Thursday, October 16, 2008

About Me

After getting a lot of the philosophical reasons for my blogging out in my first two posts, I thought I'd devote one to who I am. This is more of an attempt to see what I come up with than it is to give anyone else an explanation of who I am. For the time being I will remain anonymous, partly for my job but mostly for me.

I was born and raised in and around Washington DC. My dad is an alcoholic who got sober in the 70s, but starting when I was in middle school began having periodic relapses. My mom’s response was to become cold and distant to him while being neurotic and hysterical toward me. When I was 15, she got cancer, my dad started drinking, and they got a divorce. Today he’s sober and she lives a few states away with her new husband and my youngest sister…but this isn’t supposed to be about them.

Today I am an outwardly successful twenty-something who has a comfortable job and is trying to make sense of my life. Current alcoholism in my family brought me to Al-Anon about 6 months ago and 6 months before that I was diagnosed with ADHD. The kind of introspection that both of these events encouraged has had me uncovering a lot about myself that I never knew existed. Mostly it has made me begin to think that I don’t have the first clue about what constitutes a healthy relationship. I have heard it called co-dependence or a neglect of the inner-child or dissociation, but that really seems to put my various emotional adaptations in a purely negative light. I also think that my greatest character assets are the result of the events that drove me to Al-Anon and to begin treating my ADHD.

I have a horrifically short attention span, but because of that I also learned how to return to a problem 10, 20, or 100 times until it is solved. There are very few issues in life that don’t respond to persistence.

I have a difficult time trusting other people, but because of this I have been financially independent since I was 18.

I am very self-critical, but that has turned into a work ethic that led my supervisor to remark that I am the most responsible person under 40 she has ever known.

But neither am I blind to just how much my character defects are killing me. The habit of constant vigilance that I learned as a child leaves me exhausted most of the time. My self-criticism about a lack of attention and low energy makes me feel shitty for no reason at all. My inability to find and maintain healthy relationships is most apparent in my relationship with myself. Before two weeks ago it never occurred to me to think of myself as a human being with emotions and needs. I treated myself like you would treat a dog that kept peeing in the house – it’s just a dumb animal that needs to be given firm commands and put in a crate at night.

This blog is an attempt to explore the process of building a relationship with myself. I also hope that because it is online I will be encouraged to keep writing. In the best of all possible worlds I hope that it’s something someone else can learn from and maybe derive a bit of strength and hope. I'm basically a happy guy most of the time and would like to share some of that.

2 comments:

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  2. Exploration of ourselves, and understanding to a point of comfortability..is what it is sometimes all about. You are on a path..and that is a good enough reason to leave a crumb trail (this blog.) Please keep it up.. hope to read more soon!

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