair that now is the time to be happy. 

No matter how sad you might have felt during the trauma, it is unlikely that you were able to adequately grieve it, and that grieving is necessary. 

I do think part of that remembrance is also about gaining perspective. Denial can still be remarkably powerful, but once we are safe, denial should be one of the things that it is safe to let go of.

Obviously, there is some simplification there. 

I remember getting irritated as a youth when people would say that you can't love others until you love yourself. I was quite sure that I loved others; it was less certain that I loved myself. (And it kind of sounded like if I had a hard time loving myself it was one more thing to feel guilty about.)

In retrospect, I did have some love for myself, but when that increased I was able to love others better. 

Humans are better understood along spectra than binaries, it appears.

Maybe you are partially safe, but there is a danger you still tolerate, and maybe for very good reasons. Our lives are rarely that simple.

For me, I suspect that I have not mourned adequately. There have been hints all along, but lately there are frequent moments when there are tears just at the border, but they don't quite let loose.

There are tips on the internet for ways to lean into the crying, but that doesn't seem like the right answer at this time  They will come when the time is right. 

If I am lucky, the time might even be convenient, but I'm not counting on that one.

My 18 to 25

I will now cover specifics reiterating that I was already mostly formed, but did get reinforcement during my period of emerging adulthood. Some of it will sound familiar.

To recap, childhood had left me feeling that there was something fundamentally wrong with me, and then identified that issue as fatness, as well as reinforcing that no one wanted to hear about my problems. 

It also gave me great consolation in good books and good friends, and looking forward to a future where I could create my own happier family by getting married.

Early adolescence threw a wrench into that by showing me that boys could not like me, so how could I get married? Except that if what was wrong with me was my fatness then I just needed to lose weight and then my life and I would be perfect. Since I was still imperfect, I got very restless and kept trying to change things, besides multiple failed attempts to lose weight.

(I don't really sound that different from a lot of girls there, I know.)

As I was sensitive to pain, but couldn't believe that my own merited any attention, I focused a lot on helpfulness, which I tried to have compensate for everything that was wrong with me, including the fat. 

(I know I am saying "fat" a lot, but it played an outsized role in my self-image. There is no way of clarifying that won't sound like a pun.)

Just one year short of adulthood, my father disowned me, leaving me with a real hangup about driving and possibly some concentration issues.

My turning 18 was quickly followed by some disillusionment about how being smart and helpful was not going to get me any scholarships. I hadn't been doing it in the right way. That's a cultural capital issue, but I didn't understand that at the time.

I'd had this idea once that I would skip fall term of my freshman year of college to explore Europe via trains and hostels. Yeah, I did start college late, but I was just working retail so I could afford to go. 

I'd earned 51 college credits in high school, though there were some duplication issues. I ended up working summer and fall and attending winter and spring terms (while also working) for my first two years at the University of Oregon. In between that, I reconciled with my father.

Toward the end of my second year in college I was inspired to go on a mission. I finished spring term, then worked through January, and then went into the Missionary Training Center at the start of February.

When I came back (22 1/2) I started working to go back to school, but my father had been out of work for a while. He took a temporary job in another state, but there were some accumulated issues. My first paycheck went to pay part of the mortgage and replace some dining room chairs that were falling apart. I remember this feeling very disappointing. Maybe adulthood was not all it was cracked up to be.

I made it back to Eugene for Spring term. Then after having gone 18 months with no income and being old enough that parental income didn't count against me, I finally qualified for a student loan that meant I was able to attend fall term for the first time in my life. I finally got to go to football games! Because remember, I could understand football now, after I took the football coaching class.

While I was at that first fall term, my father left my mother. I remember her calling me crying shortly before I left for the homecoming game.

I wanted to run back home and comfort everyone, but everyone agreed that was the wrong thing to do. It was hard, though.

I had also gotten an opportunity to try out for the Jeopardy! College Championship. That was a few weeks after my father left. A couple of days before my father left, one of my dorm's Resident Advisors (we had two RAs) disappeared mountain climbing. We were still waiting for news when it was time to leave, but he was already dead. They didn't find the bodies until spring.

I remember looking out the plane window, and there was so much pain everywhere; I just wanted to get away, for fun. It felt like it had been a long time. I talked my mother and younger sisters into going to Disneyland for spring break. I let them set it up. 

That actually got a little stressful, because PCC's spring break was the week before U of O's. I was up all night before the flight typing up my final paper for my History of China class, and mailed it from the airport. However, then I had an extra week of vacation. 

That started the tradition of my sisters and I going to Disneyland together. They had to try with friends once to find out that I was more fun. That should have been so obvious, but they hadn't gotten the same disillusionment with friendship that I'd gotten. (Other thing that happened in there.)

I graduated, got a job, and started helping to take care of things. I learned a bit about how unfair employment law can be, but the job market was still good then, and I was doing all right. When I was 25 I landed at Intel, where I spent the next 11 years of my life in one capacity or another. Not long after that, I wrote my first novel. After multiple rejections, I didn't try writing anything commercial again for a while.

A little after that we started having more trouble with my father, but I would periodically smooth things over, and I had already learned some ways in which to not be like him, even if I had not yet recognized his impact on my self-image. I didn't get disowned again until I was 33.

I periodically went on dates, without specifically dating anyone, but of course I was still fat so that was to be expected. I did enjoy my gym membership and I felt good working out regularly; it just had no effect on my size.

Ultimately, I still didn't really trust anyone to like me.

I was putting others' needs before my own, and sometimes I would get frustrated with that, but I was generally okay. There was a lot to do, and I was mostly happy with it. 

The first real crisis -- and my next depression -- did not happen until I was 31, with the next happening at 36. Later the year 41 was pretty eventful, and something major did happen at 46, but I had never previously noticed a 5-year cycle. I mean, other things have happened that could have felt like crises, but didn't, so maybe it's just a matter of losing equanimity and then needing to re-gain it.

And this last phase is still ongoing, but we'll get to that.

Trauma in emerging adulthood

I mentioned in an earlier post wondering about the time period between 18 years old (the cut off for Adverse Childhood Experiences) and 25 years old (when your brain should finish maturing).

It turns out that the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old is mostly societal. There is additional growth and experience that happens all along until full brain maturity, but that is mostly what society allows and expects.

That changes. People in their mid-teens might already be working in previous times. There are concerns about millennials now because they have not hit the same milestones as previous generations at their ages, like marriage, parenthood, steady jobs, and home purchases. Different people blame different aspects, including the parents of millennials. 

If there are ways in which it is harder to feel like financial security is possible, so that increasing responsibility seems like a bad idea, that is going to affect many groups, and is worth looking at. Now, while much of the stability that existed before 2020 has evaporated... there's a lot to be looked at, though that is not the purpose of today's post.

I am mainly interested in the time period -- sometimes referred to as emerging adulthood -- because of two things that happened a long time ago.

One of them was Nancy Kerrigan getting clubbed in an effort to damage her Olympic hopes, which was in itself an effort to boost the chances of Tonya Harding.

(I have always believed she was hit in the knee, but Wikipedia says it was her lower right thigh. My guess is that the knee was intended, but missed, as a knee injury would have been much more devastating.)

The attack happened while I was on my mission, so I didn't really get the news at the time. I may have heard something, but my memories of it are something that happened later, probably relating to the legal proceedings. I remember people looking down on Kerrigan, criticizing her behavior after the attack and endlessly repeating two things she said that made her look nasty.

I might not even have remembered that, except that not long after -- when I was back home -- a friend of mine got hit by a car as he was boarding a bus. He had a full recovery, but his injuries were severe. 

There were emotional injuries too. He'd always had a pretty sunny disposition, but it took him a while to get over some bitterness. It is very possible that some of that was physical pain, but I strongly felt that it was mainly his sense of safety being taken away. 

He didn't have a car, so he rode the bus everywhere. I relate to that. It had been a safe and reliable form of transportation, and then suddenly it was all disrupted. It wasn't his fault or Tri-Met's fault, but one stranger who was being careless meant that all of that didn't matter. 

I remember it making me think of Nancy Kerrigan, and how much of a violation it must have seemed. She would have had so many skating practice sessions; finishing up and leaving practice would be so routine that you don't even think about it. Suddenly there is pain and doubts about your future and it would take a while to get over that. Maybe it would have been harder for being personal in her case.

What I decided at the time (so late 1994 or early 1995) is that when bad things happen to an adult, where you are pretty set in your ways, it throws you for a loop but you can recover. If it happens to a child -- still figuring out how the world works -- then there is a lot more danger in terms of how they will mature.

Kerrigan was 24 when it happened. I think my friend was 23. They survived, but they were not their best selves for a bit. I don't blame them.

It bothered me then that people were so quick to hold everything against Kerrigan, because, you know, if you have sympathy for her, that would mean she was milking it, I guess. Therefore, it is Harding who gets the movie where she is played by Margot Robbie.

Otherwise, without exploring that much further right now, it seems to me that society does an awful lot to maintain the ability of various people to inflict trauma while putting obstacles to healing in the path of traumatized people. 

If for some young adults, something that happens is the way they learn that life isn't fair, there are others who have always known, and don't have the option of not knowing.

And if we are ever going to address that, now as we try and recover from a global pandemic and a Trump presidency that is not a complete outlier in terms of global turns toward fascism and authoritarianism... 

I don't know when there is going to be a better time.

Let's hear it for dissociation!

Let's give dissociation a hand.

Yes, you should be hearing that to the tune of Deniece Williams.

Dissociation is a broad term for a break in how your mind handles information. I will mainly be referring to gaps in memory but that can also mean feelings of disconnection to creating new identities for handling trauma.

One of the surprising things for me this time has been the things that I don't remember. Obviously it makes sense that I focus on things that I remember, and on things that seem important, but noticing holes this time has been a little disturbing.

At the same time -- and this has mainly come through reading, rather than noticing it for myself -- I have learned to see the value in not always remembering everything.

It is not just that I read these books at all, but I believe that it was helpful that I read them so close together. There was synergy in doing that, which is even more impressive when you consider how much of that was dependent on how long it took for other library users to get through with them. 

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence -- From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Lewis Herman, 1992.

Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders by James A. Chu, 1998.

Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope, 1999.

First of all, let me only recommend Dr. Herman's -- the first -- book. Dr. Chu's book is really focused on treatment. Besides being very academic, I suspect it could be discouraging to patients as they read about ways in which they can be difficult. 

Then I found the yoga one very irritating. This philosophy will not work for me; I just want to be more bendy. 

And yet I learned things from all three of them. 

(My other note is that I sometimes say "disassociation". It kind of sounds more natural to me, but it is not standard use and I shouldn't be pushing for an extra syllable.)

Cope (appropriately named, at least) wrote about a balance between awareness and equanimity. As you increase your awareness of various things -- whether about the universe or your past or your motivations, hypothetically -- it can be a lot. You may need time to catch up before you learn more.

I don't believe he even mentioned that in the context of dissociation; that part was more about how sometimes you will feel like you need to rest, and you should listen to that instead of pushing on. However, because I was also reading about dissociation, and seeing how I would gain different insights at different times, it made sense. 

Previously I had thought of that strictly in terms of having more knowledge and experience, as if deeper intellectual capacity was the only need for deeper insight. It can also make sense that sometimes what you need most is more resilience, or more time away cushioning the blows, or a better support network.

The other thing that really hit hard was (I believe from Dr. Chu) that children will sometimes see themselves as "bad" because it is easier than accepting a parent as "bad". I don't know how much dissociation can protect your self-image, but there is a big wound that comes from not being able to rely on a parent. 

Most of the Adverse Childhood Experiences relate to a lack of parental support and stability. Your brain might try and protect you from that.

The other thing that was reassuring was from Dr. Herman, in the section of the book talking about groups, where it mentioned that recovering the memories does not tend to be an issue, once you are ready.

It came up in that section because often having a safe place to talk about it, and some reassurance that you were not the only one -- that there was not something exceptionally bad about you -- appears to be very helpful.

I mention this because I know that at least a few readers have things that they don't remember, and I hope it is comforting. 

I also mention it because I need to say that writing all of this out takes a toll on me. That I only blog about it for a few days each week helps, but also, if sometimes there are posts like this that are more detached and less personal, I do it to lay groundwork, but also for the rest.

I may at some point need more of a rest, where I write about movies for a week or I simply don't write at all for a week. I want to keep pushing through, but there could be snags, and I don't know. I am just putting that out there. 

But also, this is kind of a quiet week. I am going to write about something more observational tomorrow, and then about a time period that was not too heavy.

And I hope it will be educational.

Review retrospective: Black women rock!

In 2015, at least 170 of the daily songs were by Black women, plus one agender person.

It started because people kept mentioning various Black women artists. I noticed it more after I started doing music reviews. I had been taking notes, and I decided that February would be all songs by Black women. 

It was not merely that I had more than 28 days worth of notes, but also that the notes kept jogging other memories. Then when I would track one note or memory down I would find other things. 

For example, I remembered girl groups from the 60s. The Supremes were the most famous, but I remembered others; was I forgetting some? It wasn't so much that as that there were so many I had never heard of. I ended up including songs by 19 girl groups. Well, one of them had a man in the video who seemed to be a part of the group, but it didn't seem right to leave them out.

It was also more complicated than I thought. I tried to go in a kind of chronological order, but many of these women have had exceedingly long and varied careers. 

One example of that is Cissy Houston. I have always been told that Whitney Houston's mother was a gospel singer. Well, the Sweet Inspirations were the most religious of the girl groups, but I wanted a solo song too, and the first one I found sounded like disco to me. I'm not saying that she hasn't sung any gospel, but defining her as a gospel singer seems to overlook a lot.

2015 was probably the exact right year to do this. Selma started its wide theatrical release on January 9th (I wrote at least six posts on the movie alone) and then The Wiz Live! aired on December 3rd.

Ledisi was in my notes, but she was also in Selma. That alone would have made me review her (and did). 

Despite my attempts to cover everyone, I had not thought of nor posted a song from Stephanie Mills. Then people were talking about her because of The Wiz Live! in which she played Auntie Em, but also because she had played Dorothy in the original stage version, from whence she got her signature song, "Home". 

I had only seen the movie version, with Diana Ross, but then once I looked her up, she also had a Grammy winning hit single, "Never Knew Love Like This Before" from 1981. 

Yes, I'd heard that before. It had been a while and I had forgotten it, and I had never known her name, but yes, there was something familiar again.

The theme of that whole process really was that there is always more. There is more to remember, more to learn, and with so much variety there will be more that you love.

This was probably also the listening project that inspired the most reviews, though I will eventually review more of the Greatest Guitar and Emo bands. 

Regardless, just from going through and trying to give more Black women the song of the day, I ended up reviewing (in order) Ledisi, Leona Lewis, Fefe Dobson, Joan Armatrading, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Solange, , Melba Liston, and Mary J. Blige. 

And even though it wasn't part of that, I did get around to reviewing Stephanie Mills.

And at the time I still did not know that Terrie Odabi, or Angélique Kidjo, or Lady A existed. If I were to do another big focus on celebrating Black women in song, I would have to include them now.

There are still artists that I should listen to more. I really should make a play list.

As it is, my greatest regret of that original post capturing the songs -- which has been an invaluable reference -- was the name: Musical Black Girls. I was kind of thinking about Black Girl Magic, and I remember thinking that "women" was better but that some of them were pretty young, and also sometimes it feels weird stating outright that you are making a distinction by race (though less so for me in 2021 than in 2015). And of course, a lot of the songs weren't rock... I worry too much.

It was still a good effort and I feel good about it.

Songs for the week:

“Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis -- I initially got most excited by her Christmas song, "One More Sleep", but this is good too.

“Drop The Pilot” by Joan Armatrading -- It was a fight with "Down to Zero" but this won.

“Throw It Away” by Abbey Lincoln -- This song has a lot of versions, but I think hers is the best.

“The Day I Found Myself” by Honey Cone -- I had not heard this one before, and it is pretty great.

“Everything” by Fefe Dobson -- I listened to my old favorites this time around, and realized I had forgotten this.

“Pieces of Me” by Ledisi -- So many years later, this is still such a beautiful song, with so much heart.

“I Decided” by Solange -- She had three songs that I absolutely had to use after reviewing her, but this is my favorite, and I think the most fun, with many of her other videos being exquisitely serious.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/07/musical-black-girls.html

Laying groundwork when you don't even know

I have mentioned some frustration with writing about my experiences when I was 6 and 14 and 17, because they were so familiar. That has not been the case with the mission stuff (21-22).

Perhaps because it is so new, it feels like the most illuminating. Those events were not as formative, but they help me understand the rest better. 

I suspect it is because they were not formative that I was not thinking of them on my own, but it is very helpful that they came up. How did that happen?

Back in 2015 I was going over some things, and I wrote out a list of Things to Do. One of them was transcribing my mission journal. 

I don't remember when I started feeling like I wanted to do that. I seem to remember it not having any particular logic. For some of the goals, I knew why they seemed like good ideas, or had an idea of what they might help and how.

It took a while to get there. I didn't actually get started until 2017. I made some progress, getting a few months in and adding copious footnotes.

Then my hard drive crashed.

I had hoped for a while that I could recover the data, but that isn't going to happen.

I have wondered whether I could just read the rest, or start typing from where I left off, so still going through the complete transcribing process, though not coming away with a full transcription. 

I am going to have to start over and complete it. I am not doing that now. 

It appears I have more things to learn. Therefore, at the end of this blogging series I will not yet be a perfect and perfectly emotionally healthy person. That is really disappointing.

I still believe that the amount I did brought up enough older memories that I got what I needed for this time around. That's pretty good.

It came from listening, once again reinforcing that I am not on my own in this. I am being guided.

I had thought this past week that maybe I could look some things up and get my memory jogged, but I wasn't finding the right places. 

I did find some more on that Christmas and being scolded by the elders, so at least here is an anecdote.

From the journal, I was short one hour on study, and my companions were short two hours each. I am pretty sure that happened because we'd had to leave early one day, thus getting up early, which made it reasonable to nap in the afternoon. Except back then, once I was up I was up, so I think I studied and made up one hour while they napped.

At the time, a normal day involved one hour of companion study, an hour of gospel study that included thirty minutes of reading in the Book of Mormon, and one hour of language study if you were not speaking your native language.

None of us were even missing a full day.

The elders - on the other hand - had not made their goal of teaching five lessons for the week. I think they got some push back on that, and that made them feel more need to put us in our place, except we refused to go in. That is from the journal, like even then I wrote that I thought they were just making a big deal about us because they had been chastised.

And yet, for all the times when criticism has brought me down, this couldn't. Those missing hours had all gone into spreading Christmas cheer, and we had been exhilarated with the things we were doing. I was riding on a high from that, and I had no regrets.

I still ultimately don't. 

I knew I was supposed to go on a mission. I have no regrets that I went. 

It would have been nice to not have this unexamined void of paternal approval and trust in my lovability, but did I want a completely different family? Who knows how I would have turned out then?

I am still ultimately happy with the life I have led. 

I do want to be better for what comes next.

Ditched

Coming home from a mission is an adjustment. For eighteen months, I was always with at least one companion, and all I did was church stuff. Sure, you do laundry and buy groceries. We flipped and spun our mattresses every few months. Most of what we did, though? Overwhelmingly religious.

For the first five months back I attended both my home ward and the singles ward. Six hours of church was comparatively nothing. Then, with the schedule change for the new year, the two wards overlapped. I ended up choosing the singles ward, where I stayed for many years.

Obviously, the thing that was closest to being a sister missionary was visiting teaching. You have a companion for that, with whom you deliver a spiritual message and pray. I had always done my visiting teaching before, but right then it probably meant more to me.

I got a companion with whom I clicked instantly. As much as I loved my old friends, after I changed course in high school we were not quite as close. I had become more of a loner. After eighteen months of never being alone, finding a good friend was huge.

Looking back, I can see that there were some inequities in the relationship. I did care-taking for her that was not reciprocated. Once when a lesson was going to be very emotional for her -- hitting on past trauma -- I went outside with her. We talked through the class period and she felt better. 

Another time we were going with a big group to see a movie; and then she heard that it would be inappropriate so was fretting. (It was The Brady Bunch Movie. I went to see it later. It was fine.) That night we did a temple session instead, and she was relieved. I would have liked to do the big group thing, but that's what friends are for.

(I also alerted her to a creepy guy sneaking up behind her with mistletoe at the Christmas party. She was so grateful; but he held a grudge.)

I don't remember her doing similar things for me, but she gave me rides; that was huge for me. It was enough for me to feel liked, and that I could rely on her for fun, social stuff.

Then I couldn't.

It started with another group activity: a hay ride at Sauvie Island. There were three or four of us going together, but I think she was the one that made us late. We missed the hay ride. Then she ditched us.

When the wagon came back we started talking to people. One guy had driven by himself, in his sports car.

He had been pursuing her before. She did not like him originally, but this was where he started winning her over. He offered to take her home via Old Germantown Road, which would be so romantic. We couldn't stand in the way of that.

Off she went. 

My night consisted of riding out to Sauvie Island and then back, in the dark, with my friend for only half of the trip. I should have stayed home.

That was October. A month before, several of us had gone out to dinner for her birthday. As my birthday (January) approached, I really thought we would do something similar. About a week before, she mentioned that she would be going out with him that night. 

I thought she was planning something for me. She hadn't even remembered me.

That night, on her way to her date, she stopped by with a care package. It was bath stuff, which is so generic and so not me. 

She did feel bad, but the guilt didn't change that now that she had a guy, she didn't need me anymore. I know she would not have wanted to see it in those terms, but if there wasn't room for a friend and a boyfriend (who did become a husband), what other way was there to see it?

Apparently this is a common event, but it was a first for me. One thing about being a loner who manages her socialization through activities is that the coming and going of individuals is just part of the flow. I had been coming out of that. This was a major disruption, and I went right back in.

After that, I tended to focus my socialization more on where I was needed. Did people need help with something? Is this a person who needs someone to talk to? Will this person skip the event if someone else isn't going with them?

I don't want to give the impression that I only hung out with people as service projects. It is more accurate to say that there could have been times and people that I really wanted to hang out with but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Pre-pandemic, I had been working on that more. I was trying to make myself socialize more and to override the worrying about it. 

I know it is possible for people to enjoy spending time with me. Likely, even. It is still hard to feel it. 

It gets harder once most people have significant others and children, plus now we are older and get tired more easily. Is that rejection or being busy? My self-esteem has a hard time differentiating.

Of course, a lot of that is that old worry that people have thought of me as annoying or will remember me as annoying. I get a lot of warm welcomes, but those foundational beliefs that get in there don't get out easily.

I am good at liking people and at loving them. Those are two different skills (though it is the greatest thing when they overlap). I have found people who feel it and respond to it and that is all great. 

I still have a hard time believing people will reciprocate.

Results of my mission

From yesterday's post, yes, I think I picked up some of my comfort with nonconformity on my mission. 

I'm not even that wild -- most of the things I do are very average and traditional -- but just because something is traditional is not enough of a reason. If tradition is the only reason, then forget it.

I think that was a good change. 

Otherwise, I mainly became more me. 

I learned more about the immigrant/refugee experience, and prejudice, but I already had a tendency to care about that, and I definitely had much more to learn. 

The thing that started in college with the possum, where I started learning that it was okay to show vulnerabilities and flaws? My mission reinforced that, but it wasn't new.

A tendency to focus on the needs of others over my own (but also with sincere caring)? Already present.

There were two things that were new.

I now consider that dark spell on my mission to have been an episode of depression. I did not identify it as such at the time. Back in 1994 -- despite depression already existing -- I don't remember encountering anything that could have guided me on that.

I did not deal with it productively.

Without knowing what I needed, I did ask for help. We wrote weekly letters to the president. I had told him what was happening, but I had not heard back. The feeling of being ignored did make it worse.

Something happened with the car. Right before that I think I spilled something on my skirt, so I changed my skirt and left the apartment key in that pocket. Because of the car thing my companion didn't have her key. So the Assistants to the President gave us a ride back to our apartment, where I discovered that I didn't have the key, so we were locked out of the apartment.

I broke down on the door step.

However, it was not a coincidence that the APs had given us a ride and walked us to our door. They had been tasked with checking on me; they just didn't mention it before then. 

Them mentioning it earlier might have been helpful, but I was so good at maintaining function they probably didn't see an opening. Apparently what I really needed was a dead car battery, a wet skirt, and enough things going wrong so that I had to let all my defenses down. 

Gratefully received (with the gratitude coming later).

We talked about it. It did help knowing that I had in fact been heard. I still didn't know what to do with it. I remember writing out a list of good things about me. It felt unconvincing, but nonetheless, I did get better. 

Remembering a President Hinckley talk, I suppose you would say I forgot myself and got to work. There is a point to that, but there is also a point to actually healing, which could be preferable. What I did instead was shove it all back inside again, but after the breakdown I was able to, and it got me through.

Here is what I have learned from my other bouts of depression: the genesis seems to be prolonged evidence that I am not enough, and cannot be enough.

When I was going through my normal over-functioning with unhealed trauma, there was periodic emotional spillover. I would get frustrated with all that was asked and accepted of me, and the lack of support and appreciation, but if I was still succeeding at taking care of everybody and could believe that I could keep it going, I could manage. I might have an outburst, but then I would rein it in and be back to normal.

That was pretty much how I entered the mission field, and how I came out of it.

Maybe my real problem had been that I hadn't had any real outbursts, keeping them all inside because contention is bad. It is much easier to yell at your family as a regular child and sibling than to yell at companions as a missionary. 

Perhaps this is why it was more common to be passive-aggressive. Obviously the preference would be that we could talk meaningfully and productively about when we were hurting each other or judging each other. Realistically, I am not sure any of us knew how to do that, or had built up comfort with doing it. Many much older people struggle with it and we were mostly kids.

However, this is where we get to the other change, and it was a bad one.

Whereas previously I was mainly insecure about the ability of boys to like me (and we are getting to the point where they will need to be called men, no matter how immature), I now had serious doubts about whether even women could like me and want to spend time with me. My worry of never finding romantic love had expanded to include all types of affection.

As much as companion issues contributed, something after my mission really reinforced that and drove it home.

100% obedient

Disclaimer: This is going to be the most overtly religious of these posts. I am religious. 

If it sometimes seems like I am not, that may be due to frequent frustration with other religious people. It frustrates me when they say things that are wrong, but there is a special frustration when it is something where I feel like I should agree, but kind of don't.

Obedience is stressed a lot to missionaries, and there is a logic to that. These are primarily young people, far from home, and there is a lot of safety that comes from following the rules and procedures that are there for a reason.

It is also possible to become kind of weird about it. 

For example, maybe it feels like obedience that you use your language as much as you can. However, as you increase the amount of Cantonese that you speak between the two of you, and that extra companion who is studying Lao becomes more quiet and withdrawn as she is more excluded, are there potentially some other important violations?

Truthfully, I do not generally think in terms of obedience. When I think in terms of doing what you know to be right, I think of that more in terms of integrity, and then paying attention to others' needs and trying to serve them feels like more of a matter of compassion. Obedience fits in there, but other things are more important to me, without me ever being particularly disobedient. (Though I am not perfect; perhaps more focus on obedience is what I am missing.)

Regardless, in the mission field, obedience is not just the key to your safety, but also to your success. That is why missionaries will get these ideas about being "100% obedient", because then we will get baptisms. 

The philosophical problem with this is the same one the Pharisees had: it is too easy to decide that the key to that is adding rules upon rules, like having to be out the door rather than merely being working once your day starts.

The practical problem for that mission at that time is that there had kind of been too many baptisms already. 

"Too many" sounds like they shouldn't have been baptized, and I don't exactly think that. It's more complicated.

Years before we got there, some missionaries in the area who did not speak Lao or Cambodian or Hmong nonetheless found people who spoke those languages who were willing to listen. They had children translate and they baptized a lot of people with really fast growth. 

On an average Sunday, less than ten percent of our members would be in church.

I have heard very cynical stories about people coming out of the font with requests for furniture. That may have happened, but I don't think it was only that. I have taught people and felt the Spirit there. It is a very easy thing in that moment to feel that this is true and good and that you want to be a part of it.

It is not as easy to maintain that feeling. It is not as easy to break patterns especially when there is strong social enforcement of those patterns. Therefore, when you are teaching people who have not been baptized yet, and you talk to them about attending church and giving up smoking and drinking, they probably know a lot of baptized members who have stopped going to church and restarted smoking and drinking (if they had ever actually stopped, which is not guaranteed).

We'd had some baptisms. People we'd taught and with whom we'd shared great experiences did not always keep going to church. Some did, but there is a lot that goes into it. Transportation was huge. I get why some churches buy buses, but that's not our way.

At times we tried various ways of increasing our contacts so we could teach more people and have more baptism. This mainly ended up with us meeting a lot of people who weren't Lao, where even if they were interested we had to refer them to other missionaries.

That's why my companions were standing outside the door; they thought that would get us to more baptisms. I thought that using our time more effectively would be more likely to get us there. In theory, there were people out there who would be glad to be baptized, if we just found the right ones and taught them effectively.

Concurrent with coming out of my depression was a moment of clarity, and my focus shifted to member work.

Those temporary conversions were not fake; they had felt something and could feel it again. We started focusing on reading The Book of Mormon with different member families, and helping them set goals for that.

I am grateful to Sister M for going along with it. It was counter to our training, except for the part about being guided by inspiration. Probably one thing that helped was that in Modesto we had taught some younger people who did not have parental permission to be baptized. In helping them find ways to keep the fire alive until they were adults, we had some experience with that.

Also, yes, there is effort involved in receiving the Holy Ghost, but we often saw that with the people we talked to --  especially children who were baptized with their families and then the whole family stopped going -- that they still remembered things and responded to them. 

We wanted to harness that, so we started setting up visits and talking to members, and finding out who could read and who needed scriptures. It was a really wonderful time.

We never got chastised for it. Even though it would have made sense for Sister M to train the first incoming sister, we were able to stay together until it was time for me to go home.

Shortly before that, there was a possibility of me being transferred to Merced. That area was picking up. Word was that there would definitely be baptisms there, I found that I didn't want to go. I was where I needed to be, doing what I needed to do, and I wanted to continue with that.

I don't regret that at all, and I did not consider myself disobedient or a rebel. 

I may be a little more skeptical than most of doing things the way they have always been done.

Review retrospective: Bands 101 - 200, 2014

The first 100 bands -- especially with all the concerts -- was exhilarating. The second 100 was more about continuing strong.

Concerts played a role again, but one of those was a wishful thinking fulfillment. 

Dave Hause was going to play a free set at Music Millennium. I really wanted to see him, but there was a conflicting family activity. We took Mom to the Evergreen Aviation Museum, and I can't regret that. They've had trouble staying open, and at that time she was still able to enjoy it, which was not going to last.

I wrote a review for Dave Hause's music anyway; it was my hope that somehow it would guarantee that he would come. That may sound silly.

He was my 85th band, and my 82nd review (sometimes I would double bands up for different reasons). Just a few months later he came to the Hawthorne Lounge, and I got to write up that show for my 117th review.

That was a bit of a trend for that year. I also wrote reviews for Torche, Alkaline Trio, and Lit, hoping to bring them my way. I have not seen Lit live yet, and the Alkaline Trio show was kind of a bad experience, but nonetheless Torche came and that was a great show!

Also, it is nice to remember being optimistic and thinking the world was full of possibilities.

I had quite a few bands from New Jersey, US and Manchester, England, but also I reviewed quite a few bands from Portland and Seattle, and that was good. As much as there clearly were "scenes" that appealed to me, I didn't want to forget home.

If there was not an obvious musical theme, the theme of my life was writing, and lots of it. 

I had been wanting to do a month where I wrote one different 6-page screenplay every day. I finally did it in October 2014. I even did it on a day when I worked a full day and went to a concert (Lemonheads and Psychedelic Furs). 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/10/one-month-186-pages.html

Perhaps the theme was that I had established my writing rhythms. I had gone through the comic book writing, and the screenplay inspired by that first concert, while also blogging regularly; I could do it all.

It is amazing to remember that was once me, and that theoretically could be me again.

A lot of that writing was about music. Over the summer I had done some series on music videos. There was quite a bit of writing about comic books too, and libraries, but I had gotten the hang of writing about music and I was doing it all the time.

(Drum week wasn't going to happen until the next year, but I might have been thinking about it.)

One thing that has been coming up as I choose songs for the week is what to do with those bands whom I like more than usual, but who have not been a big enough influence where doing a whole post and week makes sense. That is especially the case with Dave Hause and with New London Fire. 

Of course, I have given them songs of the day many times, but more than that, in addition to remembering to periodically go back and visit the bands you absolutely love, revisit the bands you really like as well. Maybe you like them only because of good music, and not that they wrote the soundtrack for an important part of your life, or got you through a hard time. That's okay; good music is worth a lot.

I am taking notes for after the retrospective is done, but probably I should revisit any of those bands that are still going for it after all these years. 

It is terrible to see how many kept it going for a decade or so, but then couldn't make it through the pandemic.

Daily songs:

“Feet on Fire “ by Slow Readers Club -- Best video concept.

“Half Awake” by We Are Forever -- They kind of border on boy band for sound, but I like them anyway.

“Pray for Tucson” by Dave Hause -- I have no connections to Tucson, but this hits me really hard this year.

“Write It Off” by Fox & Cats -- Good energy. They had a stripped down sound but really elevated it.

“Under the Mushroom Cloud” by Birds in the Airport -- This is almost a novelty EP, because he is usually collaborating with other musicians in totally different veins, but it is so brilliant,

“Away From Here” by High Pressure Flash -- The album cover doesn't match the sound, but I do like this song.

“Here I Am” by New London Fire -- Out of many good songs, this is the one that most represents me now.