From the Just So I'm Better Understood File #001

For those of you who don’t know, on a Meyers-Briggs scale, I’m a textbook case for an INFJ. Down to my blood and gristle. The introversion, the intense level of feelings, the intuition, the constant need for solitude and the taffy pull of desperately needing a few particular people in my life and shunning the rest of humanity. I’m not that guy you invite to the bar for a bender, because I’m that guy you stay up talking with until 2 am.

(I am also a textbook Pisces - but I don’t put any stock in horoscopes. Still, the details of that sign are very much me. Don’t ask me why or how.)

But what adds to it is the fact that I also suffer from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is a relatively new thing to me, in that I was only diagnosed with it in the last year and that I finally have a “term” for what goes on in my head and my heart. My current doctor doesn’t like giving “firm prognosis”, (which is something I agree with since they can be limiting) but this is what I’m being treated for, so for the sake of brevity, this is what I have.

The thing is that one brings out the other in spades. INFJs tend to have that old adage of “still waters run deep” while C-PTSD also has an added detail of my staring off into space to think or simply “blanking out” very often. I tend to retreat from life at every opportunity and it becomes more pronounced both with age and with (particular kinds of) stress. So one feeds the other - my personality and my disorder - so its hard to see where one begins and one ends.

If you’ve known me at all for any length of time, the following list from the Wikipedia entry of the “Adult symptom cluster" should make some sense to you. Edits are based on my own history, emphasis meaning habitual occurrences and strike-outs meaning not applicable.

• Difficulties regulating emotions, including symptoms such as persistent dysphoria, chronic suicidal preoccupation, self injury, explosive or extremely inhibited anger (may alternate), or compulsive or extremely inhibited sexuality (may alternate).

• Variations in consciousness, including forgetting traumatic events (i.e., psychogenic amnesia), reliving experiences (either in the form of intrusive PTSD symptoms or in ruminative preoccupation), or having episodes of dissociation.

• Changes in self-perception, such as a chronic and pervasive sense of helplessness, paralysis of initiative, shame, guilt, self-blame, a sense of defilement or stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human beings

• Varied changes in the perception of the perpetrator, such as attributing total power to the perpetrator, becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, including a preoccupation with revenge, idealization or paradoxical gratitude, a sense of a special relationship with the perpetrator or acceptance of the perpetrator’s belief system or rationalizations.

• Alterations in relations with others, including isolation and withdrawal, persistent distrust, a repeated search for a rescuer, disruption in intimate relationships and repeated failures of self-protection.

• Loss of, or changes in, one’s system of meanings, which may include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair.

Largely, aside from an occasional meltdown (once every three months, tops - more often twice a year), I hold everything together and keep on truckin’. I’m not medicated nor does my doctor think I need any but its a struggle to see where one thing ends and the other begins because there is so much “natural” overlap.
However, with this new (sorta) diagnosis, I’m finding that I need to do something about my triggers. Most of them are based around work and, though they’re for solid reasons (or so I’ve been told), my … emotional reaction (or lack) is not. So, basically, its time to find something else - and the trick hat is the anxiety and frustration centered around doing *just that*. As was eloquently pointed out to me, I was never allowed to fail growing up - that is to say, everything had to be done right the first time and if it didn’t work, you’re fucked forever - so trying something without being utterly sure of its success is unnerving, to say the least of it.

But then, again, I’m an INFJ. So where do I even begin?

I Am Athiest And I Am For Religion

As an atheist, one would assume I worship at the altar of Neil deGrasse Tyson (I don't, can't stand the guy) or Carl Sagan (now we're talking!), but the fact of the matter is - my atheism doesn't stem from Internet group-think or a simple "rage against the machine" youth-logic that a lot of it seems to come from these days. Nor does it come from having a super-science brain. I am not particularly smart (I would consider myself more "clever" than anything else) and cannot explain away God like so many other people smarter than I.

Yet I would not rid the world of religion if given the choice.

Putting aside the absurdity that one person's or group's belief system can trump others (a common point in theological and political ideals - read Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer" to understand it better), the fact is that much of the history of art in all its forms is based on religion. The Louvre would be largely empty were it not for early masters and idiot children today would not have crappy pop music if those artists weren't influenced by the Beatles. And the Beatles by Bernard Herrmann... and Bernard Herrmann by Percy Grainger and Percy Grainger by Edvard Grieg and so on. All the waters - both shallow and deep in the streams and rivers of music - eventually flow out into the sea of classical influence. And classical music has a strong grip on all religious views.

Think of all the music that came from faith. To rid the world of Mozart is a much, much greater crime than to rid it of any supposed God. To rid the world of God would bring some peace but to rid the world of music would bring complete silence. There is no uglier fate than that.

And I am not talking about pop song religious fluff either. I am not talking about "Jesus take the wheel" schlock, which sells Christ like Reebok sold sneakers with basketball stars. I'm talking about *music* - that art above other art that expresses the incommunicable and changes and grows with every performance. Music music, not dance pop numbers or trivial rock music - but music that speaks to something greater than every day angst and doesn't consist of little more than minor chords or synthesizer beats. Music that, by its nature, informs you of a part of yourself that had previously not existed. 

Music is, in many ways its self, God.

So, I will live with the presumed silliness of (what I believe is) someone else's outmoded belief systems if it means the world has George Frideric Handel's "Messiah" and Morten Lauridsen's (totally fucking sublime beyond all expression, that I have to use the word "fucking" between "totally" and "sublime" just to get the point across) "Lux Aeterna" and the "Missa Solemnis" by Ludwig van Beethoven. It would not be a world worth living to remove the greatest musical artists of all time from history - nor should we invest in a future where religiousness or faith is undermined or removed simply because there is no proof in the existence of God or the obviousness of science and an arbitrary existence.

I will suffer, gladly, your notions of a bearded or multi-armed deity if it means you leave me alone with music. 

Beliefs (9/21/2010)

Be excellent to each other. Don’t eat the yellow snow. Don’t screw anyone over, even if you think they deserve it. Stop hating so hard. Stop caring so much about your job - when you’re on your death bed, you’re not going to think “boy, wish I put in more time at the office”.

Be so passionate about things it may scare other people. If you see an attractive woman, you can look all you want until she meets your eyes - then you have to smile. Approach all situations with joy. Live every day like you’re going to die to the extent that you have a slight death fixation (this makes more sense and sounds less creepy when you get through it all). Eat really good food when you can manage it. Stop buying material possessions. Don’t fuck unless you absolutely mean it.

Talk to yourself - its the only way you’ll get an intelligent conversation. Get angry about things that piss you off but don’t nurse it unless its forced on you. No one is better than you, and you’re better than no one. Don’t use politically correct language. God is a limiting detail on greater spirituality; he’s an atheistic conception used to control guilt-minded people.

Support first and second amendment rights - if only because not having the option is scarier than never needing to use it. Give to charity but mindful of what charity it is since a lot of them are just sharks out looking for blood. Thank every war vet you meet and shake their hand for it. Forgive your enemies but don’t forget them - they may try it again. When you walk into any room, think of the James Bond theme and then notice how your posture and stride changes. Drink heavily, smoke a lot, have some abhorrently kinky sex - but be careful about it all. Appreciate your parents but also realize they don’t trump your own self-respect no matter what. Take pride in your work but also take humor in yourself. Stop using motivational posters and self-help books to grow - just be, and the growing happens of its own accord.