Make Your Bed and Don't Ring the Bell

I am really, really sad, and no it doesn't have anything to do with election day. It is still 3pm local time as I'm writing this, and polls aren't closed on the east coast even yet. I'm mourning some things. I began reading, well, listening to, Joan Didion's A Year of Magical Thinking. I'm not too far in, but I'm assuming it recounts the year of her life after the death of her beloved husband. In it I recognize my own grief and that I too am in mourning.

I'm in mourning for a life that I never really had, though. I'm in mourning for the way things might have been. The best friend I might have had. The perfect marriage I might be enjoying. The purposeful job that would make me spring from my bed. Joan Didion had a husband she loved, a sort of shred career she loved, a child who lost her father. Lots to mourn. Ashes she could bury. Memories she would savor the rest of her life. I have memories I want to erase.

I will not be mourning for the person I was, though I would take a whole lot of joy in cremating and burying him. I hate that person. Maybe that is why I have so much shame. Because even as I loathed that person I continued to let him live inside of me. Why do I have this hatred of who I was only last week? I'm not sure I even came upon the realization until the past couple days, but I am finding out why now. That former me lived with no core values.

Core beliefs and core values. "Core" means they are at the heart of something; they are at the heart of our thoughts and behaviors. A video we watched in IOP described our core beliefs as the lens through which we see the world. If you see the world as a generally safe place, you will greet the stranger walking toward you on an empty street. If you see the world as a dangerous place, you may cross the street. Core beliefs aren't necessarily positive. I see myself as an intelligent and compassionate person. I also believe myself to be a lying, selfish, perfectionist imposter who has a ton of God-given talent and yet makes no positive impact on the world. Core beliefs can be pretty rough.

Then yesterday in IOP we began an examination of our core values. Now, core values are generally positive, but it doesn't mean we always live up to our own values. Our therapist played the following video for us. You may have seen it as it is from 2014 and made quite a stir for a bit. https://youtu.be/yaQZFhrW0fU I'd love for you to take the time now to watch it if you have the time. It's about twenty minutes long. Please check it out later if you haven't time now and haven't already seen it.

I had heard about the speech before and had always meant to go watch it just on the line "Make Your Bed". Jen always insists on making the bed. I hardly ever did it if left to my devices, though I understood the lesson. Take care of the little things. Then worry about the bigger things. Plus it being the first task of the day, it gets the ball rolling on the rest of the day. I feel like the author of Atomic Habits must have talked about the speech. I'll come back to Atomic Habits at some point. What I wasn't ready for were the other nine lessons in the speech.

The second lesson is to find someone to help you paddle. I guess it really shouldn't be summarized as find someONE to help you paddle. You need a team. This world is too much for just two people in a boat. You need a team. I hadn't put together a team to help me. 

There are a couple lessons in there about overcoming failure with determination that reminded me of No Mud, No Lotus and embracing suffering. I wonder if Buddhists make it through SEAL training at a greater rate than other religions. I wonder if any Buddhists actually go to SEAL training. Thought: Do Buddhists make the best warriors? I can still make myself laugh even now.

The sixth lesson is about taking risks to achieve something meaningful. I am not generally a risk-taker. Sober me isn't anyway. Like I said, I believe I need to be perfect; therefore, I don't extend myself like I believe I should. I don't put my neck too much on the line. I try to avoid getting anyone upset with me. So I hide. I do not let people get in touch with the real me in case they do not like the real me too much. I hide my thoughts and actions that others might get upset about. Thus a perfectionist, lying, phony. And at this point watching the video I feel like this speaker is taking dead aim at me.

Seventh lesson - deal with the sharks and don't run away from them. (By the way, my brother and I just watched a segment on sharks. They don't circle you. You won't know a shark is there until you are being attacked. Then punch it in the nose!) If you all only knew how much the shark imagery reverberated with me. "He is speaking to me!" I might have been wearing my shark socks or boxers! (I was wearing duck boxers, but still...) I wish I had dealt with the sharks at Nordstrom better. I let them run me off. Would it have been worth being fired over rather than laid off? I don't know. I feel bad for the good people left though out there swimming as the sharks circle...

Eighth lesson - Be your best at the darkest moments. At this point in group therapy I have tears starting. Also realize I am in a room of 20 and 30 - somethings. Men my age with my problems don't go to group therapy unless it is court-ordered. (Btw, mine is NOT. I'm just weird.) Many, many men with my problems don't make it to be my age or just give in to the bottle and divorce and drugs. Anyway, so now this naval officer is admonishing me that I need to be my best at the darkest times, and all I can think of is how when things got bad I gave up. That old me did not have any sort of personal values that kept him going for him.

Ninth - the power of hope and singing when you are up to your neck in mud. I have to admit that even now I have very, very little hope of anything. I honestly cannot let myself look too far ahead. I am trying to deal with the right here and now. If I were looking ahead I would not be publishing these thoughts to a public forum. I do not have a job yet and who wants a perfectionist, lying phony? My only choice is going to be to run for public office at some point. I am right up to my fucking neck in mud and it is hours and hours before dawn. And the only songs that come to my mind are the horribly sad songs.

And when he got to the last lesson: Never, ever ring the bell, I fucking lost it and left the room. We talk today about being triggered and on one side of society's ideological fence it gets a ton of importance and on the other side talk of people being triggered is dismissed with words like "snowflake". I understand now being triggered. I don't remember much about my suicide attempt, but the images I do have in my head are horrifying. Like being in an actual horror movie that you cannot escape from. At the same time, I have learned some skills to cope with emotional distress. Go to the rest room, do some deep breathing, throw some cold water on your face. We don't need "safe spaces for snowflakes"; we need to teach our young people coping skills. But still today I have had that line in my head all day, "Never, ever ring the bell." 

Never, ever ring that fucking bell. Stick to your values, and Do Not Give Up! I am begging you: Whatever it is that you are thinking about, if it is important to you, do not give up on it.