The Myth of Altruism

As you may have noticed in my recent blogs,  I am currently going through a "process" that is dominated by confusion, anger, self pity, self loathing, and hopelessness.  OK, this sounds really bad, but the truth is that lately I have been thinking a lot about what it is I want to do with my life.  Clearly, what I have done so far is not working.....

I have always had a strong drive to help people, it is really nothing I have sought after, it is just there.   Sometimes I have success, and sometimes, my lack of ability to set healthy boundaries get me into some deep water... However, that being said... I like to help people...

During a conversation with a friend about a week ago, we spoke about how I am confused about what I want to do, what I am good at etc, and I said that I felt that the statement "I just want to help people" is a cliche.  But that is really what I want to do: help people.  The reason for the cliche statement was, that I don't think there is such a thing as true altruism, OK never say never, I know there are examples of completely selfless people out there, but in the population at large, I think it is very rare.

I want to help people  because it makes me feel good, it makes God happy, and I like to make God happy...I, for one know that my altruism can fit into a very small spot....When I was teaching I know that I helped a lot of young people, I know that I made a difference in some lives.  As a matter of fact, I ran into a former student the other day, who told me that she has changed her college major to become a math teacher because of me....That made me feel good, but the stress and need for results, took away the pleasure of helping these kids.  I always cared about the kids and my first priority was always to do everything in my power to help them.  But.... I found no peace in it....Thus.... my altruism fits in a very small spot.  If all I desired was to help other people, I should have been happy doing what I was doing....

However, when I drive down the road and see a homeless person standing out in the heat with no food or drink (I know I am a sucker, and that some of them aren't really homeless etc), it makes me happy to give them a bottle of Gatorade, a granola bar, or whatever else I may have in the car at the time.  It feels good, I don't like seeing people suffer, and God tells us to help those less fortunate than us.  I always fool myself into thinking that there are no strings attached, and that I just give people food and drink out of the goodness of my heart, but there is always the thought in the back of my head thinking; hopefully someone will do the same for me if I am ever in that situation, or the creepy nasty "I am happy it isn't me" thought.

Strings or no strings...I have decided that I want to spend more time being something for others, because I like to help others,  because it makes me feel useful, needed, and best of all... it makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside because it makes both me and God happy.

My goal for the near future will be to explore, to learn, and to "enjoy the process" of trying out things, even if it is just to cross them off the list as "bad options".  Who knows where it will bring me....

Peace

P

Contact email keepinghopejourney@gmail.com

Enjoying the Process

It is Saturday night, I am contently sitting in my chair, resting after a pretty good day.  I went horseback riding TWICE and I did not fall off.

Tom is out with some friends.  I was browsing through the channels on our TV, and there really isn't a lot on on a Saturday night.  I  briefly looked at a new VH1 show called Black Ink or something like that.  It is yet another completely brain dead reality show designed to do nothing but make you feel good and normal...  Well I am not normal, so I decided to sit down, enjoy some writing while listening to an 80's radio station on Spotify.

I am a terrible decision maker.... I don't have trouble making decisions (other than what to wear when I leave home.....), I make a lot of decisions, but I seem to change my mind with the same frequency.  The decisions I have made often have to do with the ancient question "What do I want to be when I grow up?".  The answer to the question has been clear to me for a few years.  "I want to be the first person to beat muscular dystrophy".  Nothing more, nothing less....Pretty simple eh? Well um no.... It is not that simple at all, because it is not a realistic goal, it is impossible.  I cannot cure myself of MD.  S@(*(*^*# I finally said it. I cannot cure myself of MD, and you know what.  It is so very painful to accept it, especially since it has been my ONLY wish for years.  And the truth is... I am not even close to accepting in, I am just in the middle of a very painful process.

By being so occupied (OK obsessed) with wanting to create my own miracle, I have lost sight of all the little things in life, that make this world a wonderful place, the things that give meaning to life DESPITE the fact that I have MD.  Nothing matters as long as I have MD.  I don't care that:

• I am a good teacher, who cares? there are thousands of able bodied people out there that are exceptional teachers...
• I know how to knit, So what?  there are tons of able bodied people out there who knit much better than I do, so why does it matter, it is not as if I will be able to open a hat and scarf store when I can only follow simple patterns...
• I can make jewelry that people like.   But when I look at Etsy.com  it is clear that my jewelry is nothing compared to what other people sell on there.
• I am a good cook... Awesome.... but I don't want to eat the food, it is dangerous.....at least that it what my eating disorder is telling me.
• I am a somewhat decent writer, cool beanz, but it doesn't pay the bills
• I am intelligent, sure, but what good is a decent intelligence when I refuse to use it because I loathe myself for not being perfect at the above mentioned skills and when I minimize its significance because I have MD..? 

Because of my obsession with beating MD, I have set some extremely high standards for myself.  If I am not perfect at what I do, it doesn't matter.  My mind made up the notion that since I have a disability, I am entitled to be perfect at something.  Twisted, right?  But that is none the less the prison I have put myself into.    

My twisted pursuit for perfection is what makes me so exceptionally good at making decisions, every time something sparks a little interest I dive in feet first thinking that this is it... This is what I will be perfect at, this is what will make my feelings of inadequacy shrink to a tolerable level, this might be what will make me be better able to work with my limitations rather than constantly fight them....

I thought I would make a good business person, so I went to business school, I even got a Masters Degree in Management from Colorado Technical University.  But err well yeah, not so much, I am not cut out for the back stabbing, lying and cheating I saw the few years I spent working in the business world.

• STRIKE 1... I am a failure, I am not ruthless. I spent years and years going to school, got myself into debt only to figure out that being a "fancy" business person wasn't for me...

Well, maybe being a teacher would be a good match, I kind of like sharing my knowledge with people.  I became a substitute teacher (it was the only job I could get, no businesses hire project managers with low self esteem).  I didn't know I had MD at the time, but something was up.  Walking the hallways in fear of being knocked over by the kids really took away from the joy I probably could have felt.

•  STRIKE 2... I am a failure, I can't even do a job that basically only requires you to babysit.  Why? Because I wanted to be perfect, I wanted to teach the kids what I could while I was their teacher.  But they didn't care, they were used to disillusioned subs with no desire for anything but a meager paycheck every other week.  I would probably have ended up as one of them had I continued....

Maybe I shouldn't give up teaching right away... I got my temporary license, and when we moved to Tallahassee I got a job with a private tutoring business. It could have been enjoyable, but once again my perfectionism got in the way. I was so passionate about these kids, I really really wanted to help them, and even though I know for a fact that I did make a difference in many lives it just wasn't enough. Every time I was unable to reach that really difficult kid, it ended up stressing me out.  When a student really struggled in school I would spend hours at home trying to figure out how to help.

• STRIKE 3... I am a failure... I can't change the life of every single student I encounter.  It was my job to help, and sometimes I failed.  I wasn't perfect...off with my head... jump into a deep hole without a ladder to help you get out.  At least I can't screw things up down there.....Three strikes and you are out!

I could continue with all my perceived failures from now on until the end of the world, as we established earlier in the blog, anything short of perfection is a failure as long as I have MD.

But.....Yesterday I ran into two different thoughts... The first being the picture below:

That's it.... I am still a child trying to figure out what I want to do and what I want to be, I bought into the misconception that you are grown up when you leave college... so no wonder that I failed. I didn't have the house, dog, two and a half kids, volvo, and career as so many seem to have by the time I turned 25.  I could be of those people who will just keep dabbling without ever settling  I hope not, because most of my dabbling ventures have turned into what I perceive to be disasters..... I am pretty close to a 90% success rate there..It is, however,  good to know that I still have about two years of childhood left.  If I haven't figured it out by the time I turn 40, I should find comfort in the possibility of having about 20 years of teen angst to look forward to .... It's all good as long as I don't really have to grow up...

The second thought, really wasn't my thought, it came from me telling someone that I can let go of my obsession with perfection when doing art.  I truly truly truly enjoy the process of creating a piece of art.  It is soothing, comforting, and there is no pressure.  The reason why there is no pressure is that I have no ambitions to become a new Salvador Dali, Rembrandt, or Picasso.  That would be crazy, I can't even draw a stick man without using a stencil.  But guess what it does not matter... it is the process that I like... I set out to do something with no expectations for the outcome other than having been able to explore, while being able to express thoughts and feelings without having to use words.  My art does not have to be perfect.

I wonder if it would be possible to apply that concept to life?  Would it be possible that the next time I find the right match that I would be able to just enjoy the process, of exploring, touching, feeling, smelling, tasting etc before deciding whether or not it is something I would enjoy doing for the rest of my life?   Would it be possible to approach life as an art project, where all I expect out of it is the best I can do, and be happy with that?  Would it be possible for me not to consider every failed venture as a strike against my value as a human being?

To be continued.............

P
Contact email keepinghopejourney@gmail.com

32 Candles

Happy Birthday Jesper.  You would have been 32 today....I know you are in a better place, and that I should be celebrating your life, and not keep mourning your death.  But... I don't know how to do that right now.

Jesper, it took me a long time to figure out that you really died.  I knew it, I told people, and sometimes I even cried.  But it wasn't until I went home and actually saw your grave, and felt the empty space that your beautiful smile and spirit usually occupied, that I finallly understood the finality of it all....  You weren't there.  Jesper, to me you didn't die until December 20th 2012, the day it became real.

I want you to know, that you were loved, I loved you, Tom loved you, everybody loved you.  You brought so much to the world, if there ever was a fighter out there, it was you.  Your most admirable quality was your ability to just live in the now, you did not carry the pain of the past with you, nor did you worry about the pain of tomorrow.  We have so many wonderful memories from your life... You were always deadly honest, when the priest called Tom Thomas in the church when we got married, you yelled "Not Thomas, TOM".  Once as kids all three of us were running around the backyard in our swimsuits, we have a picture, that still haunts me.....I remember standing outside your bedroom door listening to you speaking to yourself at the end of the day while you were recovering from aphasia.  We knew that you had not lost your ability to speak, you just needed to find your voice again, and boy did you find it.... You really got it back at Easter one year.  I am not quite sure what was up, but you let all of us have it, you were especially hard on Farfar.  My guess is that the two of you have probably worked all that out by now....

You were a tough cookie, and every day I grieve, I grieve because I miss you, I grieve because I never got to say good bye to you, I grieve out of selfishness.....

I don't own a red shirt.... but I am wearing my red pants today to remember you, and Tom put on the closest thing he has to a red shirt when he went to work.

We all cry, we all miss you, and sometimes the knowledge that you are watching over us, and that we will see you again some day, only offers very little consolation.

I love you Jesper, I miss you.....

P

Contact email keepinghopejourney@gmail.com

Making Molehills Out Of Mountains With Strategically Placed Chairs

I am an excellent listener, but…. I am absolutely horrible at trusting people, and following directions… There are times, where I dig myself into a deep black hole, and then get surprised when I notice that I can’t find my way back up because I forgot to bring a ladder or a rope… I end up standing on the bottom yelling for help…. The help is always there, I listen, and then….. I do the opposite of what I am told to do to get back out of the hole.

I have a skewed view of the truth, and I set impossible standards for myself, based on what I think I should be like to be a real person.  These standards are what cause me to time after time to dig the before mentioned hole.  Another analogy would be that I make mountains out of molehills, and become frustrated when the mountain will not go away when I tell it to.  I allow my physical limitations to be the reason why I am not able to turn the mountains back into molehills.  I don’t think my talents are worth anything as long as I can’t do things able bodied people my age can.  I totally disregard them, or give up when I see that there are millions of people out there who are better than me.  Why should I be noticed in the big world?

Right now there is a huge mountain in front of me, a mountain that needs to be turned into molehills, but Pernille does not believe in molehills, she wants to tear the mountain down right here and right now, and if she can’t it is only because she is inadequate, a weak subhuman species.   I want to make everything perfect for everybody all the time, and if I can’t I just want to hide at home because I am ashamed of myself.

I know that what I need to do is to strategically, place chairs, and make myself use them in the process of turning the mountain into molehills.  Yes, I need to use them….  (This is not an original Pernille thought, I stole it).  As I said above, I tend to uncritically attack the mountain with no regard for how I can overcome it, and then I  get mad at myself for not being able to do it, I give up, and let the mountain sit there as a reminder to me of how inadequate I am. 

I need to understand that the fact, that I cannot physically spring clean the entire house, does not mean that I can’t do anything.  By strategically placing chairs and reminding myself that when I need a break it is OK to sit down and relax.  I tried it Yesterday, and it worked (at least for the time being)….  I had set a goal of de-cluttering the kitchen (again I do that every day it seems), and of getting rid of all of our old newspapers.

Getting rid of the papers is something that would take an able bodied person around 10 minutes.  The person would just have to bend down, pick up the papers, and put them into a garbage bag.  However, it is not quite as easy for me.  I cannot bend down and pick up the papers, I have to use my grabber, and pick up a very small amount of papers at a time, a process that can easily take between 30 and 45 minutes, and by the time I am done, I can almost guarantee you that my shoulders will be very sore, and I may even be worn out for the rest of the day.  Today I set up a chair, and promised myself that when I could feel the fatigue, or frustration start sneaking up, I would sit down and do something I like to do for a bit, something I am good at, something that has nothing to do with MD. 

I did it, when I felt like either just throwing the grabber away saying “to hell with the bleeping papers”, or when I was tempted to just power through beyond what I probably should do in the spirit of spiting the MD and the world by saying “watch me…. You say I can’t, but I did”.  I took a break and started redesigning my blog.  A process that turned out to be a lot lengthier than I thought it would, so when that started to frustrate me… I went back, and killed the rest of the paper pile, and I can proudly say that my shoulders are only slightly sore tonight, and I have a blog that looks like a mess….

It all seems like a success story, and I should feel encouraged by it, knowing that I set a goal, and reached it by using my brain… But…I don’t… I look around the house and inside my brain and see nothing but “shoulds”.   I should scrub the floors, I should make the bed, I should, I should, I should….I took at molehill out of the mountain, and got rid of it, but the ugly lies and the false thoughts are still there….

The right thing to do would be to look at the mountain, identify the molehills, pull them out one by one, and set up two chairs next to every single one of them, and focus on them one at a time….. Anyone, with the right chair and teamwork, can conquer a molehill, and eventually also the mountain.   

It is such a simple concept, but yet so incredibly hard for this messed up little brain to grasp, accept, and use.  My prayer at the end of today, maybe even every day until I get it, should be something like

•   “God, please help me release myself from my prison of perfection, I will never be perfect in this world, but in your eyes, I am wonderfully and fearfully made.  Please help me open my heart so I will finally be willing to let you teach me what it is you want me to do, in order do your will, Amen”.

Peace

P
 Contact email keepinghopejourney@gmail.com

Under Construction

In the spirit of.... well, in the spirit... I have decided to make some changes to the layout of my blog.  I haven't done any remodeling since I started writing a long time ago.  Please bear with me as I try to make it look spiffy.... I also have a few posts in the works.  Stay tuned

Peace

P

Contact email keepinghopejourney@gmail.com

Objects in Mirror are Smaller Than They Appear

I was reading a blog called ED-Bites. It is an amazing blog written by a beautiful person called Carrie, who is describing how she is recovering from Anorexia. What is amazing about the blog is her honesty about how she still sometimes fall into the "woes" of her eating disorder. She wrote a series on relapse prevention. You can read it here:Ed Bites 

So many of the things she writes about ring true, and I know, that I am no angel, I know that right now in my life I am ignoring a lot of Yellow Lights, and possibly even a few Red Lights. I am not going to focus on the "warning lights" in this post, but rather on body dysmorphia once again.

While reading the blog I fell over the statement "objects in mirror are smaller than they appear". I loved the statement, but at the same time it also made me a little sad, as I am not yet at a point where I can believe it. Objects in mirror are smaller than they appear. What a profound statement that people with body dysmorphia just need to believe, and accept. But I can't......

When I go to the fair and walk through the "mirror house", it is easier for me to believe. I am sure you have all had fun going through those at some point in your lives. Some mirrors make you tall and skinny, others make you short and fat. Some distort your body to an extent, that is so unreal, that everybody can laugh at it. While in the mirror house, I become mesmerized by the tall and skinny mirror. THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO LOOK LIKE. I want to be the 5"9'inches and X amount of pounds I so clearly see. The dangerous thing about the tall and skinny mirror is that the distortion is so, that what you see looks real....... No funny shapes, no facial distortion, just you, tall and skinny.

There is no need for me to stop in front of the short and fat mirror, I already have one at home. It is called my "bedroom mirror", and after looking at the tall and skinny mirror, a regular mirror will probably have the short and fat effect on most people. The mirror I use for checking what my outfit for the day is a regular mirror, a mirror that clearly shows my puny 5"5', and XX amount of pounds. A mirror that shows every bit of fat I see, even if others don't. A mirror showing muffin tops, big thighs, double chins, back fat etc etc etc. Things people tell me aren't there.

Does this make sense? No, not really. I want to believe that "Objects in mirror are smaller than they appear" statement, but it is so very hard when you can go to the mirror house and see yourself tall and skinny. The mirror at home is just a regular mirror, but yet, to me I see the short fat person others only see in the distortion mirror at the fair.

Mirrors are tricky.... sneaky little ugly demons, that lie to you.... Dealing with body dysmorphic disorder is believing that the short and fat mirror at the fair is telling the truth. Every day you put yourself in front of the short and fat mirror, believing it is a regular mirror, and not understanding that what you see is a distortion.....

I need to learn to understand, that the mirror in my bedroom is a regular mirror, but that my brain has an app programmed into it, turning it into a short and fat mirror, thus making what I see different from what others see. I see what I perceive to be the truth, but so do others.... The problem is that we are looking at two different reflections...

 Peace
 P

 Contact email keepinghopejourney@gmail.com