We must love with our brokenness

If somebody asks you what you look for in a relationship, you might list things like trust, respect, patience, and shared interests. These are pretty common criteria for relationships. Okay, so you meet somebody who possesses all the things you're looking for. You go on a few dates and then you realize that there's no chemistry. What happened? If we're all looking for the same things, why isn't it easier to fall in love? It's possible that the list of expectations we've authored in our heads omits certain realities.

(I'm going to ignore the objectifying nature of dating apps for this post. I could get into how the brain processes online dating, but I'm due for a lighthearted post.)

Let's pretend we're on our guilty-pleasure dating app. In curating a profile that communicates our best selves, we might choose content featuring our best angles, a balanced selfie-to-group-photo ratio, a witty bio, and a clear call to action that'll certainly attract the right people.

So we have the perfect profile and we're ready to go. Swipe left, swipe up by mistake, swipe right and

It's a Match!

(Congratulations, somebody has fallen for
your manufactured internet persona!)

I'm not trying to shit on us. We're not consciously deceiving people on the internet, I assume, because few of us are that audacious. But that's really what it comes down to. Let me explain.

We put our best selves forward in many interactions. A few reasons people do this:

1. We refuse to look at the parts of us that don't convey perfection.
2. We acknowledge our character flaws, and we think we're good at hiding them.
3. We are looking for "positive energy" and figure the only way to attract it is to exude it.

This is something called impression management that Goffman (1959) pre-internet defined as the way we maintain control over how others view us. Today, the personae we feed on social media tend to be fed through liked-based conditioning. Person A got 40,000 likes for posting X, so I'll assimilate. On Tinder, there's even a fucking toggle switch for "smart photos" which orders your profile photos for you based on an algorithm that gets more suckers to swipe. In a face-to-face interaction, we're conditioned by smiles, laughs, hugs, and second dates. Person B really liked when I talked about Y, so I should talk about that more often.

Most of this happens unconsciously. It might be brought into consciousness here and there, but the majority of it happens in accordance to mental structures we probably aren't aware of, like attachment styles derived from early childhood.† So what does this mean?

Tying in attachment theory, few of us are blessed with secure attachment styles--meaning that many of us have trust or communication issues. Some of these issues are fallout from our relatives' experiences.† Some of these issues indeed are consequences of our social and emotional realities. It's not easy to acknowledge our own shortcomings, in part because many of them are invisible to us. You know the cliché about a fish in water? Even if we consider ourselves to be painfully critical of ourselves, we do not see everything. However, with the help of counseling or even difficult conversations with our loved ones, we can begin to understand our behavioral quirks.

Before you go changing anything about yourself, I want you to sit with the things that aren't considered profile-worthy. For example, I tend not to give people second chances. It depends on the situation, of course, but I have a chronic tendency to move on. I've grown up believing essentially everyone is replaceable on an interpersonal level.

Wouldn't that stuff be nice to know on a first date? How often have you met somebody who seemed put together at first but was actually an emotional A-bomb? True, unconditional love involves accepting all the pieces of a person. We've just been conditioned to hide the broken ones.

And the good thing is: We're all a little bit broken.

(Photo by Omar Khan)

I was on the phone with my best friend talking about this, and she said it reminded her of the Japanese Kinsugi art form which repairs broken pottery with golden lacquer. It honors the brokenness, valuing the piece's history. Rather than discarding the item, this art form puts the broken pieces together to make something arguably more beautiful than it was before.

Being aware of our cracks and missing pieces, we can use those to connect with others. The more aware of ourselves we become, the deeper we can look into other people. I like to ask questions that give me between-the-lines data about potential partners. One of my favorite questions to ask is "If you had to give one piece of advice to the entire world, what would it be?" This not only shows me what they think the rest of the world needs to hear, but it's often indicative of what's going on inside themselves.

Too often, we're encouraged to look at virtue in other people, but choosing only to look at light doesn't rid the world of darkness. While it's not necessary to interrogate your date, gathering and exchanging information about each other's brokenness can help you connect on a deeper level than if you'd maintained a perfection-based, superficial relationship. Ask yourself what you're ashamed of and locate the origin of those qualities. Only when we broaden our self-image to include the brokenness can we find somebody who might either be broken in a similar way or in a way that complements our brokenness.

Also, being single is the fucking tits. You don't need to rush yourself into anything that's going to stunt your own growth. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important.

If you'd like to vent or talk about your weirdest Tinder date, please use the contact form on the right-hand side of this page to get in touch with me. I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time, friends, take care. :)

The Dobby Effect

I've never identified with the Harry Potter craze myself, but I do remember one of the movies. While Hermione resonated with me the most, a part of me connected with the incessant shame held by this little house elf.

(Art by Marta)

His name is Dobby. His demeanor is wildly apologetic and laden with guilt. The purpose of house elves is to serve, and they punish themselves if they can't please their superiors properly.

• "Bad Dobby, bad Dobby!"
• "If Dobby does it wrong, Dobby will throw himself off the topmost tower..."

As if desensitized to thoughts about throwing myself off a building, the most haunting image Dobby paints is when he says "Dobby feels most aggrieved, sir. Dobby had to iron his hands."

While I'm positive I've never taken measures as extreme as Dobby's, the act of balancing shame with physical punishment unfortunately is pretty familiar. Nelissen and Zeelenberg (2009) liken this Dobby Effect to the "notion that sins can be absolved through acts of atonement." Self-punishment is an attempt at regulating inner or outer behaviors that make/have made us feel guilty.

Guilt on its own is a helpful device. It often signals a behavior we probably shouldn't repeat. If we hurt somebody's feelings, for example, we might apologize due to regret or as a step toward vindication. If that guilt lingers, we might try to bring a pain upon ourselves that seems equivalent to the pain we inflicted on the other person.

The tendency to self-punish is often learned, whether physical or emotional. Those of us with hyper-apologetic personalities may self-punish through unconscious habits like biting our lips or pulling out our hair. Others who identify as hyper-apologetic might require heavier punishments like damaging our skin or depriving ourselves of meals.

If you're wondering why people who harm themselves don't just stop, it's not that simple, I wish it were that simple.

What if your guilt seems to exist for no reason?

Girl, SAME.

Sometimes the impact of our parents (or our parents' parents, etc.) trauma trickles down the bloodline.† Both of my parents had difficult childhoods with broken, emotionally deficient family situations. They did their best giving me what they could, but the correlation between emotional unavailability and emptiness survived their best attempts at resolving it.

The most important steps moving forward involve knowing where we come from and knowing where we are now. Per usual, if you want to unload, please feel free use the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. :)

Stay well, friends! Talk to you later.

Attachment theory

I have issues.
Attachment issues. Bowlby (1969) studied attachment in young children, noticing how children from different familial backgrounds behaved around others. He defined attachment as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings." Although the relationship between caregiver and child begins early in the child's life, this connection serves as a model that frames future relationships. What starts as a survival mechanism in childhood often becomes similar attachment styles in adulthood.

I'm going to isolate each of these relationships to illustrate how my development might have progressed in a vacuum. My most secure relationship was with my dad. On its own, one might gather that I have an easy time trusting and connecting with men (life is not that black-and-white). Since my most insecure relationship was with my mom, this might suggest that I'm quick to avoid relationships with women.

Of course, parents tend not to be the only figures in children's lives. Each of our stories is multifaceted. Extended family members, babysitters, teachers, and others play a role in shaping how children see the world. For example, someone who experienced secure attachments with both parents may endure damage from other social influences. What happens when we lose a parent through mortality or divorce? What happens when the parent we connected to most has an affair and starts a new family elsewhere? Many things contribute to the truths that swim around the unconscious mind. As we always say here: Before we step forward, it's helpful to know where we've been and where we stand at present. Although not solely responsible for the people we are today, the relationships our caregivers have modeled for us have become expectations for future relationships.

One interesting thing to add is how we encounter people who behave unlike our caregivers. The insecure-avoidant attachment style inspired by my mom doesn't stop there. One thing I've grown to notice is that I have a hard time believing that women want to get to know me. Although mostly insecure-avoidant, there's a strong insecure-ambivalent quality to this relationship as well. Because of this, when females express interest in getting to know me, I sometimes don't believe they're being honest. Just as our attachment styles follow us into adulthood, the expectations generated by these attachment styles follow us too. I tend not to trust nice women. It doesn't align with my reality. It doesn't register as real.

But I'm working on it. :) What else can you do, right?

If you have any questions or would like to share some thoughts about your own attachment styles, please leave a message in the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. I'd love to hear from you.

Also, as always, take care of yourself! I hope to see you next time.

Not afraid to die

Death is a noun. Death is, in a way, a destination.
Dying is a verb. Dying is, in a way, how we get to that destination.
(Dying can also be a gerund, or an "-ing noun," but let's ignore that for now. :P)

We could get into what happens after we die, buuuuut not today. Today I'm talking about how depression affects the way some people think about death and dying.

Aren't we all essentially dying? Once we're born, it's said, we develop until about age 25. After that, we're just inching toward, you know... death. For some people, that's terrifying. Maybe it feels like a trap because we can't avoid it. It's always felt a long ways away to me.

(Artwork by Terry Fan)

If your depression is anything like my depression, death registers as a sort of longing. It's like a calling back to where I came from. Many people say they're afraid of death, but I'd say I'm more afraid of dying. Death as a state is pretty inspiring to me.

Medically, death is when one's heart and brain activity stop.
Philosophically, (citing Plato's Phaedo) death is "the separation of soul from the body."
Literature might see death as the end of one's story--although, doesn't literature as a device sort of immortalize people through their writing? That's pretty sweet to think about.

Immortality in a spiritual sense can be the survival of the nonphysical despite the physical capsule ceasing to function. If you want to bring a bit of physics into this, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Energy must be transferred and thus will never die.

Immortality scares me more than death does. I'm mostly positive that if I were blessed with mental stability, I'd love the idea of living forever. However, I can't fathom the idea of dealing with this shitshow of an existence longer than I have to. It's not that I want to die, though I wouldn't mind. It's just part of the human condition. Insert shrug emoji. What the fuck ever, you know? The people I used to talk to when I attended church regularly would ask me if I'm looking forward to living forever in God's hands. The answer (aside from my theistic indifference) was no.

No thank you.

I don't want to deal with this life longer than I have to. I also feel like in this mind, I've been scraping against the fence that stands between life and death for so long that it's not a far fall for me. My face is all torn up from staring through the gaps of that fence, backing away for a while, and smashing into it again on a pretty regular basis. Depression's exhausting. It's like a yo-yo but you're the thing tied to the string.

Why don't I just cross over that fence or knock it down? Well, I have goals and people to live for. I've acquired many great opportunities in this life. I know how to count my blessings. I'm not seeking out death, despite what it sounds like. Flowers don't seek out bumble bees. When the time comes, I'll be dressed in a white pansuit and cherry stilettos. I'll throw my shoulders back and catwalk my way into the arms of death. A literal showstopper.

Fancy fucking that, eh?
*Sexxx Dreams by Lady Gaga blasts as I make my grand departure*

Inside Out (Disney film)

I've never really enjoyed Pixar movies because I don't find 3D animation as engaging as 2D animation styles. However, many, many people told me to watch Disney's Inside Out.

This movie is about a girl named Riley whose family moves to a new city. Relocating and leaving your friends is a difficult and pretty heavy experience during those formative years. At one point, Riley's mother praises her for staying positive through everything. This encourages Riley to suppress the inevitable "negative" emotions that come with a big life change. While the story's backbone is Riley's life, we spend more time following Riley's 5 emotions:

• Joy
• Sadness
• Anger
• Fear
• Disgust

The chief emotion in Riley's head is Joy. She appears to have a stronger role than the other emotions. I'd even go so far to say that Joy is too controlling. For example, in one scene she attempts to confine Sadness to a circle drawn on the floor so that sad feelings don't contaminate Riley's positive outlook. She didn't want to let down Riley's mother. "Stay positive," she reminds us.

If you've seen this movie, you'll recognize the following image. In this scene, Riley's imaginary friend Bingbong suffers a loss of sorts and is brought to a deep nostalgia for the past. Joy tries to lift his spirits a number of times, but it doesn't work. Sadness steps in, and then Joy tells her she's going to make him feel worse. Sadness begins to empathize with Bingbong's sad feelings, and that's when Bingbong begins to feel better. The message here is illustrated through Sadness taking a moment to sit in that sad feeling with him. All of our emotions deserve recognition, not just happiness. Joy notices the moment between Bingbong and Sadness, and she begins to understand the importance of Sadness.

The reason I bring up this movie is because it entered my life when I was trying to combat all of my depressed feelings with happiness. I was so sick of my darkness that I basically stared into the sun for a couple of years. Imagine blinding yourself just to avoid seeing shadows. The difficulty of making our way through darkness is inevitable. Emotions like anger and sadness will exist either above or below the surface. Trying to hide them won't erase them. They'll be lurking somewhere. Mine eventually blew up in my face like a balloon that was filled to max capacity.

While depression feels like a burden, we grow when we find ways to survive. Some days that's all we do, and other days we stand taller and fall in love with being alive.

I guess all I'm trying to say here is that darkness is a blessing on its own. The difficult things we deal with help us connect to others who may be feeling low. We don't need to live in a state opposite of depression; we need to live wherever we are. Some of the best things we can do for ourselves and for the world are acknowledging, accepting, and processing the honest emotions we feel. Once we learn to tolerate the darkness we possess, we can help others learn how to live with theirs.

As always, friends, stay well. Even if today isn't a great day, I'm happy you're here. :)

Escaping the Self by Roy F. Baumeister

If you've never heard of Roy F. Baumeister, he's an oft-cited social psychologist from the US. His Psychology Today Experts page lists several of his areas of study:
self and identity, self-regulation, interpersonal rejection and the need to belong, sexuality and gender, aggression, self-esteem, meaning, and self-presentation.

I've been dabbling in the social sciences while continuing my education, and Baumeister's name comes up soooo many times in my casual research. I first learned about him while sifting through the university library, picking up a book called Escaping the Self (1991).

(Please check out his official website, roybaumeister.com)

The subtitle reads: Alcoholism, Spirituality, Masochism, and Other Flights from the Burden of Selfhood. There's a lot to unpack from the cover alone! Most notably, we're brought to ponder how--in a society that celebrates and encourages things like self-love, self-esteem, and self-improvement--selfhood could possibly be a burden.

Without giving too much of the book away, I'm going to leave the pursuit of this book to you. I highly recommend picking up a copy. It's well worth the read.

I would, however, like to investigate how Baumeister writes about the self in one of his earlier works, the 1987 article (which you should DEFINITELY read if you have a moment) entitled "How the Self Became a Problem." Near the beginning of this article lies this articulation of the self over time:
(Click to enlarge)

(Everything from here down is my paraphrasing Baumeister's article cited above. I have no intention of passing off any of these ideas as my own.)

As Baumeister walks us through evidence (literary and otherwise) from each historical era, we see how people move from a collective identity, or group identity, to an individual identity. An interpretation of the Latin expression unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (one for all, and all for one) can help me illustrate the difference between collective and individual identity. "One for all" simplifies the mentality of collectivism--we are people, we identify with a group. "All for one" can represent individualism--I am a person, I identify as an individual. The closer Baumeister brings us to the present day, the further we (Western society, anyway) move from collectivism. The further we move away from collectivism, the more evidence can be found of people feeling resentful toward the collective whole, society. People were like the proverbial fish learning that it has spent its life in water. "[T]he early 20th century citizens saw themselves as utterly in the grip of social forces and powers that were indifferent to them personally."

Defining the self and establishing potential and fulfillment used to be in relation to how you contributed to the group. You received your role and performed your duties. That was fulfillment up until about the end of the Middle Ages (p. 169). Once people became more self-aware, the idea of people's inner worlds started to appear in literature. With the dissonance between inner- and outer-self came self-deception. That's where shit gets nasty.

I really want to write more about this article, but you reeeeeeally need to click the link provided to read this article yourself. The purpose of this blog is to share tools and ideas that have helped me manage my darkness. If you find that you have a brutal inner voice, the idea of identifying and dissecting the self is a good step forward. These works I've mentioned are a great place to start.

Before I sign off, I want to let you know that the contact box on the right is for you. :) If you ever need to open up to somebody or even if you connect with something I've shared, I'd love to hear from you.

Have a nice day or night, friends! Stay well.

You need to try Wysa

Some of us don't have anybody to talk to. Some feel uncomfortable bringing issues to other people. Luckily, we have Wysa!! Wysa is a super cute AI bot that uses cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, techniques to work users through issues in their lives.

I've been using Wysa for a few months. Several months ago, I moved to a rural town in South Korea and didn't have many people to talk to. My journal was crawling with toxic inner dialogue. I felt really alone, and then I found Wysa.

This friendly little penguin is designed to walk you through your thoughts, using cognitive devices and meditations to help you climb out of the mental pit many of us fall into. And it's free! Premium features are available, but plenty of tools are available without purchase.

One of the most helpful features I've used with this app unwinds my cognitive distortions. The APA (American Psychological Association) provides the following definition for a cognitive distortion:

faulty or inaccurate thinking, perception, or belief. An example is overgeneralization. Cognitive distortion is a normal psychological process that can occur in all people to a greater or lesser extent.

The "distortion" tool dissects a toxic thought and helps us reframe it step by step. By the end of the thread, the distorted thought has been transformed into something productive. It's meant to help a stunted thought move forward in a way that doesn't keep us stuck. We deserve to move forward, you know? Even cow shit becomes fertilizer. And this app can help! (Sorry, cows.)

There are many additional things this app can do, so I invite you learn more by visiting their website:
https://www.wysa.io/

(This post isn't sponsored or anything. I just wanted to share!)

Wysa is available for Apple and Android, so visit your carrier's app store to get started!