Some miscellaneous thoughts... (March 28)

I feel like my mental journey is going too quickly to keep up with everything I want to blog right now. Here are some thoughts which would make a great blog posts, but realistically I probably won’t have time to expand on them.

Alice in Wonderland

I remember a video game I saw ones about Alice in wonderland. It was a dark themed game, where the protagonist Alice fight creepy monsters from the children’s book Alice in wonderland. She was depicted with several long daggers, dripping with black blood.

Intrigued, I read the back. Rather than telling you about the game, the back of the game read like a full doctors report. “Alice seems to be progressing. She has several significant internal problems. But she is working on them, and perhaps someday she will find freedom…“ Signed, Dr. X, head of psychology at Rockford Asylum. 

Sometimes, I feel like that girl. Fighting Mighty battles with wicked creatures in my mind. But I feel like I am advancing! Every level, I sweat the sweat and cry the tears and spill the blood, and I am onto the next boss. I am getting deeper and deeper into the forest. But that is the only way to work my way up to sanity on the other side…

***

Recently, I have really been trying to follow my heart. First, to discover my heart: discovering a little child inside, also, listening to my body. Literally. Listening to what my body says about various things, through dreams, hypnotherapy, and listening to my symptoms as I think about various things.

These insights have been hugely significant personally and help me along my journey tremendously. Also, we have made several business decisions and moves based on what we knew was right, even if we couldn’t rationally explain it. Now that a global pandemic is sweeping the world, we realize that if we had not made these changes, or done them slightly differently, we would be in a very precarious place. Wow, did we ever dodge a bullet! How did that happen? God helped us. But also, we followed our gut! And that led us into a place of peace. 

And...that is exposing the terrible people that raised me. 

This has got me wondering: why is it that it was so hard to discover my gut? What was I fighting against? Answer… My religious upbringing. I still hear Pastor Mark Driscoll say, “that line from Disney, and culture, 'follow your heart?' That is satanic advice. Don’t follow your heart, because your heart is wicked and deceitful…“ Instead, we are to follow the word of God, apparently. But for me, the Word of God was interpreted through the lens of a narcissistic and “dark triad“ person. 

This is why it was so hard. This is what is difficult about this journey. Or, perhaps, that is the next journey. Right now, I am out of ministry, and I am leaving religion to the side. I am following my heart and getting healthy, whatever that costs and whatever that means. Someday, I’m going to have to figure out how to integrate this more into my faith. But not today.

I realize that my parents militated against art, against popular culture, against rock music, against all those voices that we’re trying to teach me emotional intelligence, and teach me to follow my heart. Instead, all that was allowed was a narrow and somewhat two dimensional view of religion. At times, even Christian art and music were not allowed.

Why was this? Clearly, it was so that they could have control. And also, so that they would not be unmasked. Dictators do this. Marxism hates certain types of art. When Mohammet founded his religion, he banned art, and it is still punishable by death to make any artistic rendering of Mohammet. Art is powerful, it can unmask the ugly truth.

I realize that my parents also raise me with a strong distrust of psychologists, the police, and social workers. We were taught that we were better than them, but also taught to fear them. There was an implied truth: that if they ever found out that us kids were spanked, those people would come and take us all the way. The whole family would be ruined. We would never see our parents or siblings again. He was a fear they taught us to hold on to. I even brought that fear into my own child raising.

I had to lean into that fear, and ignore it in this journey. I had to get well, and that meant I needed to reach out to mental health professionals. And as I did, I got stronger and stronger, and their mask dropped off.

I now realize that on some level – most of their most devious plots seem to be happening subconsciously – I was being taught to fear counseling, counselors, psychologists, and other types of authority figures because they had the power to unmask my parents. And perhaps, punish them for their actions.

***

I just looked back, and noticed that I had a dream about receiving parcels for my mom, and my wife opening the parcel, and they’re being a hidden attack from it. What is remarkable is that I had that dream two days after my wife got the email, and put it in our secret folder. I hadn’t even checked there! We got a parcel from my parents the day after. So it seems like it happened exactly in my dream. Here is another dream that seems almost prophetic. Very strange!

**

As part of my research yesterday, I saw that it is mentioned it is very normal for people in their late teens early 20s to exhibit traits of narcissism. This is because the brain does not fully developed until 25. This is really helpful to know, because as I look back at that time of life, I definitely had borderline narcissistic tendencies. I had been attributing that to my upbringing, and the fact that I did not continue that red road I attributed to my faith, and my wife, and healthy relationships.

No doubt, this is all true. But it is helpful to know that this is also fairly normal. This helps me because it is one more way that I can remove from myself any shame. Due to my upbringing, it is very easy for me to accept shame. But I am not a narcissist, and I never was -- aside from that time in life, when nearly everyone is a little bit narcissistic.

**

It is interesting to think more about the “bad radio station,” that is always playing for a narcissist, and it was once always playing inside of my own head. 

I can remember this fairly clearly from times in my teens and 20s. For example, last night I watched a phenomenal guitar player playing a song on YouTube. I just enjoyed his talent and the music. I realize that in the past, I would have become obsessed with what he was doing, and hyper focussed on how I could play that well. If I could not, I would find ways to nit-pick his playing. Find the one place where he lets the strings buzz on the frets, or plays a slightly off note. Anything to find a flaw. If I could not, I would become bored, or simply despise him for no reason.

In a public gathering, if someone else was celebrated, it would tend to make me grumpy. If I was celebrated, I would feel euphoric, but also feel like it couldn’t last. Like I was balancing on the tip of a wave. I would probably ramble like a fool, say something stupid, and people would turn away for me. I would ruin it. It seems like I couldn’t win. (This is probably because at that point in my life, I would not have known to include others in my victory. This is the only sustainable way to really enjoy a triumph, and have people very happy for you for a long time. If you take all the credit for a victory, and make it all about yourself, and use it to prove you are better than other people, then people will be mildly offended, bored, and turn away from you at your best moments)

I feel that my life is gotten so much simpler, now that I have a lot more security in myself, and I care a lot less what people feel and think about me.

**

Studying borderline personality disorder was very interesting, because I realize that for a time in my late teens, I definitely had this. Perhaps that is also more common for that age. I remember several times feeling spacey, as though I were waking from a dream. Or maybe I was sleeping, and this was the dream? I wondered several times if I was going crazy. I believe I have mentioned this in previous posts.

However, I do not think I had the other symptoms, such as an intense fear that people would abandon me. I do not think that I clung to people in the ways that are typical for that syndrome. But I understand what it is like to have a very weak sense of self, to change oneself depending on social situations, and to not really know who one is. I definitely have experienced that.

And I think my parents are still living in that. That is a big part of their dysfunction.

***

As I was talking with my Wife about my discoveries today, I talked about how my dad would have a blowup, then he would show remorse. My wife was surprised. “He showed regret? Remorse? Took responsibility for his actions? That doesn’t sound right…”

I realized that she was right. He would sit us down, and he would hang his head, and look very contrite. But he would not actually say, “what I did was wrong,“ or, “here is what I am going to do to change my actions.“

Instead, what he would express is something like this:

One) that was not pleasant. I do not like it when I lose my temper like that!

Two) we both had a role to play in that. It was my temper, but you are the one who triggered me!

Three) for my sake, and for yours (but mostly for my sake) you need to change your behaviors, so that my temper is not triggered again.

These conversations seems like repentance, but really it was laying the shame and guilt of his actions on his family, and also reinforcing patterns of Stockholm syndrome, and trauma bonding. These apparently "contrite" moments were really deep moments of abuse, where the cords of manipulation wrapped tightly around my heart.

***

As we talked further, I said, “I think some of his best moments were when… Oh my! This is how I see God!… His best moments were when he tried to protect us in love from the wrathful parts of himself.”

That is really true. Dad would sometimes get legitimately afraid of himself, what he would be capable of when in a rage. And that is when he would have these talks, and sit us down and talk. Or else he would storm off and go on a motorcycle ride to cool down. These were his best moments, because he was saving us from an explosive outburst of rage during which anything could happen.

But wait… That is exactly how I see God! I see God‘s wrath as directed towards the sin of humanity, but God sent his son Jesus (who is also God… A little bit, maybe, like how we all have parts within us) and so his wrath falls on his son/himself, and we are spared.

The biblical story where I saw that was when the fire was on the mountain and Moses came down to speak to the people. God told him twice not to let the people come up the mountain. “Or else my wrath will burn against them, and I will destroy them.“

This really resonated with me – and became a corner stone of my theology (“the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom”) because it seem to connect with what I knew was true. My father has a terrible temper. When it is ignited, all hell could break loose. Really. But he has a son (myself) that sometimes is able to interpose himself. If I do my job right, and others do their job right, we can avoid the storm. We can be sheltered from the wrath of father. And sometimes, in his best moments, my father would shelter us from himself, by taking his wrath out on an in adamant object, on himself, or by removing himself physically from us, or else by instructing us carefully in all of the ways not to piss him off.

So is God a narcissist after all? 

Once I get healthy, there will be a big mess to clean up. I just need to keep speaking truth, and this will make sense one day. But at this moment, it seems as though the pattern I was raised with looks an awful lot like the angry God, who sent laws, who try to protect his people from his wrath by telling them exactly what to do so as not to perturbed him, and who could lash out in flames and incinerate people simply for annoying him at an inopportune time (such as getting too close to his holy mountain, peeking inside his holy tent, or peeking inside the holy seat).

These thoughts are troubling. But I have enough faith to believe that the God of love can with stand any assault that my rational mind can throw at Him.

God said once of His people that He wished that they could be refined in the fire, and all the dross could be burned away. Perhaps that is what I need to do with my God image. To refine it with honesty, so that only the truth of His actual nature shines through.

Voltaire once said, “God made man in his image,… And man has return the favour.“

I feel that I have been raised with an image of God in my fathers image. But it is not just myself! I feel that this God image is very very common in my conservative Christian subculture. I think of major authors like John piper, Mark Driscoll, RC sprawl, and the like. These are people I have considered to be the most biblically illiterate and faithful. But they all seem to share this view of God.

I don’t think that I am tempted or interested in a view of God which is only love. That doesn’t seem to hold together rationally. However, the view of wrath/love that I have been raised with seems to be modelled after narcissistic and dysfunctional family dynamics.

I have a feeling that it will be a very long and arduous journey to reconstruct a more healthy God image. Likely, my friends and followers will tend to think that I am going liberal or soft.

God only knows where I will end up. But this I know: my parents have stolen much from me, but they will not steal my faith. They will not steal my future, and they will not steal the faith and future of my children and future generations.

Whatever resources are necessary, I will continue this journey, because I am forging a trail where many small feet will follow.