Make Believe

Okay... so about that whole "I'm not a crier entry," thanks to the Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice season finales I may need to edit that a bit. I don't have tv but I have followed those two shows online forever and even through some questionable seasons where they managed to put out like 8 episodes in a row when nothing happens (which is a writing feat in itself), I keep coming back. It's a good thing too because I guess the writers saved up all the drama they haven't been using and crammed it all in at the last minute.

Another one of my favorite photos from my childhood is me on the floor of my bedroom kneeling in front of a naked baby doll on her baby blanket, wearing jeans, and an arts and crafts smock. You know how grown ups made you wear old button downs backwards with the buttons up the back? Why they didn't just button them up the front, I really don't understand; it was so uncomfortable and is a little paint on the clavicle such a big deal? For accessories I have on a paper surgeons mask that I stole from the dress-up box at school. My hair is pulled back in a pony tail and I am looking down at this fragile life, ready to save it with: pasta tongs, a turkey baster and a jar of vaseline. I was super serious. Not your typical baby doll behavior, I think most girls hold them or coo at them or sing to them or something? That clearly got old really fast for me, but they made for the most dramatic imaginary surgeries because what is more intense and badass than saving babies? Nothing, ask Addison Montgomery.

That picture was taken when I was about 9 and even before that I remember some other unusual make believe scenarios. Of course there were the typical days of being a fairy-princess-queen-ballerina, that goes without saying. However, one of the other major motifs was 'playing homeless,' as one of my good friends calls it. Playing homeless usually involved pretending I was 16, that was the golden magical year when I imagined myself being super mature and beautiful and knowing everything about the world, and also anything over 17 just seemed rreeeeaaaaalllllyyyy old. So I was 16, and I had to take care of my baby sister (something I ALWAYS wished I had) because our parents had died in a car accident and we were orphans and homeless. Usually we lived in an alleyway somewhere that I kind of pictured like Agraba. There were elaborate plots in my head of me trying desperately to figure out what I would do when it became nighttime and how I had to hide from the police (usually under coffee tables or in the linen closet). The whole thing was very dramatic, and very serious.

I always thought it was so weird that I used to do that until one of my best friends in college told me she did the same thing. I was not alone. I was not the only upper-middle class white kid in America pretending to live in squalor. Which then rapidly lead to the question... WHY do kids do this? Pretending to be fairy-princess-queen-ballerinas, sure, that makes sense, but homeless orphans in alleys in someplace kind of like the Middle East, it seems to me like if you have the incredible super power of imagination that kids have, why spend it one something like that?

I've stopped playing homeless, and I've stopped creating high pressure surgical scenes on my bedroom floor, but here I am crying to my computer screen watching these medical dramas. They are upsetting, they really are! People almost die, people seem fine and then die, people are kidnapped, kids die, parents die, miscarriages happen, families are torn apart and if that wasn't enough there are layers of tangled relationship issues on top of it all. It actually stresses me out to write about it, so WHY do I spend my free time 'relaxing' in bed watching this stuff?

There are a lot of theories over why we watch what we watch. Some people think we watch scary movies as social rights of passage, to feel pride that we sustained something that gruesome and painful to endure. Some people think it is a group bonding experience, that it creates a tie between the individuals sharing this collective emotional reaction and if you ask anyone who watches Lost they'd probably agree. Some think we watch sad movies because it trains us to go through the response of grieving which helps us not only release grief in our own lives on a small unconscious level, but that it prepares us for grief in the future if we practice that reaction now. This makes the most sense to me.

I can't even count the number of times I have heard people on these shows say "I'm sorry for your loss." I had to say that for the first time the other day in a clinical setting. I've said it only a handful of times in my personal life (knocking on wood) but I have been lucky enough that even after working in a psychiatric hospital for 2 years and in a research hospital for 1, I have never had to say that to anyone until last week. The way my job works now, I talk to people all over the country, it's all over the phone so I have never met these people face to face, it's more detached which has it's pros and cons. I talked to this person exactly one week before he/she died. One week. I called a month later to do the follow-up, I asked to speak with X and the little girl who answered the phone paused and I heard her shuffle around and give the phone to an adult. I asked again to speak with X and an older woman told me X had died a month ago and asked what it was I was calling about. We are not allowed to say because it is confidential but not wanting to disturb her by letting her know her loved one was in a study for something I could not disclose I said, without even a second thought, "I'm so sorry for your loss, it's not important, don't worry about it."

After I got off the phone the shock set in a bit. I have no idea what X looked like and I had to look up his/her information to recall the details of our interview which pointed to numerous possible causes of death, but then again it could have been a car accident, it could have been anything.

I used to want to be a pediatrician but then I decided I couldn't because I couldn't bear it if a kid died. I think I want to go into medicine and I watch these shows and I think I could do that. Mental health is obviously a different can of worms but for anyone who thinks it's easier, give me a call after your psych rotation. I'm usually really good in a crisis and I've dealt with people cutting themselves in front of me, threatening to kill themselves or someone else, chewing through their lips, smearing feces on the walls, hurling furniture across rooms and just sitting there staring and refusing to do anything at all for days. I've been fine, I mean really I've been great in all of those situations and that made me feel even more confident that I could go into this field and all that it entails, until I had to say that. Saying that sucked. I don't know if he/she died from drugs or from drug complications but I hope not. They tell you if someone commits suicide it's not your fault. It's the patient's choice. That seems like an easy out to me but I get it, because otherwise it's your fault as a failed clinical case and that would make everyone quit the field. So we need a little denial, a little removal, but come on, isn't that just making it a bit too easy?

With surgery you can say "we did all we could," they say that on those shows all the time too, usually right before the "I'm sorry for your loss part." However, with mental health, if someone doesn't get better, if someone hurts themselves or someone else it's a lot blurrier. We like to think we do all we can but do we ever know? It probably gets easier to deal with that stuff the longer one is in the field, I'm sure it does, it has to. Or maybe we just keep watching these medical dramas trying to desensitize ourselves so that when it crops up in real life it's not as shocking. We don't play homeless anymore, but we keep imagining these sad and difficult scenes, well someone imagines them, and writes them down and then people act them out, and we watch, and we imagine ourselves in those roles and are we all masochists or are we just trying to prepare ourselves?

I think there should be more shows about fairy-princess-queen-ballerinas, but I don't think the ratings would be very high.

Post on Post-Its

Relating to my last post, I came across this amazing youtube video on one of my best friend's blogs http://hotchildinanothercity.blogspot.com/ check her out. Anyways, she posted this video with the caption "I think I need to take a page out of Jessica's book," and I watched it and I agree.



Kids really know how to express themselves leagues better than adults do. Whether it's screaming, because they KNOW that it is more important to let it out despite what the neighbors think. Or, having positive self-affirmation time in the bathroom mirror even when the camera is rolling.

At college I used to write reminders to myself in lipstick on the long full-length mirror on the back of my door. I kept adding them until the whole thing was covered in red smudges. I don't remember what any of them were now, but they helped me out then. I'm also a big fan of post-its. I write post-its for everything. Some people keep post-its in their office desks for work reminders or in the kitchen junk drawer for small grocery lists. I do both, and I keep them at my bedside table, on my bookcase and by my dresser. Really I think this is just because I have a terrible memory, so I know that just as quickly as an important reminder will pop into my head, it will keep on truckin out my ear before making an impression on my brain. I know most people have upgraded to the electronic post-its on their laptops, or to iphone reminders, but that is all too much for me. I still use a paper planner and I will always love me some little sticky yellow squares.

I stopped the lipstick reminders when I downsized to a small wall mirror in my 'big girl apartment' post-college land, but the post-its work just as well. Actually, I'm probably better off because when people come over, they don't see blood red scrawled notes-to-self with embarrassing fortune cookie-like wisdom when they go to adjust their hair. No one expects you to be sane and have it all together in college but in the 'real-world,' I like to keep up the facade anyways.

The point is, as grown-ups we actually need to write this stuff down to remember it and that is the crazy part! The most IMPORTANT reminders wind up on the mirror because they need to stare you in the face to get through. The most simple and basic things like 'breath,' 'relax,' 'enjoy.' Not only do these wind up on mirrors and post-its but these are also becoming popular tattoos! We need to have these things inked on our wrists for the rest of our lives because otherwise we will forget, we will forget to breath, to relax and to enjoy. The real question is what are we remembering instead? Deadlines, appointments, grad school application requirements. Important things no doubt but if you forget to breathe you won't get around to any of this stuff so I ask you, what is really the most important to remember?

Kids are smarter, they don't know how to write but they don't NEED to because they got it down. I think if I started my day with a list of positive things about my life while dancing over the bathroom sink I'd be in great mental and emotional shape. While I may still be a measly 5' 2" I don't think my crappy bathroom sink could support me and I'd probably fall and crack my skull on the bathtub so I'll leave that to the kids and stick with my post-its.

Open Ribs

I almost never cry these days. While I generally think this is a good sign of things being alright in my life, when I do cry it is BIG. Well... that's not exactly true. Thanks to my female hormones I get teary eyed at stupid things way more often then I would like to admit. But generally, I don't consider myself too emotional. But when it all builds up it's a massive, all flood gates down kind of situation. It's usually really cathartic, and for someone who can be kind of a control freak, it's nice to make my inner monologue shut the fuck up for a little while and just feel things, no matter how upsetting it may be.

I was never a big crier as a kid, so this isn't much of a surprise. I was happy and I'm grateful that aside from the every day kind of kid stuff that makes you feel like the sky is collapsing on your 4th grade head (until it's recess), generally things were good. But I did have a pretty fantastic system for giving myself a little needed release now and then. Myself and one of my best childhood friends, Jamie would have massive, I mean EPIC, screaming contests (I'm still so sorry Mom and Dad). Now in today's world I would imagine that the blood curdling cries of young children over and over would evoke at least some concern from the neighbors, but in 1995 no one seemed to care. We would go out and lie down in my driveway, open up our little ribcages as wide as we could and just let it out. I don't think we really ever cared who won, if we did I don't remember because it usually ended in a giggle fit. There is this type of therapy called Primal Therapy, and the treatment employed is basically just screaming your head off (amongst a lot of spin-off Freudian analysis and repressed memory digging). I think Jamie and I were just way ahead of our time. If I could get away with walking out onto my porch in my crowded greater Boston neighborhood and having a massive cathartic shriek I would, but I just don't think it would fly.

Still, have you ever noticed how little kids are always making noise when they are doing things? If they are skipping they are humming and skipping, or if they are jumping they are punctuating it with some vocalization or if they are running it definitely involves some kind of increasingly loud vowel. I think they're onto something. Maybe if we made more noise throughout the day it wouldn't all have to come bursting out of us when our guard is down?

I don't remember if there was anything in particular we were screaming about. My Mom said that I made up for in sound what I lacked in size and maybe as two tiny blonde little girls we just wanted to feel big and noticed and important for a minute. Or maybe it was to shake up our perfect suburban lives. I would still like to shake up my life, though now more urban and I would still like to feel bigger than my 5 foot 2 frame will allow. I'd still really like to be able to scream. One of my friend's told me that sometimes she drives around town with the windows up and just yells and yells and yells. I think this is a genius idea. Most of Massachusetts seems to be doing that anyways to some extent.

Whirling Dervishes

I've always been attracted to extremes, hence the turquoise wall paint I selected at age 7.

I was lucky enough to have parents who encouraged this. I love children (now) but I'm not sure what I would have done posed with the requests I made as a kid. Despite household decor decisions which I began to take over more and more as I grew older ( I bought my parents stained glass ceiling fan pulls when I was twelve... what twelve year old does that!?) my madness was generally contained to my own little world, my bedroom. My Mom says that ever since I was born I have been a "whirling dervish," when I was up I was spinning around at high speeds and then all of a sudden she would notice that the house had been silent and she would know that I had passed out somewhere mid-step for a cat nap.

In one of my favorite photos of myself as a child, I am in this shiny gold party dress with a big bow in my hair, all dolled up and passed out cold in a big (big enough to hold my tiny 6 year old self anyways) box with tons of my stuffed animals and dress-up clothes surrounding me stuffed in the box. Wherever I may have been going in my imagination I was certainly prepared for the voyage, clearly very practical from an early age.

Though my major life interests have changed over time I have always been concerned about aesthetics, in my home, in my closet, in my imaginary dream boat or what have you. I wanted to be a "cocktail waitress astronaut." Seriously, that is what I told my teacher in kindergarten on my 'When I Grow Up' poster. It's still in my basement, I have proof. My Mom asked me why I wanted to be a cocktail waitress in space (come on... as if it wasn't obvious) and I explained that OBVIOUSLY I wanted to go to space but I wanted to wear pretty little dresses. Where I developed the association that cocktail waitresses wear tiny dresses at the age of 5, I don't even want to know. However, if someone offered to send me to space in a couture LBD I think I'd jump at the opportunity so I really think I was quite in touch with myself. It wasn't until later that I started developing my current passions (in addition to space and fashion of course).

I used to hate people. Really, everyone, all of humanity, I was an 8 year old raging against all of mankind. Why so much hatred from a generally happy pint-sized blonde child? Ferngully. I was obsessed with that movie and if anyone has ever seen it they will recall that it is about how humans are destroying the rainforest and running the faeries out of their homes. Well as an 8 year old girl, faeries clearly trumped humanity, and I became ashamed to be a part of the enemy team. I started talking to trees in our backyard and I would listen to the birds in the woods and pretend that I could understand them. I used to think I could read my cat's mind. Delusional behavior or normal child behavior? Well I was fine with it, and I'm sure my parents were just grateful to have some peace in the house while I was outside for hours and hours cursing my species and trying to commune with nature.

I was on a big eco kick for most of my childhood and I am still obsessive about recycling and turning off lights and saving energy. I tried being vegan once. That lasted a week. But I am one of those weird non-vegetarian vegetarians who eats poultry and fish, so half the world considers you a veg, but then the rrreeeaaall veggies get all righteous and cast you out of the club.

Anyways, it really was not until much later that I started accepting my fate as a human and even more impossibly, caring about other people.

Not exactly the college essay one would expect from a Psych Major.

It will all make sense later, I promise. I've always been attracted to the extremes. I wasn't going to just fall into complacent love of my brethren as a whole. No, my compassion fell only to those I felt were truly interesting. It's all part of my life aesthetic, things in extremes, things that are entirely unique (re: stained glass ceiling fan pulls) and what is more unique and more extreme than a human being? Well.... at least all the really interesting ones, who I have generally found to be kids.

Whirling dervishes with secret boxes of gold dresses and hidden treasures and grand adventures planned. Living breathing turquoise walls.

This quote from Kerouac sums it up for me,

"'They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"'