July 16, 2004

• While it is fresh in my mind…

  I have had an interesting day, one worth recording in my journal. 
  Of course, it doesn’t take much to make a day seem interesting to me,
  in contrast with the uneventful days that make up most of my weeks and
  months.  Days at home don’t contain much worth writing about
  unless there’s a fire in the neighborhood or some unusual weather, or I
  dredge up the energy for a walkabout, or need to go to the spring for
  water.

  It was my turn to drive the van to take the rehab residents to the
  Narcotics Anonymous meeting, so I needed to go to Wasilla.  On
  Tuesday, when I stopped to see Greyfox at his stand for a moment after
  taking the cat to the vet, he informed me that one of the thrift shops
  in town was going to have a bag sale today.  That’s all you can
  stuff into a big grocery bag, for $5.00.  I can stuff a lot of
  stuff into a bag.  I’ve a reputation among those who know me for
  being able to stretch the spacetime continuum.  My ex-husband
  calls me the Loadmaster, and it’s not just because I stayed loaded
  pretty much all the time we were together.  Packing is a knack,
  and I’ve got it.

  Doug had gone with me on that trip Tuesday, to help control the
  cat.  He said he’d like to hit the thrift shop with me, and I
  agreed to take him to town today, after warning him that he’d have a
  couple of idle hours on his own in the evening while I was at the NA
  meeting and the “Group Conscience” NA business meeting afterward. 
  He said he could live with that, he’d take Book Two of Moorcock’s Elric’s Saga to pass the time. 

  After some subsequent discussion of possible plans for the day, he
  asked if we could go in early enough for breakfast, because he had a
  desire for waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.  He could
  have food like that at home if he’d cook for himself, but he
  doesn’t.  I cook the foods I can eat, and to him that’s an
  uninteresting menu, so he ends up eating a lot of quick-to-fix things
  he’s willing to do for himself.

  He hadn’t mentioned what he would be looking for in the thrift store,
  so I asked him this morning as we entered the edge of Wasilla.  It
  turned out he wanted to find some “disassemblable electronics.” 
  He needs more materials for an art project that was inspired by the
  defunct computer keyboard we recently replaced.  The innards of
  the old keyboard sparked the idea and gave him some of the parts he
  needed for a post-apocalyptic warrior’s armor and shaman’s ceremonial
  garb.  He went to our old place across the highway and brought
  back his collection of electronic components from there, but is still
  looking for more.

  From the time he was old enough to use screwdrivers he has enjoyed
  taking things apart.  I always did, too, but in my case my father
  insisted that I also put them back together again afterward.  I
  tried that with Doug as well, but gave up after a while and just
  stopped allowing him to take things apart if they were still functional
  and/or needed.  The combination of his total willfulness and the
  ADHD made it next to impossible to compel any particular behavior, but
  I could at least enforce a, “NO you can’t have it, it’s mine.  We
  need it, wait ’til it breaks to take it apart.”

  I told him on the way in this morning that he could go to the meetings with me if he’d rather not spend
  a couple of hours in the parking lot, but he declined.  He said, “I’m
  not comfortable around those people.  Their vibes… they’re just off.” 
  I agreed, said I knew what he meant.  I thought a bit about it and then
  asked him if he understood that it was the same thing that made him
  uncomfortable around them that drew me to them.  He said he knew that. 
  Then I went on:  “It feels wrong to me, too, so I have to get in there
  and try to fix it.”

  We talked through breakfast about budget constraints and shopping
  logistics.  We had no disagreements regarding the undesirability
  of spending a lot of money on junk, or of spending a lot of money on
  good equipment and turning it into junk.  I suggested he try some
  dumpster diving.  That ended up working in our favor.  He
  didn’t find anything that excited him at any of the shops–and we went
  to every one of the five thrift shops in town.  At the fourth
  thrift store, the dumpster was unlocked and standing open, an unusual
  situation there, where it’s usually padlocked to keep people from
  filling it with their own trash.  I pointed him toward it as I
  went into the store.  He jumped in and came out with a box full of
  telephones and phone accessories such as a caller ID box.  The
  Dumpster Deva was smiling on us today.

  Out at Greyfox’s cabin later, I took my stuffed grocery bag in and
  unpacked it for some show and tell, and to try on the things I hadn’t
  taken time to try at the shop.  I wasn’t even a third of the way
  down in the bag when Greyfox laughed.  I shook out the silk shirt
  I’d just pulled from the bag, looked at him and asked, “What?”  He
  said it seemed I had the clothing equivalent of Dagda’s cauldron, the
  stewpot that never went empty.  We made a few jokes about Bagda’s
  Dag as I kept pulling things out and showing them off.  On the
  bottom of the bag was a pair of brand new suede boots still with their
  original store tags on them.  He was still marveling over the
  boots and the pile of clothes on his bed that I’d removed from the bag
  to get down to them, when I pulled another silk shirt out of one of the
  boots, and a comically gaudy clip-on necktie that Doug had chosen and a
  little toy beany-eagle from the other boot.  That really cracked
  Greyfox up.  It’s fun making him laugh, especially when it’s as
  effortless as that.  I just be myself and it amuses him–win/win,
  fershure.

  Doug and I left him to finish up his work there and went for a very
  late lunch.  Then Doug and I killed a half hour at the library
  before I left him in my car in the parking lot at the rehab center and
  took my vanload of passengers to the meeting, where Greyfox met
  me.  The topic was relations with others, specifically regarding
  Step Eight: the listing of those we’ve harmed and becoming willing to
  make amends.  The personal sharing, as always, wandered all around
  the topic.  Greyfox ran one of his usual tapes, about how he can
  never make amends for all his worst offenses, because they were all
  committed in blackouts and he has no idea what he’s done or to whom.

  Another member gave me a poignant look at NPD (narcissitic personality
  disorder, the PD that Greyfox has, on which he and I have been working
  since he acknowledged that he has it around the same time last summer
  that he got clean and sober), from the narcissist’s point of
  view.  One of the things about Greyfox that had always mystified
  me was how generally unhappy he was all the time, despite the many
  things he had to be thankful for.  His sister had told me he’d
  always been that way.  Until I began to understand NPD, it never
  made sense to me.

  That man tonight described, with obvious sadness, the way he has
  “friends” and “people in [his] life,” who hurt him or disappoint him
  and then he has to cut them off and find new people.  It’s an
  elegantly succinct description of the narcissist’s tendency to “use up”
  acquaintances at a rapid rate.  They form attachments quickly,
  tend to trust strangers–anyone who offers them narcissistic supply
  either in the form of attention, or respect, or by simply being
  deficient in some characteristic the narcissist possesses and
  values.  For example, an N who’s proud of being tall would get
  narcissitic supply from a short person who looks up to him both
  literally and figuratively. 

  Then as soon as the supplier expresses some view contrary to the N’s
  fantasy world or pull’s the covers on the N’s false persona, the N
  takes narcissistic injury from that, the new “friend” falls from the
  pedestal the N put him on, is discarded or abused, and the narcissist
  feels injured and saddened that he has had to give up on yet another
  person who has let him down.  Life for the narcissist is a series
  of letdowns because nobody else’s reality can adequately support his
  fantasy life.

  As he talked, Greyfox and I exchanged looks and I knew our thoughts
  were similar:  relief and gratitude that he gained enough self
  awareness to see his false persona and how it was causing his misery
  through his inability to square it with consensus reality, and that he
  had the will to transcend it and I had the skill and courage to
  confront it with him.

  Toward the end of the meeting, when everyone who had a burning desire
  to share had said what they had to say, there was a lull and I spoke
  up.  First I said that I could relate strongly to the woman who
  had said she needs to repeat her eighth step about once a year. 
  She had said that for her it was because she’d previously “forgotten”
  some of the people she had harmed.  I said that for me it wasn’t
  that I forgot.  Rather, as time passes I gain a higher perspective
  and realize that things I might once have viewed as helpful were
  actually harmful.  I spoke of being generous, and sharing my
  drugs.  Then I said I was always compliant and helpful and had
  consented to growing a lot of bud because those close to me needed
  it.  I got a lot of knowing laughter with that.

  When I went on to say that another member’s talking about a growth
  exercise he was doing brought up some scary thoughts for me, the
  laughter stopped and I could see people listening.  The exercise
  required him to list the six people closest to him and then evaluate
  whether they were a positive influence on him, toward a goal of
  eliminating negative influences.  I said that nobody close to me
  is a positive influence on me and if I were to conduct my life as
  suggested by that exercise I’d end up a very lonely person.  I
  said further that if I were not strong enough to do what I know is
  right without others around me to lead me to it, I would be in deep
  shit.  I just have to content myself, I said, with being the best
  influence I can be.

  As I spoke, I looked around, making eye contact all over the
  room.  I saw some comprehension and agreement, and also saw some
  looks I interpreted as disbelief and disapproval.  Later at dinner
  I brought it up and asked Greyfox what he thought.  He said he had
  been watching people as I shared, too.  His read on those
  disbelieving or disapproving looks was that some people don’t recognize
  healthy self-esteem when they see it, and mistake it for a lack of
  humility.  My Old Fart is not a “positive influence” in the sense
  of being a role model I’d care to follow, but he’s certainly a helpful
  consultant.  He helps translate for me, because he’s in touch with
  aspects of the shadow side of reality I’ve never known or knew only
  briefly long ago and no longer relate to.
  

  • 6:13 am
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