Random thoughts, 9:23 AM. Tuesday, September 10th, 2024
The morning dab alleviates the trembles, dulling vibrations penetrating my etheric body. I filmed a Vlog on Bear Creek, claiming I’d address this problematic relationship with cannabis, smoking everyday. Wake and Bakes. Globs. Dispensary dashes. Wasted earnings.
When will it stop?
Especially
High concentrated cannabis – wax, crumbles, shatter, resin, rosin, diamonds, sauce, sugars…. the good shit. PURE THC. The sizzle of the heated nail against refined cannabis oils. The roar of the rig. The tightening of the lungs. The closing of the eyelids. The exhaling of the cumulous cloud. The high.
Euphoria burrows into my chest like a squirrel for hibernation.
Climbing through the throat, expanding upward into consciousness, the warmth pierces my vision and dissipates intruding thought-forms, lightening the load accumulated from the astral plane during sleep.
A remedy for recent events.
I moved to the Poconos in search of peace and tranquility, instead finding chaos and upheaval as my parents purchased a dilapidated cabin.
A crooked cabin kit with moldy and rotting insulation, crumbling foundation, clogged and unventilated sewage, banging water pipes, bacteria and dirt clogged water, mice, and four months of leaking gas.
Only the foundation was reported on the home inspection, leaving another ten thousand dollars in unreported issues. My cheap parents were not impressed.
Any problems were met with resistance from my parents: weeks or even months of fighting before discovering a solution, because as far as they’re concerned, “it’s not that bad” or “that isn’t happening”.
I didn’t have the oven expected for gas until four months of living like an idiot – leaving my house, working from state parks, and eating in Wawa parking lots and Pennsylvania State Game Lands.
Avoiding the wretched smell of propane leaking into the wood cabin.
We thought it was dead mice. I found poison scattered throughout the property, rat cyanide, and assumed they died in the walls after discovering holes beneath the sink.
Dead mice were also discovered in the bathroom, kitchen, and attic. A war, it seems, and I’m relieving exhausted troops on the frontline. Except I just got done fighting cockroaches; plus the cockroaches and mice I encountered living on the road. I’m over this, honestly.
But after months of pest control, bait boxes – an arsenal of perimeter boxes placed around the cabin. The mice disappeared. The smell remained.
I contacted my general contractor who investigated the smell.
“Gas,” he said surprised. “Gas?” I thought, remembering the laundry list of text messages and phone calls pleading for help, and the memories of leaving my house everyday, sleeping in a tent, struggling for food without an oven, cooking outside. Passing out, falling asleep multiple times, feeling lightheaded, sick, headaches on top of my concussion.
Since I’m the BADBOOB for exposing my mother’s narcissism, this is well-deserved, a revenge if you will. Payback.
Not to mention…. I smoke weed everyday, possibly too much. I light incense and sage….everyday, all day. And it was almost fireplace season.
Kaboom.
I feel betrayed, ignored, angry.
But this isn’t anything new and i’m not surprised. Unfortunately, I haven’t been journaling like I should, so I don’t have the history documented in writing.
However, I did start Vlogging, which conveyed ideas while ungrounded and documented the scenario.
The constant intuitive-warnings, wild sprints across the Poconos, constant confrontations, and general unstableness was escalated by political upheaval. Joe Biden dropping out from the presidential race after an embarrassing debate performance, immediately affirmed years of media/establishment gaslighting. Kamala Harris hurdling any electoral process to secure Democratic candidacy. Fictitious felonies placed against Donald Trump, ‘trumped’ charges weaponized by establishment democrats in order to prevent a candidate from presidency. Memory-holed assassination attempts. And RFK Jr. joining the Unity Party alongside Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk.
The vibrations are dense.
And a double shooting in my small Pocono mountain town wasn’t on my radar while sorting through the distractions.
I was posting for weeks, SOMETHING IS COMING. Sure enough, a neighbor nearby went on a shooting spree, taking aim at local homes and property. Nobody was injured, but three local police departments and the Pennsylvania State Troopers were in attendance. Not to mention a neighborhood man was killed by PA State Troopers in a showdown earlier that day. Strange for a tiny town like White Haven, Pennsylvania.
“Things don’t happen around here often, but when they do, it’s loud,” said Toni (spelling?), local firewood providing resident.
I heard the shots while trying to take a nap.
Thick thumping in my stomach and then “pop, pop, pop”! The development is home to vacationers, neighborhood children, hunters, so I thought nothing of the commotion.
Was I out of tune?
Should I have seen these events coming better?
Again, it’s difficult to know what’s happening when you’re sorting through political and personal upheaval on the intuitive plane; which is why understanding your body is imperative.
Also, have you tried picking your battles?
Unnecessary battles cause unnecessary noise.
The secretary at our HOA office warned me, “Some of your neighbors don’t get along” but I never anticipated gunshots, SWAT teams, and police investigations.
The man was a resident of our community, the shots were one street over. The brooding, anxiety, anger were palpable over the past weeks.
Between all of these situations, events, conflicts…. I stay rather high on concentrated cannabis.
It produces the cleanest high so I’m able to write blogs and address work. I prefer to stay productive and honest, and writing while stoned is better than not writing at all, right?
Stumbling upon a Theo Von interview with Ruby and $crim from $uicideboy$, I was surprised to hear the pair discuss New Orleans. $crim recalls the emerging SoundCloud movement, rappers like Bones, Yung Lean, Xavier Wulf, and how $uicideboys$ achieved outside success before gaining acceptance in their hometown of New Orleans. $crim says, “We got poppin in all these other places first. It literally started from like Russia, and then came back… New Orleans was the last place”. Followed by Ruby, “The advice was don’t go local to international. Do the internet and attack the international crowd first because your hometown is going to be the last place that fucks with you, and it’s true because they still don’t fuck with us, deadass!”
Does this sound familiar?
While complaining in my previous blog, I stated how political commentary might’ve snubbed initial local success. However, I think it’s the name of the game, an archetypal pathway. (Obviously I haven’t been producing long either). There appear to be multitudes of reasons why artists confront resistance? I’d say resistance depends from person to person; however, how much is envy? I’m not saying this is something I’m currently struggling with entirely, but many talented artists face backlash from their communities.
Originally from Pittsburgh, when I discovered Mac Miller’s early work and Facebook messaged my old homies, they responded apathetically, “Eh, he’s a private school poser”. Granted, Mac had been a student of Taylor Allderdice for a couple years, my grandparent’s alma mater, a public high school.
Easier to hop on the hate wagon? Doesn’t require any listening, lyrics, music video watching, deep analysis, original thought, or work for that matter.
Just a repetition of words. “That guy’s fake.” “Yup!” It’s a bit lazy, but also highlights the emotion envy.
Why should somebody deserve any more success than me? A nasty emotion, envy finds roots in the work of Melanie Klein, prominent psychoanalyst and contributor to object relations theory. When confronted with difficult emotions or narcissism, the infant will split the identity of the primary caregiver into two separate identities during breast feeding, the good mother and the bad mother. This is reflected by the infant’s treatment of the caregiver’s breasts. The infant may bite, tear, or strike a breast, while showing affection and gentleness to the opposite breast. The child splits the caregiver into separate identities, a good breast and a bad breast.
Why does the child split the personality? The child is preserving the caregiver as “entirely good”, to shield the child from the realization their caregiver isn’t meeting needs and expectations, the realization the caregiver isn’t perfect or even a narcissist. The greater traumas, anxieties, and unmet needs present themselves during breastfeeding, the greater a child may develop “splitting”— viewing people, situations, life as unidimensional, instead of a complex, multidimensional wholes. The child was unable to confront the caregiver, and subconsciously buried the emotions, negatively rearing the infant’s brain for adulthood.
How does this relate to envy? The persecuted artist becomes a projection of the “bad breast” (failures, insecurities, negative emotions) instead of being recognized as an integral whole of the community. Why should they make it, when I deserve so much more? An unhealthy comparison between me, mine, and the other.
This versus that.
The underdeveloped ego fragments their fellow man as competition, a narcissism that drags everyone downwards, instead of banding together and rising the tides, because rising tides lift all ships. What if I told you this Bad Boob mentality leaks into the collective consciousness? Holocausts, genocides war— Us vs. Them. A society void of multidimensional thought, projecting negative emotions onto scapegoats— them, the other, the bad breast? Clues of the narcissism pandemic: envious, unidimensional, unoriginal thought.
How much of the problem is also rooted in society’s view of the arts? I personally spent a great deal of childhood fighting for the attention of my parents, producing short films, writing short stories, and playing the drums. My efforts were largely ignored and viewed as hobbies, not careers. Interest in film school and creative writing were met with sighs, not outright disapproval, but sighs. Originating from a family of professors, lawyers, and small business owners, the financial outcomes of an art career looked misfortunate. Ironic, given my dad’s weekend spending habits: concerts, movies tickets, and live entertainment. Again, how much is correlated to envy? “Why does he get to paint pictures, write stories, and make music while I negotiate deals for a hospital?” Have we lost scope of the full functioning society? The lawyers, doctors, accountants, developers, owners… but what about the plumbers, contractors, electricians?
Do we respect the working class community like we should? Pay them like we should? Doesn’t everybody feel under appreciated to a degree?
From an art perspective, the process is extremely under appreciated until you find “success” aka until you make money. Most likely because it requires help. Theo Von Gogh, younger brother of Vincent Van Gogh, supported his brother through art trading connections, advice, and money. The Medici Family supported Leonardo Da Vinci through purchases. Kierkegaard was born into a wealthy family. Claude Monet was often funded by his father, received a will, and often required assistance from his wife. Edgar Allen Poe regretfully enrolled help from various family members, often tumultuous. Thanks to Max Brod, the works of Franz Kafka were posthumously published instead of burned. How many underground musicians required a couch to crash on between shows, albums, etc? I suppose artists meet great resistance due to the platform, the potential fame? The artist may become a celebrity to whatever degree, and why do they get the chance but not me?
Despite the pushback Mac Miller received as the private school crossover, high school drop out, corny white rapper, he represented Pittsburgh throughout his entire career, highlighting the cultural possibilities of a small, Pennsylvania city — writing Blue Slide Park into the international vocabulary, and establishing Pittsburgh as a musical landmark. Mac Miller helped make Pittsburgh cool, man. Shit rolls downhill. The city and all its inhabitants become that much more enriched in history. The town Woodstock and surrounding areas shine as artistic epicenters to this day— fall out from embracing their local art community and music festival history.
Are we really going to ruin cultural opportunities based on unhealed parts of ourselves, based on envy? Is that the appreciation we show towards art?
Is that the appreciation we show toward our fellow man?
Or does hometown hate motivate artists to make even greater art, speak more freely from the heart?
Suppose it’s case by case but…
Next time you complain about your “dumpy small town”, why not think twice before shitting on your local artists?
The Honda ascended Appalachia, cruising into Morgantown, Pennsylvania — a dense highway town with rush hour traffic, quiet at night. Stomach acid gnawed my mucus lining, signaling that I hadn’t eaten all day. Hungry. And busy, spending the entire day clearing music gear: MIDI controllers, pedals, synthesizers, cords from my storage unit, packaging into cardboard boxes, and shipping or delivering to eBay buyers and Facebook marketplace. The income is being used to fund my expeditions for housing, food, necessities. Cannabis. I’ve been banned from living at home due to exposing my sociopathic mother and codependent father. I receive funding, however its unreliable and subject to change or loss. I was living in an apartment outside West Chester, but fled after discovering the apartment was filled with cockroaches and managed by a narcissist.
This was apparent by her (Julie Calboli) lies, cover ups, and unwillingness to ever meet face to face. The storage unit lies an hour away, so I rushed to the unit, grabbed the items, found cardboard boxes at Five Below or GameStop, packaged, and shipped from the nearest post office. Reminded me of days shipping controlled substances through the mail. Provided a nice rush of energy. I miss it. Restaurant work sucks. In the chaos of the morning, I forgot to eat. How many times does this occur? Too many. As the Honda trudged towards the hillside, golden arches protruded from the skyline, two humps, the shape of the letter “M” — McDonalds. I typically don’t eat McDonalds.
A sure way to spend the evening or early morning glued to the toilet. Not to mention the small business, anti-corporate sentiment that flows through my veins. However, I was strapped for cash and hungry. I’d walk out of the local dive bar spending at least twenty dollars, with the additional temptation of alcohol I couldn’t afford financially or mentally. Still healing from multiple concussions, car accident, jumped outside a bar by a few kids, self harm. I used to punch myself in the face to get my anger out, because I was raised in a family that doesn’t allow anger. There’s no reason to be angry in my family? Especially not with a sociopathic woman controlling the dynamics, ha! Full of resentment, I passed the local taverns and headed for the McDonalds twenty-seconds-walking from my hotel room. Another time, I said, When I have money. The McDonalds, parked against the Pennsylvania turnpike, witnessed no shortage of patrons. A line of cars permanently painted across the drive-thru lane. Chemically constructed hamburgers and French fries engrossed the mountaintop air. I arrived at the ordering screen, punched an order for two McDoubles, a large fry, and large cup of water (costs less, illusion of healthy eating). The total was roughly eight dollars and fifty cents. I qualified for a coupon, oh boy. They certainly know how to keep you coming back. I took a seat in the middle of the restaurant, a booth adjacent to the ordering screens, where a woman in a baggy, oversized button-down, black cap, and warm smile dropped a tray containing two McDoubles, the large fry, empty plastic cup. Sitting in silence, I reflected on a week of running around from storage unit to hotel room, selling music gear, searching for housing, jumping between State Parks, trying to make ends meet. The majority of my days are spent packing and unpacking from one location to the next, attempting to secure cheap housing. French Creek State Park, my usual hideout, was closing for the incoming winter months. This meant retreating to the nearest Holiday Inn, way outside my budget, but the only hotel without cockroaches in the area. Great. With my parents refusal to book the hotel for a month, I was exhausted, short-winded, and a bit desperate. I’m banned from Airbnb due to my felony, so living situations are not easy to address. The closest VRBO’s: spread all across the state, nowhere near my housing destinations.
I swallowed the McDoubles with ease, devouring the fries, crushing the ice cold water. A fountain of energy erupted from the core of my being, a warm tingling sensation, the body’s overwhelming joy at nourishment.
Always remember to eat, I said to myself, always.
Finishing my meal in silence, I stood to discard my trash — catching from the corner of my eye, a gentleman perched in a booth studying a laptop. It wasn’t quite the gentleman that received my attention, but the sheet of paper taped to his laptop: “PHYSICAL VIOLENCE WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE WITHOUT DEEP, SPIRITUAL UNCONSCIOUSNESS.”
As somebody who recently discovered their spiritual roots within modern psychoanalysis, I was captivated. Especially with his word-choice, UNCONSCIOUSNESS. I pondered a moment before removing myself from the McDonalds booth, maneuvering towards the gentleman with the laptop. When I approached, he removed his earbuds. “I like your sign, what does it mean?” I asked. A smile swept across the man, white hair glistening underneath overhead lamps, wrinkles forming crevices beneath his eyes. “Did you know you took the first step?” He asked, “Most people would’ve walked by, gone on with their day. Maybe not even noticed in the first place. But you decided to read.” “Hard to ignore with the big red letters,” I said pointing at the font. He cleared the laptop from the center of the table, brushed his papers, and asked if I’d like to join. With my errands accomplished, I agreed. “Ron,” he said, hand motioning forward. “Nick”, I said. “Most people would’ve walked right by,” he continued but you knew this resonated with you. You knew… How can somebody who commits violence have any understanding of who they are? How lost they must be. Do you know who the most important teacher is?” I shrugged. “Teachers have students. However teachers are NOT one of their own students. The principal teacher is the teacher of teachers who are NOT one of their own students.”The man then removed a stack of papers sitting parallel, eyes darting between empty McDonald’s booths. “I asked God to send somebody to talk to…and now look… Anyway, have you ever wondered what’s wrong with the public education system?”
Sure, I thought, memory floating back to six o’clock wake up calls, crammed unventilated holding tanks, miserable students, narcissistic and underpaid teachers. It’s a fucking playground, I love it. Send me back, now. Even now, the act of typing this essays is tainted. A portal to oppressive times. I hate writing. It took me almost six months to write this essay.
The fault of the public education system? Surely, it was literally torture waking up everyday and going somewhere you hated. Writing about shit you don’t care about, just to receive a shitty grade from an angry, misunderstanding teacher. It’s actually no wonder these narcissistic kids are actively shooting up their schools. Broken homes, broken school, lying government. What’s there to lose, how can I prove my anger to the system? If I had narcissistic personality disorder, no empathy, there could’ve been serious problems. I’ll be writing a separate blog about narcissism, repressed rage, narcissistic injury, and mass shootings. “Do you know what’s wrong with our society,” he continued,” we don’t put value on the most important teacher. And who is that?” “The self?” I asked, five years of modern psychoanalysis under by belt.
“You got it. These kids I’m trying to help, if only they could see the connection. Too busy repeating violence,” Ron said, “is a spiritually awoken individual capable of committing senseless violence?” I was washed with childlike awe, captivated by a potential spiritual teacher. Is this the next step in my spiritual journey? Must be, I thought. “One mustn’t judge those who haven’t awoken. Remember…” Ron Said, “even we were once asleep.” Ron’s fingers danced through laminated pages, flipping through a self-published packet. Locating the desired pages, Ron discussed Soren Kierkegaard, father of existentialism, and the connection between living an ethical, conscious life and alignment with the self, master of acknowledging the absurd. Ron discussed the lack of understanding self-awareness, the lack of understanding our identity. Our disconnection with God. He bounced to the Allegory of The Cave, the blind leading the blind, the failures of the modern education system. How people who don’t understand themselves are attempting to lead others. Failures are likely to occur, no? “And you’ve been tested by God?” I asked Ron, eyeballing a black Velcro, brace strewn to a wounded hand. The man bowed his head, removing his eyes from sight, bowing in agreement. “Yes, why yes, oh yes, Ron continued, “If you are a student of your true self, your true self is your teacher and you are led by spirit.”
Tears swelled as Ron pronounced his discoveries with enthusiasm,
continuing with claims that we’re both student and teacher, that Christ is both God and Human.”
“Christ Consciousness,” I said. “Exactly!” Folding his arms, Ron seemed impressed with his lecture, following with a question: “So how long have you been a Christian?” “Christain?” I asked, “I was actually raised Jewish.”The words dispersed Ron’s triumph like a gunshot. The smile faded, arms hugging his torso, body shifting from side to side. Attempting to cover signs of disgust, Ron questioned, ”Is that what you believe?” “Hmm.. I’d say I have a more gnostic interpretatio—“ A grunt jolted from the opposite side of the table, as the man lost interest, spiraling at the comment. Defeated and without making eye contact Ron said, “You know I once converted a Jewish man…. It… took some time, but eventually worked.”
“And you did it without tying him down and placing hot coals underneath his flesh?”
Ronald chuckled uncomfortably, the energy suctioned from the McDonald’s dining room. We both sat awkwardly, spiritual material scattered across the table. “Would you like me to email this information,” he asked “Sure,” I replied. Dread caressed the McDonald’s dining room table.
Ron slid a card across the table, RONALD BARNES: Reading Support Teacher. The opposite side read: The Paradox of One’s Identity — listing the Russell Paradox. Honestly, I didn’t really understand the Russel Paradox.
I’m not sure if Ron does either. The concept was incredibly wordy, describing mathematical sets that disregarded Ron’s English background. Why did an English teacher choose a complicated, mathematical theory to best explain his argument? His spiel was entirely focused on repeating lines from a business card, instead of intuitively explaining from the heart, or listening for that matter. Confusing, actually.
More importantly, I watched an interview with Bertrand Russel.
When asked why he’s NOT A CHRISTIAN, he claims, “I see no evidence whatsoever for the Christian dogmas.”
So I’m confused. Ron, a deeply Christain man, who self-destructed an entire spiritual conversation because I wasn’t Christian, is parading through town, pushing Christianity, and using a vocal non-Christian to reinforce his argument? Bertrand Russel who even wrote an essay: Why I am not a Christain”?
Do you see the… Paradox?
Talk about the blind leading the blind, it appears Ron was close but no cigar. The facial distortions, verbal gasps, and folded arms were a time machine to Inquisitions, Crusades, and religious zealotry. However, to Ron, it signified a moral authority, an alignment with Christ. My religion is good, your religion is bad. Melanie Klein’s “good breast” and “bad breast” theory, where a child splits people, places, things into liner categories of “all good” or “all bad”. A reincarnation of infant breastfeeding. The child splits the caregiver into two identities. The splitting preserves the child’s perception of the caregiver, and protects the child from negative impressions.
“Good caregiver” and “bad caregiver” but they aren’t recognized as the same person.
Splitting breeds subconscious scapegoating, mental malleability, and one dimensional thought.
I was anticipating universal truths: God resides within every person, the microcosm of the macrocosm, discussion of higher dimensional reality, the interconnectedness of humanity, death and spiritual rebirth, law of attraction, karma… instead Ron brushed the dust from religious history. The conversation folded. Difficult to continue a conversation with someone who lectured you for twenty minutes and disregards you based on backgrounds and beliefs.
Based on the first sentences that flowed from my mouth. Future discussions disintegrated. My phone screen illuminated the time.
“Thanks for everything, Ron” I said, removing myself from the table.
I tucked the business card into my wallet and we shook hands.
“Until next time,” I said, glancing at Ron, who’s eyes sunk, defeated by his encounter with a Gnostic-Jew.
Thankful, at least, for the reminder of my hatred towards the public education system. A system of forced learning. Learning what, and why? School enjoys treating human beings like they’re all the same, no differences.
Why doesn’t school teach us about ourselves?
By learning to focus on self-knowledge, we uncover who we are, what skills we offer, and how to implement, aka how be best help society. This avoids the pitfalls of spending an adult life bouncing from tragic employment to tragic employment, soul sucking your existence into something you hate. In the words of KRS – ONE, “school would teach knowledge of the self.” What’s more important that wealth, health, and knowledge of the self?
Instead of creating a school based around testing and taxation, we propel students with self-mastery, which benefits society by disallowing people to fall through cracks. An opportunity to engage with ideals and themes that interest an individual.
Not to mention a majority of teachers succumb to the narcissism pandemic.
Teachers like Ms. Coates who spent weeks attempting to suspend, even expel me for cheating, forgetting I retook a test when absent representing our high school during the statewide business leader’s competition.
This incident included many principals and authority figures who interrogated me for cheating. When in reality the sociopathic, elderly hag was losing her sanity and picking fights. My only high school detention came from Ms. Coates, because I was late to class at the end of the school year. Even though we had an agreement for the entire year: my classmate (Christain) and I run late because we’re coming from the farthest side of the school. She had a bone to pick. In the end, I wasn’t suspended and I received a failing grade on the test which plummeted my GPA. I guess everybody wins. Especially Mrs. Swartz, who did her best to brush along the situation like nothing happened — holding nobody accountable, especially a mean tempered, lying, mentally incapable sociopathic teacher ruining the education experience of gifted students.
Narcissistic teachers are a theme I encountered throughout high school, college, even religious school. Dark personalities responsible for crafting minds and inspiring the youth. Positions of power, nothing surprising. I also grew up with the administration’s children. So the proof is in the pudding. Our band, Punch The System, disintegrated shortly after ‘Gregg Swartz’, the bassist, was unable to practice without a parental guardian present. Memories of calling my mom to cancel her plans and return home so Mr. Swartz could leave our band practice— Punch The System, a punk-grunge inspired garage band. Not very punk after all.
Helicopter parenting and lack of boundaries being an indicator of narcissism — I would know, I went through similar behaviors with my own parents: monitoring conversations, stalking social media, strict video game preferences, homework enforcement. I was forced to play Xbox Live in the living room so my mother could hear all my conversations.
Mrs. Swartz became principal of the high school, where I was confronted for cheating by Ms. Coates, cornered and made to feel stupid. The lack of accountability and repercussions- a beginner lesson in institutional narcissism. Narcissists look out for one another.
The superintendent’s son, a childhood friend, is nicknamed “BM”, bad monster. A term coined for his constant uproars and blacked out behavior in social situations, private pregames, wherever. A covert narcissist who bullies his friends, spews aggression, and is actively avoided on the weekends. Cocaine fueled black outs are a regular occurrence for the superintendent’s son. The epitome of superb teaching and leadership, translating to all aspects of life, especially her children.
His avoidance of women also being an indicator of nearby narcissism. I avoided women because of my sociopathic mother. I didn’t kiss a girl until the summer going into senior year of high school, and she just finished giving my friend a blowjob. (Ha!)
I don’t think the superintendents son lost his virginity until a couple years ago at the Chinatown massage. One for the books. Also, I’m sure he’d appreciate me addressing him as “the superintendents son”, he was sure to remind me all the time.
Memories of first grade teachers scolding me for coloring outside the lines, receiving low grades in art class, my fifth grade teacher treating my inability to stop writing as a problem instead of a gift. School sucks. Not surprising I found myself in the pits of OFWKGTA screaming “Kill people, burn shit, fuck school”. So close, I thought, reflecting on Ronald Barnes, Reading Support Teacher.
A close understanding to the interconnectedness of life, the divine within- but no cigar.
A paradox, sure, a Christian spiritualist preaching the words of an agnostic philosopher who renounced Christianity, who cancelled conversation with somebody because of his Jewish decent. Odd but in the spirit of Kiierkegaard, absolutely absurd.
One final attempt. The paper plate fluttered against moist embers, casting dust and debris into brisk winter winds. I gasped and heaved for ignition – praying for the wet wood to spark. A source to cook my dinner. Nothing. Glancing around the campgrounds, there was no escaping the record rains and flooded waterways engulfing French Creek State Park. I was forced to comply with the flooded conditions and recently purchased, sponge-soaked firewood. Great. The sun crawled beneath the prickled tree-line, drowning in a moonlit sky.
Time was against me. Darkness and no flame. Hungry.
A collision sounded from the adjacent cabin, penetrating a thin wooden frame. An argument, shaking the serenity of the cabin campgrounds. Minding my own business, I tended to the miserable fire, embers fizzling and smoke ascending amongst the onslaught of recycled forest droplets.
Too wet, I thought, screams reverberating against towering trees, Just my luck.
Glaring into the blackened logs, defeated, I examined the medical marijuana container resting on the picnic table. Removing the cap from the glass enclosure, a boulder slammed the pit of my stomach. The concentrated cannabis, welcoming with its fruity essence and sparkling aura, was replaced by scentless, microscopic specks.
No weed, no fire, and a choir of shrieks from the neighboring cabin.
I should’ve planned more efficiently, I thought, wasted time bouncing from storage unit, to hotel, to campground, to storage unit, to Facebook Marketplace buyer, to post office. Christ. How could I fuck this up?
Spending my days bouncing across southeastern Pennsylvania, I was exhausted and overstimulated, exchanging hotels and state park reservations in attempts to cut costs from vacating my recent cockroach-ridden apartment. Selling items from my storage unit to fund the expedition, asking family for assistance. Hotels are expensive right now, and if you manage to find something cheap? Good luck, there seems to be a bed bug and cockroach infestation sweeping the hospitality industry, even found them during my stay at Nockamixon State Park. Walking into a hotel without reading Google reviews is a job best suited for the Men In Black.
Do I drive to Pottstown? I pondered, while examining the empty marijuana container. I’d rather not, I just spent the entire day driving. Maybe I’ll just make ramen noodles or a PB&J? I should have something laying around he—
“Hey, what’s going on over here?” Expecting my conflict-stricken neighbor from the adjacent cabin, I was surprised to see a stranger, smile emanating from his beard, one hand outstretched, another entombed in a winter coat.
“Over here?” I asked, eyeballing the dysfunctional cabin behind him.
Did he mean the yelling?
“Trouble with the fire? Hey, my name’s John.” The outstretched hand maneuvered into my grip, as we shook hands underneath the moist canopy.
“Saw you over here, thought I’d say hello. I just moved down here a couple days ago. Scouted the area beforehand. Not bad.”
“Nick,” I said, shaking John’s hand.
“How long have you been out here? I asked a few other campers, varying answers. That guy over there, he told me he’s here on weekends. The couple next to me… they’ve been camping in a tent for months. Husband’s a manager at Turkey Hill. Looks cold in that tent.”
“Whenever there’s vacancy,” I said, pointing towards the rented cabin.
“How much?”
“The same as full hook up, minus the running water.”
“That’s not too bad. Yeah, my wife and I are splitting up,” the man interjected, “I’m out here with my camper. It’s not entirely winterized, but it’ll get the job done. Let me know if I’m being too much. People tell me I’m too much. Might be on the spectrum, a bit.”
“Sorry to hear,” I said, how long have you been together? The man shifted confidently in my direction, eyes shimmering behind a pair of glasses.
“Its okay, its my fault. It’s always my fault. I’m a bit difficult. Ten years…. I told you, if you’d prefer I leave, just say somethi — Hey, you need help with your fire?”
Smoke-stained logs peered from the fire ring, as the wind slapped our winter coats. Eyeballing the defeated logs, I asked,
“What do you have?”
“Yeah, one second, I’ll be right back. Is that okay?”
“Sure,” I stood watching as the man bolted from the cabin site, descending into the darkness of night. When he returned, John placed a six pack of Lagunitas IPA’s, folded cardboard, and a handheld device shaped like a butane torch.
“Wanna see something cool?” John ignited a switch on the handheld device, delivering a roar, which suctioned the nearby air, and dispensed punishing winds onto the ember-soaked logs. Flames embraced the wood, snapping against damp tree bark, mounting the steel enclosure. Fire.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, glancing toward the pistol shaped device.
“Multi-purpose air gun, useful for air mattresses and campfires. Want a beer?”
John passed me the Lagunitas, which I accepted.
“Are you hungry? I’ve got campfire nachos.”
“Absolutely,” he said, “But if I’m being obnoxious or taking up your time, just let me know, okay?”
I agreed, spreading tortilla chips, dicing jalapeños, green peppers, olives, and onions; scattering nacho cheese, cheddar, salt, pepper, a layer of taco seasoning. To compensate for the lack of protein, I doubled the portion of vegetables, tossing the cast-iron tray over the flames.
We discussed state parks, national forests, backpacking the Appalachian trail.
John’s an outdoorsman, spent much of his childhood camping with his family, later investing in his own camper, his home currently.
“From outside Reading,” John said, “I’ve been all over the area, but surprisingly never to French Creek.” Words arrived easily, comfortably for John, who found no worries divulging personal information to a total stranger. “We had three miscarriages, my wife and I. Maybe it’s a sign from the universe, right?” John peered into the campfire nachos, cheese fusing and bubbling amongst the heat. “I mean, I’m not easy to be with.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. I’m antsy, a bit intense. You know… you can tell. I’m difficult.”
It was true, John was a bit intense, extroverted, but was he menacing? Did his personality threaten me with the possibility of theft or violence? While I admit, I didn’t let him into my cabin… this was a rule of mine, no strangers in my bedroom —
I didn’t feel threatened. The man offered me beer and fire while essentially homeless during the impending winter months. In fact, he played a role I was all too familiar with: The self-attacking, low self-esteem, blame-taking codependent.
John was most likely confronted with a narcissist. How?
From his living situation, to the constant “I’m difficult”, the beers he explained he carries backpacking, the smile plastered to his cheeks, there appeared to be somebody in John’s life he had difficulty confronting, at the least.
“What do you do for work?” He asked.
“Restaurants, figuring it out ” I said, what about you?”
“Interesting,” he said, eyeballing my Honda Accord Hybrid parked in the cabin lot, “I’m a teacher.”
“Teacher? I come from a family of teachers. What do you teach?”
John took a swig from his amber beer bottle, eyes lingering against the flames.
“Pre-crime, a high school over in Reading.”
“Pre-crime, what the hell is that?” I inquired, picturing Tom Cruise from Minority Report, pre-cognitives floating in water, high tech surveillance gadgets.
“Reading’s gotten bad over the years. Real bad. Ghetto as shit. Where are you from? You said outside Philadelphia? So you know.”
Picturing the town of Media, Pennsylvania, A Christmas town, string lights illuminating State Street, the families in fifty thousand dollar SUVs, fastened designer bags, eight dollar beers. The homeless living in their cars behind Double Decker Pizza.
I shrugged, “Depends”.
“A lot of our kids are high risk for gangs, violence, jail and prison. Its a program designed for troublemakers.”
“Really, does it work?”
“Sort of, hard to say. Eh, Usually not. You have to know how to deal with troubled kids. They all have something to prove, they all want to look cool in front of their peers. You know how you handle them?”
“How?” I asked.
John emptied the beer bottle down his esophagus.
“You gotta give them a taste of their own medicine!” He chuckled, “they tell you to go fuck yourself, you send it straight back.”
“That works?”
“It works better than getting pushed around. It’s a balancing act.”
John didn’t know it, but he was channeling psychoanalytic insight.
Dr. Hyman Spotnitz, founder of Modern Psychoanalysis, developed a method for dealing with narcissists and patients called “eliciting the toxoid response”.
Spotnitz confronted patients while mirroring a caregiver or primary object within the patients past, beckoning an emotional response normally suppressed. The patient’s confrontation with their analyst bridges the unconscious material hindering their emotional progress. For example, an analyst may talk over the patient during session, tell them their ideas are silly and incompetent, show little interest in their session, or even mimic the patient.
The analyst attempts to embody a primary object or relationship from the patient’s life, or even the patient themselves.
What is the analyst looking for? A response.
Spotnitz believes repressed emotions, primarily negative emotions like anger, are trapped within the individual’s psyche. When the patient is confronted with the analysts behavior, they may eventually feel compelled to express themselves. The expression and identification of emotional triggers ultimately heals the patient over time by reverting them to the “pathological state”, the mirroring of situations and responses that molded the patient’s neurosis and illnesses. The patient exorcises unconscious, negative emotions, and directs them to the frontal lobe of awareness, and back onto the analyst. Energy may not be created or destroyed, only transferred and transformed. Law of thermodynamics.
Have you seen David Fincher’s Netflix show Mindhunters? The show resembles John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, FBI investigators from the emerging serial crime unit. While interviewing narcissistic, sociopathic, and psychopathic serial killers, the investigators become strikingly aware their conventional methods of communication fail to achieve results. Finally, the investigator played by Jonathan Goff attempts a different approach. He asks the prison guards to remove the shackles of notorious serial killer Ed Kemper, building trust between the killer and the investigator. The investigator proceeds to engage in lively conversation, asking Kemper how good it felt to murder those women, to defile, and embarrass their corpses. Instead of treating Kemper like a specimen, he forms a relationship, prying into the killer’s mind, allowing him to talk, and going as far as ordering pizza for interviews with Kemper. Investigators discovered a tight-rope when confronting narcissists, a tug of war between asserting dominance and allowing the imprisoned killer to talk freely.
Confrontation is imperative in modern psychoanalytic thought. When the patient first arrives in treatment, they do not view the analyst as a separate human being. The analyst first allows the patient to speak uninterrupted, forming a closeness in identification to the patient, dissolving the ego boundaries between the two. After many sessions, the analyst will provoke the toxoid response in order to assist the patients emotional outlet, to exemplify and initiate confrontation, to identify the separation between analyst and patient — to gain awareness of the suppressed emotion and the origin. This process of confrontation mimics the identification of self in childhood, predominately because a child’s ego first identifies with the primary object, eventually developing an individual sense of self through healthy maturation, through the freedom to discover and explore their own personal interests.
Have you ever met a child in the midst of the terrible twos? This is the child exercising their new knowledge of separation. They are saying “No” because they can.
“No” is the beginning of the child’s understanding they exist outside the primary object, caregiver, typically mother. A “No” is an establishment of the self. Improper understanding of this troublesome developmental stage may further repress the child’s developing sense of self. A caregiver may misdiagnose the child’s actions as “bad behavior”, instead of allowing the child to negatively express themselves, rationally.
Issues with this developmental phase may fracture the child’s identity or even cause gender dysphoria, especially if the child exhibits closeness with the identification of a specific parent. This is one reason why two parent households are so important, the child, especially a male, breaks their identification from the primary object, and requires an exemplary member of the opposite sex to solve the Oedipus Complex — the lust for the primary object. More often, the child mistakenly assumes responsibility for their parents emotions, becoming parent (people) pleasers, neglecting their own emotional needs for the needs of the caregiver.
(Another blog post about transgenderism soon).
While FBI investigators fell under increased scrutiny for ‘conversing’, ’entertaining’, and confronting societies worst, they eventually discovered a useful modality for conjuring informative interviews, along with a theme of harsh, conditionally loving mothers amongst serial killers —Ed Kemper, who engaged in sexual intercourse with his mother’s severed head.
Removing the cast-iron tray from bursting flames, I placed the campfire nachos on the wooden picnic table. Nacho cheese popped and geysered steam into our nostrils. We sorted tortilla chips onto paper plates, cracked fresh cans of beer, and sat by the fire’s warmth.
“So you come from a family of teachers?” John asked.
“Father is a lawyer for Thomas Jefferson university, both grandpa’s were local law/political science professors, grandma was an English teacher and guidance counselor, other grandma is a pastor, Aunt is a math teacher, cousin is a professor of music at North Carolina – Greensboro, Uncle and Aunt were professors at University of Toronto.”
“Wow, that’s pretty cool. I mean, what are the chances? Me, a teacher, meeting a descendent of teachers, in the middle of the woods, like this?”
A chill ascended my spine, tickling behind my ears, radiating to the top of my head. A reminder, that despite the cockroaches, despite the conflicts with my family, despite the financial ruin, the near homelessness, I’m right where I’m supposed to be: Tucked beneath the stars of Appalachia, munching home cooked campfire nachos, sipping Lagunitas beer, and sharing the company of a stranger during hard times.
“Ahh shit,” I said, glancing at the time projecting from my iPhone.
“What’s that?”
“Any dispensaries open at this hour?”
John excavated the trenches of his coat pocket, removing a black USB-shaped device.
“Here you go,” he said, “puff it long and hard brother. Live resin… yeah, yeah.. high school teacher smoking pot. It should be legal. Better than drinking. Seriously.”
Removing the device from John’s grip, I noticed the cannabis insignia painted across the black battery, medical marijuana, and live resin at that!
“Do you like teaching?” I asked, pressing the marijuana cartridge to my lips.
John glared into the fire-pit, a smile wiped his beard and without hesitating he responded,
“I love it.”
My lungs exhaled the herbal vapors which protruded against the moonlit evening, against the glow of the roaring flames.
The night was quiet and still and I was full and stoned.
Slam. A steel door penetrated an uncanny moment of hotel silence, awakening anticipated sleep, and plunging me into the chaos of shared living. Fumbling in the darkness, eyes scanning, I realized nobody entered the room. A fear when living in public spaces. A real fear. One “housekeeping” away. Trust me.
An ensemble of slamming steel doors thundered from the hallway, as truckers, vacationers, and passing strangers vacated their rooms. Holiday remnants.
Reaching for my iPhone, I peered at the clock unfazed. Ten o ‘clock in the morning. Early….erhhh no…late… difficult to say when forced captive by insomnia. Life becomes a game of addition, mounting individual hours of sleep in the holy attempt to gain a full night’s rest, usually unsuccessfully.
Glancing around the hotel room, a relaxation caught my breath, replaced by gnawing frustration. Why am I here, what am I doing, what the fuck?
At least I knew who to blame. For what? For moving into a cockroach-ridden apartment, which my landlord Julie Calboli knew before signing the lease. How did she know? It definitely wasn’t the cockroach gel left in the closet, or the clogged drains with battery-operated flood alarms, or the broken-decaying dishwasher with moldy vegetable specs, or the dilapidated oven, or neighbors claiming “the bugs are better than before”, or her refusal to ever meet face to face, stating “this has never happened before”… from afar.
Morgantown, eight minutes outside French Creek State Park, cordially became home after an exodus and months of location hopping – and it’s not perfect. Weekends are bombarded with sport teams, drifters, and the attached expo center magnetizes crowds across the state. The increased foot traffic means the increased slamming of doors. Typically begins around six-thirty in the morning and ends around four o’clock in the afternoon.
A recipe for disaster when dealing with insomnia.
Why don’t you just go home? Home. Sure, and simultaneously sacrifice any emotional well-being for the comfort of my sociopathic mother and codependent father. Yeah, that’s a great idea. I’m sure nothing can go wrong. I’m sure my physical and emotional health won’t pay the toll. I’m sure they haven’t all ready.
Too many emotional and physical scars to return. A sentence to insanity at best.
The gaslighting, physical abuse to animals, invasion of privacy; the constant games of mental chess, unlimited lies, fear of retribution, and the wire-rope of conditional love. The pettiness of discovering your chargers unplugged from power strips.
I’m good.
Awoken for the fourth time, bloodshot eyes, fingernails digging trenches, I yanked my phone from the table and took to social media. An outlet for my anger – An immediate, short form response compared to the screwdriver forehead-fracturing tactics of blogging. I honestly do not enjoy writing. Lets make this clear. God, I’ve been avoiding it. With everything I have. Fuck. However, unfortunately for me, I believe I’ve encountered a few opportunities to communicate a story. Not entirely my story, but the stories of people I’ve encountered on the road. They individually mirror a theme or person(s) from my life, ideas and archetypes I’ve encountered during my process with modern psychoanalysis.
This healing process: modern psychoanalysis, simultaneously ignited the fiercest conflicts I’ve ever known alongside the liberation of my unconscious mind.
A natural reaction, the mind becomes aware of the programmings of the programmer. Does this always warrant a negative reaction, well how malignant and improper were the programmings? And how nearby are these people during this process of unravelling?
Unfortunately, in my case, the parental programming was malignant, improper, and the unraveling process took place within my parent’s household… primarily during COVID. Confronting my sociopathic mother and codependent father is the greatest life altering situation I’ve encountered, and I’ve fought a lengthy prison sentence for a nonviolent drug crime.
Punching the purple Instagram icon, my thumbs ambushed the internet. Drawing from my discussions about narcissism, I posted various public messages regarding the unconscious presence of narcissistic personality disorder, the absence of a biological cure, and the subsequent invasion of our families and institutions.
I pounded keys furiously, projecting my anger regarding forced living conditions into the heart of what I thought to be the problem. Narcissism. A biological surrender to the frustrations accumulated within a child typically two years and younger – when negative emotions have no escape, where do they go? Dr. Hyman Spotnitz believes negative emotions, primarily anger, are hopelessly redirected back onto the child’s ego. This tornado of anger and self-destruction formulates a spectrum of narcissism, ranging from healthy perceptions of the self, to the self-destructing codependent, or to the egregious desolate depths of the malignant narcissist, psychopath, and sociopath – A dense self-hatred projected against the world.
The structural basis of narcissism being what? Repression, mainly. An inability to discharge negative emotions. Trapped psychic energy. Instead of being met with love, compassion, understanding, nurturing, an opportunity for self-expression, the child is confronted with an apathetic energy, uncaring, short of patience, demanding, or even downright unreliable. Relationship and career conflicts may also intervene with proper attention and development, preventing the child from meeting their emotional or physical needs. When the frustration or anger is unable to be communicated, the energy becomes trapped within the psyche. This is a lesson in the law of thermodynamics, Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred and transformed.
With my psychoanalytic education and my own distaste toward my current state of affairs, I decided to declare my unconscious conscious. Posting images littered with my psychoanalytic insights and personal history, I rejoiced in the revenge for my lost sleep.
Concluding my doctoral thesis, I grabbed my bong and medical marijuana, heading for the designated smoking section adjacent to the hotel. Finding a spot on the curb, I finished my post before getting medicated for the day. Still attached, I know.
Cementing myself to the concrete, I punctuated my final phrases for a few instagram followers and prepared to smoke the cannabis leaves, watching as a family unpacked from their travels. My thumb hovered over the “SEND button” as the doors breached open to the parking lot. A woman jolted from behind reflecting glass doors, blonde hair hooding her eyes, an inside-out sweatshirt stitched to her frail figure. The woman lit a cigarette, and the family headed inside.
Pressing “SEND” on my iPhone, I observed as she inhaled and tip-toed to the curb, positioning herself next to me. Exhaling the cigarette smoke, she brushed dirty blonde hair from her face and asked,
“What are you running from?”
“Is that the vibe I give off?”
The woman inched closer, exhaling cigarette smoke, which surfed the breeze directly into my face.
“I’m running,” she said.
“From what…”
“From my abusive husband…”
A crimson crust protruded from her nostril, bloody, battered.
“Are you okay?” I pulled the medical marijuana closer, nervous, observing her slender fingers like twigs clutching the cigarette upright.
“No… I’m running. I’m not going to stop,” she said.
“And how far do you think you’ll get?”
She didn’t answer, instead she sat idle, glaring into winter’s leafless horizon.
A silence lingered.
“What’s your name?” She asked.
“Nick, you?”
“Audrey”
“Where are you going?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. Silence.
“I’m getting a PFA, she said.
“Protection from abuse,” I said, “are you getting that done here, at the courthouse?”
(I only just recently learned about PFA’s, and I’ll have another blog directly related to my brother and his wife filing a false PFA and hospitalization against me).
She didn’t answer so we sat in silence.
“Do you have kids?” she asked.
“No…” I answered.
“Then how could you EVER know what I’m going through?”
“I guess I don’t….” I responded, as she turned away disgusted.
“Where are your kids,” I asked.
“With my husband.”
“Umm, are they safe?” I asked confused.
“Yes,” she said confidently, before a frown smeared her lips.
“How many kids do you have?”
“Three…”
“And you’re sure they’re safe?”
“Yes,” she repeated annoyed.
An alarm sounded in the caverns of my subconscious, a tiny alarm. If your husband was abusive, why would you leave your three children behind? Why would you leave on your own… to find help?
And why so secretive, sketchy, and annoyed about topics you’re bringing up. You approached me after-all.
The man, previously unpacking the car with his family and wearing a Kutztown Cannabis Festival t-shirt, exited the hotel doorway. He noticed my attempted disposal of the bong, but reassured me, “It’s all good brotha,” before igniting a one hitter in the passenger seat of his Dodge SUV.
“I’m going to start running again, maybe right now,” she said, dramatically dropping her cigarettes and lighter, stumbling into the parking lot, and vanishing behind a row of parked cars.
In her disappearance, the gentleman and I discussed medical marijuana and the Kutztown Cannabis Festival. The contrast in energy between the woman and the gentleman were palpable. The upbeat, fuzzy intoxication of marijuana versus the cold, dire, and ominous situation presented by the woman. Talking to the gentleman, I noticed the lighter and full pack of cigarettes. She’d be returning. Do I leave? I took a picture of the cigarettes and placed a follow up post on Instagram regarding my strange encounter. Where’s the connection, abuse? Slightly intrigued, I decided to smoke a bowl of marijuana.
I’m in the middle of a scene, I thought filtering seeds and stems with my thumbs, and pounding diamond laced-gooey leaves into the glass slide. Ken Kesey would be proud.
The discovery of the film, the scene within our own lives, and the cannabis too.
I began to smoke but was viciously interrupted.
“You asshole!” The woman descended upon me, arms extended, fists flailing, tearing at my hoodie.
“What?”
The woman reemerged, striking me by surprise, hands clasping my wrists, tugging close…and closer.
“You asshole… just… hold me,” forcing my arms to the side, Audrey closed her eyes, maneuvering her lips closer to mine.
“Whoa, whoa… what’s going on here?”
“Please… just come closer. Hold me. Kiss me. Please…” Alcohol vaporized my nostrils as I carefully pushed the woman away.
“Hold on, what’s going on. Is this the best idea?”
Frustrated, the woman pulled herself away.
“Why won’t you kiss me? Is it because I’m ugly?”
“No it’s just – ”
“Then why won’t you kiss me? Please.”
“How about we sit here and smoke instead? I’ll keep you company.”
I positioned myself next to the lighter and pack of cigarettes.
“What?” She answered disgustedly, “COME HERE,” the woman said throwing herself into my lap, melting, burrowing her head into my chest, yanking me to the warmth of her limp body.
“Will you come up to my room with me?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I responded, gazing nervously into the parking lot.
“Please,” she said while clutching both of my legs.
“Its just — ”
“You don’t want to sleep with me because I’m ugly.”
“Trust me, its not that. I’d love to sleep with you, I just don’t think its a good idea. It’s early, why don’t you go back to bed?”
“I’m literally asking you to go to bed with me.”
“Yeah but… without me….”
The woman snuggled into my being, alcohol permeating the winter breeze. An overwhelming desire to comfort Audrey ignited my veins. A desire to hold her tightly, to reassure her, to place a kiss atop her forehead. The desire for a man to be with a woman, to provide and care for her, and yes, with the possibility for sex. It’s been years since I’ve really been with a woman, four, maybe five years? I discontinued relationships and dating to focus on myself and the analytical process, to eradicate myself of codependencies and the Madonna Whore Complex (blog coming soon).
Of course I miss sex, who doesn’t?
In the intensity of the moment, I snatched my bong and held it to my chest. A shield. An escape. The alcohol stung my nostrils and watered my eyes.
“Are you coming up with me?” Through frazzled blonde locks, the woman peered at me with puppy dog eyes, a whimpering scarred lip, and the crimson crusted nostril.
“I’m sorry….” I said.
Immediately she unfastened herself from my embrace, snatched the pack of cigarettes, the lighter, and stumbled for the glass doorway, departing as quickly as she arrived.
I stood, seemingly naked in the brisk winter breeze, bong clutched in my hand pants down.
The realization dawned on me, quite suddenly, that I’ve met this woman before. I’ve lived with her, and therefore I’ve all ready slept with her. The ghosty white flesh, slender frail figure, menthol cigarette sucking, succubus. An ex-girlfriend.
During my furious posts to Instagram I mentioned narcissism, sociopathy, psychopathy, but I failed to mention another Cluster B personality disorder, borderline personality, BPD. And here arrives the universe with a dangerous and callous reminder.
If you’re familiar with The Sopranos, you’re familiar with borderline personality disorder. Tony’s god awful, wreck of a mother who auditions herself as the star of every tragedy. Gloria: Tony’s short-term mistress with an erratic, drama dependent, conflict-causing, seemingly irrational personality. Gloria in particular, who literally stalks trouble, following Tony’s mob-boss wife, chucking roast beef at his skull, and the never ending supply of temper tantrums, the “why me?” After intentionally sparking conflicts.
Borderline personality is a “splitting disorder” where people are viewed as entirely “all good” or “all bad”. This is a defense mechanism developed during childhood against a difficult primary object. The child divides the primary object (typically mother) into two separate classifications which extends from the child’s perception of the mother during breast feeding. The “good” mother and the “bad” mother… the “good” breast and the “bad” breast. This theory was developed by psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, who observed how the child preserves the image of the primary object through a process known as “splitting”. Important to note that one doesn’t require borderline personality disorder to exemplify “split thinking”.
“Jews run the world”, “All Muslims are terrorists”, “Trump supporters are racist Nazis, “Democrats are paedophiles,”. These are examples of mislabeling an entire group of people based on tribal classifications. His tribe…bad! My tribe… good! Tribalism.
When dating somebody with borderline personality, you fluctuate between being a savior, hero, and dream partner to dictator, tyrant, and abuser. One of the most prominent weapons utilized by somebody with borderline personality disorder is sex.
The amount of phone calls and sit-downs I received from friends regarding how my girlfriend was cheating, the spontaneous fights causing her to “disappear” for days on end, only to find she’s been shacked up with somebody new and temporary, the sexting on snapchat, the “don’t worry about him”, the refusal of sex for months even years, and especially intense fights before intense physical sex.
Many times this would be an act of self-destruction, especially right before a vacation, concert, or birthday. The borderline person has a “splitting” disorder, which means they have a problem connecting, just like somebody was unable to connect with them as a child. Borderline individuals mimic a childhood revulsion from connection and love by self-destructing and pushing people into the “bad” identity. This identification preserves the child from ill perceptions of the primary object or caregiver, and mirrors the the history of detachment.
For example, a mother brings her child to the park, where the child picks flowers and excitedly presents them to his mother. In response, the mother does not show appreciation, maybe she ignores the child, empties the child’s palm and washes his hands, behaves in a particular way that undermines the bond and boundary dissolution of a loving relationship. This splitting behavior symbolizes a deeply rooted fear within the borderline and narcissistic person, the fear of love and the fear of dissolving one’s ego and self. Another example of this phenomenon occurs during the psychedelic experience. Narcissistic and borderline individuals find themselves bait to “bad trips” caused primarily by the exposure of their trapped, anger-stricken subconscious, and find difficulty “letting go” into the ethereal realms of love, bliss, and the other.
“Audrey”, raised many red flags: The alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity, abandoned children, discombobulated story, the desperation yet annoyance I won’t partake in her scheme, Audrey leaving when the Cannabis shirt man appeared, the anger and departure upon refusal of sex, even her blowing cigarette smoke in my face. This was all telling.
“You asshole,” I’m in a time machine, watching a woman pound against my chest, slapping me across the face and accusing me of cheating, before she disappears with her friends, destroys our plans, and books the nightly dick-down from one of numerous disposable flings. A creation of conflict, where I’m suddenly the “bad boyfriend” and she’s suddenly pardoned, immunized by victimhood.
The problem arises when the borderline person discovers a malleable partner, a prey. Judging by the cuts and scars trailing the woman’s face she had discovered just the partner. The predator is searching for an emotionally weak, fragile individual whom they are able to control. This is why emotional intelligence is so important. If you are unable to recognize the mind games, you’ll actively find yourself on the losing side.
The costs of losing? You’ll find yourself slowly decaying, dying, or even imprisoned like a coworker friend of mine, with your bank accounts recently emptied, and your lover on the run with somebody new.
A narcissistic, borderline person requires a partner in their game of charades. How well do you think an emotionally weak individual will take to the news of infidelity, manipulation, or cunningness? The woman of your children is whoring herself and its entirely your fault! The narcissistic, borderline individual screams “abuse” after they’ve intentionally incited a terrible reaction. The borderline person is counting on this.
Here strolls Audrey, claiming she’s been abused, abandoning her children who she probably has no real attachment, drinking at eleven in the morning, and convincing a much younger stranger to sleep with her after inciting violence, most likely caused by a similar situation of infidelity. The excitement she twiddles, debriefing her husband about the twenty year old she fucked in a hotel room outside Morgantown, PA.
How did she know to find me, so quick for discussion, did she spot me from the window in her room? Predator and prey.
Within milliseconds of posting to Instagram, I encountered Audrey. A sign from the universe, or am I forcing my delusional, isolated perspective of narcissistic invasion down your throat? Did I misread the encounter?
Am I making this up for attention? I’ll leave that up to you.
When my friend asked, “How do you smoke with your medical card,”
I replied, “Smoking section near the parking lot. Honestly, I’m interested to see if I meet anybody over there.”
A joint lesson in manifestation and narcissism.
Palming through double glass doors, I emerged below mountaintops and a star threaded sky. A glass pipe dispelled from its holster, emerald trees packing the cylindrical slide. The parking lot still, asleep beneath the nightlight of McDonalds arches and a single stuttering lightbulb. Resting my bottom against the cement curbside, I drew the lighter and fastened the pipe. Alone, I thought, spotting the butt end of a Marlboro Menthol cigarette.
THE BADBOOB 