Controlled Psychological Breakdown

Last night after "Parenting Journey" Grace was telling me a story on the way home about something she heard on the news or saw on Facebook. Jonah does not like it when I talk to other people and started talking over Grace to get my attention. From past experience I knew that I would get yelled at by Grace were I to tell her that I could not listen to her story. Plus Jonah's doing this annoys me. So I yelled at Jonah to Shut up. Then Grace yelled at me. After we parked in our space at home it quickly escalated when Grace told me to dig some Tuna fish Noah had spit into my hand out of her clean Duncan Donuts coffee cup and why had I put it there in the first place and don't dare throw the styrofoam cup away.
I yelled at her to ask me to do this nicely.
"Do it!" So I slammed the door and went inside.
She then left the kids outside and told me I better get them or else.
I got them out. I decided that either we all had to go to sleep right now, or I had to leave, because the situation was just getting worse. She was really pissing me off and not letting up at all.

"You can leave now or leave in six months you take your pick!" So essentially I was being thrown out.
The only reason why I am here is for the children and it seems they don't need me. I just wanted to walk around a little bit. But my mind went right to a friend of mine (though I was not a particularly good friend to her at all) who had walked around late at night and finally threw herself into  the harbor.

I was out walking and pondering this moment in some one else's life.
I saw cars passing by and my anger tempted me to jump in front of them and be hit.
Not "to end it all" or "to give up." That's when I understood how violent suicide really is. Or at least in my mind at that moment. It wasn't something passive. It was an angry wave of emotion. In the past I would have gone toward downtown and started an argument with someone or hoped someone would pick a fight with me. If I was a pirate from hundreds of years ago I would just go on some sort of raid and kill a bunch of other people. But right now, in my stay at home dad situation, there was nobody to blame but my own temper and nobody to inflict harm on but my own body.

Luckily I am a coward and did not throw myself in front of anything. Plus I have no desire to die.
But I knew that something was going on and I needed some sort of ritual death and ritual rebirth.

A grave.


I decided then and there that instead of walking around the pond, I would walk to Forest Hills cemetery, meditate in their by my parents grave for the night and then come back when the sun rose.

But walking towards there I already regained some of my sanity.


I decided on a compromise.
I would not move out (willingly)
Instead, as we had talked about before, I would try to be an EMT. Except instead of waiting until Jonah got into Public school, I would start training now, and try to become and EMT within 3 months and put Jonah in day care. Hopefully Little Panda. And hopefully my salary would pay for this day care. I would work nights, so Grace would never see me anyway. Thus it would be as if I had moved out, without moving out.
Plus I would be like a ghost haunting my family instead of being there. A compromise.


Well I don't actually remember how to walk to the Cemetery so when I saw a sign for Arnold Arboretum, I went in there instead.

There was more to that night but that will have to wait for the next post, as Noah seems to be bawling right now after fighting with Jonah.
***


So I went into the Aboretum and walked through a dark path. That's really what I needed. Most paths a lit by street lamps, and I don't want to walk off a path and get lost. So I needed somewhere I could walk, not get lost, and also be enveloped by darkness. I was angry but now also sort of scared. Not sure of what. Maybe I thought I was doing something wrong. Well the truth is I didn't know where I was going. The path ended up being much shorter than I had expected and the street didn't have a sidewalk really.

I turned back along the same path and found a rock on the side of the road. I would just meditate here. If I had been crazy enough I would have required the whole night until dawn. But very quickly I felt myself calming down and going back to normal.
The truth is I used to do a Kung Fu ritual like this every night. I would go out into the park and do Kung Fu in darkness and go into that other state. When it was over I could come back home and resume normalcy. Except that I had to discontinue this because Grace could not handle both children. One would wake up and want me etc etc.

But tonight I had actually been thrown out. So in a way I had been given what I needed. That time to practice Kung Fu Meditation by myself in darkness without someone, either one of the kids or Grace, either yelling at me, or insisting that I speak to them at that very moment. When I did this every night, I would be able to put up with a lot more crap, because I could just release all of it there.
Why was I forced to stop when Grace had made it clear tonight that she could indeed take care of both children?

Well it became more and more clear that working nights is probably the answer to the problem. A much easier and practical solution than the feelings that had taken hold of my thoughts earlier.


I meditated there for a while. A crowd passed by singing songs. I wondered what I should do. Should I hide or just stay where I was? What would their reaction be when they saw me? Fear? Teasing? Would I have to fight?
My right foot had already fallen asleep. I broke meditation opening my eyes and dropping my hands, but remained sitting there.

The reaction of this crowd of good natured people out having a good time was just that when they got close enough to seem me they stopped singing, and whatever they seemed to be thinking they remained silent. There were a few other solitary walkers as well. For them I did not even break meditation but just listened to their footsteps get louder and then softer.

I suppose it was silly to think I would have a confrontation. But when I used to work out at night on the Boston Common, their were crowds that would choose to yell something stupid. And then when I challenged those in the group that had spoken they would back down. Not everyone in the group was like that.
But nobody in this group of people was like that at all.

Maybe it is a difference between someone doing Kung Fu and someone meditating too.


After a while, the mosquitoes found me. And I had already mostly returned to normal thinking. And so I just started walking home. I hadn't even been gone an unreasonable amount of time.

But I have been conditioned to feel nervous about leaving the house too long.

In fact, even before I had kids, when I would walk Gordo, Grace's bull dog, whom I disliked and whom Grace was too lazy to walk, I would often try and do some Mein lay jum in the park while the dog did it's thing.

I would often get phone calls with screaming tirades about why I was still gone.

The truth is, I was thinking normally, but I was still pretty angry. I had started walking home. But that didn't mean I was ready to be there.


I passed by some grass clippings in Yard Waste bags. I actually needed that as cover for the compost.

I decided to take a bag home.

I carried the thing.

It was heavy. I had to stop to rest it on a trash can often.
This was crazy. I was doing a crazy behavior. People who saw me would think I was crazy. I guess the fact that I recognized that this behavior was crazy, meant that I was not completely crazy. However, I found value in what I was doing. Not only did I need that stuff to layer the compost. The fact that it was heavy gave me something to exert strength  and anger on. And carrying a burden of waste was also symbolic.

I was having a Controlled Psychological Breakdown. I was doing crazy things, but I was doing them to prevent uncontrolled crazy things so that I was making a controlled symbolic ritual to save myself from myself.