Impermanence

It is a time of great change. Starting in August I began the process of divorcing my ex-wife. This involved me moving back to my childhood home. At the start of this I was unemployed following work as a temporary therapist. In October I began a new job, giddy with the excitement of finally landing my first permanent therapist position. I wasn’t aware of it at the time but my giddiness was motivated by forces deeper than the ones surrounding my new employment. My car broke down shortly after starting my new job, a combination of the car’s health and my absentmindedness. I ended up purchasing a used car with a stereotypical salesperson, with all of the panache and none of the ethics, a decision that beget many headaches.

Despite all of my stressors and losses, I felt an abiding happiness as well as a growing self-confidence. The latter I used to my advantage in the pursuit of women. Although my presentation may give off a different impression, confidence with women has always been a struggle for me. I am increasingly realizing the pervasiveness of my sense of shame and low self-esteem. I have also become more aware of my overall social anxiety. These vampires of contentment and equanimity were kept at bay as I began my post-divorce pursuits. The first fell into my lap, a continuation of earlier, pre-divorce efforts on the part of the female suitor to initiate something intimate, to put a euphemistic spin on questionably adulterous intentions. My self-confidence skyrocketed after we fucked, the first time I did with someone other than my ex-wife in almost 10 years. Armed with this newfound confidence, I set my sights on a significantly older nurse, culminating in a frisky, passionate makeout session. I was feeling like the man, a novel and intoxicating feeling for me. Things seemed to become effortless. At one point a girl with her boyfriend in the bar smacked my ass knowing full well that her friend was pursuing me. I was feeling great.

Unfortunately I was feeling a little too great. The friend of the ass smacker questioned whether I was on an upper. I chalked up the presentation as being related to my newfound self-confidence and healed shame. A CPS call and a police-ordered psychiatric evaluation revealed that wasn’t the case. All of the stressors mentioned above, and my lack of effective coping, resulted in a manic episode. After enduring an already great deal of loss from my divorce, I was stripped of all that was familiar while being stabilized in the hospital for 11 days. I went from pondering the likelihood of a threesome with two beautiful women to walking around a small, locked unit without shoelaces.

The past 4 months have put me face to face with the reality of impermanence, the fact that all things change. I have been a fearful person throughout my life, afraid to take risks, ever-filled with self-limiting beliefs. I find, as do all humans, solace in the familiar. After just a semester as a college freshman in a new city, I transferred back to my hometown to be with my friends, as well as with the sights and smells that I knew well. I spent less than a week in medical school before dropping out. It is possible that, fueled by nostalgia and comfort, as well as a fear of the unknown and the alone, I married someone I never should have. People close to me questioned the feasibility of our relationship. My mother sensed and reflected an escalating anxiety and irritability as the wedding approached. I never took to heart her and others’ concerns.

Both during and following my hospitalization I was forced to reckon with Yalom’s ultimate concerns, or existential truths, namely death, isolation, meaninglessness and freedom. I perhaps most acutely came face to face with isolation, or the sense that we are alone in this universe. I think I relied, rather codependently, on my ex-wife to buffer me from that hard truth. I also feared having to come to terms with freedom, or the notion that we alone are responsible for directing our lives. Prior to my marriage, I shied away from this scary reality by allowing my mom to deal with many of my burdens and worries, limiting my self-efficacy. It is possible I replaced my mom with my wife. Those more psychoanalytically-inclined would probably agree.

Now that I am forced to be more self-sufficient, as well as live on my own, I am finding that I am rising to the occasion. The loneliness, loss and change has been difficult to bear at times. Under their weight I have retreated to familiar maladaptive coping mechanisms such as smoking copious amounts of pot along with nighttime binging. Yet despite these difficulties I have also felt periods of excitement, an excitement that comes from living authentically and directing one’s life for the better. I tried stand-up comedy after having wanted to since age 18. I signed up for a month’s long yoga class. I have been cooking more frequently, expanding my repertoire of culinary skills and dishes. I am using this blog to write in a way I haven’t before. I traveled alone to the Adirondacks, New York City and Toronto. I eagerly await my next adventure.

I am grateful for the losses I experienced and the change that resulted as I now have an opportunity to live more authentically. I have increased self-awareness of what it was like to live a constricted, fear-based life. I have the potently reinforcing excitement that comes with having taken risks and from putting myself out there.