commentary on comments
Wednesday 18 October 2006 | someone left a cookie
Ah, but dear sourdean, I most certainly do read my glowing encomia—I live for them—not unlike the little Masochist of Amherst, I am consumed with lust 
for readership. (Take me to your reader!)
Ecumenically enough, both your choice morsels of advice seem to me to correspond not only to program concepts but also to dialectical-behavioral ones. Concentration, or what the program calls “One day (hour, minute, second…) at a time,” Linehan refers to (however maddeningly ungrammatically) as “one-mindfully in the moment.” DBT’s mindfulness skill is supposed to bring its practitioner closer to what Linehan calls wise mind (HP/Buddha nature/sanity/et alia) and thus keep her from doing stupid shit involving, say, her hot-water heater.
Your second insight, about how self-hatred and heel-dragging loop in together and amplify one another, reminds me of the 
traditional behaviorist breakdown of Antecendent / Behavior / Consequence. I’ve had such a fun time unsnarling this one that I remain baffled as to why it just keeps on ratcheting away, blissfully oblivious to the fact that it has been dismantled, perhaps technically sussed out but still empirically strong-arming me every chance it gets. Like shooting a dinosaur that’s too small-brained to know its dead, so it just keeps coming? Here I adduce my own worksheet on the fascinating subject (of what others have called patching the personal suck) and only hope maybe it will still yield fruit in the future. Perhaps some sunny day I can return to freelancing and stick it—I think of it like a crimpy climbing hold I keep peeling off because I’ve leapt on it once too often and am just completely pumped out—and for now, I suspect a Dumb Job may be the answer. I’ve been trying to fight the hypergraphia/OCD-flavored procrastination for three solid years and I’m plumb wore out.
Putting problem behaviors in terms of the demonic gets tricky for me, because I grew up on a Xian fundamentalist commune. I was first formally “exorcised” at around eight years of age, unaware of being inhabited by anyone or thing but terrified nonetheless lest I should suddenly (unwittingly infected by having heard that Rod Stewart song when I spent the night at Cousin Pam’s!) begin climbing the walls and shrieking in backward Latin. I grew up being scared by crap like this and worse; in which fell, spiritually depleted soil, a large part of being mentally interesting probably has its inelutable roots. I try hard not to entertain any ideas about supernaturally seized; but when I must, prefer to contemplate being borrowed by the Muse/my daimon/duende as opposed to some less productive and more histrionic Miltonic-demonic possession.
[We’re planning a whole post devoted entirely to our youthful indoctrination at the hands of Jack Chick—we just need to take a leeetle more olanzapine m’butu first….]
Alors, in summary I totally agree—I think being mentally interesting is pretty much exactly like alcoholism, with just a different set of behavioral problems. Fortunately I hate Koolaid and alcohol in any of its delightful forms just makes me yertle. Kinda partial to Reed’s Premium Ginger Beer and Hansen’s Mandarin Lime, though. I have a real cream soda weakness, too, thus the art for this post. Did anyone else grow up drinking TRIPLE XXX Root Beer—”Makes Thirst A Joy”? Did anyone else ever think that TRIPLE times XXX therefore equalled 9 Xs? You didn’t? Oh.
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I understand about the pamphlet. I don’t really understand about the Christian fundamentalist commune, other than having grown up in the South (although vanilla, in every sense, Methodist).
But that pamphlet is just another one of those *things* that says the Un is bad, the Un is like this, the Un is possessed, the Un is suicidal, the Un *should* be suicidal: the Un is Bad, the Un is EVIL. The Un is Original SIN.
All these fucking personae I have — the self-loathing one, the procrastinating one (and these two may just be one), the angry one, the clumsy one, the attention seeking one, the narcissitic one, the impatient one, etc.
But there’s also the silent one, who occasionally has an opportunity to assess all these antics. And — sometimes — the silent one is the loving one. And — always — we (the Un and me) know, in our heart of hearts, that the Real me, the Essential me, the Ultimate me, is that loving one, and that the rest is just a traveling minstrel show of dem-… okay, thugs. And that if we just pay attention, we’ll be more attuned to the comings and goings of those bastids, and that just doing paying attention will be enough to keep them from taking control of Central Broadcasting. Because they aren’t real the way we are, and they know this. And we know it too. It’s a constant struggle, but all we have to do is wake up from those nightmares about the evil Sourdean, the evil Un, and pay attention when they start trying to creep back in. Just pay attention. Be mindful of them, and thus we will not identify with them. I get so tired of those stupid trite voices, and I really like to tell them to go fuck themselves. (And I watch and make fun.)