FSM

In addition to having face to face sessions once per week, LD has generously made herself available to me for support outside of those times, such as the following email I just received:
"Keep your vision firmly in your sights.  Future Self Me is confident, grounded and
emotionally connected.  So are you."

Living with uncertainty

I have, against the advice of my sister K. among others, resumed actively playing the dating game, oddly enough using the same online dating service which brought me the staggering highs and debilitating lows of the two-year rollercoaster known as S.

Today  I received a rather passive-aggressive note from one of my matches whom I had initially communicated punctually with, but whose most recent message had gone read but unreturned for a couple of days. She mentioned that she was reluctant to jump to conclusions, and then did just that by associating my tardiness with disinterest. As I racked my brain for what David Burns would call the cognitive distortion which had unfortunately trapped her, I found this good advice on the value of letting go:

"People often jump to conclusions because they have trouble living with uncertainty. Being content with not knowing what people are thinking, and not knowing what is going to happen in your future, is ultimately empowering, as this is the reality that you are living with most of the time: if you admit it, you will ultimately be better equipped to act effectively in different situations and ultimately get the most out of life."

Breathing Room

Yesterday was my second session with LD, and I spent a lot of time tearfully talking about S. and deconstructing the destruction of our relationship and my subsequent collapse. I seem to have this remarkable insight into that situation and my situation, LD even calls me a "great client" - cause I "get it" - so why do I still listen to what she calls my "saboteurs" - aka deceptive brain messages, aka cognitive distortions? I am glad that I can demonstrate such a wonderful talent for introspection, but I would also gladly trade some or all of it for a little bit of contentment.

Clearly I am not going about it the right way. Last week, like every week in recent memory, I spent a lot of time and energy seeking approval from the ongoing list of women I find in my life: E., T., Sh., S., LD, LB. It was a good week for it actually - i.e. the response was good - and I was juggling so many of them there that I even had enough breathing room to relax the strain I have been putting on my immediate family (J. and K.), and even call up my actual mother and invite her to lunch. I had enough oxygen to make the big decision to move into a new apartment. I even withstood a chance encounter with S.'s son V. on Wednesday and the fishing email which followed from S. on Thursday.

But like every junkie, no matter how great the score, no matter how big the fix, it is never enough. It wears off, and I am left feeling emptier, and more desperate than before.

Nothing in the bank

Whatever wellness I might have accumulated from my life-affirming Saturday has long since evaporated, and despite a Monday which included two hours of coaching, 40 minutes with my new shrink, Cantonese roast pork on rice and trivia club, I greet Tuesday with a familiar and profound dread. I am still able to elevate my mood in response to enjoyable or encouraging things, but I burn through it quickly, and once it is gone, as Dr. S. keenly observed, I have "nothing in the bank", and I crash.

A week in the life of a validation junkie

Tell me if you think this sounds like the week of someone who suffers from impenetrable loneliness and debilitatingly painful depression:

Sunday I decided at the last minute to go to a literary street festival, but more importantly I decided to invite E., a woman I had been chatting with online but had yet to meet, to come with me. She came, we had a good time, went for a quick spin on my motorcycle and then chatted over a frozen coffee treat in a park.

Monday I had my trivia league, and the opponents were one of my favourite teams, with whom it is always fun to catch up.

Tuesday I had a hockey game, but first went out with my friend Sh., who messaged me in the morning saying something like "I think you should take me out for a drink tonight, in my neighbourhood". She required consolation for having missed out on a job she really had her hopes up for, as well as the latest in her series of dating disasters. She had more or less predicted the rejection the week before and had joked that we ought to plan to console each other on the Thursday - as she (quite rightly it turns out) predicted that I would also be stood up by T. (see below).

Wednesday was hockey in the morning, my initial session of life coaching with LD in the afternoon, and in the evening I stayed home and answered some overdue emails. Late that evening I got an online call from E., who was treated to a webcam tour of my house, including, somewhat inexplicably, the contents of my refrigerator.

Thursday I was supposed to go out with T., who, to the surprise of no one, cancelled. And that morning, S. called me, although I did not answer the phone. I went shopping after work with J., and while we were out I got a call that I had been approved for an apartment I had applied for downtown. We went out to an Indian restaurant and I had lots of leftovers for lunch the following day.

Friday I went out with E. for our second date. We were supposed to go to a show of sorts at the french language institute, but she was not feeling well and/or tired and suggested we scale it back to me picking her up and taking her out for dinner, which I did and we did. It turned out to be a rather more cerebral evening than either of us would have planned I am sure, and I returned home somewhat discouraged.

But if Friday night ended on a discouraging note, Saturday morning started out even more bleakly. I woke up for the fourth day in a row dreaming about S. -- In this case I was hugging her as tightly as I could and bawling my eyes out, repeating over and over "I miss you so much". My mother came for lunch and then I went out for dinner and drinks with LB, my confidence mentor. We had, as we always do, a fantastic time, covering ground I just never seem to cover with anyone else I know, ground which I am not sure I even knew existed before I met her. We got a little bit carried away, even for us who have known a bit of excess in our limited relationship, but it was and is all good, and for the first morning in five days I awoke Sunday morning compleletely free of any thoughts of S., and devoid of her usual entourage of dread, regret, loneliness and shame. And I rested -- after retrieving my bicycle from the railway station, I did not again leave the house.

Two weddings and I'm funereal

Friday night I arranged to pick up J. at work and take her for her first motorcycle ride on the back of my new toy, as I had just last week obtained the next graduation in the motorcycle licensing scheme in my province, allowing me to ferry passengers (as well as ride after dark and on the highway, restrictions I had all but ignored). She was very excited about riding with me and had made a lot of noise about wanting to be the first passenger on "Jennifer" -- which she had Christened my bike, and I excitedly collected her at her workplace, helmeted and seated her, and drove off to our mutual delight.

Disaster struck when we arrived at her apartment and I realised that somewhere en route the ignition key, along with the keychain consisting of all my current keys, had in defiance of what many would have thought possible, fallen out of the ignition and become lost, with neither discernable effect on the running engine nor warning to the rider. I had a busy schedule for the rest of the weekend and this setback threatened to jeopardize part of it, as I realized that I had to be at my sister's very early the following two mornings, with my truck, and the only now remaining key to my truck was already at her house, in her town, without the truck, which was at my house, in my town, keyless.

So we made the night into an unplanned sleepover at J. and her husband's new place. We had a nice dinner at the pub downstairs and then went upstairs to their apartment and hung out and then when her husband D. came home we hung out some more and went to bed. I slept on the futon folded out in the living room, feeling oddly but appreciatively like the youthful party guest overstaying his welcome but instead of being the unwilling or unwitting host, I was the one "crashing" at my beloved daughter's house.

I called my sister and when I explained the whole debâcle, she marshalled her forces and the next thing I knew, not only was I talking to my nephew who was digging through my boxes looking for my spare key, but having found it, he was arranging to drive it out to me at my house first thing in the morning. Which he did, including picking me up at the subway station and taking me back to my place.

So thanks to my nephew D.'s selflessness, I made it to my sister's place Saturday afternoon, in time to help her with organising and setting up the crucial stuff for the charity run which would take place Sunday morning.

In the meantime, I was still feeling pretty much empty and zero and all those other lovely euphemisms for nothingness, and that night was LD's wedding, and despite my almost impenetrably depressed mood, I forced myself returned to my old street to attend. In fact I spent a lot of time trying to talk myself out of going and second guessing my plan for getting there and getting home, as complicated as it was considering where I suddenly found myself living and the still unresolved debâcle with my keys, misplaced motorcycle, et caetera. Nonetheless I went out the door, got on a local bus to the city line, another bus which I had thought would be a streetcar but there was reconstruction on the rails, another bus which was actually a change in plans, and then a subway train, to meet with J. near the centre of town, and took another bus because that section of the subway was closed up to collect my motorcycle, and with the spare key finally fired up my motorcycle and peeled/trundled off to LD's wedding -- on my old street. Every step of the way I wanted to die and hoped for a hole to open up in the earth into which I could safely crawl. But it was not to happen. I arrived, strolled in, saw a beautiful party, in celebration of a perfect couple, and all I wanted to do was weep.

I was greeted and very kindly acknowledged by LD and her new husband Ph, and I did my best to congratulate and thank but I was already practically trembling and fled the otherwise loving and celebratory event in a fit of anguish.

I did not know anyone at the party other than the blessed bride and groom, and as I drove away from the scene on my motorcycle I felt the tears running down my face before I even passed my old house, before I even got to the end of the street, before I realised how far I had to go to get home, to my so-called new home in a neighbouring town.

And I bawled my eyes out the whole way home. I remember pointing out to myself how incredibly isolated from the world I felt and from everyone. And I remember wanting to die. I remember just crying, uncontrollably, crying.

I am not my brain

It has been an arduous week. It is at the risk of spinning back into the various pits of depression and despair that I attempt to describe it here. I have visited, in these past seven or fourteen or twenty-one days, what I hope will be the darkest and deepest pits of my tortured soul. And it is not that I spotted anything particularly ugly in there: it is simply that I experienced for the first time the effects of being completely debilitated by ones thoughts.
And it has been particularly intense, and extremely debilitating.
I have been discouraged by a consistent stream of deceptive messages from my unfortunate brain.
I have been encouraged by the reassurance I have distilled particularly from my latest bible, You are not your brain. Indeed, I am not my brain, and I intend to prove it by overcoming the effects of believing that nonsense, and by demonstrating it.

Blue Monday

My sister K. asked me this morning how I was, where I was on the downer scale, from 1 to 10. I told her three, but subsequently I would estimate it more like a two.

Feelings are not reality. That has been my mantra since last week, courtesy of LD, who wrote that, and more, in a very helpful email to me in which she also invited me, when I am ready, to engage with her in a "visioning" exercise. Right now it is so hard to see the light. And yet even in these bleak days I have had occasional good ones, where my mood was completely the opposite. And it is just as hard when I am up like that to remember what it feels like to be down like this, as it is now to even imagine a future where I am happy.

Gratitude Lists

LD suggested that I start doing a daily gratitude list in order to remind myself of the things I should be thankful for and which ought to make me feel a bit more blessed and a little less cursed. This is the initial list I sent her yesterday.

• I am grateful for my God-given blessing of living in relative comfort in a technologically advanced society.
• I am grateful for my sister and her unconditional support for me whenever I need it.
• I am grateful for my many friends who selflessly and generously give me their time, their ears, and their shoulders.
• I am grateful for my innate talents of intelligence and introspection.
• I am grateful for my work, for the rewards and challenges it continually offers me.
• I am grateful for all the opportunities I have been given which have enabled me to achieve the successes I have.

Gradually expanding your comfort zone

The secret to building confidence is to repeatedly take action that gradually expands your comfort zone. Over time, your nerves settle and feelings of self-confidence develop.
That is what it says here!

Awakening

I find it hard to settle on one particular metaphor to describe the process of awakening I have undergone since January, and continue to undergo as I transition (I think!) to a purposeful life. Even "awakening" is of course a metaphor -- an accurate but vague one, with many more colourful cousins. In the early days and weeks, when the fog had first lifted, I likened the feeling to rapture, and somewhat cheekily and rather crudely explained that it felt like I had unknowingly been walking around most of my life with my head up my ass. Such a posture would of course cultivate a sort of ignorance which would be invisible to the subject, until such time as he, as did I, manages to remove his head from the comforts of its prison and lifts it up to survey the view above the grass and take in the new, wider context. In some ways it is not so much a graduation from a pointless to a purposeful life, as it is an expansion of horizons, and of capacity, allowing a starved purpose finally to grow. In other words, ignorant life was not purposeless, it was simply governed by a purpose whose scope was in fact well-suited to the restricted perspective.

And peeking above the grass is really just the first glimpse of the bigger world out there. Even from way down here I can see that there are a whole series of higher perches with even broader perspectives up there from which to view the world around me. The sky's the limit!

External validation vs. self-validation

When things went south for me and S., we tried to get help. We asked my (now our) GP and it turned out his office mate did couples therapy so we went to see him a few times, maybe four times in total. Her biggest beef as told to him was that I did not know when to leave her alone, that she was prone to being overwhelmed by her own internal emotional tsunamis, and that I needed to learn to just get out of the way and let it pass. My biggest beef with her was that I was hurt by her capricious behaviour, I saw it as disrespectful and could not understand why she thought it was acceptable to treat me the way she did.
When we first started dating, when I was still walking on air, she really did behave like someone who genuinely cared about me. But the shine quickly wore off, and we entered a co-dependency spiral. I fell into the worst kind of validation trap, increasingly desperately seeking (and being denied) external validation from what ought to have obviously been such an unlikely, dysfunctional source. What I did not realise then was that my dependency on external validation is inherently destructive, and no amount of approval from S. would ever have been enough for me anyway. I have to learn to self-validate.

Brick Therapy

I am very fortunate to have my sister K. during times in my life when I am struggling. Not only is she an inspirational role model for me, but she is also a valuable advisor with keen insight. She has long been my one of my closest confidantes, and my only confidante in my family really. She is very charitable with her time when I need her, despite being the focal point of a busy family of her own, and regardless of how monotonous my lunacy must seem at times. Her attitude is very down-to-earth towards most situations, and she has little trouble seeing and cutting through crap to get to the heart of most things. Her advice to me thus tends to be of the "give your head a shake" variety. One of the things she has recommended for me several times in our recent conversations has been something she calls Brick Therapy. Curious enough about what that might entail, I googled it and indeed it looks intriguing from what I can understand. Even if I never have to resort to such radical therapy, it is reassuring to know there are always a few more arrows in the quiver.

Crowded

Yesterday was the national holiday, and I went with my friends PM and SC to a huge concert to see a big band at a former air base at the edge of the city. It was a whole-day holiday affair, being a Friday, and we did it up nicely with beers and an all-afternoon barbequeue on PM's deck before jumping on the subway and heading up to the show. And it was chaos by the time we got there -- we got split up when we exited the subway and headed for the shuttle buses, which were packed to the roof like everything else but which nonetheless got us to the show. Once we got there we were tied down in the beer lineups, waiting for the main act to come on, which they eventually did, and eventually SC and I were able to worm our way up to the absolute front of the crowd where we partied like we had no idea because essentially we had no idea.
It was probably the largest crowd I have ever been in, and an homogeneous one at that composed almost entirely of 20something working class and small town hosers. I was overcome by a similar feeling as had almost felled me the previous evening of being an ill-fitting outsider with no connection to the group, even though the group was so different. It is as if no matter the nature of the group, I want to belong, and I do not fit in.

Branding, part I: Future Ghosts

I mentioned that my friend LB, who coördinated the renovation and staging of my house for the sale, had started a couple of businesses -- in fact each time I see her she seems to have branched out into something new. When we first met she was beginning the home staging but by the time we reconnected in the spring and I hired her to stage the house, she had launched her "personal branding" business. I am possibly more of a candidate for a "life coach" than a brand consultant, but close enough, and her track record was unassailable, so once the dust had settled from the sale, both in my house and in my head, and I felt like I was ready for the next step, I asked her what she thought she could do for me. She arranged for me to meet her last Thursday for a drink after work at a fancy, members-only club in a trendy part of town near her apartment.

I arrived early, in my new suit, chosen by P. and test-driven a few weeks previously at the national policy convention, and found myself nervously and self-consciously nursing a pint and waiting for her on the sunny rooftop patio, feeling for all the world like the ultimate outsider among a tightly-knit clique. But before I could twist such superficial alienation into full-blown loners, LB arrived and I was back at ease, safe in the warm envelope of our the profound connection I find I share with her.

And with that simple blueprint unfolded a delicious and unforgettable evening, all within the tiny radius of a few hundred square metres, as we carved a path from roof, to patio, to bar, and briefly to her apartment, riding the intoxicating highs of her unarrestable and almost unlimited ambition for herself, and her genuine, infectious enthusiasm for me and my incredible potential. She laid bare for me the absurdity of my insecurity considering my advantages and my talents, and made such a simple, indisputable case for recognising that my only obstacle is myself. At one point she led me on a Dickensian tour of the ghosts of my past, present, and future, whereupon she walked me around the bar and contrasted me with the local barflies, whose refinement compared extremely unfavourably with mine, but whose confidence and thus track record nonetheless dwarfed mine. I was close, she took me right to the edge of the water and I could see the entire picture, but I was still frozen on the shore, on the sidelines.