In sifting through some of the accumulation that’s just never been addressed, I happened across a strap of leather tied in a loop with a little knot at one end that secured a rather large nail.

This was an idea that somebody at Calvin College came up with, ostensibly around Good Friday, to remind us college students that we ought to be a tad bit more pious.

I’m not sure if that nail is meant to be a historically accurate replica of a crucifixion nail or if it’s just ugly-looking enough that it serves its purpose for tender modern minds–I’m not familiar with building supplies or Iron Age execution devices to know the difference… and neither does it particularly matter.

I don’t have any particular reason to keep it anymore, but it’s interesting that I kept it at all. It tells me quite a lot about how desperate I was to continue belief that I would hold on to a worthless trinket.

I think I must have seen it at some point over the past 10 years as it was located in a box with items that I know were repackaged at some point. As with so many of the items in those boxes I’ve been carting around, I would pick it up, sigh (externally or internally), and place it back in the box with the thought, “I will deal with this, later.”

To be clear, I am done with anything resembling personal religion. It’s not possible to believe in something that doesn’t exist, and my standards for truth involve empiricism and logic, not tradition or hysteria or other such things…

But the nail is a symbol of more than a bygone religiosity. There is a stack of paper 2 inches high of journal entries I have written over the years–and this stack is only what I’ve consolidated so far. The majority of that writing took place while I was in college, especially at Calvin, and throughout that writing is interwoven a relationship with “the Lord” most of the time, less frequently “Jesus” or “the Spirit”. I haven’t looked over them in detail in quite some time, and there are some pages that I’m sure I haven’t seen since the pen left the paper.

There is a sense of guilt and shame around those pages. I could destroy them, just as I’ve destroyed lots of other things… and if I were to discard them, I would destroy them, as they are nobody’s business but my own. I suppose it’s that the memories of those writings, with phrases catching my eye, evoke within me the feelings I had at the time, which were despair, shame, guilt, isolation, and depression… and, for the most part, those are the feelings that I am dealing with now in therapy.

These feelings and experiences certainly did not originate at Calvin; I had been experiencing them for years prior. It just so happened that being separated from my overbearing father allowed me to connect with my real experience of life, such as it was.

It is no surprise that he was so opposed to me living outside of his house. As with many other things, I doubt it was a conscious decision on his part. It was, in its most simplest form, the fear of being outed as an abuser. It certainly wasn’t care or concern about my well-being.

So, I look at this nail, and I look at those journal entries, and I reexperience those old feelings… and while I did experience them, I do not believe that they belong to me. I do not believe that the despair, guilt, shame, and depression I experienced were my actual feelings any more than the relationship I wrote about with god was real.

What would I as a young adult have to feel guilty about or ashamed of? My worst crimes in my life to that point were shouting at people and being late to class–the latter being almost a thing of identity, the former being rare as I spent little time interacting with others.

The things I felt the most guilt and shame around were things that I should have been able to appreciate, enjoy, and celebrate: sexuality; creative skills; lack of faith; skepticism; relaxation.

These are simply not organically shameful things. Organically shameful things include things like murder, rape, assault, lies, and corruption. Those are things you should feel shame for, and they are also things which people strive to avoid feeling shame for.

Given the degree to which I felt guilt and shame, despair and depression were inevitable, and I am lucky that I did not succumb to depression’s ultimate goal. I don’t actually know what kept me going all those years except for possibly a fear of immediate physical pain, or a lifetime of paralysis if I was unsuccessful.

I will offer a slight correction regarding despair here that just occurred to me. Given the evidence I had at the time, despair was entirely appropriate. It was not until I was introduced to a new experience of life that I was able to question my despair, for though it had not taken root in an immediate demise, it had ground me to a stop such that movement was unnecessary and undesired.

I have since begun to move again… and I no longer need this nail.

Do you know the saddest thing about my family?

If they would have just slowed down and listened… I never would have left.

That’s all they would have had to do back then.

Just slow down… take a few minutes… and listen to what I had to say.

Can you imagine it? Instead of whipping past with all the conclusions and violence, just slowing down could have saved so much pain, so much anger, so much sadness and numbness–and not just on my part, but on theirs.

All they had to do was just slow down… stop… and listen.

It is just about the saddest thing I know in my life.

I don’t recall ever hearing this song in its entirety before, just the first couple lines of the chorus… I never, ever knew what it was about.

I found it deeply moving; if it’s not too obvious to point it out, it’s about why children run away. Nearly every single line tears at my heart–not just for my own experience, but for the vast numbers of children that experience this, whether they’ve run away or not:

Lyrics:

Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a blowtorch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning

So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
Promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep

It seems no one can help me now
I'm in too deep there's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

Can you help me remember how to smile?
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded?
Life's mystery seems so faded

I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
Here I am just a-drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train

And everything seems cut and dried
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughing at the rain
A little out of touch, a little insane
It's just easier than dealing with the pain

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

Runaway train, never coming back
Runaway train, tearing up the track
Runaway train, burning in my veins
I run away but it always seems the same

For roughly the past decade, I’ve owned two filing cabinets which I’ve filled up every year or two with a bunch of paperwork, including utility bills, bank statements, insurance documents, etc.

In a conversation with Mrs. O last night, we stumbled upon an interesting question: do I really need all of these documents? Why do I carry them all with me? After all, I am 30 years old, do I really need, for example, cable bills from 2001?

So tonight I started emptying them. Roughly 75% of it I was able to throw away immediately, but there wasn’t just “business” stuff in there. There was also some memorabilia from my trip to Europe and birthday/Christmas cards that I had saved and forgotten about.

As I flipped through these cards, I began to feel sadness… and for a little while I thought I missed these people–my family, some friends… but as I went through, it felt less like missing them and more it felt like complete loneliness… and back during the years I was revisiting–1997 through 2001–I did feel completely and utterly alone. What I might have missed–if it can even be called that–was the care and love of my family and friends who at best did nothing to help and at worst kept me in that place of loneliness and despair.

The primary reason I know it wasn’t because I missed them was because my feelings didn’t dissipate but instead grew more intense. When I realized I was feeling despair, the feeling diminished.

Dear Kalap,

It’s been almost twenty years since we last saw each other, I think.

I want to apologize for my actions on the playground that day. I also want to tell you a bit about what was going on for me.

It’s not to excuse what I did, but perhaps the perspective into my life will help you in some way.

On the surface, the same racist assholes who were teasing you were asking me, when you weren’t around, “Why are you friends with Kalap?”

The right answer–the assertive answer–would be, among others: “Because he doesn’t ask me why I’m friends with people that I like.”

However, as you well know, I did not give the right answer. I hunkered down, I tried to shrink into myself, hoping they would go away, but they never did.

As a test of friendship, I did fail you on that day; in my defense, however, I was equipped against a successful friendship.

My parents had recently divorced, and my father’s advice about bullies was something like, “Don’t let them get to you,” which is just about the same as saying to somebody standing in the rain, “Don’t get wet,” while refusing to let them stand under your umbrella.

I had no other friends to talk to about it… and I don’t think I talked to you, either. At the very least, I don’t remember talking to you about it at all.

So indeed, I did fail that test… but the test of integrity and loyalty was so incredibly difficult, it probably would have been some sort of small miracle if I had passed.

I hope that this brings you some clarity about what happened almost twenty years ago. I hope it brings a little peace, and perhaps some relief, if even but a small bit.

I cannot repair the damage, it is too long gone. I can only offer a salve to soften the scar.

All the best,

James Alexander Pyrich

I used to post a lot more on my blog about my childhood and my immediate family… and then, I’m totally fogging on this, but I stopped posting about that, and… well, I barely posted anything at all after that.

I would rarely get any responses to my blog posts, but when I did, they would be one of two kinds:

• praise
• attack

Of those that praised me, it was often private, sometimes public, and they would often express appreciation or gratitude at my willingness to post about such difficult topics. I would be praised for my openness, my courage, my vulnerability, my honesty…

Of those that attacked me–and there were more of these, though not as many as others receive–it was far more often private, rarely public… and I would be called cowardly, weak, childish, spineless, unforgiving, capricious, immature, selfish, judgmental…

The members of my family fell squarely into the second camp. In their attacks, they also called me crazy, said I was lying and making things up, making matters worse than they were, holding on to the past…

But I have never struck a child–at least not since I myself was a child.
I have never yelled at a child and frightened them past the point of tears.
I have never forced a child to eat when he wasn’t hungry and refused to feed him when he was.
I have never refused to let a child use the bathroom and then forced him to sit in his own urine for lord knows how long, and then beat him afterwards for wetting himself.
I have never refused to seek medical attention for a child when he was sick or in pain.
I have never yelled at a child for getting lost.
I have never yelled at a child for not doing schoolwork.
I have never deliberately and systematically mutilated a child.
I have never used a child to talk about my own adult issues.
I have never yelled at or beaten a child for urinating in his bed.

I have been brutal to myself–but I never would have been so if I had not experienced the above.

All I did was talk about it… and I only did that when those same family members that are now attacking me refused to talk about it with me.

Of course… for them to treat me with the respect I deserved so very many years ago now would be a sick and sad sort of joke, a farce… because now that they can’t really hurt me anymore, but that I can hurt them… now they’re all about the tolerance and forgiveness.

Now that I have power… they counsel caution and restraint.

Now that I can hurt them…

“Where was your fucking tolerance when I wet the bed?”
“Where was your fucking restraint when I brought home those teachers’ notes?”

Compared to what?

What am I doing that is so horribly egregious compared to what they did?

Compared to WHAT?

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22.8M 33:13

One caveat, upon relistening–when I say that, as a teenager, “I” did something with regards to capitulating, I mean that it was my unconscious that did it; it wasn’t something I decided to do consciously.

It just occurred to me that people who try to hide their feelings are actually pretty creepy.

And I would include myself in this category for the moment, but not because I feel creepy so much as what it must be like for others to encounter it. What’s going on when i’m trying to hide my feelings?

Obviously, as a kid, I had to do this in order to avoid getting assaulted… but just the general principle where you feel like you have to hide your feelings…

And the problem isn’t that you decide upon “appropriate” displays of emotion, I don’t think… it’s that when you get to the point of hiding your emotions from others, they still find a way to come out, to manifest themselves.

This occurred to me when i got a reply to an email this morning and I don’t think I could really say what it was the sender of this email was feeling.

In any case, I think back to when I was a kid… and my father was a big “fan” of hiding his feelings until they spilled over as rage. I’m not saying it was something he enjoyed but it was certainly something that worked for him, something that was better for him than facing whatever feelings he was bottling in.

Oh and of course… my mother’s the same way, really. She doesn’t express nor explore her feelings but tries to hide them until she also spills over with rage.

So, in my experience, if somebody is hiding their feelings from themselves, they’re actually quite dangerous… or, at the very least, unstable.

And of course… the more access I have to my emotions, the more of a threat I become to my parents, even as a little kid. Not that I had any means at my disposal to threaten them but my raw emotional experiences threatened their tenuous grasp on the lid that bottled their own feelings of pain, anger, fear, and sadness. So… they attacked me for it.

I’ve been noticing more lately, in slight degrees, just how other people hide their feelings… and I’m starting to see it within myself.

Memory from age 5 or 6:

Seems that it takes place at the elementary school I attended in Totowa, NJ. There was a girl, I think her name was Laura. I can’t remember if she was older or younger than me, but I remember that we enjoyed playing together.

Then, one day we were separated forcibly. Two adults were dragging her away, and we were both in tears. I can’t remember if it was because she was moving somewhere or if it was because we weren’t allowed to play with each other anymore… but I remember it being very sad.

More than that, of course, is that I don’t remember anybody ever taking the time to talk to me about how I felt. I don’t remember if anybody was restraining me or who it would have been; it could have been my parents. Whoever it was, they didn’t take a moment to talk to me about how my feelings.

Memory from first grade:

I was teased a LOT in school. Like, every day on the playground, and oftentimes in the classroom. My father and the teachers and the counselors would basically imply that I was bringing the teasing upon myself, but fuck them all–nobody was bothering to protect me from these other children.

One day, the teasing during lunchtime recess was so bad that I refused to come inside after recess was over. I was sitting on the blacktop, right next to the grass with my back to Peterson Road, my arms wrapped around my knees, just crying. The teacher was yelling at me to come inside, but I still stayed outside.

Finally, she walked out of the classroom, picked me up, and brought me inside. I’m pretty sure that I would have spent the rest of the day (at least!) just staring at my desk.

I think I get why the teacher did what she did–she felt an obligation to keep order in the classroom, and would have been held responsible for my safety if something were to happen to me. Thus, she felt a lot of anxiety. Instead of examining her anxiety, however, she decided to humiliate me. She never, ever spoke about the incident with me, never talked with me about how the other children treated me, nor did she ever approach my parents with concerns other than “Jimmy doesn’t play well with the other children” (which is a way of framing me as the problem, not the system).

I know there’s more to dig out of these memories. I will say that these are very sad memories, and very painful memories. They’re mere reflections of my home life at the time, of course, which I consider a psychic wasteland full of powerful predators.

Thanks for reading.

There’s been an idea brewing in my mind for a few days now regarding my work performance and level of satisfaction.

I do computer programming for a living. I really do love programming computers–it’s something I’ll do for free! It’s especially enjoyable and satisfying when I get into The Zone and can produce consistently high quality work at a pace that consistently surprises other people who have not yet experienced this effect.

However, the other side of The Zone is The Crash. I’m not emotionally depressed during The Crash (at least, certainly not in the way that I’ve experienced depression in the past), but I am largely unmotivated and find it difficult to do even the more simple coding tasks. During The Crash, I will write perhaps 10-100 lines of code in a full 8-hour day whereas during The Zone, it is possible to watch the product unfold before your eyes at times.

At first, I was thinking that these peaks and valleys were a problem in and of themselves! That is, I get into The Zone and I’m amazingly productive, but what follows–what ALWAYS follows–is The Crash, which can last for a week or longer at times. This induces quite a lot of anxiety, because I feel a compulsion to do the work regardless of whether or not I feel productive, much less whether I’m invested in the larger picture. In fact, the last project I had had a deadline that was quickly approaching whilst I stared at my screen. I felt more and more anxiety, because there was work that “I needed to do” but I seemed incapable of doing any of it. Finally (and this is part of the key), I would much rather inform a mafioso about the disrepute of his mother than I would want go to my boss to tell him or her that I am not able to work today.

Perhaps this is a tad imbalanced?

I was thinking that I would approach my boss and ask about managing my work patterns so that I could increase my average productivity by smoothing out the peaks and the valleys. As with all unexamined theories, it sounded good until I brought it before somebody with greater experience and insight than I!

What I got out of that was that my productivity patterns aren’t something that need to be changed, necessarily. Just as an athlete finds The Zone physically, so does a programmer find The Zone mentally. But it is not something that is under one’s control. One can certainly prepare for it and, over time, can make increasingly better use of it, but it no more is accessible through a conscious switch anymore than whether you feel hungry or not.

The problem isn’t The Zone. The problem is my anxiety about completing projects. It’s this anxiety which drives me to burn through as much as I possibly can while I am in The Zone. This is why The Crash can last for up to a week or more at times.

What I don’t do at work is manage the expectations of others. I haven’t tried to communicate with my bosses about my natural productivity cycle. What ends up happening is that they see the burst of productivity while I am in The Zone and begin to set their schedules based on that level of production. (This has already begun to happen.) If they understand that the productivity while I am in The Zone comes at a natural cost, they haven’t bothered to work that into their time estimates.

This goes back to my awful experience as a child where negotiation was absolutely impossible. My father would demand a task and if the task wasn’t done when he asked, how he liked it, and as fast as he liked it, he would bellow and yell with his veins bulging and his eyes popping… truly a terrifying sight to behold as a young child, especially when you knew exactly what this man was capable of: physical assault.

(Not to leave my mother out of the equation, but my father was definitely the greater tyrant in this.)

There are two major things that come out of this. The first is to acknowledge when I am starting to feel tired when I am in The Zone and to recognize that I will feel anxiety while I am within it, related to a Completion Anxiety that runs back to my childhood experience.

The second is that I can do my part to manage the expectations of my supervisors. They cannot create project plans that take into account my natural productivity boosts and latencies if I do not communicate with them. Of course, I am completely unable to control whether they desire to negotiate on this score, but if that happens, I will have closure.

Massive thanks to Stef and the FDR pre-BBQers.

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