Authenticity

I sincerely appreciate the kind comments below. And those of you who I know pray. There a handful of damned cool people who support me here, and I'm truly grateful.

It really is funny: I began this wanting to write apologetic articles. And here I am, using the blog as a share resource, a strange, I want to say immaterial context for a support group, but one that helps me still.

And I will say, again, that while Sunday was even worse (and my mood slump started, of all things, with Favre's first interception) I got through it intact and Sunday night when S came home was actually good; today was also pretty good. I'm lifting weights again consistently, and that truly helps. Iron and steel. Nothing like it. I swear it changes my whole chemistry.

It's late and I want to go to bed, but a couple things first:

For what it's worth, my brother did get presents, at least as nice as the ones S and I got. How about that. And my dad is visiting them this week. Yet the emotion I was pouring out here was so true, so authentic, so much a part of me, I had to let it go. Doing that does allow me to begin, just begin, maybe, to see that my father has a side in all this, though it's demented and sad...it's still a side. In that sense I'm proud of myself. I'm feeling and healing, though it doesn't look graceful or Christian or poised. Well, I always railed against white glove Christianity in the past; in some kind of Dantean sense I'm being forced to practice publicly what I preached. Not my idea of fun, but so it is.

Also, OCD, maybe even more than depression (and I've langored in both...is that a word?) is not authentic. Oh it's quite real; it is a most distinct form of suffering. But it has to run off something, at least when it becomes problematic. And that something is anxiety, fear, anger, even sadness or disappointment or despair, in short, emotion. Sunday after that interception I dropped into such stark feelings of isolation, I mean truly black feelings (well pretty black, not death black). I actually think I was feeling some of the lonely horror, the disbelief and frustration, of my childhood. I was fighting not to obsess, to stay in those feelings, and it was very hard. But I had some success. Talked with a friend on the phone. And by the time S got off work I was starting to see the world around me again.

My therapist has said, and it's probably true, that feelings underlie obsessive process. I sure know they underlie depression and every other form of acting out I've experienced. My major depressions were unbearable pain beneath which was unbelievable anger in response to intense hurt. I lived through it and know that was true in my case. And some of that is still there. But OCD, even more than depression, tends to be chronic. It's a change-resistant defense mechanism; it turns in the mind like a gyroscope, like one of those balls I can hold in my hand and turn, and turn, until it turns my wrist with its own humming energy. OCD settles in like a demon; it digs its own roads. Still, I can see it more clearly now, and I doubt I will ever quit working; the thing won't let me. I'd like to relax and be Matt Damon and eat caviar and japanese beef and drink Petrus every night. For sometimes, many times over the years, my career has felt like a sideline compared to the effort I put into the business of trying to feel well. Letting such powerful emotion move through me this weekend, these last couple months really, is what I think I need in my quest for freedom. Experience, strength, hope.

In that sense, I suppose it is pretty Christian. Truth always is. But why defend myself here? I assure you, there are other things I'd rather be doing. Jillions.

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Sincere thanks again to those who read and wrote. It has been a hard time. But I feel supported! By you guys, by my bro and my weekly phone friend. I just wanted you all to know, that as always, the tough stuff passed and I'm doing better.

Time to drink my protein drink, sleep and let the muscle build.

Sincere love to all this community