STOP THAT, MISS BRIGGS!

Have Knowledge, Will Heal

Being able to declare my mental problems to be on the way out was was my life's greatest victory. For decades, I could not envision an end to my brutal OCD upsurges, my social disconnect or my suspicious outlook that had me always mentally walking on eggshells for no rational reason.

I had always lacked basic self-efficacy, that understanding that one, one's beliefs and one's aspirations are worthy, entitled to dignity and capable of being fulfilled.

Connected to this problem was my fixation on dreadful scenarios, representing either actual events I had witnessed or fictitious happenings. These grew out of terrifying, grotesque dreams that started shortly after the 4th grade and which would leave me distracted and spooked sometimes for days.

As a check on any instinct to pour out pity on me, let me point out that these awful maladies were only part of the story of my youth. They mottled an otherwise happy childhood made great by our working single mother's extraordinary ability to make a happy home with less material abundance than was in our peer households.

We had no color TV until I was 20, and always did – just fine, thank you -- without central air. But from day one, our home abounded in fine children's books and the superior-to-the-Internet World Book Encyclopedia, which Mom bought us when I was four. When she saw I was fond of maps, then baseball, then space, Mom used those interests as openings to introduce me to reading in ways that made it enjoyable. 

And our mother discussed our father's misdeeds with us sparingly; she knew not to dwell on the negative.

Mom was a skilled cook on limited time, and to her, cleanliness was next to -- whatever the secular version of that aphorism is.  

My psychological health, the piece of the puzzle missing in my youth, has been steadily improving since February 2010. I have come to know that I don't have to defend myself from, or even define these horrifying images and recurring thoughts. And I have parted with the automatic feeling that people have an ulterior motive for everything positive they do in relation to me; if someone praises me, I no longer default to seeing it as just perfunctory, sympathetic, or a left-handed compliment.

At an all-day volleyball party circa 1988, a man introduced himself to me, then told me he had long read my columns and outspoken opinion pieces in area newspapers, concluding, "You're going to make  the news someday."

Perhaps had this fellow been sober, the encounter would have been a clearer example, but as was typical, I suspected he meant that as, "Make the crime  news someday."

He hadn't indicated his political leanings (though I could rule out his being a Prohibition Party member), so I wondered if this kudos was really a sarcastic knock at my uncompromising opposition to the Reagan foreign policy and my strong support for restorative justice and renewable energy.

Though I thanked him softly, I could not let this boisterous remark from a stranger be just what it sounded like, for I was always hypervigilant about the chance of being fooled.

It was my way to dismiss or downplay deserved praise, whereas I would let deserved criticism stick to me permanently.

If an attractive woman seemed interested in me, I would figure her flirty talk was meant to ridicule me – not because I thought her mean or dishonest, but because for nine dreadful months while I was 9 years old, just such a young woman had gone the extra mile to effectively teach me that affection was ridicule.

Though "paranoid" is too strong a term to describe my perceptions, they are the symptoms of Suspicious Personality Disorder.

I am elated to report in mid-2017 that this condition is fading; the automatic presumption that praise probably is not being seriously offered is giving way to an appreciation of others' sincerity, and my own worthiness.

Intertwined with a longtime inability to take people for what they are is a syndrome of seeing people whom I find appealing or inspiring through a distorting lens known as "Magical Thinking."

That one is taking longer to put away.

One symptom of the deceptively innocently named Magical Thinking is an erroneous perception that people you feel drawn to have something of a supernatural existence. It's like the media-driven feelings of worship of a performer's charisma, but felt toward people in the day-to-day world right in front of you.

Just as the fondness and adoration you feel for Paul McCartney or Jenna Marbles isn't ever going to come from knowing them personally, the bonds you have with acquaintances, as well as the intrigue you feel for an appealing co-worker or waitress can be in large part based on a myth you create, similar to those created about a star by their publicity agent.

The simple cure for Magical Thinking about an object of your interest is to get to know them well enough that you can judge them by how they adapt to real world situations, instead of continuing to see them from a distance that breeds idealization.

That's not easy; having an imagination that is vivid and social skills that are not honed means the easier path is to maintain that distance and continue to get that wonder from conceptualizing the person as an otherworldly being.

But along with that wonder, there can be an equally unfounded dread. Just as the desirable person's charisma can overwhelm a Magical Thinker, someone else can impress them just as strongly as having scary, nefarious abilities. This has been rarer in my experience.

The negative and positive Magical Thinking fixations are the same phenomenon in that they are about feelings of vulnerability to powers that my intelligence tells me cannot exist. I know intellectually that everyone is mortal. And I believe I am going to know this in my heart as well. It's just taking a while.