What are our friends doing, when we don't see them?
What are our favorite short story writers doing in the long periods when they aren't polishing the paragraphs we finally love so much? Or novelists when they aren't hewing away at the massive structure of their newest Bildungsroman?
Or actors when they aren't getting deep into the role on stage, on film? Even commercial actors, when they aren't doing one of the hundred or two takes it needs to get the spoon into the cereal exactly right. The politician, the...
well, you get the point.
What have I been doing when I'm not blogging?
Nothing.
Really, virtually nothing. Even less than usual: sleeping very long, being depressed but not very, having some long, tangled dreams of living in the room next to John, of traveling with Mitchell, both clearly dreams about some sort of trusted human contact; and being... well, nothing much.
Last Wednesday, in the midst of this fog of nothing (a familiar fog, unfortunately – I spent much of the mid-90s, and much of the last five years, in this fog; in addition to various other times, it's something I've done off and on) I met with Melinda, my therapist. She had the results back from several tests that measure depression and dysfunction; I was getting fairly high (i.e. low) marks, which didn't surprise either of us, though I'm still clearly in control of myself, etc.
She, and I, were however surprised at how many different things seemed to be quite wrong on one of the tests – as she said, "rather a lot of spikes" – spikes in, in fact, the areas named: depression, anxiety, dysthymia; lesser spikes in narcissism, negativism; and then lesser spikes than that in areas named dependent, aggressive, schizoid, avoidant, etc. Rather a depressing list in fact (though you'll be glad to know I scored very low in areas named compulsive and histrionic; but I scored high on 'disclosure' – i.e. the kind of thing that made Anne Sexton a 'confessional' poet).
Now Melinda takes this seriously, but not too seriously, as she knows me well and knows how well I function (she did after all put me in charge of the HIV patient group for the past three years). She knows things aren't terribly different for me right now than they have been for a long time (though she thinks Vanessa's and David's deaths were triggers of a kind, indicating the shrinking and fragmentation of a social world already too small to support me) – my unhappiness may be more fully experienced, because the newly reformulated HIV medications don't seem to be damping my feelings as much as they may have been for some years – but on the other hand she also knows I've really wanted help this summer: not so much because I'm exceptionally a mess, but just because I'm truly sick of being a mess, feeling energetic about doing something to make me feel energetic, if you follow my rather circular meaning. Besides, these spikes can be taken as evidence of the artistic personality indulging itself in orgies of interesting emotion (admittedly fairly true) and/or as evidence of exaggerated claims reflecting a cry for help, or for attention (also admittedly true, and not atypical of me). So, as I said: seriously, but not too seriously; or, to paraphrase an old joke, critical but not dangerous. Or something like that.
In fact, I haven't written about all of this here – although I thought I should write about it, given my tendency towards 'disclosure' – because it seemed structurally too hard to explain, too easy to misunderstand. Something Mitch told me during my analysis, in the late 1980s, was that I had a rather unusual personality structure – that my actual personality was indeed rather diffuse, fragmented, confused; but that my persona (i.e. the mask offered to others) had become unusually focused and strong, well-articulated and decisive, as though the persona were taking charge of things and telling the rest of me what to do. Which made an odd sort of sense: this is apparently not unique, but it's not very common either, which is why a lot of therapy and social interaction don't cope with it very well. It's not a disastrous personality structure, but it doesn't work terribly well of course, since various forces are sort of turned on their heads – and, ultimately, too much pressure is brought to bear on a part of the self that is not really made to grow and become stronger.
Although that is now nearly twenty years ago, and I've developed a lot since, I think my internal structure hasn't radically (or sufficiently) changed. Although many parts of my personality are stronger and more confident than they once were, when I'm depressed/uncertain/unhappy the persona is still the one in charge – which, of course, gives everyone (including the therapist) the impression that I'm in better shape than I experience myself as being in (pardon my grammar).
All of my blurrier, unhappier internal bits are made worse by what is called by depression specialists 'rumination' (which has nothing to do with cows, so skip the 'sad cow' jokes) – just as depression patients who seem to have benefited from treatment, if left to their own devices, keep thinking in the same old circles and get worse again, so someone who is too isolated from other people (i.e. me – and note that I am also very 'dependent' as mentioned above, which is no surprise) will simply think themselves into a more and more depressed, fragmented, helpless state (thus creating lots of slightly alarming peaks on certain psychological tests). Which is pretty much the story of my life, especially in recent years.
Ah well. So, all these messinesses: what to do?... and I insist on doing something, I'm frankly sick of myself as I am. (I never said that the hall of mirrors was a nice place: but it's where I live.)
She's going to have me doing some CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy – it's a dicey acronym; aside from computer-based teaching, it also stands for something rather kinky – they should have come up with another term) on a computer in her department, especially anti-depression CBT. I'm going to do some equally pragmatic work on my own with several books I have to hand, and see if I can get somewhere.
I don't mind the rather simplistic, rather mechanistic work that CBT involves: especially as I'm experiencing myself as almost self-hypnotized into depression – repetitive patterns (television, computer solitaire, web surfing) and isolation – I've pretty much been driving myself into a ditch, psychologically speaking, for years, but especially since moving here. And no, it's not enough to simply dig into office work, etc. – I need to develop an internal world that functions well, since my important work is done alone at home; getting focused and energetic about other people's needs will do nothing to change the important parts of my life and career. I need to turn the structure of all of this energy on its head....
I guess it's that, or write poetry.
•••
Postscript: 'House'
Though perhaps television is not always my enemy: an episode of House titled 'Meaning', where the bitter doctor, thrown off balance by change and improved health, is especially and pointlessly nasty to everyone, only to become increasingly bewildered by his own emotional fractures and reactions – I laughed out loud at the episode, although it had no jokes in it: Hugh Laurie did a brilliant job of projecting the discomfort of change, when it comes as a cure for despair....
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