Keeping up appearances

9

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As with the botched toe-stubbing experiment, I convince myself that dad’s hypnosis session failed because my mind is flawed. If I can just get control of my thoughts, everything will turn out the way I want it to. This kind of thinking haunts me throughout my teen and young adult years. I prefer the illusory narcotic of control over self-acceptance. I don’t want to be myself. I want to fix myself.

My ballet buddy Corinne and I write motivational quotes on our hands throughout high school — daily reminders of how to be a better person. And there’s no harm in a little self-improvement. We can all benefit from self-reflection, examining our conditioning, setting goals. But for me, this pattern of thinking is a lifeline. Rather, an anti-lifeline. Obsessive thinking takes me further and further away from being OK with my messy, uncomfortable existence. If I just think the right thought, eat the right food, do the right technique, take the right herb, my boobs will grow, my pimples will go away, my fouteés will be perfect, my body will be free of pain, my heart will be happy. In other words, if I can control my mind, I can control my body. The unpredictable, mystery of flesh is not allowed off my leash. But have you ever tried to tame a wild beast?

Numbing out fools me into believing I can tame the beast and I don’t need a substance to take me there. My nervous system does it naturally. When I’m numb, I miss being excited about life and Carpé Diem-ing the shit out of everything, but it’s where I naturally gravitate in between conquests for perfection. The pursuit kindles aliveness…the pursuit fails or succeeds…numbness returns until my next pursuit.

On the surface, the Warner’s are the perfect family. We do a good job “keeping up appearances” — handsome doctor husband, educated and career-woman wife who has the cheekbones of Cindy Crawford, popular, life-of-the-party teenage son, ballerina, straight-A student daughter. We have social circles, spiritual circles, and creative circles—men’s groups, women’s groups, wellness groups, goddess groups, mother-daughter groups. We have deep conversations. We talk about our feelings. We even meditate together facing the four directions associated with our birthdays — a harmonious circle of East, West, North and South.

Well, not always picture perfect. Sometimes the attempts to remove a stain are right out in the open.

It’s picture perfect. But look closely. The compass needle is broken. Dad’s true north is different than mom’s. Eric’s true north is with his friends. Mine is mostly in solitude — sometimes by choice, mostly by default. I am home alone a lot. In the evenings I drown out the aloneness with endless sitcom tv, bowls of Grape Nuts and hiding behind the kitchen island if I hear someone in the driveway. I am frightened a lot. A recurring nightmare of two strange men idling in a ‘59 Chevy convertible — approaching, lurking, loitering — penetrates my subconscious whenever I’m alone. I fight by shrink-wrapping my emotions, sensations, and needs .  I dull myself under the restriction of breath. I faintly feel the compass needle in my blood, its agitation, it’s waywardness. It doesn’t know where to land so it defers to solitude, an aloneness that can’t be abated by the presence of another.

Mom’s seasonal rituals and her care to raising a family keep me somewhat grounded. Like someone on the autism spectrum, I need routine, structure and predictability. Mom puts thought into our activities and is good at maintaining our calendar even through some of the more tumultuous times in her marriage. She may need the predictability as much as I do. Holiday rituals, meal rituals, listening to a cassette of Kim Robertson’s calming harp-music-in-the-morning rituals. But while my nervous system is soothed by the structure of our lives, I’m sedated by the confidence with which they are executed. I fall in line. Who am I to question these three gorgeous, intelligent, successful humans and the way they confidently move through the world?

I don’t have the language or confidence to explore the tension of my own unasked, unanswered questions. Ask me if something is wrong and I feel a) guilty feeling like shit when I have so much privilege b) confused by the disconnect between how I feel and how I am perceived c) grumpy and embarrassed when you notice that I feel like shit and d) sad when you don’t notice that I feel like shit.

So I take it out on my skin. I spend hundreds of hours during my teenage years hiding in the bathroom, punishing myself by picking at my skin. I need a place to surface anxiety — literally in the form of blood and sebum. I can’t make sense of its source so I make one up instead. The source of my anxiety must be my skin. Why would I think otherwise? There is nothing in the outward-facing architecture of my life that would indicate why I feel like such an outsider, so lonely, so deeply insecure. I think “If only these pimples go away, then I’ll be happy again.” I am soothed by the hypnotic, obsessive, compulsive scrutinizing, squeezing and picking. But after each session, I emerge, face-inflamed. I cancel plans with friends, I forgo a goodnight hug from mom or dad, dating is out of the question — I can’t possibly imagine kissing a boy until someone invents a smudge-free, tsunami-proof cover-up. Intimacy means I have to show my face, my true face, and I’m quite certain I have no idea who that is anyway. I’m not ready to be seen and if I play that one forward in my head, I only see rejection — not so much rejection by others but a complete annihilation and rejection of myself. So instead, I b-line it to my dark bedroom and make deals with the universe to heal my skin. That will fix everything.

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