It's all still in my head right now, ideas swimming around in free-form, but I am beginning to piece to together a connection between my grandparents' escape from Nazi occupation in 1939, the passing down of intergenerational trauma, and my own, reoccurring, descents into victimization and self-punishment.
My mom has a tendency to brush it off and change the subject when I start to talk about my link to my paternal grandparents' escape from Nazi Germany. Maybe she feels it's a part of my identity that has absolutely nothing to do with her, and maybe she doesn't like that. Perhaps it's just a topic that causes her eyes to glaze over, the way mine do when she begins another diatribe about the state of the healthcare system.
But I don't think I should dismiss this connection I feel, this need to explore this part of my family's history, and how it has contributed to who I am, both genetically and emotionally. I wonder, is progeny responsible for the indefinable guilt I have experienced since early childhood? Do two generations of repressed trauma and secrecy have a noticeable affect on the third generation?
I've always had this bizarre sense, way back in the depths of my consciousness (however, it is a conscious awareness), that when I am out on the streets, dating ex-cons and murderers, taking drugs, and allowing myself to be abused in various ways, that I am some kind of vigilante investigative reporter, tracking down stories for which most journalists would not risk their lives or reputations. The darkness of the world has always compelled me to make sense of it, to understand the inner workings of said darkness on an individual level. Through understanding a few specific people, I am gaining a generalized education in the development of dysfunction, addiction, and learned (as opposed to instinctual) fear.
I wish I knew my grandparents' story better than I do. I know only surface level information, little more than what is available through a Google search, with justifiable reason. My grandparents, Henry and Elly Glass, were miniature-sized couple who walked slow, were perpetually cold due to prescribed blood-thinning medication intended to counteract years of Elly's Viennese cooking. Despite decades in the U.S., their accents were as heavy as they were precious and they, in true European fashion, had complete outfits for every occasion. Neither owned a single garment made from denim, and they considered peanut butter to be proletariat. Charming as they wereCulturally, we have accepted Holocaust survivors' reluctance to unveil the atrocities they have witnessed. My Jewish heritage was not revealed to me until the summer before my junior year of college. Revealed to me so casually, in passing, and as if the information had always been common knowledge, I was stunned. It's funny to me now, looking back, how plainly it had been presented to me throughout my life. Yet, as casually as it was mentioned to me that August day of 2003, the evidence to back it up was the area of contention, the question that could not be asked directly of either of my grandparents. Also, as I had always been aware of this vague family history, I'd been equally aware that it was not appropriate to ask them about it.
So how do my holocaust survivor grandparents fit into the story of my own life, filled with dangerous characters, illegal substances, and willing footsteps towards complete submergence into anomie? My grandparents, from such a completely different time and place that even with what they had to endure during Hitler's regime, I believe they would've been devastated to learn of the places I had gone willingly, the chemicals I ingested, and the men I allowed to invade my aura.
When I think about what they went through, the adversity they had to overcome, how they had to leave their country, lose friends and family, suffer who knows what kinds of personal violations in order to secure their freedom, I am ashamed of myself. What a complete lack of respect I've had for my family's history.
My grandfather always wanted me to pursue the arts. In his opinion, I should have focused on fashion design. Well, I think that would've been ab-fab, but I was too impatient to learn how to sew. I was also too impatient to learn to play the guitar, deeming null my prospect of becoming the next rock god(dess). I considered other options in the arts, such as painting, but found as a teenager unwilling to get a full-time job for any longer than six months, the cost of materials was a major deterrent. Photography offered even more absurd financial woes.It wasn't that I chose writing as a career path because of it's low overhead, I just got lucky. Writing requires no accompaniment, or special ability other than typing (but even that I postponed until my mid-twenties, opting rather for spiral bound notebook and decent quality pen).
Am I reaching here? Am I wanting to make something out of nothing because of the identity it might provide me? Probably. But I won't know what I'm searching for unless I travel down a few dead ends along the way. Too bad life doesn't have a GPS system. I guess some questions have to be important enough to be worth searching for answers, and getting hopelessly lost along the way.
Below is a flash version of the anthology from my memoir class at UW. You may recognize the name of one of the authors. And here's an "oldie but goodie" that I thought I'd throw in for comic relief.
It's late and I've been thinking...I want to have a baby. Not right now. I want to go to grad school next year and don't want to have to deal with breastfeeding and childcare, but I do want a family. I want to get married. I want to be healthy. I want to travel. I want to leave Washington. HAM does not want children, he refuses to get married, has already told me that he will not leave Washington when I go to grad school, and he said he wants to drink and will not stop, but he'll stop in front of me. I realized that stopping in my presence is not enough. Not getting married is not enough. Not having children is not enough. Not moving to be with me is not enough. He loves me, but not the way I need to be loved. I tried to break up with him because of alcohol, and he made me feel guilty about it, like I was totally out of line for wanting to be with a sober person. So then I tried to break up with him because he doesn't believe in marriage, and he made me feel guilty for that because "you'd rather just find someone who will marry you than be with a really good guy". God, he has this way of making everything that he says sound so reasonable and everything that I say sound irrational. But I know in reality that I deserve the things I want. I'm not asking for the moon, a million dollars, or to be the next Brady Bunch. I just want to leave Washington, get married, have a family, and be with someone who is passionately in love with me. Why the fuck should I feel guilty about that? How the fuck is that irrational or unreasonable or shameful in any way? It's not much. It's just a few things that I know I want for my life. Instead of just accepting that we are different and want different things, he wants to keep me as his girlfriend, keep drinking, never get married, never have kids, and never leave Seattle. It's not the goddamn life I want! I finally just conceded and said, "Okay, let's stay together. I surrender. I'll drink with you and I won't care about marriage, it doesn't matter. Everythings' fine." So I drink with him. I don't even want to, but fuck, if I don't drink with him, I hate him. I am seething with anger when he drinks around me and the only way to cure my disdain is to join him. I'm so fucking mad. I don't want this and he won't let me go. They never let me go. They always want to control me. He acts like he's so much better than all my other boyfriends, and yeah, in a lot of ways he is, but at the same time, he's set it up so it's cool for him to have female friends but unacceptable for me to have male friends. He's unwilling to read my writing or be supportive of what I'm working on. He refuses to acknowledge my past. If you deny my past, then you deny me. And by denying my writing, he's also denying one of the most important parts of me. It hurts. I'm tired of being judged and controlled and treated like a silly girl. He calls me "pet". That's his nicknmame for me. I'm not a goddamn pet. I'm a woman. I'm older than him. I know more by default. I know what I fucking want out of life and this isn't it. I want my needs and desires to be respected as valuable pieces of information about who I am. I want to go to grad school, live outside of Washington State, get married, and have children. I need a relationship that supports that, or I need my freedom. I'm tired of sacrifcing who I am and made to feel guilty about what I want. I love HAM. I'm mad at him, but I truly love him. I wish he wanted the same things as me, or that he was at least willing to meet me half way, but he's not. It's what he wants or nothing at all. I can't last in something so one-sided. I deserve to be happy, too. The things I want matter. Maybe not to him, but they matter and they're valid and I won't stop wanting them no matter what he says.
Last night we drank again. It wasn't much, just a glass of scotch and then a glass of wine several hours later. The problem for me is that even the smallest amount of alcohol has negative conequences for me. The nxt day is almost always ruined, and even if it's not ruined, I never feel that great. I usually walk around in a funk with a slight headache the entire day, wishing that it was tomorrow so I could wake up feeling good. There is absolutely no question at this point that I am still an alcoholic and drinking should not be part of my life. Unfortunately, it has become very difficult for me to stop. HAM drinks, my dad drinks daily, and now DL is in town and she drinks with my dad. Last night I actually saw her a bit toasty. I spend most of my days dreaming about the future. Future-tripping, I guess would be the unofficial term. I want to be out of this house. I refuse to blame anyone else for my choice to drink, but I will say it's a fuck of a lot harder to stop when it's always around me, on the lips of my boyfriend, a part of our lives. I don't crave alcohol, I crave health, yet I'm not addicted to health, so acheiving it is more difficult. It's so easy to just say, "fuck it" and have a drink when HAM drinks, or ask my dad for a glass of wine. It's hard to say no, it's hard to not ask, it's hard to no give in to temptation. My therapist said that he doesn't think my drinking is out of control, and he is right about that, it's not "out of control". I'm not spending my days and nights blacking out, doing regrettable things, ending up in the hospital, or even causing the slightest bit of concern in anyone around me. My therapist says, however, that I should not drink because of how it makes me feel about myself. That is a self-esteem deterrent. I agree with that, but I would add that I believe any drinking that I partake in is out of control in the sense that I have declared my desire not to drink, yet I do it anyway. I think it would be easier for me to be sober if alcohol wasn't in my home and if the people I love were not drinking so regularly. I'm sure it would also be easier if I were to return to AA, but that's just not gonna happen as long as I'm in Washington. God, I just want to get out of here. I don't believe in geographicals, I know they are something that alcoholics like to believe will work for them, but I do believe in a need for a change. I am so sick with allergies and stressed out by traffic, depressed by gray skies and constant drizzle, lonely without a dog, and angry that I am stuck living with my dad. I would take a tiny, dumpy apartment over this big, comfortable house if it meant that I was taking care of myself and making it on my own. I want it to be a year and half from now...now. God, I am sounding like such a classic AA definition of an alcoholic, but I need a place to vent and this is it. This is what all of us continue to think about, sober or not. We are all selfish, we all want what we want right now, we are inpatient, stressed out, pissed off, and resentful of our current situations. If you have a lifetime of alcoholic decisions behind you, of course you're not going to be satisfied with your present state of affairs, because the present state of affairs is a result of poor alcoholic decision making. It's not that every day is bad. It feels worse today because it is the day after doing something I have set out not to do. I have spacey and tired, weak and foggy. I just want out of this house and this city. I don't even care that I live in the Northwest anymore--it's really not the weather or the hills or the traffic, as many places have hills, bad weather, and miserable traffic. It's not the Northwest but what the Northwest represents for me. It represents failure to care for myself. It represents my old life and who I used to be. I am trying to become a new person, I even changed my name, yet here I am in my dad's house, working less than 10 hours a week, not writing as much as I should be, strung out on the internet, and drinking despite my desire for optimal health. I know the saying , "Wherever I go, there I am" is real. I don't think that moving away from here is going to "fix" me, but I do think it will be good for me. I am just so tired of waiting. I want to be there now. In AA they say, "You're exactly where you're supposed to be". Let's just say that is the truth. Then what am I to learn from my circumstances? Do I need to learn humility--should I just suck it up and go back to AA to face all the people who hurt me and let them feel so self-righteous about being kind to me, the one who relapsed? God, I can't think of anything worse. Can't I just admit that alcohol doesn't work for me without having to be around such cruel and abusive people? I would give AA a try in another state, where I wouldn't have to see those people. I know they exist everywhere, but the very specific individuals who hurt me--I don't think it would make sense for me to want to be around those people again, and eventually (for step 9) have to apologize to them, when they were the ones who are at fault. I don't know how I could ever see that differently. I was in pain and reached out for help, I showed up, I always showed up. I did my service work and I got berated for not doing it the right way. I asked for help and I got stood up twice, ignored, and rejected. I tried to make friends, as difficult as it was, and got humiliated. I just can't see myself having to be around those people again. Which is why getting away from this place would be good for me and I can't get out soon enough. I think I should look into summer writing retreats and see if there is any way I can spend the summer away from here, focused on my writing. I can't think of anything more important than writing for me, so why not. It would be the perfect excuse to escape. No one could argue with me, because it would be for my career, my future. I refuse to believe that things are going to suck forever. The future has to be better than right now, whether it's helpful to think that way or not. I will do my best to make the present bareable, but I know that the future will be better.
Well, I have to say, today was a good day. At the beginning of the quarter, I ended up with a really terrible parking spot, so at every tuesday, my teacher drives me to my car after class. We talk about my book, grad school, whatever, and tonight she offered (I didn't say a word about it) to write me a letter of recommendation for my grad school applications! I love her. Her name is Theo Nestor and her blog is http://writingismydrink.com/. She is great! I feel so blessed to have this amazing teacher in my life and to have the money and opportunity to take this class. It is helping me so much. I always connect more with instructors than students--why is that? I can't call myself super smart or anything, I can't call myself a dummy either. I don't know what it is, I just feel safer with my teachers than my colleagues. But I feel so humbled that she just offered to write me a recommendation without any prompt. I know my goal here is to stop letting others dictate my worth and feelings, but still, it means a lot to me, and I think that is allowed. It's not like she decided whether or not I am worthy as a writer, but she reinforces my belief that this is what I am supposed to do. I plan to read her book over the break because 1.) I'm curious, 2.) It is respectful since she's reading my work and helping me with it, 3.) I'd like to know more about her as a person and a writer. Today was a good day for me. I feel grateful to be free of confining relationships, and able to pursue my calling, and even more so, I am grateful to finally acknowledge my calling, to fully give in to its power and accept that I am destined to be a writer, and to believe that one day I will be a good one.
Today was very good for me as far as therapy goes. it has helped me to reshape my memoir in a way that seems to fit better than what I had originally planned. It took me half an hour to write one paragraph, but I think it has the potentional to turn into a good jumping off point for my story.
To write memoir:
Start with a bit of musing, present the problem, report what you found out, and then tell the entire story of how you got there, followed by the internal shift that occurred as a result.
My rough forward or first paragraph:
I’ve always looked for someone or something to show me the way. I never believed in God, but I’ve had no problem making a person my higher power. When I first decided to write this memoir, I had planned to write about abusive relationships and my final escape from a man that almost certainly would’ve killed me had I stayed. I thought men were my problem. My relationships with men over the years have been enmeshed, volatile, isolating, and abusive, so it would’ve been easy for me to say. However, unhealthy relationships have abounded throughout my life. From parents to teachers to bosses to girlfriends to substances to groups, I made each of them my God. I believed that if I followed them and did exactly as they said that they would provide me with all the love and happiness I couldn’t give myself. I depended on them to tell me how to live, who to be, and what I’m worth. Typical of someone who depends on others to act as director of her life, I also blamed them when I could no longer rely on them. I ran from one to another, always believing that the next one would finally make me whole. After writing out two thorough outlines for a memoir and finding that neither one seemed right, after recounting all of the painful experiences and false hopes I held about others, I realize there is one definite, undeniable common thread weaving through the fabric of my life; me.
After about five months of experimentation with controlled drinking, I have decided I am indeed still an alcoholic. It started as just a half a glass of wine, then one glass, then two, occasionally a whole bottle and a few benzos, stealing my Dad's fentanyl patches and perks, smoking weed, and having a general desire to get more, drink more, check out of reality. But then I always wake up the next morning feeling guilty and hungover, even if nothing bad happened, which it hasn't. There have been a few negative consequences, affecting mainly me. I called in sick to work one day when I really just had a hangover. I got drunk and ate so much food that I made myself vomit. Those are the main things, but I think it's just creating a sense of general sadness in me. I am more depressed, less interested or able to do things. I get hangovers so easily that even one glass of wine will leave me feeling like shit the next day. Not to mention all the extra calories. And I'm down to 113 lbs now, so I don't want to sabotage that. I told HAM the other day that I am drinking alcoholically and stealing pills and drinking alone, because I don't want it to be a secret. I need someone who loves me to know that I am headed down that same ugly path. I haven't taken anything or had a drink in two days now, but I don't want to go back to AA. I was hurt too much by those people and I don't ever want to see any of them again. So I have to do it on my own, and honestly, I don't know if it's too late or if I'm OK to just stop and not care. I have a feeling the compulsion will return, although it hasn't yet. I still feel happy that I'm not drinking right now, even though it's almost nine at night, a time where I would like to have a glass of wine. I want to be a healthy, happy person, and using substances will not help me achieve those goals. I am desperate to get out of this life as a happy, successful person, not a fucked up loser. I just have to make a commitment to love myself enough to stop drinking and taking pills. I am going to be taking "The Art of Living" part 1 course on breathing this December. I was reluctant at first, but I decided, with a little discussion with HAM that I should just try it. It was created by Ravi Shankar. Mabye I can finally reconnect with some type of spirituality, maybe try yoga again. I need to fucking relax. Pills and booze are only temporary fixes and they will not help me grow or change, and in the long run, they perpetuate greater chaos in my life and hinder relaxation. I want to have the energy to work out five of six days a week, and this week (I do have a cold) I have only been once. I have continued to eat pretty healthy (minus the binges) and I think my diet has actually improved quite a bit over the last few months, so that's one bright spot, as well as my memoir writing class. I wish that class was every day. God, I just want to get into grad school. Getting fucked up certainly won't help with that, I already found out in 2006. I want my life to get better. I don't wanna die, spiritually, emotionally, or physically. I want to get better.
"My life is going to change. I can feel it." - Raymond Carver, Fat
Well, I thought it would be a good time to post something new
since I have recently been falsely diagnosed with PTSD and bipolar disorder. It
really sent me into a fucking depression for a few days there. I was going to
sign up for disability and start collecting my checks. I felt like a fucking
crazy person. Not that people can’t function with those disorders, but damn, I
can barely function as it is, so that was like way too much for me to handle.
Plus, this so-called psychiatrist, who turns out to be nothing more than an
ARNP, prescribed me gabapentin, which made me fucking insane for a few weeks,
but then, after I complained about the gabapentin, she wanted to put me on
Lamectyl, one of the two main drugs for bipolar disorder! And I am NOT bipolar!
I might be a nut—I might pull out my hair, chew on my lips and fingers, and have
an immense capacity for self-loathing, but I assure you, I am not bipolar. I
should be so lucky as to enjoy manic episodes of overwhelming self-esteem and
delusions of grandeur. No, lucky me, I suffer from pure MD….Major Depression.
Yes, that’s right, it’s the depression part of bipolar without the fun part (the
part that keeps people from wanting to take their meds). Yeah, woohoo, yay, me!
I have regular-ass old depression. Old school, writer shit. Typical Jew shit. Go
figure, big fucking surprise. So I can’t get a real job, or a real life, I’m stuck here in my dad’s house, a thirty-one year-old chick, with a less than part-time job, and a desire to
become a “published author” one day, when I’m the only one (and occasionally my
therapist) who reads my blog. I drank nearly an entire bottle of wine and then
silently snuck into my dad’s bathroom and found a bottle of benzos from 1996.
Will they still work? I took four. We’ll see. I also binged on peanut butter and
various sugary substances for the first time in a long time. I’ve been doing
good, in fact, I weighed myself today and I was down to 115.6, the lowest weight
I have been in over a year. But I probably sabotaged that tonight since I ate
almost 3000 calories in one sitting just a little while ago. I am such an idiot
some times. Do I want to sabotage myself? I don’t know, maybe. My ex called me a
few days ago for the first time in months. I didn’t even know he had my phone
number. It pissed me off. I told him to never call me again and I hung up on
him. But still, it fucked me up. I told him, “Well, I hope YOU feel better,
because I don’t. You think you can just call me up and apologize and tell me
about your life and whatever, and I’m gonna be OK with that. Well, I’m not. I
was fine already and I planned to never talk to you again. So I hope YOU feel
better, because I don’t. I feel worse. I’m gonna go now. Don’t ever call me
again.” And then I hung up. It felt scary to officially and finally take my
power back, but it felt good, too. He knew I meant it. He didn’t call again.
That was it—he knew I was serious. He knew I meant it when I said “never call me
again.” And he knew I meant it because it’s the truth. I never for the rest of
my life have any need or desire to talk to that asshole ever again. He’s put me
and HAM and our relationship through hell and he has absolutely nothing to offer. I
don’t need him to write my memoir. All I need is MY story, MY memories—not his.
If he wants to write a memoir, then he can go right ahead, but this one is mine
and I know enough about him and the rest of the losers of my past to write my
story, I want to call is something like, “My Life Through You”, or “Chameleon:
The Story of the Girl Who Changed for Him”, or “UFO: Unidentified Female Object”.
Maybe the last one is best. I’d like to keep my misery lighthearted. Seriously,
though, if you can’t laugh at your own life, you have no business laughing at
anyone else. And, sorry, but that just won’t work for me. I need to laugh at
all of us—we’re all fools. Even the smart ones.
Well, I'm feeling much better today. Steve Jobs died today, and that's not why I'm feeling better, but Steve Jobs has had an influence on me today. I had never heard his Commencement Speech at Stanford until today, because the news has been playing clips of it on repeat. This part really hit home for me:
"When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
It's true. I am not a lawyer. I suck at standardized tests and I hate competition at school. I come from a creative writing curriculum, where everyone sits around a room and "workshops" eachother's manuscripts. It's commeraderie, not competition. (Although getting published is highly competitive, we support eachother in class.) And I like that. I want to stay in school forever - I prefer it to the real world most of the time. I am happiest in a creative writing workshop. That's where my heart is, so that's where I belong. I don't want to look back on my life, and say, "Wow, I really did what I thought I should do," I want to look back and say, "Wow, I did everything I wanted to do." Rest in Peace, Jobs.
I haven't written much in a while. I was on vacation and then of course when I returned to work this week, there was a shit ton of shit to catch up on. HAM is still out of school, so he and I have been spending a lot of time together in the evenings, and, well, the writing gets the back burner I guess. But I haven't forgotten about it and have no intention of giving up. I guess I just took a vacation from everything for a while. Our road trip was eye-opening. We've decided that America is too stupid, too fat, and too meth-addicted to live here. We officially have a plan to move to France. We don't have a plan, actually, but we officially have plans to make a plan. One thing on the agenda is learning French. HAM can use his electives to take French at BC and I can take the classes with him (although I will have to pay full tuition). I want to assimilate into French culture. I don't want to be an American anymore. I am OK with giving up my citizenship here - this place is fucked. The way we treat our animals, our environment, our sick and our poor, the way we treat the world - we are fucked. Any entity that goes on for as long as this one treating the rest of the planet like garbage can't last. Rome fell, America will fall, too. I don't trust this place, I don't trust the government, I don't respect the government, and I'm tired of being in debt because I can't pay my coinsurance. Having insurance is probably the most expensive mistake I've ever made, because it gives you the illusion that you can afford healthcare, when in reality, you get raped in the ass at every turn with lab fees, coinsurance, deductibles, and monthly fees. I can't take it anymore. I'd rather be slowly, gently fucked over time with super high taxes than walk around thinking I'm safe and all of a sudden get raped in the ass with a $400 medical bill that I wasn't expecting. And Obama probably won't get reelected, not that it really matters anyway. Although, it could be worse. I've seen it. We could still be in the Bush years. I miss Clinton. Maybe he was a little dirty, and he did sign NAFTA into effect, which helped degredate the environment and force already suffering third-world countries into even more destitute conditions, but damn, at least we had jobs then. At least we had Al Gore. Now we have no one looking out for the environment, or education, or the future of this country. America is slippin' hard and I don't have any more good reasons to stay. I want to live where animals are treated with dignity and respect, where people are given healthcare as a right and not as privelage, where people are laid back about nudity and sex, where it's okay to enjoy wine and bread, yet not overindulge to the point of addiction and obesity, where being cultured and intelligent is still a good thing, and god damn, I want some of that mediterranean sun.
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