I watched the Roky Erikson documentary You're Gonna Miss Me the other night. One part, where Roky first emerges from years of isolation and untreated schizophrenia, and a therapist asks him if he remembers what he said when she previously asked him what he would have done differently, Roky recalls that he said, "Not a thing!" Later in the documentary, some more time into Roky's recovery, one of Roky's brothers, Sumner, twists Roky's arm a bit into admitting to regrets about all the drug use.
If I could change one thing about my adult life, it would regard that decision to "turn my back on love;" I simply didn't take if far enough after I tried it on Sara in 1988. I was a restless seeker back then, and I suppose I decided, "Well, I learned what I had to learn from that approach with that one girl, now let's try an improved me with this newer approach." Looking back, I would say to my younger self, "Dude! No! Right there! Turn your back on love. Over, and over, and over again. That's it!"
I don't know if I could have averted the coming grand mal meltdown in 1992. A couple of years ago a psychiatrist died who posited that those suffering from schizophrenia could "solve" such an illness with the proper application of their intellects. He came up with this notion in the nineteen-sixties, maybe. Effective antipsychotics were still in their infancy back then, and such a notion must have appealed to many in light of the bad side effects of many of those early drugs. I think it would have been a pretty tall order for me to singlehandedly self-diagnose Love Addiction as my cause for my depressive episodes and subsequent breakdown episodes, and then come up with an completely effective counter-measure that I gleaned all by myself from reading Dr, David Burns, Feeling Good, so I don't get too bent out of shape about that.
It took years of relative stability on psych meds, and an additional commitment to sobriety many, many years after my initial psych diagnosis, to come up with the Buddha I now follow. The medication and sobriety provided enough stability to finally get at this problem effectively.
That said, what now? I don't know if I'm much able to impress the twenty-two year old waitresses and baristas with this approach, but I am, nonetheless, able to better make intelligent decisions about such creatures in my world. I asked a younger female friend in late 2011 if I bothered her with too many phone calls, She was very attractive, and I adored her, but our deal was mainly platonic. She didn't even associate me as a guy who called nonstop. It never seemed to even occur her that I used to be that guy. That's how much I've changed from the old days.
So, what now? In the last post I talked about how the "turn my back on love" approach would often lead to pretty decisive courses of actions, rather than ineffectual, arbitrary "limits" such as calling someone only three times a week instead of seven or eight times a week. A phone call, maybe one more, three's the total limit of an entire deal with someone if no call back. Often I'll stop at two, or one. Facebook Friend request not accepted? Done. Whatever that entails: done. I typically don't have these goddess types then come chasing after me after these moves, mind you, but I only have control over my end of it, and so I do.
If I could change one thing about my adult life, it would regard that decision to "turn my back on love;" I simply didn't take if far enough after I tried it on Sara in 1988. I was a restless seeker back then, and I suppose I decided, "Well, I learned what I had to learn from that approach with that one girl, now let's try an improved me with this newer approach." Looking back, I would say to my younger self, "Dude! No! Right there! Turn your back on love. Over, and over, and over again. That's it!"
I don't know if I could have averted the coming grand mal meltdown in 1992. A couple of years ago a psychiatrist died who posited that those suffering from schizophrenia could "solve" such an illness with the proper application of their intellects. He came up with this notion in the nineteen-sixties, maybe. Effective antipsychotics were still in their infancy back then, and such a notion must have appealed to many in light of the bad side effects of many of those early drugs. I think it would have been a pretty tall order for me to singlehandedly self-diagnose Love Addiction as my cause for my depressive episodes and subsequent breakdown episodes, and then come up with an completely effective counter-measure that I gleaned all by myself from reading Dr, David Burns, Feeling Good, so I don't get too bent out of shape about that.
It took years of relative stability on psych meds, and an additional commitment to sobriety many, many years after my initial psych diagnosis, to come up with the Buddha I now follow. The medication and sobriety provided enough stability to finally get at this problem effectively.
That said, what now? I don't know if I'm much able to impress the twenty-two year old waitresses and baristas with this approach, but I am, nonetheless, able to better make intelligent decisions about such creatures in my world. I asked a younger female friend in late 2011 if I bothered her with too many phone calls, She was very attractive, and I adored her, but our deal was mainly platonic. She didn't even associate me as a guy who called nonstop. It never seemed to even occur her that I used to be that guy. That's how much I've changed from the old days.
So, what now? In the last post I talked about how the "turn my back on love" approach would often lead to pretty decisive courses of actions, rather than ineffectual, arbitrary "limits" such as calling someone only three times a week instead of seven or eight times a week. A phone call, maybe one more, three's the total limit of an entire deal with someone if no call back. Often I'll stop at two, or one. Facebook Friend request not accepted? Done. Whatever that entails: done. I typically don't have these goddess types then come chasing after me after these moves, mind you, but I only have control over my end of it, and so I do.
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