by Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. aka CaptCliff
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ONCE upon a time I fell in love with my dream girl …or so I thought. In fact I firmly believed I’d been struck by a once-in-a-lifetime lightning bolt of love not just once but TWICE. Ever since I was a little boy growing up in Highland Park, Illinois watching Saturday morning cartoons, TV Westerns and Classic Disney movies I held a strange fascination and secret crush on the Cinderellas, Snow Whites, and Tinkerbells of the world. I remember feeling something vaguely sexual towards certain Disney dames and damsels even tho I didn’t really know what that truly meant at the time. I’m not sure I can pinpoint what it was about these old school cartoon characters and sultry sirens that captivated me but they all appeared to share a certain “Love Potion #9″ potent combination of physical features and personality characteristics. Typically quite petite, vulnerable and/or “wounded” femme fatales but at the same time strong firebrands and unusually determined younger women they were what used to be referred to as “plucky gals”. They tended to be sweet and petite flaming red or raven-haired beauties (except for Tinkerbell) and a number of them were also soft-hearted figures with a special fondness for animals, grumpy dwarfs and other less fortunate characters that lived on the fringes of their particular society… or at least Disney’s animated cartoon version of society. More important, when this unassuming plucky gal, earnest young woman or damsel in distress was finally found/discovered like the proverbial “diamond in the rough” by Prince Charming the tall, handsome, uberprivileged aristocrat with a strong squared off chin, bulging bicep muscles and perfect hair, she magically transformed into something exceedingly regal and refined. In other words her so called true self, her latent abilities, and highest personal aspirations were eventually realized thanks to some remarkable super guy’s courage, heroic aid and special assistance…. (cough cough). Put another way…this Prince Charming guy was a major Dudley Do-Right Rescue Junkie.
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Now to be perfectly honest Tinkerbell’s basic character seemed quite different from most of the other female characters just described. She was clearly more complex and more “resistant” to being rescued or as my former father-in-law Joseph Hertz, an Auschwitz survivor and lifelong old school psychoanalysis patient used to say in describing such individuals (including his own wife) they were “not amenable to treatment”. Indeed Tinkerbell was highly emotional, combative, feisty and probably what is described today as “high maintenance”. In contrast to Snow White or Cinderella for example Tinkerbell was far more “flighty” (literally) unstable, histrionic, dramatic, sexual/seductive, overreactive and defensive. However, in my twisted Disney Mouseketeer member mind mixed liberally with 1950’s era Hollywood sex stereotypes, gunslinger Westerns, and sexually precocious thinking Tinkerbell also seemed like she might be quite exciting, or in cowboy lingo, “wild like as a bucking bronco” …which somebody at Camp Timberlane told me meant “good in bed” whatever that meant. Naturally I didn’t really know what ANY of that meant but whatever it was I somehow looked forward to experiencing it some day. At the same time I also suspected slender fairies like Tinkerbell might pout, act bratty, argue and throw temper tantrums especially when they didn’t get their way. I just figured being animated cartoon creatures from a forest and not real human beings raised in a city or town like I was with established rules, regulations, schools and sidewalks, it seemed rather understandable that she might be like that and have “boundary issues”. Finally, in true Peter Pan fashion Tinkerbell appeared likely to remain the way she was basically forever, ie. emotionally immature, developmentally “arrested”, and young (in both mind and body). As for “bucking broncos”, a concept I obviously picked up from watching all those popular Western films on TV (especially Zorro and the Lone Ranger) a couple of subsequently traumatic experiences at summer camp (Camp Timberlane for Boys in Wisconsin) left me deathly afraid of horses…especially the skittish ones that suddenly take off while you are riding them and all you can really do is hold on for dear life and pray. In retrospect, while my aspirations to be a tough but fair gunslinger-cowboy and all-round do-gooder were dashed to pieces, I was still left intact, intrigued and attracted to the aforementioned disparate female personality types (or some weird combination). Of course, because of these inherent contradictions I didn’t realize at the time that such a paradoxical creature and complex human being might present itself in my life someday as an actual person or persons with “borderline” personality disorder… along with all the extra paradoxical trimmings.
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Fast forward to present: After 8 years of madly loving (or loving madly) a woman 12 years younger than myself, a seductive siren with not only an incredible age-defying “Tinkerbell” body and “unicorn ass” but all the diagnostic criteria of borderline personality disorder (BPD) with it’s constant chaos, ongoing drama, emotional upheaval, passion, anger, rage, joy and equal parts misery, I became increasingly depressed, emotionally drained and physically worn out. Looking back on it, lots of other things stressed and pressed on my wounded codependent head including my own mother’s Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), lifelong bipolar illness, as well as her age related dementia, final illness and death. Then, having my relationship finally come crashing down and fall apart ugly a month or two later I became even more profoundly depressed and despondent. Failure in love for me is an especially bitter pill to swallow in part because I seem to go through it on a regular basis (every 5-8 years, give or take a decade) and partly because I am a licensed psychologist and certified sex and marriage therapist in Atlanta, Georgia.
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She, my latest greatest self-perceived treatment failure and Disney Pocohontas fantasy-in-the-flesh stated both in tears and in all seriousness that she needed to leave me and dreamt of living alone somewhere along the quiet Florida coast where she could work from home, recover her “true self”, be with supportive friends, and “deprogram” from the storm and stress of our often turbulent relationship as well as what she perceived as my “emotional abuse and narcissism”. With sadness I supported her life goals and pictured her mindfully meditating, taking time to herself, walking on the beach, going to yoga class, working out/body building (her big thing) and getting a break not only from me but also from her 20-something daughters. Good kids at heart, they had a shit-ton of their own psychological issues, unprocessed trauma and emotional baggage from childhood that weighed heavy upon our storm battered relation-ship, now nothing more than a tattered broken ghost ship run aground.
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We left it as many exhausted couples do. We’re “broken up” but just have to “see what happens”, she said… just the kind of puzzling duality and unreconciled strivings that poet philosophers ponder and lovers turned gladiator combatants accept as the only “Hail Mary” pass play left in the game. She told me she was afraid that I would go out and fall in love with someone else. I reassured her I was in no condition physically or mentally to do anything of the sort. Two weeks into her move she texted me and sounded like she was having a serious crisis of confidence and feared that she had made a “big mistake”. I tried to cheer her up as well as give her some room decorating ideas as is/was my artistic and creative penchant. “Yes!” I texted her back emphatically supporting her idea to go with light gray drapes in her new bedroom in Florida to give it more of a “beachy bungalow” look. Weird sounding I realize but not that weird for me considering I often played the role of “Will” to many of my female friends “Grace”. After another two weeks (a month after her leaving) I sent her a diamond and gold bracelet from my deceased ex-wife’s Rona’s estate as a “peacekeeping gesture” and a symbol of love and positivity between us for Valentines day and her birthday that followed close behind on Feb 17th. After all, they, my ex-gf and ex-wife were “kindred spirits” having grown up in the same row home neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia, hung out at the same sprawling suburban shopping mall as tough-talking gum-smacking Phily girls, and even attended the same gigantic high school (Northeast H.S.) albeit 12 years apart. A month or two after that, still unable to free myself from nagging unanswered questions and a combination of intuition and leftover/hangover feelings about my vexing ex, I semi-accidentally found out from other people that my beloved love-hate-love object was already in another hot steamy relationship with a stereotypical Manly Man, a super handsome hardbodied special ops former Navy Seal stud muffin who lived on a houseboat while my ex trained at a local gym for a professional bikini/body-building competition. I was informed that they met ON HER BIRTHDAY….exactly one month after leaving Atlanta.
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OK STOP RIGHT THERE! Back up the mental pick-up truck. Picture that. Now put on those “Clockwork Orange” behavior modification glasses with the special metal lid clamps that force you to keep your eyes wide open to absorb the full multi-sensory impact of what you are now hearing, seeing and feeling. In fact, I felt a bit like Malcolm McDowell (Alex) as he vigorously protested his involuntary treatment designed to rid him of his unhealthy fantasies and antisocial tendencies, “No. No! NO! Stop it! Stop it, please! I beg you! This is sin! This is sin!!” Of course he was only referring to the use of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony as the musical score for his psychological re-education.
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A Navy Seal? So two days after I sent her the diamond-studded peace gesture and symbol of positivity between us and was told she just needed time to “work on herself” she was already willing and able-bodied enough (plucky lass that she is) to engage in athletic sex acts in support of our elite troops and “work out” with a Navy Seal on a beach, in a boat, and on a bed in a boat? This unusually graphic image, reality check, Disney cartoon caricature of a castration complex (mine) and all round information overload would have been enough to trigger an acute psychosis in someone with minimal psychological character armor, a regular-sized masculinity complex and less than average sized penis. Dayenu! For a sedentary Jewish 60-something cracker and carbohydrate consuming Clinical Psychologist such as myself… it struck me as absolute proof of God’s existence as well as his/her/it’s supreme grasp of Cosmic irony. Second, as a part-time writer/humorist it seemed to me to be a great idea for a future Larry David style TV sitcom entitled “Cuckold Man”. My third thought was to kill myself… but only if I could do it with some very large industrial power tool or piece of machinery that would bring about a slow and painful death like the enormous hydraulic press used to squash Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robot arm in the “Terminator” movie. Actually, I also thought of jumping into a vat of liquid nitrogen just like Ahnold did but that seemed too easy and possibly too good for me. Not only had my ex’s hot and heavy love life with Rambo begun within 30 days of her moving out from my house where her mail and her daughters car registration, credit card applications, magazines and junk mail continued to be sent for many months but also where I remained severely depressed and highly addicted to Texas Toast Garlic Croutons and Triscuits (Original or Garlic/herb)….in bed. Furthermore, while they (my ex and Rambo) were by her own report having a great time zip lining, boating, paddle boarding, kayaking and having frequent sex on a houseboat, I was by my own admission an “amorphous blob of subhuman protoplasm”. By the way, she thought telling me about all of this later in great detail after the fact would be a “big sexual turn on”. In fact it was…for about 5 seconds. After that and after hearing other sordid details too graphic to even report here without a wash cloth and disinfectant I fell totally apart. Understandably I wanted, nay, I needed to figure out what the hell happened.
While it was certainly true that we had broken up to rebuild and re-assert our individual lives, redefine our personal boundaries, and “see what happens down the road”, I had somehow failed to consider the possibility or probability of my former Cinderella/Snow White/Tinkerbell fantasy partner jumping SO QUICKLY into the sack/bunk with GI Joe, John Wayne, Charlie Sheen and a Limited Edition Special Forces Navy Seal Ken doll combined. In shock and feeling more like General George Custer after being scalped, genitally mutilated, and shot in the back by a dozen extra arrows at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, all I could think to do was perform some kind of post-mortem assessment, relationship autopsy or forensic accident analysis. My analytical left brain wanted things to “add up” even if they added up to “Catastrophic Relationship Failure” (CRF) due to a small 58 cent rubber O-ring like the one that failed on the ill-fated Space Shuttle Challenger. Sure, you could say, “well cmon you guys broke up and she was open to having a short term fling and some fun and fuckery (as her eldest daughter called it) in an unfettered rebound relationship. I mean, isn’t that common?” Plus, you might add it wasn’t her fault that I happened to find out about it in a shell-shocking and humiliating manner from multiple sources including Facebook friends and extended family members. Technically, you might offer me solace and support by saying, “Look Cliff, you’re not the ‘King of Cuck’ that this story completely and totally sounds like. You just walk, talk, bend over, and feel that way, dude…so get over it bro”. Trust me, no bro….. this is the kind of Full Monty cuckoldry that only happens to me and plus I’m leaving out a LOT of the gory details involving multiple multi-colored sex toys and Sodom and Gomorrah type military maneuvers lasting months on end (four and a half to be exact) and apparently included both ends… so to speak. In fact they (Rambo and the ex) probably used that NASA engineered rubber O-ring as either a cock ring or a carabiner for some Special forces sex act while strapped down to a speeding Delta Force inflatable landing craft… just one of the many “water sports” she told me they participated in while I was sending her jewelry, supportive texts and encouraging words….LIKE FUCKING URKEL.
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For awhile I considered pouring bleach in my eyes to lessen the painful imagery but realized that I needed my eyeballs to at least write this blog, walk the dog, and bring in her mail. Later, while compulsively watching episodes of Forensic Files, Snapped, Bones, Why Planes Crash, and reruns of Dexter on cable television and sobbing into a leftover pint of our favorite ice cream (Ben and Jerry’s Strawberry Shortcake) I also realized that I still loved this person. Even all my great sorrow, pain, hurt, self righteous anger, blame, malignant narcissism and masculine pride hadn’t extinguished the eternal flame (Ner Tamid) of my longing and unrelenting desire. I thought of calling her but everybody else in my family and social support network (including anyone within the blast radius of our final nuclear conflict and it’s subsequent mushroom cloud of toxic emotional debris) thought I was out of my mind or to be more specific “crazy as a fucking loon”. It wasn’t about her, mind you. Nobody thought she was the only bad guy in the relationship or that I was Mr. Innocent. Our toxicity together and complementary madness (see NPD/BPD relationship dynamic) was well established. It was really about me and the semi-crazed “condition” I was now in (cue song from Big Lebowski). As a kind of compromise to myself and others in my shattered “Humpty Dumpty” psychological state I finally sought out professional help and treatment.
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Regardless of ones religious faith, open mind, overarching spiritual beliefs or trust in things like divine intervention, destiny, karma, positive affirmations (“There’s a reason for everything!!”) or even ones connection to their “higher power” this was the kind of painful life experience and break-up that pushes people to the brink of their coping skills/ resilience envelope. In my view it wasn’t enough to simply explain or summarize this mental emotional karate kick to the nuts as, “…well you know break-ups are always difficult and hey, what did you expect?” Even with my Ph.D. and “Drama of the Gifted Child” narcissistic ego the size of Isengard in Tolkien’s Middle Earth, I was clearly having trouble keeping my shit together. In fact, due to the severe emotional malaise I felt on top of my depleted physical state, I could barely even get out of bed. Like many others suffering from traumatic life events I felt like I was literally coming apart and and was living in some nightmare in which I couldn’t wake up. My social life consisted mainly of apologizing to friends for not returning their calls, talking to my dogs like they were people and counting up social media “likes” (usually five or six tops) in response to my now only marginally amusing and increasingly desperate Facebook posts. I also author a CaptCliff Jewish Pirate blog on WordPress but for the most part I had become paralyzed by writer’s block. Instead or writing or exercising I ruminated about my ex-girlfriend’s sex life with various branches of the United States Armed Forces including current active duty and retired as well as the National Guard, whom I always felt didn’t get the kind of respect they deserved. Alternatively I just felt dreadful and was almost completely unable to sleep. Once again my high powered academic credentials had done me no good in the game of love. In fact, my big fat ego and intellect made it even more difficult to face facts that this seasoned psychotherapist and licensed plumber of other people’s stuck psyches needed someone else’s professional help. The old saying “the plumber can’t fix his own toilet” swirled around in my head and constipated psyche like……well you get the idea. What I really needed was someone with mad therapy skills to rotor-rooter out my confused and contradictory romantic feelings and self-defeating core beliefs…. about sex, love and intimate relationships. In addition, I needed emergency surgery psychologically to repair my short-circuiting PTSD brain, perhaps something short on the sides and a hair’s breath short of a full lobotomy. I chose the best online cognitive behavioral program I could find on short notice and surrendered myself to an interactive series of “trauma bond” training and education sessions. This program along with their metaphorical 1-800-BULLSHIT dumptruck (like the one seen on Hoarders but never used enough) bagged up and took out my psychological trash, deconstructed my archaic Disney inspired distortions and maladaptive “love schemas” and then reassembled them back together like some psychotherapeutic version of Giada De Laurentiis making a sweetbread frittata out of four limp veggies leftover in my SubZero refrigerator. I emerged the same person but also changed enough to begin calling myself Cliff 2.0.
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While I still can’t adequately explain this qualitative change (even to myself) I felt distinctly different in my general perception of my “totality” ( total self) as well as in what I saw through the newly adjusted lens of my minds eye. That is to say, after treatment I saw (and interpreted) a lot of things differently and as a result viewed things more in relation to the uncorrupted present moment rather than based on rigid pre-patterned historical narratives and recurrent emotional reactions (mine or others) or traumas. A good example would be not just seeing my ex as just some amalgamation of my bipolar alcoholic NPD mother or an X-rated version of Tinkerbell with brass knuckles. In thinking about or imagining a future relationship or dating scenario I also found myself having less of an urge to immediately play the part of Dr. Frankenstein or Professor Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady”. I know what you’re thinking but that’s actually pretty good for me. I guess trauma based therapy and training is a lot like getting reconstructive plastic surgery on ones shame-based childhood thought process not to mention a needed renovation (including fresh coat of Tabula Rasa white paint) on ones “fight or flight” limbic system and trauma related memory centers. Of course on another level I was still the same aging narcissist and Larry David-ish guy with ADHD. I mean you can’t fix everything on an older model car with a leaking valve gasket cover, can you? To be honest, in some ways I liked my new and improved 2.0 self more especially when looking at my “self” in the mirror but in other ways a bit less. Possibly it was just the more pronounced sense of emotional vulnerability that I now felt 24/7 and that my therapists said would take time getting used to like a new pair of gym shoes or stiff beach sandals.
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Either way, in getting turned inside out and upside down by trauma-based treatment I also realized I was no longer as well defended by my tortoise shell of narcissistic defenses honed over time not just by my considerable book knowledge and training in Psychology but by multiple deployments and combat experience in numerous high-conflict relationships …..often with nimble nubile ninja women and other MISSES (mankillers in short shorts). Typically that’s who I was attracted to and as a result that was the kind of individual I often ended up with. However, unlike the “high-end” world class narcissists like Donald Trump, Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan, I never could “fire” anybody. What I really mean is I could give ’em hell and drive my relationship partners crazy with my signature brand of bullshit (mostly control and condescension) and fight with them tooth and manicured nail but never take decisive action to either change myself or break up with them. In the often unconscious battle between the sexes (a now somewhat obsolete construct) when it came to “standing my ground” and engaging in “pitched verbal battles” with Tinkerbell type warrior women, Navy Seal Man had nothing over me except maybe anything requiring physical strength, unusual athleticism, or familiarity with firearms. Long after I graduated from Disney Propaganda Academy as a boy and even after I grew into my pitifully skinny body (including a two and a half year unexpected stint of physical, psychological and social hell forced to wear a full-body Milwaukee Brace for scoliosis at the beginning of high school ….(yeah, that poor pitiful shlep in a cage was me) I became at least in my own mind an unrepentant “ladies man” and James Bond/Hugh Hefner “wannabe”. By then I had what I might term a bit of a bad attitude. You could say I had a psychological chip on my shoulder somewhat like Robert Conrad of the original “Wild Wild West” TV show in that old Eveready battery commercial (“Come on, I dare ya..).
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Still, I was no match for my 50 year-old 105-lb borderline body-builder bikini model who snatched out my beating heart like a Aztec priest and crushed it “Kill Bill” style before I could brush my teeth and get the cracker crumbs out of my unmade bed. Of course she completely and totally saw it the other way around. She felt I had emotionally abused and abandoned her and made her become even more insecure and psychologically disempowered than she felt as a young girl and runaway teen. Without a real college education and raised by well meaning but dysfunctional Jewish jackals in Northeast Philadelphia, she and my beloved borderline wife (now nearly twenty years deceased) ran Tonya Harding figure eights around me in “Mad Max Fury Road” emotional ambush assaults, mental mind games, and FOG ((fear, obligation, and guilt) gaslight attacks. Of course…. she felt it was the other way around and that I was the weird bushy-haired kid in caveman furs in the original “Mad Max” movie (see video clip below). To my amazement she accomplished all of this this while I wore full metal jacket body armor and used my 740 SAT Verbal score vocabulary, my pent-up childhood anger, and my hollow point bullet sarcasm like a gatling gun in a vain attempt to get a bead on her defensiveness, her denial and her elusive 14 year-old “rebellious inner child”. That shadow part of her personality (whom I variously referred to as the “spoiler”, the “sniper”, “Robert Malvo”, “The Assassin” and other not-so-nice nicknames) was the bane of my existence while we were together. Put into Law and Order SVU terms I wanted to “bust and collar” that obnoxious disrespectful, middle finger waving Phily teenager ensconced in my gf’s subconscious and choke her out Elliot Stabler style because I saw HER as the main suspect, primary “person of interest” and the single biggest problem between us that was fucking up everything up for everyone. Cash me outside…. indeed. Of course I turned out to be wrong….or at least 50% wrong.
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What I ended up finding out with trauma therapy and related self-study including something called Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFST) was that….(are you ready for this?) it was really also ME. It was also MY “inner child” undiscovered, unloved, and neglected (by me but also by her in the relationship and others before her) who was really “acting out” and popping up from Viet Kong type underground lairs, long forgotten blanket forts made of deeply repressed feelings, and isolated childhood-based bunkers complete with subterranean tunnels and bamboo and bush covered trap doors from which to ambush, skewer, maim, taunt, and undermine her, myself, and even our relationship…. just like the bushy-headed feral boy with the razor sharp boomerang in Mad Max. In fact, in my great frustration to be validated, heard, understood or nurtured in the way I wanted (and didnt receive as a child) I used to call my gf and her daughters “feral cats” when they engaged in their predictably selfish, self-centered, disrespectful, or “bad” behavior. My bad. Because of his complete isolation and almost total dissociation from the rest of my consciousness this shadow-of-a-shadow part of me was more crazed than Tom Hanks in “Cast Away” after spending too much time with Wilson the volleyball or some 20-something on the TV show “Survivor” who got accidentally left behind on the island and had been living on rotten coconuts and drinking his own pee ever since… Not only did the repressed and forgotten abused inner child part of me lack “immunity” or coherent feedback, in his attempt to survive he ended up getting stuck/fixated in a child-like survivor-like state….which coincidentally, is very true of many people with borderline disorder. Can you really blame him (that isolated part of me)? In “Lord of the Flies” (LOF) character terms (one of my favorite books of all time) this aspect of me was like Simon, Ralph and Piggy combined who instead of getting saved, sacrificed or “eliminated”, lived on to become some hidden and twisted amalgamation of my total self (my adult self). Worst of all was my completely unconscious version of Roger, the most sadistic and ruthless of all the characters from Lord of the Flies. For the sake of irony and not so very subtle humor I include below the description of Roger plagiarized directly from my Highland Park high school notes, my “Cliff Notes”…get it?
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Roger A sly, secretive boy who displayed, early on a cruelty toward the weak and vulnerable. Once joining Jack’s tribe, he becomes the hangman and executioner causing Piggy’s death, torturing Samneric (Sam and Eric), and preparing a stick on which to mount Ralph’s head.
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Strangely, even tho I have for many years kept a hodgepodge of action figures and cartoon characters perched on my bedside shelf as a vivid visual reminder of my various subpersonalities and shadow aspects, I had somehow forgotten to include the most vulnerable, most insecure, most needy, and as a result, most demented and vicious inner child part. In his lifelong childhood-acquired pain, hurt and isolation, my Roger part sought to punish and obtain revenge (talionic impulse) from those whom he felt had hurt him as well as those he had MOST HOPED would validate, uncover and “discover” him (reverse Cinderella script). In other words he really wanted someone loving, grounded, wise, caring, nurturing, skillful and persistent to hold and embrace him….and maybe just maybe over time come to understand all he had gone through on the wretched desert island called “my so called perfect childhood” including the childhood abuse, scapegoating and neglect which was never fully acknowledged (and forcefully denied).
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When my Roger part felt unheard, judged, not listened to or was actively invalidated/rejected/abandoned by anyone or when he began to feel a relationship to be grossly imbalanced and unfair (in terms of give and take) he turned his sadness into RAGE, his powerlessness into SHARP CRITICISM, his learned helplessness and primal fear into DOMINATION and CONTROL. In the end, in a death spiral of disappointment and destruction he sacrificed even his own basic desire for joy, fullfillment, happiness, satisfaction and SUCCESS. Eventually this well-hidden inner part was not just the young Roger from “Lord of the Flies” but a seemingly more grownup figure and persona of a Clinical Psychologist and skilled helping professional, one who was legitimately able to help others but not himself. At the very worst, I harbored a less overtly insane (I would hope) and less delusional version of “Jack” (Jack Nicolson) from “The Shining”. In the movie, obsessed with his own inability to write his “grand opus” novel to feed his mounting frustration and anger and underlying narcissistic self-image he spiraled into various floridly psychotic fantasies involving himself within his own fragmented dreams, delusions and tortured mind. In his total “madness” , or as my ex described me at the end of our relationship as “too far gone”, Jack instituted a number of symbolic rituals and OCD obsessions (like typing the same childlike sentence over and over) that further reinforced his denial and insured his continuing emotional stuckness (repression) and self-defeat. In need of a scapegoat he chose instead to blame his congenitally scared and vulnerable wife (Shelly Duval) who fit the fearful, mousy codependent wife role perfectly. While on the outside Jack’s decompensation appears like pure sadism, insanity and projection, on the inside it was really also his (and by extension Roger’s) acted-out version of self-defeat, masochism, self-loathing and childhood shame. It’s something like pounding your own head against a certain wall or sharp metal bracket on your bunk bed in your bedroom as a kid when no other viable solution or “rescue” seemed possible. Rather then let others continue to hurt, scapegoat, or neglect you (or suffer any more indignity, pain or abuse) you decide to hurt yourself first…and in so doing wrestle perceived control of ones painful existence away from the abusers or from the silent God that seemed at the time to not love, care or give a shit. I suppose thats somewhat like choosing to push the big red button on the hydraulic press in the Terminator movie I mentioned previously or getting someone else to do it for you by “setting the stage” for just the right kind of repeated and expected personal betrayal, “bloodletting”, never-ending conflict, and abandonment ritual when a relationship sours and shows clear signs of falling apart……over and over and over again. Of course that doesn’t mean the other person can’t or doesn’t legitimately play a role in such a complex reciprocal relationship and interpersonal problem. They could also be and often are total loon birds in deep denial as well as practiced professional bullshitters entrenched in lifelong patterns and well-rehearsed false or misleading beliefs including, “You did this to me”, “there’s nothing wrong with me” or the most common and sneaky derivative form of denial, “THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME UNTIL I MET YOU ASSHOLE!!”
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LET’S FACE IT. A lot of people have a hard time being wrong or realizing that their personal theories, basic beliefs and primary assumptions are either suspiciously self-serving or flagrantly wrong. All I’m saying is that we live in a “shame and blame” finger-pointing world and probably the hardest but best thing to do (psychologically speaking) is to look deep within yourself to see what is at the VERY VERY VERY bottom of your own barrel of monkeys. More than ever I now realize it’s ok to be partially or even completely wrong about something and if being wrong makes me a card carrying “Wrongarian”, then I’m proud to be one. I would also prefer to hang out with other Wrongarians who for whatever reason would rather make a concerted effort to discover the real truth (the emiss) about something over time than die in complete denial. Passing on such an ego-deflating but emotional honest life experiences to others including ones children is sort of the cherry on top. You cant learn what isn’t ever modeled for you. In fact…it’s one of several ways to begin to unlock the prison door of human suffering and the path to personal freedom that Arne Sakknesson was pointing towards in death in the old movie “Journey to the Center of the Earth”. Of course all the very disparate and different movie characters had to work together to eventually accomplish such an almost unimaginable feat. Often there are, if you haven’t already figured it out, deeper reasons for liking many of the books and movies that one never forgets.
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In Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in speaking about war and man’s inhumanity utters the famous words, “the horror, the horror”. When it comes to the curious case of the “Mouseketeer in the the Milwaukee Brace” and the ladies man turned “Cuckold King” (now known as CaptCliff) it turns out to be more about one man’s inhumanity towards himself. Perhaps that’s best summed up as the horror of living one’s entire life basically alone (at the deepest levels) and without sufficient love for the many parts of himself, and with only his fragmented self-image and mirror-reflected madness to keep him company.
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Fortunately, there’s still time to do something positive about all of this. It doesn’t even have to be a last second Hail Mary pass play either. Cinematically I might portray it as an Indie-esque type sequel to the movie “Field of Dreams”, one in which Kevin Costner (Ray Kinsella) reaches retirement and after suffering a number of painful and unexpected losses including the death of his wife and various financial setbacks involving his once thriving DIY baseball diamond business decides to go on an “adventure vacation” which includes a trip to the island used in filming “Lord of the Flies”. He has a good time on his trip but something is still “missing inside” that he cant seem to put his finger on. In the very end and right before he is about to leave and head home to Kansas he experiences an epiphany that is really more of what is called a “apotheosis” (divine state of unity). While throwing a baseball around with several local boys he met and befriended it dawns on him that each of them represent previously forgotten and unacknowledged parts of his own abusive childhood. It turns out the Ray was really adopted by his emotionally distant but very athletic baseball playing step-dad soon after his real father died when Ray was only two and a half years old. His real father (Lawrence) was a doctor who trained under and was a close friend of Dr. Archibald Graham (Burt Lancaster). Archie Graham, just like young Lawrence Hiken, M.D. was given only a brief chance to “bat in the major leagues” (live out his particular “Field of Dreams”). I guess someone at Disney, Paramount or whoever produced the film decided to leave out those more complex but significant parts of Ray’s life from the final version. In rediscovering and reconnecting with these forgotten and repressed (trauma-based) parts of self the elder Ray finally realized and “felt” at a core level (center of the earth) that he had found the “buried treasure” he’d been subconsciously seeking his whole life….himself. The film ends with Ray crying crocodile tears of sadness, sorrow, joy, happiness, relief and gratitude while the boys (awkwardly at first but then with great sincerity) comfort him and hug him. In his great sadness, happiness, joy and pain Ray mumbles something about having finally thrown the old ball “around the horn”.
Credits:
Terminator Hydraulic Press: https://youtu.be/cizCzpiDdLU
Feral Boy in Mad Max: https://youtu.be/RAHOMuiipsE
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Love Potion #9 by the Searchers: https://youtu.be/7rXhXLsNJL8
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Just Dropped In by Kenny Rogers
I woke up this morning with the sundown shining in
I found my mind in a brown paper bag within
I tripped on a cloud and fell-a eight miles high
I tore my mind on a jagged sky
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
I tripped on a cloud and fell-a eight miles high
I tore my mind on a jagged sky
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in
I pushed my soul in a deep dark hole and then I followed it in
I watched myself crawling out as I was a-crawling in
I got up so tight I couldn’t unwind
I saw so much I broke my mind
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
I watched myself crawling out as I was a-crawling in
I got up so tight I couldn’t unwind
I saw so much I broke my mind
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in
Someone painted April Fool in big black letters on a Dead End sign
I had my foot on the gas as I left the road and blew out my mind
Eight miles outta Memphis and I got no spare
Eight miles straight up downtown somewhere
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
I had my foot on the gas as I left the road and blew out my mind
Eight miles outta Memphis and I got no spare
Eight miles straight up downtown somewhere
I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
I said I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in
Yeah
yeah
oh-yeah
Yeah
yeah
oh-yeah
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1. Originally a dangerous voyage, esp. naval, around the extreme peninsular end of America’s Southern continent (Cape Horn).
2. Expression describing any bold or adventerous maneuver used in order to achieve the final step in a predetermined goal; an apotheosis. a·poth·e·o·sis
2. Expression describing any bold or adventerous maneuver used in order to achieve the final step in a predetermined goal; an apotheosis. a·poth·e·o·sis
3. A kind of ritual in baseball. A celebration among designated players after achieving a strikeout by throwing the ball around in a certain order.
Apotheosis:
the highest point in the development of something; culmination or climax. The elevation of someone or something to divine status; deification.
Love Potion#9: https://youtu.be/7rXhXLsNJL8
Tinkerbell is Borderline: https://prezi.com/8udm2qfd1mmd/tinkerbell/
captaincliff 
YIKES, Cliff! Well, wanted to make just a couple of comments- 1)WOW can you ever write- (which I say every time I read your blog- along with assuming that you gleaned much from HPHS English (and the 3-3 and 2-3-3, etc) 2) I am so sorry to read about all of the emotional hardships you have endured…from childhood on…(now I know why your dad drove carpool…) 3)You are incredibly strong, brilliant and funny- so yes, I think Larry David should contact you! (Here’s to much better days ahead, too!)
Thanks so much Deb. I really appreciate it. This took some extra guts because 1) I still feel vulnerable and mentally/emotionally in transition or recovery from this repeated codependent relationship pattern and 2) Im usually either the listener and witness/validator of others and not the sobbing broken Humpty Dumpty….but you know what…Ive gotten a lot of nice feedback and really genuine responses, even from people who i haven’t ever gone “there” (open heart to open heart) before. I wish our culture would have made that type of empathic emotional connection a more prominent value. Keep reading, writing and connecting. I get you…..i think/i hope. (a variant of “I see you” from Avatar
This was much funnier than I remembered.
Tragedy like wine probably gets better with age. In hindsight one also realizes what a Sophie Tucker meets David Carpman victim we play in our well worn narratives and that’s also funny along with a tad bit embarrassing.