Two Neurotic Women

Power (of Attorney) Corrupts

2006-06-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

I just got an email from my aunt, Laura, one of my mother’s sisters. It said that she prepared an advance directive in case she should ever be found incompetent and couldn’t make her own medical decisions. She chose my other aunt, Jill, to be her primary agent and Jill’s daughter as the secondary. In the case that there would need to be a third and fourth, my sister and I were on deck.

Doggonnit, passed up for first choice again! This just happened to me a month ago and the wound hasn’t even healed yet.

When the man who is my father was admitted to the hospital and was about to have open heart surgery, I asked his youngest and current favorite daughter who was named agent on his advance directive. His what? His durable power of attorney. Huh? WHO DA’ BOSS? Says Young Dumb Goth in feigned embarrassment, "Oh, yeah, that. Well, it’s me and Donna (his sucker girlfriend)."

I wasn’t surprised, but I did think it was hasty decision. In my opinion, I think I would have been the better choice because: 1) I am his oldest daughter; 2) I have a professional and medical background; and 3) I am a control friek.

We talked about his decision after he was moved from ICU, and it sparked an emotionally charged discussion that became a turning point in my life . I am sure that he and his two sidekicks, Gothgirl and Sucker-of-the-Month, think that the reason I stormed out of the hospital was because I didn’t get my way. No, it was because the man who is my father said some really mean and hurtful things to me as he lay there in his hospital gown and oxygen tubes. Honestly, I wouldn’t have even wanted to make his medical decisions (it just would’ve been nice to be asked).

It was my name that my mother put on her advance directive. As honored as I was, it offers no comfort to me now. What comforts me is the memory of being curled up with her as the morphine kicked in. I said, "I love you."
"I love you more," she was barely able to reply.
That was the last time we spoke.

Real Guilt vs. Psychological Guilt

2006-05-27T21:58:00.000-07:00

I always thought my Jewish blood was to blame, that somewhere in my DNA lurked a gene that caused guilt.

Then I learned from various self-help books that guilt was caused by buying into other people's expectations of us, and that the answer was not to care at all about meeting the needs of others, but to be more selfish. Self-ish - Of or belonging to the self. For many years I thought that I was of myself and that I belonged to myself, and I lived that way.

Despite thinking that all wisdom was within me, that I could create or re-create myself as I chose, that I was master of my fate and captain of my soul, that I "deserved better" and was determined to get it, I still had plenty of guilt. But I never thought that guilt of any kind might be the proper reaction in certain situations, or even a legitimate perpetual state of mind.

Then I became a Christian.

I realized that I was *not* of myself at all, that my very life depended on an Outside Source. That was a very annoying realization. It's hard to make grand plans for your life when you have no control over whether you will even see tomorrow.

Also, I did not belong to myself, because that which is created belongs to the Creator, who can use His creation as He chooses. So, out the window went the idea that I had a right to create my own sweeping drama.

And the reality of Real Guilt hit me for the first time. The idea that there really was Some Authority that could and did make legitimate demands on me, and that I perpetually failed to live up to those expectations, and so was indeed Guilty with a capital G. That I didn't deserve anything good. That to be Self-ish was not only *not* the path to the Authentic Self, but was the path to destruction. That I had real duties not only to This Authority, but to other people.

At first, I didn't like this idea at all, as you can imagine. But as I grew in the faith I came to understand that my guilt had been borne by Another. That was a relief - I didn't have to please God with my works (not like I ever cared about that before I became a Christian, but that's another blog), and so I could relax. I spent the next few years learning how not to be Self-ish and how to find contentment in serving others. But I discovered that guilt still crept in.

Then, while reading Francis Schaeffer, I came across the idea that there are two kinds of guilt - real moral guilt and psychological guilt. And the self-help books were right, at least about psychological guilt. That does indeed come from buying into the misguided expectations other people have of us, or expectations we heap upon ourselves.

Yes, we do have God-given roles, duties and tasks to fulfil. As women, those fall most often into the servant category - the job of a servant being to meet the needs of others. The Bible tells us:

"Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled."

Despite the modern definition, love is not only a feeling. To love someone is to give to them unselfishly, often when we *don't* particularly like them at that moment or at all, or would rather be doing something else. Submitting to someone is to ascede to their will rather than our own. Working at home consists of doing all kinds of tasks that are never-ending and often thankless. This is what God calls us to do, and not to do them causes real moral guilt.

Yet, many of us read books or talk to people our make grandiose plans for ourselves that set forth a human view of what these things are to look like in practice, and when our lives don't perfectly match that so-called ideal, we suffer guilt. This is not real moral guilt. God has not said:

- that we have to give our children a strict academic education
- that we have clean our bathtubs every Tuesday at 9am
- that we have to cook a wide variety of meals
- that we can never speak to our husbands more than once about an "issue"
- that we must put our children to bed at a certain time

And the list can and does go on seemingly forever.

A very sticky issue is the issue of submission to one's husband. Some of us have easy-going husbands who don't have a lot of expectations, while other husbands are very demanding. Although her task is more difficult, the woman with the demanding husband does need to strive to please her husband, or she incurs real moral guilt. But, because she is imperfect, she will *never* perfectly please him (nor can the easy-going husband ever be perfectly pleased), and if she continually beats herself up because her husband is not completely satisfied with her in all ways, that is psychological guilt.

A personal example for me has been that my husband will often tell me he is hungry, and while I make the food, he gets involved in some kind of project around the house and doesn't want to stop to eat when the food is done. So the food, of course, does not stay perfectly hot and fresh because he lets it sit there. For years, I felt terrible guilt that the food wasn't hot when my husband ate it. Only recently have I realized that it isn't my problem. I did what I was supposed to do, which is make his food. I don't have the ability to keep food from cooling down or transforming in whatever way as it sits there. I can put it in the microwave. But if the food doesn't taste perfectly fresh after I do that, that isn't my problem, either. Now, my husband really doesn't care if his food is perfectly hot, but even if he did, my guilt would be only psychological.

It is of the ultimate importance to acknowledge that there *is* Real Guilt (and we are buried under tons of it). This kind of guilt, left unrectified, will in the great scheme of things make poor self-esteem look like the proverbial picnic. But it is also important for us to learn to distinguish which form of guilt is plaguing us. We can let psychological guilt blind us to real guilt, and/or we can let it make us ineffective during this earthy life, because it can fool us into thinking there is no point in striving, since we always fail. Yes, we will always fail. We can never perform perfectly - throughout our lives we will always be prone to bad habits, ugly thoughts, bouts of depression and discouragement, laziness, gluttony, lust and (insert your favorite or least-favorite sins and failures here). But despite our imperfections we can serve God, bless others and be somewhat personally fulfilled.

Take your Real Guilt seriously, but slam the door on that other kind. When it tries to sneak back in, change the locks.

Who Are You Calling Neurotic?!

2006-05-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

Perfect. I couldn’t ask for a more appropriate way to kick off this journey of self-exploration than to follow Samantha’s beautifully written introduction, as I repeatedly smack myself in the head. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid..."

I consider myself an okay writer, but Samantha is an *excellent* writer. When she asked if I’d be interested in a joint blog effort, I embraced the idea. I have been wanting for a while to try my hand at blogging. After all, I express myself much better in written communication than I do verbal, and journaling has always been cathartic for me. I have been reading Samantha’s blog sporadically for over a year, and though she is undoubtedly inspirational, something about blogging scares me. Is it the concept of potential worldwide exposure that overwhelms me or the fear of inadequacy? In any case, I am certainly grateful that Samantha is holding my hand while I face my fears and get my weblog feet wet.

To be honest, I had a mental knee-jerk reaction to the title "Two Neurotic Women." I’m not neurotic! My father uses that word, "neurotic" as a weapon against me. "You’re so neurotic, just like your mother!" I always associate the word with an easily distracted woman who bites her cuticles, is always on a diet, and can switch from screaming to cooing in nothing flat. Oh, wait. That’s me. Realizing that I wasn’t exactly sure of what being neurotic entailed, I looked up its definition:
[Having a] a mental and emotional disorder that affects only part of the personality, is accompanied by a less distorted perception of reality than in a psychosis, and is accompanied by various physical, physiological, and mental disturbances, involving symptoms such as insecurity, anxiety, depression, and irrational fears, but without psychotic symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations.
Not as daunting I thought. In fact, don’t we all have neuroses in various degrees?

"The unexamined life is not worth living" (Socrates).
That’s debatable. I have been examining my life for as long as I can remember. As a young child, my father, who has devoted his life to psychodynamics, was my greatest role model. He has done rebirthing, Rolfing, EST, Self-Realization, dream therapy, the list goes on but that’s a blog for another day. I was the first-grader who wanted to be a psychologist when I grew up. As Samantha wrote, she and I were attached at the hip in our teens. According to some, we were the intellectual creme de la creme. Some of my fondest memories are of the two of us philosophizing life for hours. My first serious boyfriend was an Objectivist and at 20, I met my first husband, a self-righteous vegetarian and conscientious objector. By the time I entered my 30's, I didn’t want to think anymore. I just wanted to be.

Nearly 7 years ago, I met my 2nd (and last) husband. He is a hunter, a blue-collar worker, dyed-in-the-wool Republican and helluva nice guy. This is a man who thinks Dr. Laura is the be all end all of psychology. If you told me a decade ago that I would have kids with this person, I’d have laughed so hard, my soy chai would come out my nose. But here I am. We’re happy in our traditional marriage and raise our 2 children in the small town he grew up in. I stay home and tend to the house, and he works 60 hours a week to support us. Like Samantha, I have chosen to unlearn those feminist principles that were so firmly rooted. I, too, have set aside that tendency to pick apart every little fear and insecurity. But unlike my friend, I didn’t look to God for deeper understanding. I just shoved everything, including my spirituality, into this tiny mental closet. Lately, that closet feels like it’s going to burst open and everything will spill out. It's time to do some Spring cleaning.

Generally speaking, I am content with my life. However, when I changed my focus to my family and home, I put aside girlfriends, books, alone-time and otherwise "self-indulgent" distractions. I don’t read much more than Martha Stewart Living, and haven’t had a conversation over coffee in years. It appears I have simply shifted extremes and still lack the balance I’ve always yearned for.

I really admire Samantha’s seemingly achievement of balance. With grace, she fills the shoes of wife, mother, artist, writer, friend, and servant of God. I hope that by blogging with her, I will learn through self-expression and feedback, how she and others like us keep all the plates spinning while maintaining a sense of self. Can it be possible? I see other women doing it, but it seems so far out of reach to me. Well, I’m ready to put my shortcomings out there, really look at them, but not dwell, and set out to tackle my goal of becoming whole.

Hi, I’m Rachael and I’m neurotic.

Your Hostesses, Then and Now

2006-05-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

Just so you know who you're dealing with, here!

Rachael

Samantha

We don't look neurotic, do we?

One Neurotic Woman Speaks

2006-05-24T13:35:00.000-07:00

This morning an old friend and I were chatting online, and we were talking about our desires for our lives and how we often fail to live up to them, which led to a few wisecracks about being neurotic, and the idea for this blog was born, although I am sure we are probably not the only two neurotic woman online.

I have been blogging for almost three years now, and have certainly dealt with my neuroses and done my share of navel-gazing there; but I have recently wanted to spend more time in introspection and general self-psychoanalysis, and I guess this will be the place for that. I really tend to compartmentalize things, and the idea of having a blog where I can deal with my "issues" appeals to that tendency.

Rachael and I were uber-close friends in high school; we spent lots of time in various psychology classes considering our neuroses even then. It was with Rachael that I learned to drink coffee - we spent many happy hours talking in a local coffee shop when we should have been in Honors Economics (and other classes) during our junior and senior years. We lost touch with each other during our twenties, but for the past few years we have been getting to know each other again, and I think that our blogging together will help us in that quest.

I know that many Chrstians do not trust psychology, and I can't say that I trust Psychology with a capital P. But I strongly believe that since we have all been brought up in this fallen world by fallen parents, surrounded by fallen peers in fallen systems and societies, that we are all at least somewhat messed up emotionally and psychologically. I seriously doubt that before the Fall, there was such a thing as a sub- or un-conscious mind (and if you don't believe there is one now, or think that you don't have one I don't have the energy to debate that)

For a long time after I became a Christian, since I knew that in a very profound way I was a new creation in Christ, I didn't really deal with my psychological issues. I had done that for so long that I really needed to step out of it for a while, and I spent a long time unlearning certain ideas I grew up with, and for a while I thought that unlearning those ideas meant that my psychological baggage was gone.

But now that I have completed my first decade as a Christian, I am realizing that although the baggage does get lighter with time, I will certainly be carrying some of it all my life. Inside those bags are emotional and psychological "issues" born out of my parents' divorce and subsequent love lives and remarriages, out of early experiences with pornography, out of being an oddball in school and many other situations. Those bags are also packed with fears - fears of aging, death, abandonment, grief and (on a somewhat lighter note) of getting fat. I am a procrastinator and a perfectionist, overly assertive, and emotionally repressed. The list, of course, could go on. Those of you who may have read my blog for a while are probably at least somewhat familiar with the Neurotic Me.

For a long time I was ashamed of all these things in myself, ashamed of things I had done or thought. One thing that Christ did for me was remove the *shame* of my past. So, while I still carry those bags, I am not embarassed to be seen doing so. Once I accepted that yes, I was a sinner, I was no longer as ashamed to talk about either my own sins or my problems that were caused by the sins of others. So, I am going to talk about them here. I may use art instead of words to express myself sometimes. Maybe I'll have a book partially written when I come out on the other side of this blog.

Hopefully the book will fit into my already crowded baggage!