The Family Girl Blogs (aka "The New Working Girl Blogs") Blog #14: Being Mr. Heckles To see all of Bobbie's Family Girl Blogs, click on this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/28818/family-girl-blogs

this was supposed to be a comment, a piece of unsolicited advice, actually, for dorothycolleen, in her blogpost, "Disassociation" -

http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/32731/disassociation

i originally wanted to post it as a comment, but looking at how involved i got in writing it, i thought i'd make it a blog instead. so, i think you'd best read her blog first, so this one will make some sense.

so, here goes...

hey dorothycolleen.

i am not any kind of medical expert, nor do i claim having any kind of formal study (no psych electives in school, even).   all i can claim is that i have been going to the same therapist for more than seven years now (it'll be eight this march), and, hypochondriac that i am, i always claim to her that i have this one-or-other so-and-so condition.   with long-suffering (but kind) patience, she would then explain why i don't have it.   as a parting piece of advice, at the end of our session for that day, she would say that it's not healthy to be always doing that.   and she'd do that everytime i come to her with another of these imagined conditions.   she has refrained from calling me a hypochondriac, although i don't know if that's the proper term when it involves psychosis instead of some biological thing, and i'd be grateful for that.. and after all of these bouts of psycho-hypochondriacy-ness of mine, i have accumulated a lot of info about why i do not have a so-and-so condition-slash-syndrome-slash-psychosis.   she sez it's a common thing for people to blame something on some sort of condition, coz its an easy-out to be able to blame something on something else and therefore absolve themselves of the consequences, or to not take responsibility for it to not work at it to fix it (i am not saying you are).   so i shouldn't feel bad when i do it occassionally.   its when it becomes too much that it becomes unhealthy, and that's when someone is said to be hypochondriac (or whatever the term is).

anyway... that is the extent of my psychological-therapeutic expertise, so keep that in mind when i give this piece of unsolicited advice, ok? so here goes...

i take it that you are referring to "dissociation" and not "disassociation?" okay, then.   as jamie explained it to me, dissociation is when, like, i'm driving home and i get to the house and i don't recall anything about my drive home.   or when i think i blacked out and i suddenly wake up to find myself standing over the prone body of my irritating, smart-aleck engineer lying on the ground with a black eye, and my left hand in excruciating pain.   or when i am so pre-occupied by something that i find that i have been running in autopilot for a while and not recalling anything i have been doing.   one of the heavier dissociative conditions is split personality (like tara in the tv show, the united states of tara).   thak god that hasn't happened. yet.... yeesh...

it's when your mind "dissociates" or is chopped up or compartmentalized in such a way that the conscious "you" that you are now (maybe that's the id, i don't know) isn't aware of what your physical you is doing.   the fact that your mind is able to make a commentary about things as you go through whatever you are going through proves that isn't dissociation since you are aware of the "voice".   the main cure for split personality, for example, is to make the different personalities aware of each other as the dissociation is happening. in that one moment, the fragmented mind can get back together.   the fact that you are "in touch" with the "voice" means its not dissociation.   also -  

the fact that you say it is a "habit" means it's not dissocation coz you are aware of it but you just can't seem to have the willpower to stop.   like addiction? i don't know.   but it's definitely not dissocation. the fact that you call it an "ability" implies you control it. can you? or did you mean something else?   the fact that you say it's a "weapon" implies that you use it to fight something.   what is it that you're fighting?

anyway... clearly you have other questions you have to ask, but whatever you have, its not dissociation...

now, if what you meant wasn't a typo and was actually "dissacociation," well, that means it's the disavowing of responsibiity for something.   like, when ethan hunt is told, "if you or any of your im force is caught or killed, the president disavows any knowledge..."   or when my programmer sez, "that program? it's not mine, so i'm not responsible for that system crash", or when i say to my boss, "that project isn't mine so it's not my fault if it missed a deadline."   in which case, then i dare say all of us suffer from that from time to time (heehee).   especially me.   but i think you won't blame me if you knew who i live with heheheh... Joke!   (just in case she reads this later...)

i hope you don't mind my flippant way of commenting. i'm trying to lighten things up, and to say that what you are experiencing isn't a deep-grained psychological problem or anything as severe as dissociation.   but, like i said, what do i know, so it may be helpful to talk to your therapist about it.

lighten up, k?   not everything is as bad as it seems. trust me, i know.   true i don't know about flashacks and ptsd, but i have had my own dark moments, my own destrucive/self-destructive moments, my own close call with suicide.   but i have fought/am fighting that. i am staying in the light. deliberately. i am practicing smile therapy. deliberately. i am trying my damndest, deliberately, to look at the greener side of the street, and not to wallow in the dark things, even though i am tempted to. hey, it's the only real weapon we have against unhappiness.   it's hard but its the only way.   deny the bad things and try and lighten up. k?   especially in your blogs.

one of these days, you will have to trust.   to not trust anyone just traps you where you are. in the dark.   so, yes, it is a risk. but your only alterative is to remain in the dark.

i don't know if you watched the tv show, friends.   anyway, early in the show's run, there was this character,   mr. heckles, the grumpy, delusional neighbor who lived one floor down. in one episode, mr. heckles dies just while he was poking his broom at the floor again. having no-one closer, in his will, he left all his possessions to 'the two noisy girls above', who think it's his last revenge since there's nothing valuable, and it is just a mountain of junk that they have to clear out, but several items do have an impact. as they go through his junk, in heckles' high school yearbook, old photos and other things, chandler is shocked to find how similar heckles was to him at his age (they were both considered the funniest guy in school, et cetera), which terrifies him coz he might end up just as lonely and mean.   seems heckles "played it safe" and never took the chance... in the end, he died alone, as an eccentric, old and crabby man.   by the end of the episode,   however, chandler realizes, through heckles' example, that he has to take a chance, on life, love and everything else. in the final scene, chandler looks around heckles' apartment one last time, smiles gently, lays heckles' poking broom down and says, "thanks, mr. heckles.   we'll try to keep it down."

so, in my long-winded way, i'm saying, lighten up and take a chance.   with therapists, people, et cetera. sure, it's a chance, but do you want to be like mr. heckles?   so consider me as mr. heckles to your chandler (although, i'd much prefer to be rachel, heehee), and realize, through my mistakes and flirtation with suicide, that although there is no guarantee, there is a chance at getting better.   and that, my dear, is worth the risk.   unless you really do want to be like mr. heckles...

and, by the way, you owe me a waffle...

 

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