Session 2: My face for you

On the pilot episode of Without a Trace, a drama about an FBI missing persons unit, the team searches for a missing woman named Maggie. While interviewing Maggie's friends and family, the team becomes confused: each description of the woman is markedly varied. Maggie's boss praises her for her professionalism, but other evidence suggests she may have a drug problem and might be doing cocaine with someone from work. Maggie's dad insists she will come back soon and that his daughter tells him everything, but we find out Maggie just wants to get away from everyone for a while. Each conflicting report of the missing woman reveals only a role she plays for different friends and family. As Jack Malone observes: "“Everyone we talk to, we see a different Maggie.”

The idea that we put on masks for the people in our lives is certainly not new. It is how we assimilate. How we bend to societal constructions. How we socialize and interact with humanity. If we do not learn to behave appropriately, we do not fit within society. Yet how many of these personas are reflections of our identity and how many are creations? If I wear the mask long enough, do I become the monster?

After my first blog post last week, I felt exposed. I had vacillated between publicizing my posts and keeping them hidden, but eventually my need to be heard overwhelmed my need for privacy. Only afterward did I consider the repercussions: my masks would be torn away. The friend who had only known me as friendly and bubbly would now see the torment underneath. The mentor who had been proud of my accomplishments would now know how often I had failed. The ex-loves that I was trying to keep a brave face for -- see, I'm completely unfazed by your rejection of me! -- would know that I was fragile. Breakable. Broken.

Let's face it: we like the categories our friends fit into. We don't want our party friend moaning about heartbreak. Sure, we all know our funny friend may have hidden pain, but we don't want to hear about it. We don't want our friends who binge to diet, or our wandering friends to find their way. We want everyone to fill the needs we have, their own identities be damned.

Of course, this is oversimplified, but it brings home the point that our identities are fluid, our masks our constantly changing, and more than the difficulty of truly knowing anyone else is the impossibility of truly knowing oneself.

Right now I'm listening to Columbine by Dave Cullen, a painstakingly researched book about the high school massacre. What most impresses me (besides the fact that everything we know is wrong, and the mythic "outsiders against the cool kids" image was completely fabricated) is that Eric and Dylan were so, well, normal.

Such complexities don't fit into the archetypes we have about high school and its class structures, so the media and students created stories that made sense to themselves. To be sure, I think Eric was likely a sociopath, but that doesn't mean he wasn't charming. For his part, Dylan seems like a caring, if somewhat hot-tempered guy who followed Eric's lead in most things. Eric and Dylan both were sociable and intelligent. They had many friends, but none who knew what they were planning. In fact, the people they had hung out just days before were stunned to find out what the two had done. We never really know anyone.


Interestingly, some of their most candid conversations took place online. With the anonymity the computer provides, Eric was able to fantasize about a world without humans; he was able to speak what he had never spoken to most of his friends in person. It is now commonplace to look to a shooter's online posts after a rampage to find out the person's motives. While all the neighbors may agree that "he seemed like such a nice guy," the online rantings show the anger, confusion, and anxiety the shooter could not show his acquaintances.

This would be fine if the acts of atrocity took place online as well. But the barrier of the anonymous internet is remarkably flimsy, lousy at keeping the angry forum posters from exacting revenge in the flesh. While anonymity is enticing, in the end, we need the real connection. We make a date to meet our online chat companion despite our exaggerations or omissions. The implicit hope is that the relationship will flourish in the person as well: this is me, without my masks, and do you love me still?

Session 1: I have issues

So, apparently, I have issues.

This should be no surprise, considering I am a member of the human race, and we all tend to be a little fucked up, not to mention the title of the blog is a big red flag, but actually, I thought I was pretty centered.

I mean, sure, I'm nowhere near the weight I want to be, and I compulsively spend (which has led to some financial issues), and despite a graduate education I am not in the field of my dreams (if you spend it -- it being the massive price of education -- they will not necessarily come -- they being the magic career fairies that fling their fulfilling, high-paying jobs at the educated ones).

Still, I thought I was getting the hang of this whole life thing.

A little self-help reading and listening (long live the audiobook!), however, have revealed that my "quirks" are actually manifestations of emotional repression and that there are likely some demons I have yet to confront. (No, not real demons, evangelicals, so you can put away your exorcism kits.)

Exhibit A: the weight thing. I stayed at a healthy weight most of my life until college, when I gained the requisite Freshman 15, but then I went home for the summer and lost 25. So far so good. From then on, the weight has ballooned and deflated (more ballooning than deflating) until I am now severely overweight. This is not from lack of knowledge. I subscribe to several fitness and health magazines, and a diet-centric education from my mother has ensured I know everything about carbs, proteins, fats, phytonutrients, calories, sodium, etc. So, the problem is not that I just don't know how to be fit. It goes deeper than that, to some psychological level, which will probably require some wrenching emotional excavation. Yippee!

Exhibit B: the finances thing. I make a good salary. I should have money. However, with student loan debt, massive credit card debt, and a compulsive need to click and buy, I barely have enough to pay the bills. There goes the therapy-for-compulsive-eating solution. So, if paying a therapist is out, blogging for therapy is in. The blogosphere can be my (free!) therapist, sitting on a couch and nodding as I spew my emotional baggage without restraint. You might want to duck.

Currently I am reading or have read the following books:

1. Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir by Jennette Fulda. Having just finished 703 by Nancy Makin -- a memoir of a woman's journey to and from 703 pounds but which unfortunately skimps on humor and weight loss tips -- I was hesitant to start another weight loss memoir, but in an effort to stay motivated, I did a Kindle search for "weight loss" and downloaded Fulda's highly-rated book. I'm glad I did. I'm not done with it yet, but it's a highly enjoyable read; Fulda is damn funny. My only complaint is an improper use of verb tense sometimes, but that's really an English major's idiosyncrasy and doesn't detract from my thumbs-up.
2. Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth. Roth is a renowned compulsive eating expert, and this is the second book of hers I've read/listened to. I was a little off-put by the God in the title (I was raised in, and have since left, a highly conservative Christian denomination and now I am highly sensitive to proselytizing), but Roth's usage of the term is broad, sort of like the Higher Power in AA. Roth gives some good tips for overcoming overeating, having gone through diet-binge cycles herself, and she gives some anecdotes from her compulsive-eating seminar retreats. 
3. Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? by Peter Walsh. On Labor Day weekend, A&E had a marathon of Hoarders I watched while I was cleaning (great motivation, by the way), so I have some fresh images of houses overrun with boxes, newspapers, junk and spoiled food to match with his stories of helping to clear "clutter" on The Clean Sweep. He relates his hoarding solutions to overeating, theorizing that the same tendencies lead to both compulsions. I just started this one, but I'm interested to see where it goes and if he has any practical solutions I can use.
4. The Beach by Alex Garland. Okay, so this one has nothing to do with weight loss or financial issues, but it was a fascinating read. I'd heard about the poorly-reviewed movie, but my boyfriend recommended the book, so I downloaded the audiobook for my commute. Beautiful descriptive language, haunting situations, and unpredictable characters made for an entertaining read, but I will need some time to process the book in order to provide an in-depth analysis.

Pretty much all the self-help books say the same thing, although it's always nice to have a reminder: in order to lose the weight (or clear the clutter, or stop the spending), you have to deal with the psychological issues that are causing the behavior. So that's what I'm going to try to do.

If the first step is admitting a problem, I've got that down. The rest should be a piece of cake, right? Mmmm. Cake.