Hiromi_X

I decided not to work from now until the move.

I had planned to work right up until the day I left to make as much money as possible, but Fuck It. The past three years have been TAXING as hell, and I plan to get in as much quality sloth time as possible in the next month.

I'm going to read whenever I want; I need to recapture my intellectual curiosity, which has recently been limited to things like figuring out who's going to be eliminated in each episode of Top Chef. In the past week, I read Generation Kill and finally finished The Omnivore's Dilemma and Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Life in Victorian England.

Now, I will start Civilization, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for over a year. However, as I read the table of contents a little while ago, I started to feel sorry I bought the book. The book, while critical, doesn't really question the conceit of "Western Civilization." Can you draw a direct line from ancient Greece/Rome to The West, as he apparently does? And even more basic than that, can you lump a bunch of shit together under that monolithic category? Given that, how far does he distance himself from Samuel Huntington? Well, I guess I'll find out when I start reading it.

I'm going to swim regularly, maybe practice my butterfly stroke. I bought a month's membership at a gym, so I'll do some weight work and do some reading on the elliptical machine and stationary bikes. I spent 1 hr 15 min on those machines last week, not 'cause I like them, but because I was so fascinated by the description of a sustainable farming operation in The Omnivore's Dilemma, a farming system modeled on nature. Stopping exercise would have meant an interruption in my reading! I said "farming operation," but it isn't as prosaic as that term sounds; it's a creation of sheer beauty possessed of wondrous symmetry. It restored my faith in humanity, even. My feet were numb when I got off the elliptical and I went on to numb my ass on the bike.

I'm going to figure out ways to make vegetables interesting. I'm tired of interesting salads. I want interesting *cooked* vegetables. Anyone know of an excellent vegetable cookbook?

Heh. I guess "Sloth" really isn't a proper name for this post. I guess "Pleasurable Projects" is a more accurate description.

Posted by Hiromi at 12:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

While we'll probably never again be blank slates, it's not too late to change even as adults. Old dogs can learn new tricks.

Thanks to Rufus for pointing out this fascinating article. The author, a neuroscientist named Susan Greenfield, discusses how the human brain continuously -- not just in childhood -- remains plastic and changes at the microcellular level in response to experiences and stimuli.

She briefly describes an experiment involving three groups of adults who had never played the piano. One group sat in a room with the piano but had nothing to do with it, a second group was given intensive piano lessons, and the last group was told to imagine themselves going through the piano exercises. The brain scan results? Not surprisingly, the control group (the one that did nothing) showed no changes in their brains. The group that did the piano exercises showed significant structural changes in the parts of their brain that govern finger movements, but most surprisingly of all, the group that imagined playing the piano showed almost as much change in their brains as those who actually played the piano!

Greenfield's article dealt with her worries about the effect of technology and psychoactive drugs on our brains; however, for me, that piano experiment struck another chord: What implications does this have for people like me, people who need to heal from trauma?

Here's another interesting article about "lies" versus what we might call "future truths." In the experiment described in that article, college students were asked about their grades and academic histories. Almost half embellished their records, but instead of becoming tensed and stressed when lying -- which happens to people who are lying in order to cover up crimes, for instance -- they became more relaxed as they lied. To paraphrase the article, this was because their goal was not to deceive; rather, the "lies" can be seen as a statement of aspiration or an attempt to project themselves toward their goals. In earlier studies, the research team found that students who exaggerated their grade point average actually went on to bump up their grades, often by the very amount they exaggerated.

I'll admit that I'm engaging in dubious speculation and making connections that may not be sound. But what I read in those articles resonates so much with my own experience. Imagining things: that's exactly what I had to do to get healthy. I told myself all the good things I wanted to believe about myself, and I acted as though I really believed it. There is a starting point: you, unhappy, feeling broken. Then there's a goal point: you, healed, whole.

How do you bridge those states? How on earth do you get to the goal? There's no map or set of instructions. All you can do, really, is imagine yourself there. In my case, I suddenly, almost magically, found myself there. My old thought habits are greatly diminished, if not totally gone. Granted, the magic was only in hindsight; I did a lot of work, invisible work because it was all in my head.

How the fuck do you change your head, you might ask? Well, it's YOUR damn head! You have a CHOICE.

This fucken works, man. I'm not the same person I used to be. My brain is different. It is absolutely possible to change something as seemingly fundamental as your personality.

Posted by Hiromi at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

I'm becoming more and more committed lately to the idea of viral change. Richard Dawkins might call what I'm talking about a meme, and an article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine likened urban violence to a virus. Both of these ideas are similar to mine. The amount of shit that needs to be fixed in our world can be pretty overwhelming; given the scale of our problems, our individual actions seem pretty puny. But I honestly believe there are no empty gestures. I believe that if I act consistently, whether in reducing the amount of natural resources I consume or simply kind and considerate and shit and generally raising the tone of social interactions, someone else will pick up on my actions. And then that person will spread them as I did.

I've absolutely no proof that this actually works, but I'm going to treat this as a grand experiment on my part. Who knows? Maybe soon the world will be full of foodie motorcyclists.

Posted by Hiromi at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I did it. I put on another fucken cheese suit.

Lately, I've been telling motherfuckers straight out how old I am. I'll do it here: I'm 37. And after I do it, I wonder why I was so scared to tell people in the first place. I guess I was afraid they'd think I am old and finished. But I'm clearly not old and finished. And I was afraid they'd compare me to all the smashingly successful 37 year olds out there (Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence when he was 33, y'all) and find me horribly lacking. But I don't really want any of the things that those imaginary successful 37 year olds have. What I want, I got. Well, mostly, anyway.

I have to admit, however, where some of the courage to wear that particular cheese suit comes from. I know that if I tell people my age, they will say "You don't look that old!" I know that when I ask them to guess my age, they'll guess an age somewhere between 25 and 28. Eventually, I want my courage to come from, oh, I dunno, some sort of bubbling wellspring of self-worth deep in my soul. I want to stop being afraid to look over 30. I don't want to be proud of just the youthful aspects of my looks. I want to be totally free.

But this was a huge step forward nevertheless.

Posted by Hiromi at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I'm in a lame duck phase. I'm easing out of my current work and am anxiously waiting to start over in the summer. I'm also reluctant to start anything new social-wise, since I'm leaving anyway. I'm even reluctant to start buying anything, so I won't have more stuff to move.

I'm putting off announcing my departure at AA meetings and my sexual assault support group. Due to some issues with my bike and a lack of proper cold weather/rain gear, I haven't been to many meetings. It's strange that I'm reluctant to say at a meeting, "I tried to kill myself twenty months ago, but now long-cherished dreams are coming true."

Instead of saying my goodbyes, I've pressed the pause button on my life. I've got House of Leaves in my reading queue; I'm halfway through David Simon's The Corner, having just finished Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (I watched the series but never finished the book).

The season finale of The Wire was on Sunday and last week for Project Runway, but as their replacements I'll have John Adams, based on David McCullough's book, on HBO and season four of Top Chef. I read John Adams while in Japan in an attempt to address my ignorance of American history prior to the Civil War, and I have a thing for period dramas.

Diet root beer and a bowl of buttered popcorn at hand, I watched the premiere of Top Chef last night. Again, you could tell by Bravo's editing who would be eliminated. They highlighted the chick's insecurities and her reluctance to be one of the gang. I've decided that I will not trust Bravo's depiction of the contestants. They've got reams of footage and they decide to include footage that highlights conflict and general assholery. Their editing shades Dale as another Asian Alpha Male a la Hung, and they highlighted tension and anger between the two crab cake guys (their names escape me). Previews for upcoming episodes featured profanity, yelling, and the like. Come the fuck on, Bravo. Let's see more food and more cooking and less stupid bullshit.

The premiere dove right into product placements with Pizzeria Uno, the Kenmore Kitchen, and jars labeled "Whole Foods." I'm surprised the lockers weren't branded somehow. The quick fire was sadly predicable -- make your own deep dish -- but I liked the Kiwi's use of marmite and I'd love to try the peach-sausage pizza with sweet tea reduction. The others resorted to typical pizza fare, including a foray into feta cheese pizza. I *hate* feta cheese on pizza. I also hate chicken on pizza. Some things are just wrong, people!

The elimination challenge was a good one, thankfully: they put the contestants in pairs and had them go head to head cooking eight classic dishes. I was glad Erik wasn't eliminated. I loved how he said "I made glorified nachos, and I'm not proud of it," and so I'm firmly on his side, although self-taught chefs don't do well on this show.

Next week, they're apparently cooking for the visitors to a zoo. I can't imagine cooking with the scent of guano in the air. Gross!

Posted by Hiromi at 2:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

I've been plotting to leave Texas, and it looks like my efforts are finally bearing fruit. I probably won't be here much longer. So much has happened to me so soon, all (or most) of it stuff that I've wanted. So...change is on its way.

I am both exhilarated and terrified. I feel like I'm finally getting my shit together, doing what I'm supposed to do. This is right; it feels right. But I also feel like I'm being swept along in a rapid current, and I want it all to stop. I want to exist in a space of calm where I can simply breathe and think of nothing. In the end, I will move forward, because that's what I do: kick ass and take names. Right now, though, I don't want to grow up. Why must we grow up? Why can't we stay where it's warm and safe and we don't have to fend for ourselves?

I suspect that some people might relapse in instances such as this. I am in absolutely no danger of that, but I recognize in an intellectual way that this fear of change and responsibility and self-sufficiency can scare an addict into relapsing back into a childlike state.

By the time the weather grows hot, there will have been many changes. I want to wrap myself in the cold rains that are falling now and savor the unchanging-ness of things.

Wait, future. Please.

Posted by Hiromi at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Years ago, when I was more or less practicing Buddhism, I used to think of enlightenment or whatever as a kind of blissful state, but that's not how it is. First, enlightenment or serenity is not an end point; it's not like you achieve it and then you're done. Neither is enlightenment a perfect state of happiness, nor merely the absence of pain. Those are the states that we addicts chase and hope to achieve through some short-cut chemical means. Or else we avoid actually living and instead substitute for it some kind of altered mental state and lie to ourselves about how good that is.

That's pretty much all I've got sorted out about what serenity or enlightenment is: what it is not. I suppose I can throw around some catchphrases like "live in the present" and "let go of illusions," but it's one thing to say it and another to live it. But maybe I am living it -- for all the troubles I have now, I am glad to be here, now, alive, and in my skin.

There's a backstory to all this, but the details are irrelevant. I think I will be okay somehow because I trust myself to make it so.

Posted by Hiromi at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

These days, I find myself completely uninterested in serious things. I've asked for fiction recommendations, and I have a pile of books to read that I collected prior to that, but even reading seems like too much work. I am seriously mentally exhausted and burned out. During the past couple of years, dealing with my increasingly complicated job, making plans to escape Texas, and putting in serious time and energy into mental health upgrades and maintenance have left me starving for simple pleasures. By "simple" I mean "un-fucken-complicated." "Requiring little or no cognitive effort." I absolutely don't want to feel taxed.

So for the next couple of weeks -- or months, even -- I'm going to indulge all my frivolous impulses. I'm going to get caught up on The Wire, and start watching a new show on HBO, In Treatment. I'm going to endure the rest of this season's Project Runway, which, despite its degeneration into an endless series of product placements masquerading as design challenges, is still enjoyably vacuous. I'm going to start watching the new season of Top Chef (in Chicago, I think). I might get started on the simple happy books in my "To Read" pile. Or I might limit myself to glowy screens.

I'm going to cook every week and relish every mindless moment of food prep. I'm going to use my new knife honer. I might buy new dish towels. The only decision I want to face in the next couple months is "what will I eat today."

So be warned: I'm probably gonna be posting dumb and frivolous shit. If I decide to turn my mind to serious topics, I vow to do so in only the most superficial way possible.

My brain feels nice. Like a melted malted.

Posted by Hiromi at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

One of the gentlest, strongest people I ever met is a woman who was raped about a year and a half ago. Throughout the entire ordeal of recovering from it and going through the trial (the evil bastard was convicted and sent to jail), she was worried most about the effect on her children and on her totally unworthy husband. That asshole kept asking her why she didn't fight back, and when she asked him why he kept pushing her away, he answered "How would you feel if I cheated on you?" Yes. Such assholes exist.

She would cry as she related this and other things. One day, she was talking sadly about how she couldn't bring herself to unpack after a move, a move that was necessary because the rapist googled her and found her address and threatened retaliation against her and her family. Agitated, she complained about not having the energy to do this or that. After listening to this for a while, I looked at her and said, "It sounds like you're angry," and she burst into tears. For whatever reason, she couldn't bring herself to actually express anger. She resisted it her whole life. She didn't fight back when her husband said shitty things to her. She would cry in sadness, but she wouldn't get angry. This fear of expressing anger was causing her to be stuck in the place she was in. She couldn't move forward.

I'm her opposite. I have no trouble getting angry. It's an almost instinctive response. Even as a child, I would break my toys in a fit of anger. I'd regret it of course, but I'd end up doing it again. Over time, I polished my destroying-of-objects technique. I throw things that are unbreakable, cheap, or that I don't care about. I avoid glass and food (I had an awful time once cleaning up the aftereffects of lobbing spaghetti and soy sauce bottles at a wall). I punch relatively forgiving surfaces (e.g., doors). I don't kick things (foot damage can result since I don't wear shoes in the house).

Anyway, I don't think a fiery temper in and of itself is a bad thing, but my anger has gotten worse over time. I was going through my archives the other day, fixing this and that, and came across this post. I cringed as I re-read it. To be fair to myself, I hadn't nearly faced up to the things that were really bothering me back then; that was just where I was in that moment. In the end, however, being so angry flat out doesn't feel good. But I still find that anger is my automatic response to feeling a lack of control or fear. And while I'm getting better at calming down, I'm afraid my anger is causing me to be stuck in the place I am, and maybe preventing me from moving forward.

In that post, I wrote that anger is a good motivator and a natural response to injustice. I still believe that, and would go so far as to say that it's a necessary response to some forms of injustice. But I want to understand why the fuck I get so angry so quickly. My level of anger is such that it's gotta be more than personality and the big traumas, since I was pretty damn angry before that, too.

It's not like I want to be a chirpy motherfucker, though. I want something different. There have been a couple of people in my life who are so warm and calm and self-assured that simply being in their presence feels like a hug. With them, you felt like everything will be all right. That's what I want to be like.

*sigh* More work.

Posted by Hiromi at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Shit-ass busy week. Missed blogging. But brain dead, so random news only.

1) Finally I provide relief for those of you who have been glued to the edge of your seats waiting for the outcome of my werk evaluation thing. Turns out I'm not a fraud.

Another person whose opinion matters way more to me than my supervisor's told me I was doing new and important things. There was also one other official critique-er. My supe told me that the two of them were in agreement. The other person didn't talk to me directly about the project and in fact neglected to answer one of my emails, so I decided to talk to him in person today. And he said that one of the big things she told me didn't work, he liked!

Well, motherfucker.

The reason it hit me so hard was this: one of my biggest issues is this notion that I'd wasted my potential thus far in life. Now, I'm in a position to finally redeem myself in a field I like. I felt like I'd blown it, and was pretty close to despair. Fucken emotional rollercoaster this week.

2) Didn't like the winning dress on Project Runway. It looked like something you might see on that HBO show Rome. An Asian overachiever won Top Chef; I wonder how far the one on this show will go.

3) Welcome back online, Omnipotent Poobah!

4) I parked my bike nose-first in a dirt and gravel parking spot today, forgetting Ray's advice to back into parking spots. I checked to make sure the kickstand wouldn't sink into the dirt, and that was all good, but when I tried to back out, discovered that I couldn't. The bike was stuck in the fucken gravel. I couldn't walk the bike out; I had to sit on it, grip the handlebars, and jerk the bike backward inch by inch. Soon I was soaked in sweat. I stopped when I'd almost gotten the bike fully onto the asphalt, I was so exhausted. Thankfully, a guy in a pickup saw this pathetic scene and helped me lift the bike out.

I spent the rest of the day a hair's breadth away from meting out random violence. I was emotionally exhausted from the werk thing. Then the motorcycle thing. I hate being a weak little girl. I mean, I like being taken care of, but I like having the option of taking care of myself when I need to. But today I got myself into a situation where I didn't have the necessary muscle power. This happened in a different way earlier this week. Some clown parked his bike real close to mine on the right, so I couldn't get the bike upright enough to even get the kickstand up. I sat there, completely flummoxed. Thankfully, big strong man pulls up on a bike and parks nearby. I waved him over and he moved the bike out. So today was the second time in a week that I didn't have the muscle power to get out of a sticky bike situation myself. I used to think I was pretty strong, being able to do knuckle pushups and chaturanga dandasana with ease. But there's a difference between handling 100 or so pounds and 300 pounds.

5) Here's reality: as much as I'd like to be able to handle everything myself, I can't. I'd like to be able to believe so fully in my abilities that I can brush off criticism. But on the other hand, there's something to be said for having a good mentor who can help and guide you. We can't all be Mozart, taking dictation from our heads, and I guess even big strong men sometimes need an additional big strong man.

Posted by Hiromi at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

One of my deepest, darkest fears is that I'm a fraud. That I'm not as smart as I think I am, or as funny or pretty or lovable...whatever. And people need only stick around long enough to find that out.

I just spent two of the worst weeks of my life on a project for work, and it got a chillier reception than I had hoped for. "Nice try, but here's a list of things you fucked up." There was a tone of impatience with innovations I attempted. I got the feedback sometime after 5 pm today, so I won't be able to clarify things until next week. "Clarify" as in "Do you think I'm stupid?" I'm not afraid of being fired or anything. What I fear is being dismissed as lesser, as someone on whom resources should not be wasted. Being a disappointment.

I know I excel in other things. But this matters to me very much. It's a big thing, bigger than anything I've tried before, and I fell flat on my face.

I'm going to take some ibuprofen and take my loser ass off to bed. Meeting my sponsor in the morning.

Posted by Hiromi at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Again, I was glad when the alarm went off this morning. I've been having a spate of creepy dreams this week. The other day, I dreamed that I found myself repeating destructive patterns in the extreme with a person I love, and yesterday, I dreamed that I was in The Ex's apartment trying to recover things of mine that he kept from me, and I was in the middle of all that when I heard his key in the door. Today, I had a vivid and realistic creepy dream that still gives me the shivers. I dreamed that the alarm went off, and I looked down at my wrist and saw a bracelet there with chili pepper charms of all things hanging off it. I don't have such a bracelet, and I had no idea how it got there. Then I noticed that my bedroom window was open. I went tearing through my things, and kept finding little "presents" here and there. That was somehow worse than my usual dirty toilet and Cronenberg-like body deformity dreams.

Posted by Hiromi at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

I still have a shy problem. Fer instance, I like it when other bikers wave at me, but I never initiate The Wave. What if they don't wave back???

Fear of rejection is only part of my problem, though. I have this borderline speech impediment. I stutter off and on. It's a constant mild stutter. And sometimes I just can't get words...OUT. They get stuck. I can feel them behind my uvula, but my tongue can't work them out of there. Yesterday, I couldn't say "circulation." I just stood there blankly -- I hope my mouth wasn't working -- and had to think of other words quickly that I could pronounce. The only way I can deal with this is to sloooooow down (my thoughts tend to race), but while that helps the stuttering somewhat, it doesn't help the word-stick.

It's one of those things that's not *quite* bad enough to warrant medical attention, but you almost wish it were so it can be fixed by a professional. Like, I can't concentrate worth a damn, but I don't quite have ADD. You know?

Posted by Hiromi at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I want to crawl under a rock and hide. My finances are about to implode again. My repetitive stress injuries -- neck, shoulder, and elbow pain; numbness and tingling in the forearms; wrist pain -- are at the point where I need expensive medical treatment and physical therapy. I'm in considerable pain right now. To prevent things from getting worse, I have to get an ergonomic chair and desk for the times that I work at home, and solutions that will work are pricey as hell. I also need to straighten out my car situation and get a motorcycle, which involves gathering and processing a great deal of information.

I'm also emotionally exhausted. In addition to that uncomfortable incident in which that guy from AA violated my personal space, I had another random creep encounter at AA this week. He used a pretense to speak to me alone, away from the group, and then came on to me. Although I firmly set boundaries in the latter incident, I still felt shaken. Given my personal history, the fact that I had been maneuvered into a situation where I was alone with someone I don't really know caused a panic reaction during my drive home. I understand that men will be interested in me. I also understand that I can reject their interest without any concern for their feelings, which is hard-won knowledge. But given my health and money problems, I really don't need this additional bullshit. I feel like AA is supposed to be a safe place for me to recover, but now I realize I have to be on guard.

And then I had a disturbing realization about something that happened before I was sober. I don't feel like going into it in detail; suffice to say that an illusion I had about the kind of person I am was shattered, and not in a good way.

Oh, and I have a major project at work that I have to revise. Again.

On the bright side, none of this is making me want to drink. And publishing and doing any sort of blog shits goes fucking fast (Big Thanks to Brandon and Karl!).

Posted by Hiromi at 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For a girl, I'm a sucker for war movies. While all deaths are tragic, the manner and circumstance of particular ones resonate with your own fears and replay in your mind. There was a scene in Band of Brothers -- I don't remember precisely which battle -- in which a group of soldiers were singing around a statue in a town square, and suddenly a sniper fires on them. Two of them die. After having survived the big battle. Even when the big fight is over, there is always the odd sniper or a land mine or an unexploded grenade.

Darkness keeps tugging at me. This is very hard to explain. It's not a shallow preoccupation with being "misunderstood" or "different." Nor is it an actual craving. It's missing a state of mind. It was hard to hear from people that the booze and the pills made me crazy, because even during my worst alcohol and drug-soaked lows, a small part of my brain took pleasure in that. I've been sitting here trying to think of a way to describe that feeling. It was like you pushed yourself to the edge of your mortality. You could almost reach out and brush your fingertips across its membrane. Or the moment just after I stepped out of the airplane when I went skydiving, before the horrible winds hit. A suspended moment of oblivion. Dying and liking it. Small parts of my mind still like that feeling, maybe always will.

Posted by Hiromi at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

During yoga today and yesterday, my body didn't feel right. While I was in headstand yesterday, my body was pisa-ing over to the right. The instructor had to walk over and center my body. Today, I could not find my center at all. I had to keep wriggling to get comfortable in poses. It feels as if my body is experiencing the same subtle feelings of unease that my addict brain picked up on weeks earlier, sparking cravings.

It's a strange and disquieting thing, drifting down from a pink cloud. I feel like I misplaced something small but terribly valuable. While it is completely different from the downward spirals into despair I used to experience, it's unsettling.

I almost cancelled my appointment with my therapist today since I am not grappling with big fears or anything dire. I just feel like a jumbled mass of odds and ends like a utility drawer. Or dribs and drabs of unfinished business, like a page full of uncrossed T's.

So I went in today and rambled about my many small worries and fears and resentments, each of them a tiny pinpoint red dot on a larger rash.

Now I'm going to read Pooh while lying on soft pillows.

Posted by Hiromi at 11:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

All my life, I plotted my escape. For the first 8 or so years of my education, the classes never went fast enough for me. I would hurry to finish the allotted work, and then poke my nose in a book where I could be someone else, somewhere else. If the teacher was talking, I would put a book in my notebook or textbook or lap and secretly read.

I had a vivid imagination. I made up several incarnations of myself, all of whom lived in different times and places and sometimes had special powers, and I would tell myself stories of myself on car trips, during classes, before I went to sleep; any unfilled time I had was occupied with these fantasies. This is embarassing to admit, but this was a habit that lasted well into my twenties. As an adult, whenever I have the means, I plot real-life getaways. I love doing research for these trips. I love imagining myself in different scenarios, experiencing different things. These are some of the ways in which I tried to search for things beyond my realities.

Miz Syl asked what triggered the sudden alcohol craving I wrote about this Friday. I've been thinking about that, and it occurs to me that the craving followed a typical thought pattern of mine. I'm feeling okay these days, but "okay" has never been enough for me. I've read that addict brains process pleasure differently; we need far more stimulation than normal people for the same level of gratification. We need more. There's never enough.

If I'm in an "okay" state, I need to upgrade it with something. Formerly, it was alcohol or whatever; these days, I have nothing. Except maybe ice cream. And even though ice cream is a powerful force for good, especially post-coital ice cream, it's not quite the same as a mind-altering substance. Neither is yoga. I want ice cold vodka. I want my pills.

Normal people might find it strange that a person would take narcotic pills just for the hell of it. But here's my thinking: Why just feel "okay" when you can feel GREAT just by taking a pill or a drink? Why just feel GREAT at a party or some such social setting, when you can feel GREAT any old time? Why stay in a "normal" state when you can have more joy, more peace, more calm, more energy, more confidence? More. More. More.

I think that's probably the hardest thing to let go of, this desire for escape, for MORE. If stress or loneliness or boredom brings on a craving, I can fight that. I have tools for that now. If I feel fear, I can soothe myself; I don't need substances for that. But how do I live without more?

Posted by Hiromi at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)

I've got this talent for finding the black cloud in the silver lining. Sure, there's something deeply soul-satisfying about being around People Who Get It. You don't have to explain yourself or defend yourself. You're accepted.

That being said, time and again, even as other addicts or survivors validate my experiences and comfort me with the knowledge that I'm not alone, I sometimes miss being "alone." I'm not saying this is the most productive way to think about things, but I sometimes feel resentment when people say, "Oh yeah, that happened to me, too." I feel somehow...coopted. NO, I think, I'm SPECIAL. Which reminds me of something I used to always say before: "No one understands me."

That's what we in AA call "terminal uniqueness." Let's unpack that statement. It does a lot of things:

1) The speaker is singling him or herself out as separate from the rest of humanity.
2) While that's a statement of abjection,
3) It's also a self-aggrandizing one: "No ne understands me. Because I'm special. I'm unique. I'm singular in my special uniqueness. I'm beyond the ability of others to understand."

In saying that, you push away people who actually do understand you, and who can support you and help you. In return, you get the cold comfort of sitting on the throne of your own terminal uniqueness.

So...yeah. As I cry on your shoulder, tell me you understand, but also tell me I'm special. ;p

Posted by Hiromi at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Boy, I did not see this coming. Here's a list of my top anticipated scapegoats for the Virginia Tech shootings:

1. Too many guns
2. Too few guns
3. Furriners
4. Lax campus security
5. "Lack of awareness" on how to handle the shooter's prior weird behavior
6. Random crazy motherfuckers (my own personal scapegoat)

I didn't think of Foucault. Thank you Rich Lowry for pointing that out. I never woulda thunk it. Here are his illuminating words, taken from this National Review editorial:

There are many reasons for this [why nothing was done about Cho] — the rise of psychotropic drugs, budget cuts, expanded conceptions of civil rights — but one intellectual current behind the trend was a moral disempowerment of sanity. One of the most influential academics of the late 20th century, Michel Foucault, argued that attempts to label and treat madness were inherently arbitrary and repressive. Academia has been celebrating “transgression” ever since.

Any attempt to romanticize madness has an incontrovertible answer in Cho Seung-Hui. This is what madness truly is: lonely, painful, shattering, and potentially murderous. After seeing the sick trail of misery left by such transgression, can we expend some of the same intellectual energy honoring wholesome normality?

The above two paragraphs are an astoundingly rich motherlode of stupid. Do I even need to rip it apart? I mean golly...I didn't know that leftist intellectuals with a penchant for French philosophers called all the shots at V. Tech. Or that the ghost of Foucault hovers over the shoulders of administrators like some creepy floating Jesus, telling them, Non! Zat Cho, hees not eensane, he's "transgresseeve..." (apologies to the French for my crap rendition of a French accent).

Lowry's argument above is just a laughably bad attempt to paint the incident as yet another example of the moral decay of Amurrica as caused by the intellectual left. However, the below is downright scary:

But Virginia Tech also had to cope with an extremely strict state commitment law that requires that someone represent an “imminent danger” to himself or others before he can be compelled to seek treatment. A judge ruled in 2005 that Cho met this standard, but nothing much came of it (although he reportedly was on an antidepressant). Virginia hasn’t caught up to other states that have begun to recover from the excesses of deinstitutionalization and have made it easier to compel treatment.

What does he mean, "compel treatment"? I somehow doubt he means, "Send the person to a well-funded facility with a hgh staff-to-patient ratio, with his or her livelihood protected by laws forbidding his or her suspension from school or termination of employment, and with all costs covered."

And had Lowry been paying any attention to leftist intellectuals, he would have understood that the lesson to take away from them is that it's much easier to strip away the civil rights of those lacking "wholesome normality."

People like me.

I attempted suicide -- obviously danger to self. I am also an alcoholic -- definite danger to self, possible danger to others. Lowry suggests we loosen interpretations of what constitutes "imminent danger."

So, friends, what should be done with Hiromi, a source of potential danger? Should I have to report to a probation officer of sorts? If I miss an appointment or an AA meeting, do I get whisked off for "treatment?" What if I didn't have insurance? Would I be "compelled" to seek treatment at the nightmarish state mental health facilities? I shudder to think what would happen to me there.

Not that Lowry and his ilk would shudder. I mean, what the fuck? Who cares what happens to nut cases like me -- y'all are safer, right?

Posted by Hiromi at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

I'm going to make an appointment with my psychiatrist to discuss getting off my meds. I'm convinced that the DSM keeps expanding not because there are actually undiagnosed illnesses out there, but because psychology is a growth industry.

I have a "mood disorder." If you can find a copy of the DSM, look this up. It's nothing more than a residual category that essentially consists of "weird people we can't figure out." The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that what ails me is environmental.

Here's my life history of "mental illness":

1) Adolescent depression -- I flat-out didn't fit in. I always had a unassimilable personality. That, plus introversion and introspection, does not make one the life of the party. I was depressed because I felt alienated. I was really happy when I finally went to university.

2) I was happy until the rape occurred. Then I suppressed that trauma for years, which is a better explanation than neurotransmitter imbalance for the problems I had in my twenties.

3) I abused alcohol, which caused unpleasant consequences in my life, and the resultant shame ate away at me.

4) When I think about it, a lot of my issues that led to diagnoses of depression and bipolarity are probably the result of emotional trauma, and my symptoms more closely match PTSD.

5) Sure, I was suicidal, but I had just gotten out of my marriage, was abusing alcohol and pills, and for some reason, at that time in my life, all my suppressed traumas surfaced at once. It was too much. I was tired, and could see no way out.

I'm pretty sure talk therapy, AA, and my sexual assault support group should be enough to pull me through. I want to emphasize that I'm not going off my meds without a doctor's say so. If I understand why and when I do the things I do, I can learn healthier behaviors. If I figure out what my destructive patterns of thought are, then I can learn how to think different ones. I don't need drugs for that.

Posted by Hiromi at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Let me say this up front: don't read this blog if you want pretty stories. Or neat and tidy ones, or uplifting ones, or even dignified ones. I'm no ersatz starlet traipsing in and out of treatment centers. Recovery is both incredibly mundane and full of ugly humanity.

There was something about Blade Runner that I never understood until I picked up a copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? recently and leafed through it. Now all the animal-related questions make sense -- Leon being asked about the turtle being flipped on its back, Rachael being asked about the wasp on her arm and the killing jar. Replicants aren't capable of animal-empathy. They may say the right things, but their eyes say different. The Voight-Kampff machine exposes the ways that their bodies betray their attempts to "pass." Even if you've mastered the proper gestures, gait, body language, and speech, your body can betray you on a deeper level.

Same goes for us and our real-life Voight-Kampff machines. Consider the following reading I've been doing about the brain. This NY Times article is about a prune-sized area of the brain called the insula, which essentially combines rational thinking with feelings and emotion. The article was written after it was reported that people who experience lesions to this part of the brain were able to quit smoking instantaneously. Here's a quote from the article:

The human insula, with its souped-up anatomy, is also important for processing events that have yet to happen, Dr. Paulus said. “When you decide to go outside on a cold day, your body gets ready before you hit the cold air,” he said. “It starts pumping blood to where you need it and adjusts your metabolism. Your insula tells you what it will feel like before you step outside.”

The same goes for drug addicts. When an addict is confronted with sights, sounds, smells, situations or other stimuli associated with drug use, the insula is activated before using the drug. “If you give cocaine to an addict, you are affecting their brain’s reward system, but this is not what drives the person to keep using cocaine,” Dr. Paulus said. The craving is what gets people to use.

More on the brain chemistry of we addicts from this NY Times Sunday Magazine article:

Recent studies in both animals and humans have indicated that those with low levels of dopamine D2 receptors, which regulate the release of dopamine in the brain, are more likely to find the experience of taking drugs pleasurable. Some researchers, like Volkow, suggest that people with fewer D2 receptors experience a less intense reward signal, causing them to overindulge in order to feel satisfied.

and thees:

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) is the brain's major inhibitory transmitter, and its role, in essence, is to keep glutamate, the main excitatory transmitter, from overwhelming us. In the extreme, too much glutamate can cause a seizure and too much GABA can put us in a coma. Researchers are particularly interested in the brain's critical balance of GABA and glutamate — some hypothesize that addictive craving is the result of too much glutamate or too little GABA ... "What's been shown is that people with alcohol and cocaine problems have less GABA in their brains, and we do know that medications that increase GABA have shown some efficacy in treating addiction." ([Dr.] Vocci says that it isn't yet clear whether the absence of GABA is a cause of addiction or a result.)

So if you were to show me an ice cold shot of vodka, my insula would betray me, as would distinctive differences in dopamine receptors and GABA activity in my brain. My brain is distinctive for other reasons, too. I've included two links about brain changes associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): this one from a website, but if you are interested in medical journals, here's an article from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. According to those articles, rape and eight years of psychological torment have rendered my medial prefrontal cortex smaller than normal and hyporesponsive; my amygdala hypersensitive; and my hippocampus diminished in volume, neuronal integrity, and functional integrity. In addition to brain changes, I have lower levels of cortisol and higher levels of epinephrine and norepinephrine, apparently. Having typed all that, I realize that the terror that I felt when the ex emailed me about joint taxes last week, the feeling that he was "going to get me" wasn't some figment separate from my tissue. So much for the mind-body dichotomy.

I used to believe that I was born broken. I believed I was raped and abused because in nature, that's the fate that befalls defective creatures -- if a newly-hatched chick has defects, the others will peck it to death. I don't believe that anymore. Or to be more honest, I'm maybe 90% sure that's not true. But I can't deny that my experiences have changed me so fundamentally that the changes are actually physical and measurable. I may not have been born broken, but I have been broken and warped.

Don't tell me I'm being harsh on myself -- there are things in me that are fundamentally wrong. Show a normal person ice cold vodka or vicodin, and they see liquid or white tablets. Show me, and my insula lights up, my pleasure centers go out of whack. What other twisted things make my brain light up, my pupils dilate? I spent a part of tonight gripped with intense self-loathing; that might not be abnormal, but how do you explain an almost overpowering urge to bite down on my own tongue so I can taste the blood? The inside of my head is not a pretty place. I don't look for pity or praise. What I need is an outlet. I feel that if I ride out the urges to drink and to self-harm, or if I give them concrete form external to me, I will purge them.

Some day, I will rule the world. I know it.

I've neglected this: 25peeps.com

Posted by Hiromi at 12:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

I re-read my post from yesterday, and realized that I may have sounded a bit loony at one point, so I feel I should clarify what I meant here:

I was defining their behavior as "irrational." But how do we define what is "rational"? If your goal is longevity, then jiketsu (suicide as committed by a soldier in certain situations) is irrational; however, if your goal is to die with honor as defined by your belief system, is it in fact irrational? I don't know.

In the quote above, I was referring to a scene in which a superior officer, faced with inevitable defeat, decided to commit jiketsu, and gave orders to his men to do the same. Each man took a grenade, pulled the pin, and then held it to his chest. Some did this without any hesitation at all, and it is them that I am talking about, not the poor guys who felt coerced into doing so.

I want to say a few things first, though, before I continue. There are several different words in Japanese that are used to refer to suicide. Jisatsu is the general term for suicide and it literally means "kill oneself." It's a common misconception that in Japan, it's "okay" to kill yourself. It's not. The vast majority of people think it's tragic and sad, but they don't think you're going to hell if you do. But as with all things, each individual's mileage may vary. Jiketsu literally means "self determination," but it's not used when, say, a person jumps in front of a train. That's jisatsu. I don't have exhaustive knowledge as to exactly what situations it's appropriate to use jiketsu. "Euthanasia" is a Western concept, and is therefore a medical neologism, not a form of "self-determination." Maybe it can be used when the president of some company kills himself after his products kill a whole bunch of people? I don't know, but the most common usage is for soldiers who kill themselves in the context of battle. If an entire unit dies fighting, then it's called gyokusai, which literally means "shattering of jewels." Toward the end of WWII, there was a growing idea that civilians should also commit gyokusai rather than surrender (this happened in Okinawa -- I don't know if my father's relations died from air raids or gyokusai). None of the above words were used to refer to "kamikaze," by the way. They weren't even called "kamikaze," they were called "Special Attack Units."

Anyway, that was the point in the movie where I started thinking about death and rationality. The cartoon version of my belief system goes thusly (and I don't want to debate this): Killing Other People is Bad, Including War and the Death Penalty, with Self Defense as the Common Sense Exception (I want to omit abortion for this post for reasons of brevity). So, we have a unit of Japanese soldiers on an island. They've been told that they will have no sea or air support, and no reinforcements or supplies. Surrender is ideologically (you might even argue religiously) out of the question. Dying in the service of the Emperor will bring honor on you and your family, and you will be enshrined as a war hero in the national shrine Yasukuni. So is it necessarily crazy to clutch that grenade against your chest?

Personally, I wouldn't have. I would've disobeyed orders and taken my chances with the Americans (although Japanese POWs were known to be mistreated and/or killed [I don't want to debate this]). I don't think this is just because I'm American; according to personal accounts, many Japanese soldiers felt the same way I do. My, and their, goal is survival, not "honor." The hell with honor; I want to eat cereal and watch cartoons on Saturday mornings!

But consider this (thanks Ray for the example): the soldier who lands himself on a grenade to save his buddies and won the Medal of Honor. Or the soldier who charges a machine gun nest alone so that his fellow soldiers might run to safety, or any other situation in which a soldier puts his life on the line for his buddies. Altruism you say? Maybe, but it's also suicide. (Let's ignore the suicide bombers of today -- I don't think they're fighting in the same sort of war).

Take the example of the soldier who charges a machine gun nest: he kills enemy soldiers in order to save his buddies. Still altruistic and heroic? What about the kamikaze pilot who crashes his plane into enemy ships? Strictly speaking, they were doing this to further Japan's war efforts; they weren't ordered to die rather than surrender, so it wasn't jiketsu. And even though they may not have done this without reservation, parallels can still be drawn between them and the soldier who charges the machine gun nest -- they are buying their fellow soldiers some time. We have no problem calling the kamikaze pilots "crazy" or "irrational," but to me, it seems like we reserve those words for Them, not Us.

I will repeat: I am not making any statements on whether these soldiers' behaviors are right or wrong. I've already stated that I believe killing is wrong overall, and I don't approve of suicide (Hey, I never killed myself, right?). I'm talking about words like "irrational" or "crazy" or "fanatical." I have no answers; I'm just thinking in print. The whole thing is just not cut and dried to me.

1) Stupid and/or hostile comments not welcome.
2) Click preeze! 25peeps.com

Posted by Hiromi at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

I thought I'd pretty much run the gamut of unpleasant feelings, but I had a new one on Monday. Prior to writing that post, I went poking around in our shared email account. The ex used it with impunity, since I'm not the sort to read other people's correspondence, even if there's this whole thread in the inbox of a shared account. But because I wanted to clarify the nature of our relationship, I suspended my usual system of ethics regarding privacy. This probably wasn't a good idea from the standpoint of protecting myself from triggers, but I'm the type of person who HAS to look, consequences be damned.

Because there was no immediate reaction, I thought everything was okay. Maybe I didn't trigger myself after all. But it was weird, hearing that voice in my head again, and as the hours passed, I passed from anger to disquiet to something worse. It's hard to explain the feeling; my surroundings seemed less real, and I felt like I was being stalked. All this kind of lulled me into a deer-in-headlights sort of state in which I could only sit in my chair and stare straight ahead. There was a weird tingling pain in the back of my head like some sort of brain cramp.

Half of me was thinking "Run away! Run away!" and the other half was thinking, "Hmm. A new variety of crazy. This is kind of neat."

Anyway. Nice conversation starter next time I see my therapist.

Posted by Hiromi at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

This isn't a comfortable post. I've looked many demons full in the face, but the worst time of all was when I was suicidal. If you're disturbed by that topic, you might want to stop reading.

Even though I might sink into dark depths these days, I've still made so much progress. I no longer feel suicidal, and am horrified to think that I could have taken my own life. I may feel desperate, but not despair. This is a post I've been wanting to write for a long time, but held back for fear of triggering someone who might be reading. But this post really isn't about death, it's about waking from a long nightmare.

Two things prompted me to write: first, Always Aroused Girl wrote about her struggle with depression in this post, in which she referenced suicial ideation, and then Ray mentioned my dark days here. The topic is taboo. Rooms fall silent and people avert their eyes. Nevertheless, since reading those, I have felt compelled to expand on my experience. It's like an itch that won't go away.

I don't think suicidal ideation is terribly uncommon. Many horribly suffering people will think of suicide, but in the sense that they want a release from suffering, and death seems the quickest, surest method of deliverance. In that sense, there is still some hope. They don't necessarily want to leave the world; they want to leave their suffering.

That's one kind of suicidal ideation, one in which a person has not yet given up all hope or sanity. You do cross the line into insanity, however, when you begin to plan your death and set your affairs in order. I know, because I stepped over that line this past...March? April? I've written before of the sensation of insanity: I felt madness slithering on the bottom of my mind like snakes, like alien entities and not a part of me at all. It was as though the light of day could only glance on my skin, but would then be reflected away. Air couldn't penetrate my skin, either; if either light or air were to have penetrated my skin, perhaps they could have dispersed the dark seething mass within. And lost within that seething mass, I could think of no other way out.

I don't ever want to hear anyone say that it's the "easy way out" or that it's "cowardly." That's the most callous sort of willful ignorance. In my case, I felt nothing but extreme...tiredness. I'd been through too much, and I was drained and exhausted, and the thought of continuing...I couldn't bear it. Even when thinking about those who loved me, I could only think that if I were gone, they would be better off. I was less than worthless, my very existence was a poison to all around me. It seemed the only solution. The thought attached itself to me and wouldn't go away.

Intelligence can be dangerous; I used it to construct elaborate, logical justifications for my drug and alcohol abuse, and I used it to meticulously research suicide methods. After consulting many sources, I settled upon three methods that I will not describe in any detail for reasons that should be obvious. The methods were ranked in order of efficacy and in terms of "messiness" -- you have to consider the feelings of the people who are going to discover your body, you know. I knew where to get everything I needed. I planned how my family would be notified. I planned the timing of the event to coincide with the ending of the two year suicide clause of my life insurance.

I was in the middle of sorting out how to deal with my belongings, my self-portraits, any evidence of online life, when I was "discovered," so to speak, by a dear friend. I was forced to seek help, but I didn't do enough to help myself. Only after my overdose was I truly on the path to recovery. It's such a strange thought, that I was saved. I marvel that somehow I'm worth saving and had such stupendous good fortune. And the only way I can ever hope to pay that back is to continue living.

But it's not easy.

I'm so ungrateful.

Here I sit, thankful to be alive, but hating every minute.

(actually, typing that sentence made me laugh)

How can I explain my state of mind at this moment? Yet again, Miss Syl helps me find words. She spoke of a song that I hadn't heard in years, Wouldn't It Be Good? (it's a YouTube link -- too lazy to mess with audio files today), a song that triggered memories for her, and can speak for me as well. Fuck Allan Bloom -- popular music can resonate, too. Often, simplicity can cut to the core far more quickly than the most complex of symphonies. It contains this line:

Wouldn't be it good if we could wish ourselves away?

That's what I mean these days when I think "I'm better off dead." I no longer want to die, but I still long for deliverance. I don't wish to erase my existence, but I want to exist in another form entirely. I want a different life.

I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm also well aware of the things I should be thankful for: my personal insights, resilience, friends, family; many things. Nevertheless, it's a torturous process, and talking about it helps, as that most eloquent of drunks said, "I don't know why I said that, but I said it."


Note: Ed. Oct 30 to reorganize flow of ideas

Posted by Hiromi at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

I fucken hate to cry. Not only are a red runny nose and red runny eyes completely unattractive, crying is completely pointless. I was certainly never able to use crying as a form of manipulation, not least because there's nothing more mortifying to me than spilling emotional goo in front of people.

These days, I flat out don't allow myself to cry if it's the direct result of something I did. Or didn't do. If someone I love gets sick or gets into an accident, I can cry. If I get sick or get into an accident, I can cry. If I see George Bailey running down a snowy street waving at people, I can cry. If I see something wondrous, I can cry. Otherwise, it's stiff uppermotherfuckenlip.

My other policy is Never Look Unhappy. This has got nothing to do with trying to positively manage my moods. Instead, it's because I don't want frown lines. That's all, just my neurotic fear of aging and wrinkles. I don't walk around smiling like a loon, either. It's better to maintain an inquiring, interested look, since it's a lot easier to keep your eyebrows slightly raised than it is to try to look happy all the time. Try it -- it's hard to frown with your eyebrows slightly raised.

I'm gonna test these policies for a while and see how they works.

Posted by Hiromi at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

If life followed a script, the heroine would have turned her back on the past after facing it squarely and moved forward, rebuilding her life. That's how I wanted it; that's how anyone would have wanted it. But as Faulkner said, the past isn't dead. It isn't even past.

The Once were warriors post was hastily written after sleepless nights, sleepless despite the Xanax and vodka cocktails. Something was trying to get out, and Tuesday morning it did. But it wasn't finished. I overdosed afterwards.

You cannot will yourself to become well. Being depressed, being an addict; these are not things to be willed away. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had planned all along to rely on Xanax or Valium or some other substance despite admitting to addiction. I fooled myself into thinking I would stop after a couple of months. However, a sane corner of my brain that I'd been trying to shut up with drugs and alcohol pulled the brakes hard. My hands seemed to move of their own volition as they opened up another bottle and shook out pills.

That was the lowest I ever hope to go: in the ER, wondering who will take me home. I feared I'd sustained brain damage, since I couldn't walk properly, let alone think, for several days. However, that experience finally made me listen to what people have been telling me for months, to close that door forever.

I once wrote that in order for a new being to emerge, the old one must be smashed to pieces. I smashed the last vestiges of my old self, all the lies. I stopped lying to myself, my family, my doctors. I told everyone everything. Now, there is a larger circle of people watching me for the warning signs. I can say with certainty that I'm finally taking real steps toward sanity. I look back at last week -- the past several years, to be honest -- and it seems I'd spent it in a black, palpable miasma of insanity. I feel unburdened. I feel lighter.

I know I'm getting better because I can look at souvenirs of my insanity and laugh with sympathy at the person I am. I found two souvenirs this weekend. I opened my purse and found it stuffed with things like business cards from my therapist and shrink, with "Mental Health Deputies - 311" and "SafePlace Austin" written on the backs. There were directions to AA meetings scrawled on scraps of paper. The traces of a life not lived well.

During my move, I noticed a packed cardboard box with this strange squiggly writing on top: (something) books; glass (something). "Oh shit," I thought, and hastily put it in an inconspicuous corner of my new apartment. I do not remember packing that box while I was out of it. Last night, I took a deep breath and opened it. Opening that box was like opening a window into a disordered mind. Things were packed together at random. Not only that, but apparently I had gotten hold of some styrofoam and smashed it up, making my own styrofoam peanuts. These "peanuts" had gotten stuck in the pages of books and would not stop clinging to every goddamn thing.

Has this blog gotten too confessional? I don't care. It helps me think about who I am. I'm Hiromi. I'm an alcoholic and an addict.

Posted by Hiromi at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)