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| Revised: Originally published February 21, 2012, 12:35 AM Art: Via Jeremy Kyler: Abstract Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 18x24 |
Details fascinate me. I am interested in Intra and Interpersonal matters, mindset, persona, and interplay. I’d like to understand what constitutes a whole or drives an outcome. I realize that it is bits, elements, encounters, events, and their deliberate, skillful, or accidental arrangements that do so. Still, I want to know precisely which bits, and the nature of these arrangements.
Everything that exists shares an enduring bond—although ties can be tenuous or even indeterminable, you can be sure it is all entangled. As humans, our communication and involvement with other living things, entities, and objects elicit various outcomes which present new challenges, opportunities, and insights. Our experiences and relationships are impactful, shaping our thoughts and behaviors over our lifetimes. Some things are more evocative than others. Who we are is determined by genetic and environmental factors. These factors are in play since conception. I now use this understanding to reflect on my past and to help make sense of my present. It is essential to familiarize ourselves with what influences us to think and behave as we do—the bits matter. These are mine.
As an adopted child, I believe I presented a dilemma to my adoptive parents—a “blessing” (as my mom would say) perhaps, but a dilemma nonetheless. There can be unknown variables that come with such a child. In my case, not the least of which were the effects of trauma originating from prenatal stress or with separation from my biological mother, bastardization besides. My mother was one of the thousands of Filipino women exploited for labor or sex works by U.S. servicemen stationed at Naval Base Subic Bay and Clark Air Base during the 1970s. Though fortunate in ways that eluded nearly a quarter of a million “Amerasians” victimized by rampant licentiousness, I too had been affected. Precisely how this would manifest was not yet evident. Only time, genetics, heredity, and the effects of my experiences would tell. Some years later, my adoptive mom divulged that she was troubled by similar considerations. She was as apprehensive about and wary of what lay in store as she was hopeful about it.
Like most children, when I was young, I rarely thought before acting. And so rather than trying to make sense of everything—as my unchecked mind frequently attempts to do at present—I bounced from one moment to the next. I was blissfully adrift. I had not yet felt the debilitating pangs of anxiety, become embittered by life’s disappointments, nor blunted by routine. Everything attracted me though nothing entirely held my attention.
Such fleeting fascination unsettled my parents. They were concerned that I would never remain interested in any one thing long enough for me to develop a comprehensive understanding nor mastery of it. I had a strong affinity for novelty. Oddly enough, I occasionally focused on particularly engaging activities in a way that would render everything else about me virtually inexistent. Like, “Hello, is anybody home? Earth to Albert?” inexistent. I was also creative and friendly. Despite my parents’ worries, I excelled in the Montessori school I attended and might have flourished even further had I not been forced to leave.
At age seven or eight, I changed schools. My mom insisted that I have a Catholic parochial education. She disregarded the principal’s advice to find a more challenging learning environment for me or to skip me a year and thus began second grade. Promptly I was hit by a car and subsequently hospitalized. The gods clearly frowned upon her decision. Luckily nothing was broken. However, I lost consciousness and suffered head trauma. It was the first of several concussions I would experience before adulthood. Once discharged from the hospital, my parents were advised to hire a child psychologist to have me routinely evaluated for any long-term cognitive impairments.
This precautionary advice made my mom uneasy and exacerbated her already existing concerns about my mental health. It prompted yearslong appointments, psychotherapy, and diagnosis after diagnosis. While Chernobyl exploded, and my peers played Tetherball and Nintendo, I played Memory, examined Rorschach inkblots, and practiced introspection. When I wasn’t being evaluated or with family and friends, I was at school, which was perfectly normal. Much like at my previous school, however, my mind wandered.
I was frequently disciplined for “misbehaving” or being “disruptive” and recall how difficult it was to sit still in class. I rarely completed or understood the assignments. My parents did not seem to care. They didn’t typically ask me about my day nor what I learned. I guess I never regarded it as something worth bringing up on my own neither. The infrequent accolade generated an occasional attaboy. Other than that, I wouldn’t get any academically-oriented feedback from them until progress reports rolled ‘round or unless they were called in for a parent-teacher conference that demanded disciplinary action.
Adverse incidents were attention getters and conversation starters. My mom conveyed her disapproval when she confiscated some coveted material possession, temporarily denied me of certain privileges, or corporally punished me. Afterward, she fervently prayed—she petitioned her god for a refund, I’m sure. My father was not the disciplinarian, and I do not ever recall that he did or said much in that regard. Like all parents, life tasked them with a myriad of challenges all their own. The most pressing of which seemed to me my dad’s paraplegia and its ill-effect on his spirit, our family’s livelihood, and his and mom’s personal affairs. It’s easy to gloss over the positives and disregard how their daunting circumstances affected my own.
To my dad’s credit, he helped me with science projects, sought out enriching and extracurricular activities, drove me to them, instilled a sense of humor, love of music, long drives, reading, and the outdoors. Dad was practical, thorough, and well informed, though he did have a penchant for dirty jokes. From my mom, I inherited compassion, a flair for the dramatic, stubbornness, and scrupulosity. She was dogmatic, opinionated, and outspoken. On his bedside table was the latest Playboy and on hers the Catholic Bible. They attended my baseball, soccer and football games, and track meets. And, dad accompanied me to my troop meetings for the Boy Scouts. The two of them enjoyed mingling, were generous, hospitable, and very tidy types. Both ingrained in me an appreciation for hygiene, material possessions, recreation, socializing and speaking one’s mind. Determination and work ethic not so much. Middle school didn’t stand a chance. Ahem...
I thought I was a relatively well-adjusted jokester through fifth grade with my fair share of bullies, family therapy, friends, fun stuff, and heartbreak. However, even with the highlights and lightheartedness touched on in the preceding paragraph, what originated as peripheral behavioral concerns developed into more wayward inclinations. I became increasingly ruminative and emotionally reactive to criticism and ostracism. It would seem my mom’s fears were indeed materializing. My sensitivities grew in proportion to my awareness of how different I was from my peers concerning my ongoing psychotherapeutic evaluations. Some friends were in the know, and it was through these interactions that I began to realize how odd such goings-on was—how different I had been. This acute sensitivity was generalized.
At as young as ten years old, if I observed (or intuited) someone enduring despair, loneliness, sadness, or their opposites, it was as though I could feel them. Although I hadn’t experienced the same hardship or prosperity that led to their feeling that way, I could indeed empathize with them at the level of those exact emotions. In retrospect, it was rather involuntary and at times, intrusive. I’d feel elated or downright crummy. This reaction left me bewildered and emotionally and physically energized or spent in the moments and sometimes hours after. It still does. Nowadays, I wonder whether I have more in common with someone who suffers from Developmental trauma (aka Complex PTSD) or Elaine Aron’s Highly Sensitive Person.
At some point, my parents had me evaluated for OCD and ADHD due to their perception of compulsive, impulsive, and hyperfocus behaviors. Furthermore, as I got older, other red-flags suggested Bipolar, Cyclothymic, Oppositional defiant, or Borderline personality disorders. Surely there was a behavior disorder or mental illness that could help make sense of their son’s unique breed of brokenness.
By the time I was in middle school, I had accrued more than enough time in mental health professionals’ offices to meet any universities’ internship requirements. My parents were flummoxed and infuriated by how distracted, melancholic, rebellious, and temperamental I was becoming—they were downright exhausted. They would often fight about what to do and whose fault it was for me being as I was.
Marriage and Family Therapy became the mainstay of our family’s well-being during this time. It ran concurrently with my ongoing treatment. My parents kept up appearances. Though I do not know with whom, nor how much of our family’s dysfunction, my parents shared, I know that doing so inflamed it. I vividly recall hearing them argue and yell about how their mischaracterization of each other to their respective confidants or our family therapists upset them. Both of them unfairly blamed each other. I could hear them downstairs or behind the closed door of their bedroom. I internalized and personalized it all.
Beset by dread, guilt, and sadness, I wished I was never born. I would roam the neighborhood, retreat to friend’s homes, into books, comics, music, imaginative play, video games, and the back canyons. What appeared to be normal activities were generally acts of avoidance. These circumstances significantly impacted my self-image and set the groundwork for maladaptive coping strategies that would inevitably emerge and permeate much of my life.
I was relieved that middle school would soon be behind me but terrified by the idea of high school. During eighth grade, emotions were ratcheted up, mischief abundant, and uncertainty disorienting. All did not end well. I was not permitted to attend the traditional Washington DC trip, the end-of-year “Play Day,” nor to walk with my graduating class. Though the punishment for whatever I might have done this time ‘round was probably warranted, it also served to alienate me further.
During the commencement ceremony, I was ushered straightaway into the pew that my classmates and I were to be seated. I watched their procession, saw their smiles, heard their laughter and the applause, and saw how proudly their family and friends beamed. I was humiliated and felt like I had let my parents down yet again. I pretended to be invisible. At some point, they presented awards and honors to those who truly earned them. I looked up at this life-size statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary before me for what felt like the millionth time in the past seven years. I gazed into her vacant stare, and much like during previous ceremonies, sat there with enough envy and shame to fill a baptismal font. I felt hopeless.
Then came high school. The following years were turbulent, anxiety-inducing, and exciting all at once. My dad’s health issues and hospitalizations were a roller coaster in and of themselves. Much of this phase is a blur. I would end up attending three different schools. Sparing the details, I was expelled from the first, dropped out of the second, involuntarily hospitalized due to suicidal ideations, discharged, enrolled in, and barely graduated from a continuation school. My issues littered these woeful years, much like glitter and confetti shot out of a canon. There were alcohol and illegal substance abuse, tobacco smoking, car accidents, truancy, vandalism, and violence, to say nothing of psychologists, psychiatrists, Benzodiazepines (e.g., Xanax), Lithium, SSRIs (e.g., Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft), sedatives, tranquilizers, four-point restraints, and so forth. Merely recollecting and typing the above stirs up some powerful imagery and emotions.
Those days felt like my fight-or-flight response was in overdrive. My central nervous and endocrine systems were probably lit up like the thousands of flickering lights on the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree during the holidays. I was chronically tense. To everyone’s surprise, and thanks mainly in part to some very encouraging teachers, I graduated nonetheless.
After high school, my first order of business was to squander a small fortune I inherited at age eighteen from being hit by that car in second grade, discontinue therapy, and cold-turkey all psychiatric drugs. Boy, I sure remember how upset that made my parents. You can debate the causation and correlation of what proceeded. They did. One thing that is for sure is that socialization (especially in large groups) became progressively nerve-wracking and draining. It was maddening to crave and want to shrink from interaction in equal measure. Alcohol and drugs effectively addressed that—they emboldened or insulated me so I could mingle. When I felt especially sensitive or antisocial, isolation sufficed. What followed in the next three years was more or less of the same—mayhem.
Everything that exists shares an enduring bond—although ties can be tenuous or even indeterminable, you can be sure it is all entangled. As humans, our communication and involvement with other living things, entities, and objects elicit various outcomes which present new challenges, opportunities, and insights. Our experiences and relationships are impactful, shaping our thoughts and behaviors over our lifetimes. Some things are more evocative than others. Who we are is determined by genetic and environmental factors. These factors are in play since conception. I now use this understanding to reflect on my past and to help make sense of my present. It is essential to familiarize ourselves with what influences us to think and behave as we do—the bits matter. These are mine.
As an adopted child, I believe I presented a dilemma to my adoptive parents—a “blessing” (as my mom would say) perhaps, but a dilemma nonetheless. There can be unknown variables that come with such a child. In my case, not the least of which were the effects of trauma originating from prenatal stress or with separation from my biological mother, bastardization besides. My mother was one of the thousands of Filipino women exploited for labor or sex works by U.S. servicemen stationed at Naval Base Subic Bay and Clark Air Base during the 1970s. Though fortunate in ways that eluded nearly a quarter of a million “Amerasians” victimized by rampant licentiousness, I too had been affected. Precisely how this would manifest was not yet evident. Only time, genetics, heredity, and the effects of my experiences would tell. Some years later, my adoptive mom divulged that she was troubled by similar considerations. She was as apprehensive about and wary of what lay in store as she was hopeful about it.
Like most children, when I was young, I rarely thought before acting. And so rather than trying to make sense of everything—as my unchecked mind frequently attempts to do at present—I bounced from one moment to the next. I was blissfully adrift. I had not yet felt the debilitating pangs of anxiety, become embittered by life’s disappointments, nor blunted by routine. Everything attracted me though nothing entirely held my attention.
Such fleeting fascination unsettled my parents. They were concerned that I would never remain interested in any one thing long enough for me to develop a comprehensive understanding nor mastery of it. I had a strong affinity for novelty. Oddly enough, I occasionally focused on particularly engaging activities in a way that would render everything else about me virtually inexistent. Like, “Hello, is anybody home? Earth to Albert?” inexistent. I was also creative and friendly. Despite my parents’ worries, I excelled in the Montessori school I attended and might have flourished even further had I not been forced to leave.
At age seven or eight, I changed schools. My mom insisted that I have a Catholic parochial education. She disregarded the principal’s advice to find a more challenging learning environment for me or to skip me a year and thus began second grade. Promptly I was hit by a car and subsequently hospitalized. The gods clearly frowned upon her decision. Luckily nothing was broken. However, I lost consciousness and suffered head trauma. It was the first of several concussions I would experience before adulthood. Once discharged from the hospital, my parents were advised to hire a child psychologist to have me routinely evaluated for any long-term cognitive impairments.
This precautionary advice made my mom uneasy and exacerbated her already existing concerns about my mental health. It prompted yearslong appointments, psychotherapy, and diagnosis after diagnosis. While Chernobyl exploded, and my peers played Tetherball and Nintendo, I played Memory, examined Rorschach inkblots, and practiced introspection. When I wasn’t being evaluated or with family and friends, I was at school, which was perfectly normal. Much like at my previous school, however, my mind wandered.
I was frequently disciplined for “misbehaving” or being “disruptive” and recall how difficult it was to sit still in class. I rarely completed or understood the assignments. My parents did not seem to care. They didn’t typically ask me about my day nor what I learned. I guess I never regarded it as something worth bringing up on my own neither. The infrequent accolade generated an occasional attaboy. Other than that, I wouldn’t get any academically-oriented feedback from them until progress reports rolled ‘round or unless they were called in for a parent-teacher conference that demanded disciplinary action.
Adverse incidents were attention getters and conversation starters. My mom conveyed her disapproval when she confiscated some coveted material possession, temporarily denied me of certain privileges, or corporally punished me. Afterward, she fervently prayed—she petitioned her god for a refund, I’m sure. My father was not the disciplinarian, and I do not ever recall that he did or said much in that regard. Like all parents, life tasked them with a myriad of challenges all their own. The most pressing of which seemed to me my dad’s paraplegia and its ill-effect on his spirit, our family’s livelihood, and his and mom’s personal affairs. It’s easy to gloss over the positives and disregard how their daunting circumstances affected my own.
To my dad’s credit, he helped me with science projects, sought out enriching and extracurricular activities, drove me to them, instilled a sense of humor, love of music, long drives, reading, and the outdoors. Dad was practical, thorough, and well informed, though he did have a penchant for dirty jokes. From my mom, I inherited compassion, a flair for the dramatic, stubbornness, and scrupulosity. She was dogmatic, opinionated, and outspoken. On his bedside table was the latest Playboy and on hers the Catholic Bible. They attended my baseball, soccer and football games, and track meets. And, dad accompanied me to my troop meetings for the Boy Scouts. The two of them enjoyed mingling, were generous, hospitable, and very tidy types. Both ingrained in me an appreciation for hygiene, material possessions, recreation, socializing and speaking one’s mind. Determination and work ethic not so much. Middle school didn’t stand a chance. Ahem...
I thought I was a relatively well-adjusted jokester through fifth grade with my fair share of bullies, family therapy, friends, fun stuff, and heartbreak. However, even with the highlights and lightheartedness touched on in the preceding paragraph, what originated as peripheral behavioral concerns developed into more wayward inclinations. I became increasingly ruminative and emotionally reactive to criticism and ostracism. It would seem my mom’s fears were indeed materializing. My sensitivities grew in proportion to my awareness of how different I was from my peers concerning my ongoing psychotherapeutic evaluations. Some friends were in the know, and it was through these interactions that I began to realize how odd such goings-on was—how different I had been. This acute sensitivity was generalized.
At as young as ten years old, if I observed (or intuited) someone enduring despair, loneliness, sadness, or their opposites, it was as though I could feel them. Although I hadn’t experienced the same hardship or prosperity that led to their feeling that way, I could indeed empathize with them at the level of those exact emotions. In retrospect, it was rather involuntary and at times, intrusive. I’d feel elated or downright crummy. This reaction left me bewildered and emotionally and physically energized or spent in the moments and sometimes hours after. It still does. Nowadays, I wonder whether I have more in common with someone who suffers from Developmental trauma (aka Complex PTSD) or Elaine Aron’s Highly Sensitive Person.
At some point, my parents had me evaluated for OCD and ADHD due to their perception of compulsive, impulsive, and hyperfocus behaviors. Furthermore, as I got older, other red-flags suggested Bipolar, Cyclothymic, Oppositional defiant, or Borderline personality disorders. Surely there was a behavior disorder or mental illness that could help make sense of their son’s unique breed of brokenness.
By the time I was in middle school, I had accrued more than enough time in mental health professionals’ offices to meet any universities’ internship requirements. My parents were flummoxed and infuriated by how distracted, melancholic, rebellious, and temperamental I was becoming—they were downright exhausted. They would often fight about what to do and whose fault it was for me being as I was.
Marriage and Family Therapy became the mainstay of our family’s well-being during this time. It ran concurrently with my ongoing treatment. My parents kept up appearances. Though I do not know with whom, nor how much of our family’s dysfunction, my parents shared, I know that doing so inflamed it. I vividly recall hearing them argue and yell about how their mischaracterization of each other to their respective confidants or our family therapists upset them. Both of them unfairly blamed each other. I could hear them downstairs or behind the closed door of their bedroom. I internalized and personalized it all.
Beset by dread, guilt, and sadness, I wished I was never born. I would roam the neighborhood, retreat to friend’s homes, into books, comics, music, imaginative play, video games, and the back canyons. What appeared to be normal activities were generally acts of avoidance. These circumstances significantly impacted my self-image and set the groundwork for maladaptive coping strategies that would inevitably emerge and permeate much of my life.
I was relieved that middle school would soon be behind me but terrified by the idea of high school. During eighth grade, emotions were ratcheted up, mischief abundant, and uncertainty disorienting. All did not end well. I was not permitted to attend the traditional Washington DC trip, the end-of-year “Play Day,” nor to walk with my graduating class. Though the punishment for whatever I might have done this time ‘round was probably warranted, it also served to alienate me further.
During the commencement ceremony, I was ushered straightaway into the pew that my classmates and I were to be seated. I watched their procession, saw their smiles, heard their laughter and the applause, and saw how proudly their family and friends beamed. I was humiliated and felt like I had let my parents down yet again. I pretended to be invisible. At some point, they presented awards and honors to those who truly earned them. I looked up at this life-size statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary before me for what felt like the millionth time in the past seven years. I gazed into her vacant stare, and much like during previous ceremonies, sat there with enough envy and shame to fill a baptismal font. I felt hopeless.
Then came high school. The following years were turbulent, anxiety-inducing, and exciting all at once. My dad’s health issues and hospitalizations were a roller coaster in and of themselves. Much of this phase is a blur. I would end up attending three different schools. Sparing the details, I was expelled from the first, dropped out of the second, involuntarily hospitalized due to suicidal ideations, discharged, enrolled in, and barely graduated from a continuation school. My issues littered these woeful years, much like glitter and confetti shot out of a canon. There were alcohol and illegal substance abuse, tobacco smoking, car accidents, truancy, vandalism, and violence, to say nothing of psychologists, psychiatrists, Benzodiazepines (e.g., Xanax), Lithium, SSRIs (e.g., Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft), sedatives, tranquilizers, four-point restraints, and so forth. Merely recollecting and typing the above stirs up some powerful imagery and emotions.
Those days felt like my fight-or-flight response was in overdrive. My central nervous and endocrine systems were probably lit up like the thousands of flickering lights on the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree during the holidays. I was chronically tense. To everyone’s surprise, and thanks mainly in part to some very encouraging teachers, I graduated nonetheless.
After high school, my first order of business was to squander a small fortune I inherited at age eighteen from being hit by that car in second grade, discontinue therapy, and cold-turkey all psychiatric drugs. Boy, I sure remember how upset that made my parents. You can debate the causation and correlation of what proceeded. They did. One thing that is for sure is that socialization (especially in large groups) became progressively nerve-wracking and draining. It was maddening to crave and want to shrink from interaction in equal measure. Alcohol and drugs effectively addressed that—they emboldened or insulated me so I could mingle. When I felt especially sensitive or antisocial, isolation sufficed. What followed in the next three years was more or less of the same—mayhem.
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