Archive for the 'Addiction and mental illness' Category

In defense of addiction

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 12, 2005
in Addiction and mental illness and Athletics and Fitness
. 16 Comments

Monday mornings are very busy here.  I’ve got lectures to prepare, mortgage companies to call, and students with whom to meet.  I’m rarely in blogging mode at this hour, but hope to have a more thoughtful post up later in the day.   The comments below my last two posts have turned into a relatively interesting rehashing of the classic canard that the sexual revolution has failed women.  (And the old "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" line has made an appearance as well.)  I’ll have some thoughts this afternoon.

My next marathon (Long Beach) is now just five weeks away.  I feel reasonably ready.  I’ve dropped twelve or thirteen pounds since my sluggish performance in San Diego in June, but I haven’t been doing much up-tempo speed-work.  I’ve realized over the years that running at a moderate pace gives me the same endorphin high as track work — with a good deal less pain.   As I get older, I’m less willing to beat up my body for the sake of cutting down time.

I know that my focus on personal fitness comes across as narcissistic (and in times of national tragedy), almost offensively obtuse.  At the same time, I also know that my devotion to my body’s performance offers me the opportunity to commit more energy to other activities.  Teaching seven classes a week, regular volunteering within two spiritual communities, and steady writing (I’m going to get some articles out this year, lord willing) would be impossible for me if I didn’t give the time to my body.  I’d either have to drink or go mad, and neither option is anywhere near as appealing as a brutal session of Pilates or a few tough hours pounding the trail.  People say, "Hugo, can you afford to spend so much time and money on working out?"  I always answer, "I can’t afford not to!"  I do believe I have more energy, more perspective, more ability to listen compassionately, when I have burned up all my little demons in exercise.

I suppose this is where I have some affection for our president.  Not his politics, mind you.  But I’ve heard the criticisms of his obsession with exercise (the running, and now the mountain biking), and I’ve always felt protective of a man who at least in that regard, I see as a kindred spirit.  Without pushing the point, my life narrative and his are not terribly different; I know what it is to prolong adolescent recklessness and heavy drinking far beyond what is chronologically appropriate.  I know what it is to surrender to a Higher Power, and to experience the profound transformation that comes with a "born-again" commitment to Christ.  But I’ve also noted that for those of us who are touched by addictions, the "disease moves laterally."  When we surrender our drinking (or other bad behaviors), our addictiveness simply switches to something more positive.   I have no doubt that both President Bush and I are addicted to exercise; I also have no doubt that it is the regular opportunity to indulge that addiction that frees us up to meet our responsibilities.  (Not that I am suggesting that my burdens are anywhere near as weighty as his).   Without that outlet, he could not do what he does; I’m not sure I could either.

I don’t know if the president feels closer to God when he works out.  I know that I do, especially in the long painful sessions.  Though I love to work out with companions, sometimes I like to run alone, if only because in the latter stages of a major run, I start to talk out loud to God.   When all that pain mixes with the endorphin high, I feel uniquely vulnerable and open.   Perhaps it’s just my body’s biochemistry that creates the perception of being spiritually connected, but whatever the source, I am utterly dependent upon it.  And given the benefits that it has brought to my life, and given what it has enabled me to do for those around me that I was not able to do before, I’ll zealously defend my runs and rides and gym sessions against all those who suggest my time and money be spent elsewhere.  And when called for, in this one regard, I’ll defend the president as well.

Closing the door; thoughts on the joys of growing older

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 17, 2005
in Addiction and mental illness and Age
. 10 Comments

I did my first track workout in over a year last night.  I’m flabbergasted by how much speed I’ve lost in recent years… Still, I’m feeling quite fit these days, and if I can’t get my legs to turn over as fast as they did in the second Clinton Administration, then I can live with that. 

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about aging.  I’m 38, and it’s really only in the past year that I’ve started to encounter real evidence of physical decline.   My muscles don’t recover quite as fast from a long run as they used to; my speed is not what it was.   As I found out this summer, if I really want to get back down to the weight I was five or six years ago, I can’t just go back to eating the way I did.  As they say in Twelve Step programs, "the road gets narrower"; when it comes to my aging metabolism,  my body’s ability to burn off fat and sugar has noticeably declined.

We’ve also finished hiring a new "crop" of full-time faculty at Pasadena City College.  Up until recently, I was still the youngest full-time instructor in my division.  For a decade, I was the "baby" of the department.  To be frank, I liked that status.  I got to play the role of the young hothead in more than one faculty meeting, and I assure you that that was a deeply satisfying part to play.  As I wrote a few months ago, the average age of new hires has been rising dramatically in recent years.  Though I was given a tenure-track job at 27, and many of my older colleagues were hired at similar ages, fewer and fewer twenty-somethings are getting full-time posts.

I’m still the "last" prof hired tenure-track in the division while still in his twenties.  But we have selected a couple of folks in their early thirties this year, and so at long last, after eleven years, my status as the "baby" has ended.  On the one hand, I’m delighted to see new "young Turks" join the division; on the other, I’m aware that it means that I am indeed not as young as I used to be.

But this is not a musing filled with regret over a vanishing youth.  Rather, I’m happy to say that it’s just in the past year that I’ve begun to embrace the very tangible blessings of getting a bit older.  While the gray is sprouting in my beard and on my chest, I’ve also found my patience growing.  Ask my friends from a decade or so ago; I was as prone to road rage as any Angeleno.   Monday afternoon, I failed to signal while changing lanes on the 210; a young man behind me "flipped me off" as a consequence.  In my twenties, rage and indignation would have boiled up instantly, and I would have returned the gesture.  Instead, this time I raised my hand, opened my palm, and mouthed "sorry".  The old anger just didn’t come, and as I thought about it, realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d lost my temper on the freeway.

On an even more personal note, the struggle with depression has ended.   As I’ve written before, I battled many personal demons in my teens and twenties — and into the dawn of my thirties.   What I haven’t shared before is that I spent many years on a variety of anti-depressants and other psychotropic medications.   I was twenty when I began taking them; thirty when I stopped.    I am convinced that the meds I took in the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s saved my life.  But at around the same time as my 1998 conversion experience, I found that I no longer battled the same sort of crushing despair that had characterized my twenties.  On a spiritual level, I do believe I was healed by God.  But on a physical level, I wonder if my brain didn’t just "outgrow" the tempests of its youth.  I don’t know enough about neuropsychology to say, but I’ve been told anecdotally that many folks simply do outgrow certain kinds of mental illness.

Even when my faith has waned (as it does sometimes), that crushing despair has never returned.  It’s true that with age, I no longer feel things quite as intensely as I did a decade or two ago.   Fewer things make me angry; fewer things make me sad.  When I’m happy, I’m deeply, quietly happy; the manic elation of my teens and twenties almost never reappears.  When I work with teenagers, and see their volatile emotions on full display, I remember perfectly what it was like to feel that way.  But I can also say, with great relief, that I don’t feel that way any longer.  That centeredness may be part of God’s gift of faith, but it may also be part of the process of growing older and growing up.

Bring on the gray hairs, bring on the wrinkles!  Though I remain all-too-vain about my fitness and my weight, the exterior signs of aging on my head and face don’t bother me in the slightest.  A decade ago, I was anxious to fit in with the students whom I taught; today, I feel no desire to be viewed as a "slightly older peer".   Yes, growing older has cost me many minutes on my marathon time.  It’s put many a line on my face.  But it’s also brought me a very deep sense of peace, and it’s brought a degree of emotional stability I never imagined possible.  And those rewards are well-worth the slower track times, the aching muscles, and the crow’s feet.

Donald Justice wrote that "men at forty learn to close softly the doors of rooms they will not be coming back to."   What doors am I closing, twenty-one months away from forty?   I’ve got plenty in mind, but I’d like to think I’ve finally learned to close the door on the "pursuit of everlasting novelty".   Most folks, I think, can figure out just how terrible it is to spend one’s life on that hopeless chase.  If not, maybe I’ll manage a longer post on the subject.

More on filters and abandoning a course on porn

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 7, 2005
in Addiction and mental illness, Faith, Porn and Teaching
. 12 Comments

I’ve been reading through the comments below my post on the "filtered professor", and I remain conflicted about the wisdom of colleges and universities barring academics from accessing certain sites.  I’m grateful that the college allows us to ask for specific sites to be unblocked, and I’m confident that I could defend any of my requests if I needed to.  If there were no way to get sites unblocked, then I would have much more of a problem with this filtering business.  Ultimately, I really liked what Jenell had to say:

There are few instances in which porn or gambling would be useful for academic work. It happens much more frequently that professors become addicted, or feed addictions, in ways that jeopardize their jobs. I think the filtering helps protect our jobs, and protect us from ourselves, at least at work. It might be a bit paternalistic, but I don’t mind.

I think this may be where faith comes into play.  Jenell works in a Christian college; I am a Christian teaching at a secular institution.  My faith (and my experience) tells me that human beings are weak and vulnerable to certain temptations.   For most folks, porn is unlikely to be a research interest, and much more likely to be an unhealthy obsession.  I suspect the same is true for gambling.  Internet porn and gambling (or gaming) are thus more likely to be accessed to feed addiction than for research — even on a college campus.  Again, I think provision must be made for those few instances where there might be legitimate reason for us to access one of these sites.  But while I think we ought to have the academic freedom to ask for an override, I do think we are up to the challenge of having to ask.   If our reasons are legitimate, we should have no qualms about requesting access to a blocked site.

I teach courses that touch on sexual history.  (Women in American Society; Men and Masculinity; Beauty, the Body, and the American Tradition; Introduction to Lesbian and Gay American History.)  At one point, a couple of years ago, I thought seriously about doing a course on the history of pornography.  Such courses do exist in many departments, ranging from history to film to women’s studies programs.   I developed a syllabus, looked at some source texts, and was very close to teaching it under the rubric of a Humanities class.  (Believe me, there are plenty of texts out there; go to Amazon and type in "pornography history" as your key words.  Plenty comes up, and I’ve read some of it.)  Ultimately, after talking with some folks close to me, and praying about it, I decided not to do the course.

I am not saying we shouldn’t have courses on pornography at colleges and universities.  But I am saying that I have come to respect the immensely addictive power of porn.   We know well what porn has done to the lives of many men and not a few women.  While some people may have healthy relationships with visual erotica, a great many folks do not.  As a teacher, I have an obligation to challenge my students.  But I am not willing to expose them to that which could, in some way, harm them.   The chances that exposing my students to porn could help create a new addiction (or encourage a pre-existing one) is too great for me to take.  The likelihood that all thirty or forty students in a class of mine are going to be immune to porn addiction is pretty damn low. 

Of course, one could teach a class on porn without showing any porn, but that would be fairly dull and difficult. The research topics would invariably lead students to do outside work with pornography, many armed with the academic legitimacy that my course would give them.  For some, it would simply be an interesting experience that left no enduring mark.  But for others, it is all but certain that I would be sanctioning what for them would become very unhealthy behavior.  And I’m just not willing to do that.

For the record, if one of my colleagues were to teach a course on porn here at the college, I would share these same concerns with him or her.  If he or she still wished to teach the course, I would advocate that they be allowed to access any sites they felt necessary in order to teach the class.  The fact that I’m not willing to do teach such a class, and am troubled by the whole idea of doing so, doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t enthusiastically support a colleague if he or she were brave enough to take it on.

Self-Injury Awareness Day

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 1, 2005
in Addiction and mental illness and Body
. 21 Comments

Let’s give credit where credit is due.  It took a post last night at the Stand Your Ground forum to remind me that today, March 1, is Self-Injury Awareness Day.  Thanks to the MRA fellows!

Self-injury, sometimes known as self-mutilation or "cutting" (though that word fails to encompass all the methods used) is, slowly, receiving more attention as a serious cultural problem, particularly among adolescents.  Michelle Malkin had a brief op-ed on the subject last week, which would have been far more helpful had she not chosen to place the lion’s share of the blame for self-injury on Hollywood:

This madness would not be as popular as it is among young people if not for the glamorizing endorsement of nitwit celebrities such as twentysomething actress Christina Ricci.

It may be all fun and games for a Hollywood starlet like Ricci, but her mindless stunts have inspired countless young girls to carve themselves into a bloody stupor. Hollyweird strikes again.

First off, folks, cutting is not "new."  Self-injury has a long medical and social history.  Naturally, the farther back in history one goes, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish self-mutilation as a psychological phenomenon from an act of religious devotion.  As with its sister disease, anorexia, no one denies that people (particularly women) have deliberately injured themselves in many different times and places.  But it’s also hard to deny that the significance of those self-inflicted injuries is almost certainly bound by culture.

The kind of self-injury we’re concerned with today is not, generally, a response to immense religious enthusiasm.  Here’s a brief summary from the American Self-Harm Information Clearinghouse:

It’s important to remember that, even though it may not be apparent to an outside observer, self-injury is serving a function for the person who does it. Figuring out what functions it serves and helping someone learn other ways to get those needs met is essential to helping people who self-harm. Some of the reasons self-injurers have given for their acts include:

  • Affect modulation (distraction from emotional pain, ending feelings of numbness, lessening a desire to suicide, calming overwhelming/intense feelings)
  • Maintaining control and distracting the self from painful thoughts or memories
  • Self-punishment (either because they believe they deserve punishment for either having good feelings or being an "evil" person or because they hope that self-punishment will avert worse punishment from some outside source
  • Expression of things that can’t be put into words (displaying anger, showing the depth of emotional pain, shocking others, seeking support and help)
  • Expression of feelings for which they have no label — this phenomenon, called alexithymia (literally no words feeling), is common in people who self-harm

To my knowledge, I’ve got at least two kids in my current youth group who are chronic self-mutilators.  Both are girls, and the research suggests that female "cutters" outnumber their male counterparts by a margin of three to one.  It’s tough to reach out to kids caught up in what to many adults is an utterly incomprehensible behavior.   On some level, most grown-ups can understand promiscuity, drug use, and even anorexia.   They "get" that society rewards thinness.  They see the temptations of early sex and alcohol experimentation.  But relatively few adults really grasp just how powerful the urge to cut (or burn) one’s own flesh may be.

I’m a former self-mutilator.  In my youth, I was both a cutter and a "burner".  Even today, if you were to look closely at my forearms, my chest, and my shoulders you would see scars left behind by burns from cigarettes and car cigarette lighters, and by cuts from X-acto knives and glass bottles.  All of the bullet-point reasons listed above applied to me, but I’m aware that the desire to "maintain control" was perhaps my chief motivation for self-injury.  When I was cutting or burning, I felt that I had absolutely mastered my world.  I felt powerless over my external circumstances, but at least I could demonstrate total control over my own flesh.  My capacity to endure pain (and self-mutilation builds tolerance fast) was a source of immense, perverse pride. It was my "special thing" that I did to soothe myself and remind myself that despite the chaos of late adolescence, I wasn’t a victim of others: I was king of my own body, and by proving that I could inflict real pain on my flesh, I felt empowered and calmed.  (And trust me, it had damn all to do with Hollywood.  Sheesh, Malkin.)

I’m happy to say I haven’t mutilated in many, many years.  In some ways, I simply "grew out of it."  Something happens in one’s twenties that lessens the intensity of that adolescent pain and makes it more bearable.  I also was helped by therapy, the church, and working out. I discovered that my desire to push my body could be channeled into far healthier pursuits — distance running gave me a similar high to cutting, but without the unnecessary agony and with a far greater sense of accompanying self-esteem.  I also transitioned out of self-mutilation by getting tattoos and piercings.  These more aesthetic, more socially acceptable ways of mastering my flesh gave me great pleasure without the terrible shame I associated with cutting and burning myself. Eventually, I took out all the piercings and stopped getting tattoos.  Time, marathoning, a good therapist and the love of Christ took away the urge to wound myself.   

I share this not to shock or titillate, but to draw attention to a very real problem and to offer the hope that that problem can be overcome.  I still have my scars, and I am grateful for them.  They will surely always be with me, and they remind me of where I’ve been and how far I’ve come.  More importantly, they give me instant credibility with a teen who is trapped in the dark place of self-injury.  I can roll up my sleeves, and the faded pink bumps that cover my arms and torso prove at once that I am not merely a well-meaning but clueless adult.  I’ve been where these kids are, and I don’t think I would ever be able to earn their trust without the marks on my own skin.   If for no other reason, that’s why I’ll never have them removed with dermabrasion or similar cosmetic surgery.

Monday morning, Elton John, and thoughts on Las Vegas

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 26, 2004
in Addiction and mental illness, Class, Clothing and Fashion, Feminism, Marriage, Modesty, Music, Race, Sexuality and Traveling
. 9 Comments

First off, thank you to all who issued congratulations in response to my news about the engagement. I am very excited. Though a few folks have asked for details about she who will become Mrs. Schwyzer, I am committed to protecting her identity in the blogosphere. I am very public, obviously, blogging under my full name. (Tenure allows me to do so, and I see no reason for a nom de plume.) But I don’t want anything I write and post to reflect on my gal; she has her own life and her own privacy. As tempting as it is to do so, I’m not going to share details of our engagement and our wedding plans on the Internet. Some things, I think, can stay personal.

The weather in Las Vegas was searingly hot — 108 degrees on Saturday. Elton John’s show was terrific, but also disconcerting. I know he was playing in Las Vegas, but the video monitors behind him kept displaying bare-breasted strippers; during his rendition of “The Bitch is Back”, a Pamela Anderson look-alike writhed around a pole. During other songs, huge inflatable breasts appeared, suspended from the ceiling. Confetti streamed from the “nipples.” I didn’t find it funny; I found it troubling. The objectification and fetishization of women’s bodies is expected in “sin city”, but I didn’t expect it from one of my musical heroes. It left a bad taste in my mouth. It’s beyond me why Linda Ronstadt was thrown out of a casino for making a political reference, while no one sees the exploitation of young women in those very same casinos as problematic! It will be a while before I feel the need to go back to Las Vegas.

As we walked through the oppressive heat along the strip, young men and women (every one of them with a Latino face, looking like a recent arrival) tried to thrust leaflets advertising strippers and prostitutes into our hands. What on earth must they think as they do this? All I could see was one group of exploited folks (migrant workers) risking heat exhaustion to promote the services of another group of the similarly exploited (female sex workers), all for the enjoyment of predominantly white, middle-class tourists. The outfits the cocktail servers (who aren’t formally sex workers) wore in the casinos were (to my mind anyway) stunningly revealing to the point of leaving me discomfited and embarrassed. I know damn well just how hard and cold so many of these young women must have to become in order to endure the harrassment they surely must receive. The whole thing was absolutely obscene.

I’ll confess I have a strong censorious streak within me. Perhaps it comes from my own past experience of living near the opposite end of the moral scale. But what viscerally upsets me about Las Vegas is the commodification of human fragility, something of which I am keenly and constantly aware. The cocktail waitresses brought sexuality and alcohol to the customers at the slots and the gaming tables, creating what seemed to me to be an unholy trifecta of addiction. Gambling offers false and illusory hope to folks of all social classes, but most obviously to those whose own circumstances are marginal. It’s instantly addictive, as I was reminded. Mennonites aren’t supposed to gamble, but I put plenty of money into quarter slots, letting the excitement overwhelm me. The thrill of winning something — even a few dollars — was stunningly strong. It wasn’t just the smell of cigarette smoke in the casinos that left me feeling unclean; it was the sense (quite strong on this Monday morning) that I had participated in (and relished) an activity that at its core isn’t really fun at all. Playing the slots touched something dark and grasping inside of Hugo. Like most bad things, the pleasure was fleeting and the regret enduring.

What saddened me most was the many, many small children I saw in Las Vegas. Some were even in the casinos, oblivious to the signs insisting that one had to be 21 to gamble. (That was a rule more honored in the breach than in the observance, judging from the teens I saw at the slots in the Aladdin and the Paris casinos). The local newspaper told me that tourism in Vegas was expected to hit an all-time high in 2004, as were profits from the hotels and casinos on the Strip. My fiancee (how happy to write that) and I contributed our share. The hotel was very comfortable, the food splendid, the music of Elton John sublime. I did have a good weekend. (To be with my gal to celebrate our engagement would have made a weekend in Barstow seem equally delightful, of course). But I’m damn sure our children aren’t going to Las Vegas while they are under our care, and our visits back will be few and far between.

Pushing too hard

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 13, 2004
in Addiction and mental illness, Athletics and Fitness, Body and Vanity
. 1 Comment

Yesterday, I made the mistake of running. I’ve been immensely frustrated by this respiratory infection, and the concomitant coughs, wheezes, and pains. (I’ve pulled all the muscles in my chest from so much coughing). Yesterday, I did a six-miler, and my legs were fine — but I hacked and wheezed and was utterly exhausted from trying so hard to breathe. I definitely set myself back.

For all of my talk about accepting our bodies, I must confess that I am addicted to working out. Not so much for appearance’s sake (though I am not immune to vanity), but for the endorphin rush. I haven’t had a good workout in almost three weeks, and I am frustrated and fearful of losing my fitness. But instead of resting, I push and push and push myself and delay my own recovery… I am very human.

Still, my cough is better than it was, and I will be well soon. The hardest thing of all is remembering that the way I feel now is not the way I will always feel. If I can remember that, I’m in good shape. And if this is my biggest problem today, I am indeed blessed.

Lotteries

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 27, 2004
in Addiction and mental illness, Class, Faith, Money and Politics
. 4 Comments

Jay Voorhees, whose blog I have recently discovered, had this post last week about his fight against the coming of the Tennessee Lottery. He coordinated the United Methodist Church campaign against the initiative establishing a lottery; of course they lost, and as of last week, the lottery tickets went on sale in Tennessee. His words are better than mine:

Everywhere I turn I see lottery machines and tickets. And I hear folks talking about buying tickets, and how much money they are going to win from the lottery.

My heart is breaking. Oh, I know that there are kids that will go to college on these funds. But I also know that addicted persons will be the primary funders of these scholarships. I know that pre-school programs will be started. But I also know that lotteries prey primarily on the poor. I know that it’s all in fun. But I also know that bankruptcy rates rise when gambling enters a state — and that Tennessee already has one of the highest rates of bankruptcy in the state.

I’m not going to protest, carrying signs and screaming that folks are going to burn in hell if they buy a lottery ticket. In fact, I don’t really think that. But I do think that it’s an unjust system of funding government, and it makes me sad to realize that most folks don’t have a clue as to what we’ve gotten into.

I was passionately opposed to the coming of Indian Gaming to California. I haven’t bought a lottery ticket since I became a Christian; it strikes me as perhaps the worst form of regressive taxation imaginable. Here’s a link to an old Sojourners article on gambling; eight years later, it is still sadly relevant:

Put aside questions about gambling’s potentially negative effects on local economies, families, and society as a whole. From a faith perspective, a more basic reason to oppose gambling will remain: It is a spiritual parasite.

Gambling feeds off of resources, energy, and hope that could be turned toward the common good, and spawns false understandings of what is of true value. The meaning of words like “play,” “excitement,” “courage,” “winning,” “risk,” and “security” become distorted and empty. Gambling may sometimes bring what seem like concrete benefits to individuals or communities, but an exorbitant price in soul and culture is paid. And, despite gambling industry claims of easy gain and wealth to share, there is evidence that most often the monetary cost is exorbitant as well.

Yup.

Madness

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 15, 2004
in Abortion, Addiction and mental illness, Aggression and violence, Blogging, Capital punishment, Feminism and Money
. Closed

In an unusually cruel and heart-rending fashion, Ohio executed a mentally retarded inmate named Lewis Williams yesterday morning, in front of his sobbing mother. The appalling and upsetting CNN story is here.

In related news, my beloved Feminists for Life has revamped their website. As part of that revamping, they have removed any mention of their historic anti-capital punishment position. While the original FFLA was part of a consistent-life, seamless garment approach to violence and killing, it has begun to focus exclusively on abortion. Though I understand why, I always grieve when the “life” issue is framed so narrowly. I may pull my financial support (I am a monthly donor), and give it instead to an organization that does not prioritize its opposition to the taking of human life, such as the small but fine Consistent Life Network or Common Ground for Life.