The Church & Mental Health: Interview with a Therapist

Photo: "Memorial Church" Don McCullough

Today begins a new series on "The Church & Mental Health." I'm interviewing Christian therapists to talk about the intersection of spirituality and psychology. 

My first interview is with Bryan Hall. 

Bryan is a therapist who specializes in the entertainment industry. We talked about family systems theory, spiritual hypocrisy, addiction, how to deal with your issues, religious abuse, what the good little Christian mom has in common with the drug addict, and much, much more, which is why I'm breaking this interview into several parts. This interview has been edited for clarity.

We jumped right in talking about how the church often ignores psychology.

BH: Here's how I usually explain it: It seems to me that if we examine what the Bible says about a person that they have three components: there's the physical, we have a physical body; we have a spiritual component, but we also have a psyche—psyche is the Greek word where we get “soul.”

In church, most people (unless you're kind of fringe) [will say],

“Oh, you broke your leg, go see a doctor."
“Oh you've got a cough, go get some antibiotics”

Most people aren't going to have a problem with [the physical component].

And of course, in church, they're going to talk about Jesus and how he'll save you […] we've got the whole unseen spiritual realm. But they seem to neglect the whole psychological component. They seem to neglect a person's experiences, emotions, will, what happened to them, traumatic events.

And that's a problem because if you think of these three components as three spokes in a wheel and one or more of those components are broken or damaged--how well is that wheel gonna work?

Q: Can you talk about the difference between the spiritual and the psyche because I feel like those two things are often conflated.

BH: Well, what you find is that all this stuff is very intertwined. And you can find psychosomatic instances which are physical manifestations of psychological trauma that hasn't been addressed. You can see how if a person's serotonin levels or dopamine levels are altered, not present, damaged by drug use, it's going to affect their psychological condition.

You also see—less easily of course—but there can be demonic influences, spiritual connections between that and a person's physical body or their psychological state. So, the spiritual side involves what is God saying to you, what is his plan...

The psychological part is things like: A person has the desire to use drugs.

Well, but the reason that people do drugs is because it numbs out their feelings. It numbs the feelings that are usually unknown to them in the first place, but that manifest themselves very predominantly in a multitude of ways prior to the actual drug use.

So, somebody comes along and has these feelings, and somebody says, "Smoke this, shoot that." Well, they feel better for a brief time. I work with a lot of addicts. And what I've said for years is, “The drugs are not the problem”

I work with drug addicts straight out of prison--teardrop tattoos and the whole bit--and the drugs are not the problem. The drugs are like gasoline on a fire: They make everything worse, but they're not the actual core problem. Because the core problem is the feelings that the person is trying to avoid feeling.

Q. What would be the Christian equivalent? I'm sure a lot of Christians are tempted to do drugs or do drugs, but I feel like it's more than that...

BH: But that's an important point because a lot of people think, “Oh, I don't do any illegal drugs, I'm not some alcoholic on skid row, I'm not a homeless person. Therefore, I don't have any problems.

The thing is, people can be addicted to shopping. People can be addicted to the gym. People can be addicted to TV. You've gotta define addiction as anything that's done to avoid the real pain and issues.

And if you don't look at it from that perspective, you've missed everything.

Because there are plenty of people in AA meetings for 30 years that haven't had a drink that are still a complete mess.

Q: I mean, could someone be addicted to church?

BH: Oh sure, people can be addicted to 12 step meetings. And it comes back to what are you doing to avoid bigger issues? And it makes it much easier to see the gang banger with the tattoos and the needle in his arm that got busted by the cops, then it is the good little Christian mom that never says “No,” and does Bible study Tuesday, and picks the kids up Wednesday, and does the church cooking Thursday.

Because she's not doing anything illegal, but she's avoiding her real deal by doing Christian-type works.

Q: So what would you say about avoiding the real issue—which is really easy to do—How do you not do that? It's easy to say “Face your issues” but what does that mean, what does that look like?

BH: Well, there's a multitude of ways to address it because it's a multifaceted problem. If it was just, “I'm gonna wave this magic wand, or I'm going to give you this pill, or tell you to go read your Bible five times and then everything will be fine,” then great.

Q: Well, I think that's the thing--being a Christian and going to church, you expect that the emotional health and mental health thing will take care of itself: “I'm going to church, I'm listening to sermons, I'm going to Bible study, so I'm going to be an emotionally healthy person.”

BH: It's not accurate, but I understand what you're saying. And what you find is that there's a few potential things underneath that as well.

This is the oldest one and the most hideous one: simple control. And we can look back at the middle ages or we can look at the church in the Palisades right now, where the person on top does not want to deal with their own issues, but you know what, they're on top. They're the pastor, and nobody can mess with them.

So they can continue to rage and have anger issues, they can continue to be very unhealthy in a multitude of ways, but these ways will not necessarily get them in jail.

They can look down on people, they can be narcissistic, they can have people cover up their drug use, they can do things, some more overt and some more covert in nature...

So that's one reason that that happens, because what's the best way to make sure nobody's looking at me and my issues which I can't deal with? It's to look at you and yours. So I'm going to sit here and scream:

“You better not look at porn!” But you better not look at my browser.

“You better treat your wife right!” You better not find out what I did to mine last night.

Q. Are you relating this to pastors?

BH: Oh yeah, pastors do this. It's so funny where you can go to church and most people will say the spiritual component is necessary and like I said, if you have a physical ailment, go see your doctor, but if you bring up the whole psychological thing, it's like, “Pray more you sinner!”

Well, the converse to that is if you go to most 12 step meetings [you can talk about the physical and the psychological] But then you bring up Jesus and it's like, “Aw, man, we don't do that here.” But they'll stand up there and say every kind of, “The universe told me this. and the rocks told me that, and the sun told me this.”

Well, how many people are that way because they actually met God and said, “No, no, I'm not going to have it.” Or are they that way because they were religiously abused in some way? It's usually the latter.

They grew up going--let's face it, what are the two requirements to be a Christian, which really means get into heaven. Number one, don't screw your girlfriend, number two, don't drink. If you do, God really hates you, but he might let you into heaven if he's having a really good day and he doesn't see you and you sneak in the back door. But everything else is not okay.

So we can sit here and rage, “You got to do this, or you haven't gone to church six times this week,” but we'll forget about the pride and arrogance. We'll forget about the fact that, “You can't do drugs,” but let's go to Bible study and have twelve plates of brownies. Food's an addiction, easily. And it's a very prevalent one.

So these are the okayed versions of “We're gonna not deal with our issues, but let it out in this way.

Q. Sort of the double standard.

BH: Yeah.

Go to Part 2

You can find Bryan at his website.

Going to Therapy Changed My Life

Not my notes, but a pretty cool idea. Photo by Sacha Chua 

I first sought help for my brain because my body was killing me.

I had been experiencing severe pain and discomfort that seemed to have no tangible physical explanation. A few WebMD searches later, and I was either headed to an early grave or doomed to spend the rest of my life with a debilitating, painful disease.

The fear was overwhelming.

I signed up for therapy, online (Thank you, technology).

I had been thinking about going for years, but it was pain and fear that pushed me over the edge.

Going to therapy changed my life, and all I could think was, "Why didn't I do this sooner?"

Therapy is not a panacea: a cure for every kind of physical, emotional, spiritual or mental pain. But it has been a powerful, healing force.

So in case you've been thinking about going, or you went once and never went back, or you used to go, but stopped--

My intent is to address some of the barriers that kept me from taking the first step. Maybe you can relate.

I didn't go to therapy because...

1. No one in my family ever went to therapy, talked about going, or mentioned it as an option.

There are certain kinds of pain that are not okay to talk about. It could be physical pain--to be transparent, part of what propelled me into therapy was the way in which my family both did and did not respond to my physical (and by extension, emotional) pain.

It might be helpful to ask:

What kinds of pain are okay? Not okay?
How am I allowed to talk about pain?
What does empathy look like in my family?
Is there a distrust around being vulnerable? Is there an escape from it, such as humor, sarcasm, distraction, ridicule, ignoring, anger, silence?
How does my family treat vulnerability in general?

2. I had never experienced a major, identifiable trauma that would justify going.

There's a social stigma to seeking therapy: that something deep and terrible must be wrong with you. Well, I definitely felt like there was something wrong with me, but I had nothing to point to, to say, "This! This is why I feel broken."

There's a false sense of shame that tends to go with trauma, even vague, unidentifiable trauma. There's a false sense of shame around needing help. But shame doesn't mean there is something wrong with you--and neither does going to therapy.

If your buddy sprained his ankle, would you ridicule him for going to the doctor instead of playing full court basketball?

"C'mon! What's wrong with you! Why can't you keep up?"

Just like you wouldn't feel shame over going to the hospital for an infected wound or broken bone, seeking therapy merely means that you are human, and that it's possible that things could get better, could be better.

3. I had a traumatic experience with pastoral counseling.

Just as there is a social stigma to therapy, there can also be a spiritual stigma--the belief that God, the church, your pastor, small group, the Bible, and ten hours of prayer per day should be able to cure all that ails you emotionally and psychologically.

There's the belief that simply grasping the truth of "God loves you" and maybe a few cathartic crying sessions at the altar will bring healing to even the deepest, most ingrained sense of shame.

I really wish that were true.

I'm not completely discounting pastoral counseling or any of the spiritual practices listed above. But I have also experienced firsthand how damaging it can be to receive non-professional counseling that both goes too far and doesn't go far enough.

I believe the intent of my pastor was not to harm me, but to help me. However, emotionally it was akin to performing surgery without proper training, exposing a deep wound to the air and the elements, and then expecting my heart to heal itself.

It didn't.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking professional help outside of the church. There is nothing wrong with going to a non-Christian therapist, even if you are a Christian.

There is nothing wrong with being hurt because someone dug around in your emotional guts with a penknife and had absolutely no clue what they were doing.

I wish at the time that instead of shutting down because I was "broken" (and if not even God or my pastor or my spiritual community could help me, who could?), that I had sought out a professional therapist.

4. I thought I couldn't afford to pay for therapy.

This was a huge barrier for me.

Therapy is expensive. I had no health insurance. However, I was also unaware that there are many low-cost and affordable options for seeing a therapist.

I eventually found a non-profit organization in Los Angeles that provides sliding scale membership and counseling services. If it weren't for the availability of low-cost counseling, I don't think I would have ever gone.

Again, therapy is not a panacea. Not all therapists are created equal. It really helps to find the right fit.

If you are thinking about going to therapy, I hope that you take the leap. The barriers are real, but you are definitely, definitely worth it.



[If you would like information on low cost therapy options in the Los Angeles area, please contact me.]

Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys are All Dented Cans - The Myth of Persistence

Photo by quinn.anya

So I've started doing this thing where I'm completely honest with men. Why?

Well, for one, it amuses me and my dark sense of humor. I get to say fun things like:

"I'm not interested in pursuing anything romantic with you."
"Hitting on one person on the fb status of another person is kind of a douche move."
"You fondled my earring at a BBQ and it made feel uncomfortable and disrespected."
"When you grabbed me from behind around my ribs directly under my breasts [yeah, that happened], I felt unsafe and violated."

Yep. That's right. Just waiting for the marriage proposals to roll on in.

For another, I'm done protecting a man's feelings at the expense of my own personal safety.

And that brings me to the topic for today in dented cans: THE MYTH OF PERSISTENCE. And yes, it definitely deserves to be in all caps.

There's this weirdly longstanding myth out there that women want men who will continue to pursue them even in the face of blatant rejection (see also, "The Notebook").

You say, "I just want to be friends."
He hears, "I just want to be friends until I change my mind and decide we should definitely get married and have five kids."

You say, "I'm not interested in you in that way."
He hears, "I'm not interested in you in that way, but you should definitely grab me and try to kiss me."

You say, "I like someone else."
He hears, "He's probably a douche-bag--so you still have a shot!"

To the men that believe this myth, "No, I'm not interested" means "Try harder. You're not trying hard enough. Persist long enough and I will say 'Yes.'"

Except it doesn't mean that.

No--when you persist in pursuing me after I have made my feelings clear, I can only assume that there is something wrong with you either emotionally or mentally. And the last thing in the world that I desire is to have an emotionally or mentally unstable man pursuing me, or worse, believing that I owe him something--a date, friendship, my time, a second chance.

In short, when a man will not take "No" for an answer, all my self-preservation instincts kick in, and all I want is for him to stay the **** away from me.

I feel fear and anger.

Fear--because if this man apparently can't understand or chooses not to understand the words that I use to communicate (perhaps if I did an interpretive dance?), who's to say what other boundaries of mine he won't violate due to this "misunderstanding"? If he has already violated my verbal boundaries and made me feel unsafe, there are still other boundaries he has yet to cross: emotional, spiritual, mental, physical.

But truthfully, I have trouble understanding the level of pure terror I feel when a man refuses to take "No" for an answer.

My best guess is that this is a dehumanizing experience--I am not a person to these men. I am the projection of all of their baggage about women. I "owe" him something--my body, my "Yes," a chance for him to prove that he is the man of my dreams and we are meant to be together-- In short, I cannot give consent because I am not fully human. His pursuit has very little do with me, and so much to do with the fantasy world he has created in his mind: A world in which I should say, "Yes."

At a certain point this fantasy becomes far more important than my humanity. And that is terrifying (cue visions of being chained up in a dungeon somewhere by a man who "just wants to love me," and is willing to wait as long as it takes for me to realize that).

My guess is that many men fail to understand this as well--they have never experienced fear for their personal safety in the context of romantic relationships, partially because women are not encouraged to pursue in the face of rejection, in fact, quite the opposite. Any romantic rejection is humiliating and shameful.

And what about "Not Leading Him On," that crime that women seem to be accused of at a substantially higher rate than men? Why do women so often take the path of least resistance, trying to "let him down easy." It goes back to fear, again. Women have been taught that saying "No" is not only rude, but also dangerous.

A stranger came up to me in the 99 cent store and told me that I was "beautiful." He followed this up immediately with, "That's a compliment you know."

Of course, I enjoy compliments most when they are followed by vaguely hostile or threatening statements. I also enjoy being put in a situation in a public space where I am expected to thank a stranger for harassing me or be subjected to the accusation of "ungrateful b___ who can't take a compliment."

Unfortunately for me, as a woman, I fear for my physical safety. Therefore, I try not to engage with men in an aggressive or potentially escalating manner.

The same goes for turning down men who are romantically interested in me--but as it turns out, it matters very little what I say:

I've had different Christian guys: Corner me in a car and demand repeatedly that I go out on a date with him, then text me to apologize and tell me that he really "respects" me; Tell me my job is on the line unless I let him back into my life (as a friend, of course); Ignore my request to be "just friends" by grabbing me and dipping me for a kiss, all while citing the scene in "Hitch" when Will Smith and Kevin James accidentally make out ("You lean in half way, then wait for her to go the other half").

Then there's the anger--yeah, being seen as not quite human kind of pisses me off. And there's the icky, would rather not think about it, idea that my biracial, "exotic" looks only contribute to the extent to which men are able to project their own fantasies onto my very real, non-white (but still human!) body.

The intersection between race and perceived sexual availability is a fraught one at best--but whether it applies here or not, let me just say:

I don't want to be touched, grabbed, or groped in public by men I don't know.
If I say I don't want to date you, I mean exactly that, and I don't care to repeat myself.
I am in no way obligated to explain to you why I am not interested. I owe you no justification whatsoever.
If you won't take "No" for answer, consider yourself banned from my life.

So why is it that Christian men are so horrible at grasping the concept of women as fully human?

The word "consent" is quite the buzzword these days, but I believe there are many Christian men who do not grasp the concept:

Consent (or if you prefer, "Respect") isn't just about sex. It's about respecting the boundaries of another human being--seeing them as fully human--in every single interaction, romantic or not.

There are certain things that "Nice" Christian guys tend to believe or say that are inconsistent with consent:

One, believing that if you go to the trouble of asking a girl out, she should say, "Yes," just because you took a risk and put yourself out there.

Two, if you ask a girl out and she says, "Yes" even though she is not ultimately interested, then she is leading you on.

Three, you are a "Good Christian Man" but every girl you ask out says, "No," meaning that there is something wrong with them, not you. You are a victim of feminism, shallow female whims, or unfair discrimination.

Four, if a girl says "No" before the first date or after five dates, you deserve a full, complete, and honest explanation as to why.

Five, women don't actually know what they want. They read romance novels and "Fifty Shades of Grey" and then complain that they don't want to be raped, beaten, sexually harassed, or coerced into sex. What gives?

One and two are obviously contradictory, but I have heard both. Trying to control whether or not someone says "Yes" or "No" to a date is contrary to the idea of consent--and trying to control a person's motivations in general feels fishy.

For three and four, being rejected sucks, obviously. But believing that someone else is "wrong" for rejecting you or that the the entire female population is delusional because they are not romantically interested in you is also contrary to the idea of consent--particularly to the idea that a woman should be able to choose to date or not date someone for any reason. Yes, any reason, even one you think is shallow or stupid.

Also contrary to consent is manipulating a person into unwanted contact of any kind.

For five--well, perhaps that is the subject of another blog post, but it boggles the mind that women are still not allowed to be complex or contradictory beings with a freedom of choice and personal autonomy that transcends one particular sexual fantasy or choice of reading material. "Women don't know what they want" seems highly correlated with the myth of persistence--"Women don't know what they want" but "I (a man) know what they should want." Gross.

In conclusion, if a guy will not take "No" for an answer he is, in my opinion, undateable.

Up next in the Dented Cans series, a post on entitlement.

Growing the F--- Up: What I've learned in my late 20s

Adults can still build blanket forts. Right?

When I was 14 and on a rafting trip in Nepal with my family, I did a survey of our fellow travelers that included the question, "Do you feel like an adult?"

All of the 20 and 30 somethings that I surveyed put, "No." [This was an actual survey. I wrote down the questions and asked each person to write down their answers.]

On that theme, I've been contemplating writing this blog post for a while now. And really, I have only one thesis or overarching idea here: 

Your late 20s is when the things that you've avoided dealing with start dealing with you:

This could be anything--a fear of public speaking, a problem with authority, that parking ticket from four years ago that you forgot to pay (oops), your $2 store shopping addiction, your overwhelming hatred for your job, the crap you haven't forgiven your parents for, your beef with God, your lack of a life outside of work, your dread of parallel parking, your out-of-control credit card debt, compounding interest on your student loans, the deteriorating state of your dental health, your aversion to brussels sprouts, your lousy choice in romantic partners, your friends all moving away, and I could go on.

In other words, if there is some area of your life that you have neglected to grow up in, that area of your life is going to make itself felt in a major, probably uncomfortable and possibly painful way (it will bite you in the butt).

If you don't start owning it, it will start owning you. If you don't take care of it, it will take you out. If you don't kick it in the ass, you'll end up on your ass. It's all the same advice, actually.

Why is this? I think in the first half of your 20s, it can be easy to coast on things like good health, natural talents and abilities, friendships you made in college, a solid education, an overweening confidence in your own potential, blatant naiveté, and youthful optimism (obviously, these are not true for everyone).

But unless life is a consistent downhill slope, it's impossible to simply coast forever. Eventually, you will reach a hill. I hate hills.

Like Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do." If what we repeatedly do is eat cheetos for breakfast and complain about a dead end job at the crayon factory, it doesn't matter how talented or healthy or privileged we are. The results won't be pretty.

In your late 20s, things can start to fall apart (or feel like they're falling apart). Things like your body. Or your relationships. Or your career goals and aspirations.

So let's talk about the roles of pain, fear, and grief in this process.

The Role of Pain

Pain is a sign that something is wrong. Where in your life are you feeling pain? Is it in your body? About your body? In your relationship with your parents? In your identity as a man or woman? In your frustrations about your job?

I think it's helpful here (borrowing from Dr. Henry Cloud) to distinguish between the pain of growth and pain that is just simply bad--the kind that screams at you: "GET OUT NOW." Pain can also helpfully point to underdeveloped or neglected parts of our lives.

For example, if you're feeling the pain of loneliness, this could point to a need to develop new friendships or nurture the ones you already have. Now is your chance to pay attention to what the pain in your life is telling you--whether it's, "Hey, maybe you should lay off the spicy Thai food" or "I would like to make new friends" or "It's time to leave this job. It's not going to get better."

For me, years of blithely confident good health gave way to panic when I started experiencing pain, discomfort, and, worst of all, tingling in my upper back and neck. I could barely stand to sit for the 8 hours a day required at my desk job. But although the symptoms (such as pain) were only then showing up, my guess is the underlying issue probably started a long, long time ago.

But it wasn't until pain showed up that I started paying attention.

[Note: Take care of your body. It is the only one you have.]

The Role of Fear

This is about more than just Instagram-fueled FOMO (fear of missing out). There's the fear of missing out on the important things we're meant to do in our lives, whatever they may be.

The fear of never writing that novel or screenplay. Of never making that film. Of never taking that risk to start our own business or apply for that dream job.

Recently, "adventure" has been a theme in my life, and I realized that adventure always involves risk of some kind. And where there is risk, there can be fear. However, the best kind of fear is not the crippling fear of making a mistake that keeps you from ever venturing out on that ledge. It's the kind of fear that pushes you to venture out in the first place.

Am I more afraid of screwing up or am I more afraid of never getting to do what it is I want to do? One kind of fear confines you to a tiny box in which you can almost guarantee you will never make a mistake. The other kind sends you out into the unknown where, yeah, I guess something terrible could happen, but also something wonderful.

Being confined to a tiny box of perfectionism is terrible.

The Role of Grief

When I started going to therapy a few years ago, I was unprepared for the intense waves of pain and grief that tore through me. I had so much unresolved pain over my parents' divorce (that happened when I was 13) and from feeling abandoned, unloved, and unwanted by both parents.

This is the kind of stuff that will make an appearance sooner or later if you leave it unattended. Unattended baggage is a dangerous thing. Given the right conditions, unresolved feelings won't just be a whisper in your subconscious ("You're not good enough," "You're a failure" ), rather they will start screaming for attention at the top of their lungs, forcing you to either pay attention or drown them out with busyness, distraction, addiction, etc.

Dealing with unresolved grief is pretty much the opposite of fun. But the consequences of not dealing with it can be even worse.

Now that we've discussed the roles of pain, fear, and grief, I've written some questions (I like questions) about different areas in life that you may or may not have grown up in. This is not meant to shame anyone or provide some arbitrary benchmark, but instead to say, "Hey, maybe you can work on this now before it gets too gnarly."

Mentally
Do you have your own personal definition of what it means to be mentally healthy? What does unhealthy look like?
Are you challenging yourself to grow intellectually?
Do you read books / watch movies / listen to podcasts that engage you intellectually or are you numbed out most of the time on junk?

Physically
How do you take care of your body and your health?
Do you eat your vegetables?
How much sleep are you getting?
Are you comfortable with your sexuality?
Do you recognize the physical boundaries between you and others and are you able to recognize when your boundaries have been violated or when you are violating the boundaries of others?

Emotionally
How do you deal with difficult emotions like fear, anger, jealousy, envy, shame?
How do you deal with pain, disappointment, and loss?
Do you know how to grieve?
Is there room in your life for joy and gratitude?

Spiritually
Are you angry with God? Are you angry with God and avoiding the issue?
If you go to church, why? If you don't, why?
How do you connect with God?
How do you connect with others in a spiritual community?
What does unconditional love feel like?

Relationally
Do you cultivate and nurture your friendships?
How do you deal with loneliness?
Do you feel comfortable asking for help?
How's your support system?
Are you an adult or a child in your relationship with your father? Mother? Siblings? Significant other?

Financially
Do you pay your own bills?
Are you spending less than you make?
How's debt treating you?
Are you saving for retirement? (ugh)
Do you give to people, causes, organizations, stories that you care about?

Vocationally
If you hate your job, are you doing something about it?
If you're not making enough money, are you doing something about it? (like asking for a raise)
What are you good at?
Are you pursuing your dreams or someone else's?
How do you deal with failure, mistakes, setbacks?
If you have a day job, are you honoring it by showing up on time, working when you're at work, etc.?
Do you have career goals? Do you have a realistic timeline for those goals?
What do you want to be when you grow up?

The 7 Deadly Sins of Being a Woman

So, church today got me thinking about the ways that we gender things like sin, sex, shame, anger, evangelism, and emotional needs. It got me wondering--do churches split men and women into gender specific groups so we can talk about the differing sins that plague each gender? How do we tend to gender certain sins?

Lust

Sex, as we all know, is for men, and thus only men struggle with lust. Women never struggle with their sexual desires. They just want to be loved unconditionally, like that movie "The Vow" (or was it "Pretty Woman"?) No further comment needed here. Moving on.

Gluttony

I don't know about you, but I feel like Los Angeles has this weird relationship to food, eating, diet, and exercise. As a city, we're probably bulimic, anorexic, and addicted to exercise. On a good day. Now, far be it from me to look down upon healthy eating (not my fav) and exercise (not my fav either). But I feel like extreme dieting and exercising are like gluttony's prettier, skinnier cousin. In our culture, things like weight loss and being skinny are heavily geared toward women. There's a lot of shame involved. See also, envy.

Greed

Ah, the gold-digging stereotype--it lives on, it thrives even. Though I suppose now that many women are making more money than their spouses, men will start being objectified only for their good looks and hot bodies. On another level, it seems like women are constantly accused of having unreasonable expectations--of men, of marriage, of sharing housework, of having it all. It's not so much the injunction to "settle" as it is anger that women might have these kinds of expectations in the first place.

Sloth

If anything, Sloth is a guy. A guy who plays XBox all night and works at Dairy Queen. Women are really falling behind on this one. They're going to have to work super hard to even think of achieving parity.

Wrath

Recently, I read an article on Relevant Magazine entitled "When I'm Bad at Being a Woman." The article didn't seem to be about being a woman at all--but rather about anger, disappointment, getting credit for your work, and basing your value in God. As I tried to suggest in the comments, the title betrays the underlying assumption that getting angry makes you a bad woman (Hey kids! Close reading--it's not just for English majors!) I think with women and getting angry, there's always the fear of being the shrew--the B-word. But anger, man oh man is that a real emotion, and if anything, I wish I expressed it (rather than holding it in) more than I do. Because anger is so much better than resentment and bitterness.

Envy

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Women are notorious for constantly comparing themselves to other women, favorably or unfavorably. Of course, our culture doesn't contribute to this at all. Of course, I'm being sarcastic. Here's the thing about women, especially women at church--they are the nicest, most accepting people EVER. But that envy stuff is real.

The only gender-specificity I can really see here is that men are not under the same pressure to compare their appearance to that of other men. I could be wrong.

Pride

I sometimes think that one of the worst things a woman can be is arrogant (to those that think she's arrogant). I'm not saying men get a free pass on this one, either. There's just this desire to take her down a peg or two. I should know.

I don't think having an ego is all bad--instead, women pretend that they are not competitive, ambitious, or confident in themselves and their abilities. Or women are confident, they just don't express themselves confidently, in fear it will come off as arrogance.

I worry about gender stereotypes in the context of church. Mostly, I worry that women or girls who don't fit into the dominant gender stereotypes (emotional vs. analytical, for example) will feel alienated and as if they are "bad at being a woman."

Dear 15-year-old me,

You are fat.

Just kidding. Sort of. Later on, your family and friends will tell you that you went through a "chubby" phase. Subsequently, you will get a lot of comments along the lines of, "Wow! You've lost weight!" or, "You're skinny now!" Uh...thanks?

This will come as a surprise. No biggie. I'm glad you don't think you're fat. Cause you're not. 

You are pretty. 

Don't act so shocked. Attention from guys will come later, and I know you think you're safe in that baggy black sweatshirt, but it's okay to feel attractive. Dressing in an appealing way is not a betrayal of your identity. Attention is not always a bad thing. You don't have to hide.

Homeschooling is a terrible idea.

You will never get the "normal high school experience." And let's face it, you're not disciplined enough to homeschool yourself. You are, however, extremely stubborn.

Homeschooling is an awesome idea.

Going from Beijing-->World travel-->North Carolina will be one of the toughest transitions of your life. You won't feel like you fit in. At all. You will probably always be ambivalent about NC as a whole. You will probably always feel at least a little bit like an outsider. But, the 6-month period you spend in Beijing your junior year of high school will change your life--an oasis in the desert of adolescence. You will learn how to edit. You will spend the first of many late, lonely nights cutting video. You will love it. God help us all.

You are not a burden.

I don't even know how to begin to convey this to you. You are very independent, and that can be a good thing, but that personality trait is being twisted into something else--something that's not good. You are not on your own. It may feel like that, like you need to be entirely self-sufficient now that your parents are divorced, but that's not the case. Retreating into yourself so as not to impose on anyone is not the way to go. It will only leave you isolated.

You are hurting.

I'm sorry.

You are OK. 

I could tell you all about the messed up way you relate to your family, or how you're judgmental, self-righteous, bitter, and perfectionistic--how you hurt the people you love the most in the most cutting ways possible. But you know what, they forgive you later. You even forgive you. You are OK.

And you know what--I still think "The Outsiders" is a great movie.

Stay gold, kid. 

Sincerely,

Me

Inspiration: http://jezebel.com/5951005/would-your-15+year+old-self-listen-to-you

Dear Sort of Sexist Guy,

Hey there. How's it going? It's me. Yeah. We went to college together. We work together. I think I had a crush on you back in the 8th grade.

You were the one who told me in high school that most guys think that men are better than women--they just don't say it out loud. But you--you were above that kind of cowardice. "Think about it," you said, "Why are the best chefs in the world men?" I still can't argue with your unshakeable logic.

I feel a bit bad for you, Sort of Sexist Guy--the way political correctness has driven your kind underground, for the most part. You can't even post sexy pics of underage girls on facebook anymore without getting some kind of feminist flak. I mean, where's the harm in a little objectification? The sooner girls realize that they are primarily valued for their looks, the better.

I really have to admire your panache, Sort of Sexist Guy. You could be rocking a unibrow and a beer gut, but that doesn't stop you from making condescending comments about a woman's weight or how she's "let herself go."

Of course you "loooooove women." And yeah, you're sort of an a-hole, but in a good way. Cause you're a guy. And guys are a-holes.

At least you're not like Sort of Racist Guy or Sort of Misogynistic Guy. I'm never going to catch you ranting about how feminism has ruined the American dream or how the REAL reason you're such a jerk is that this one girl broke your heart this one time in the second grade...

You're just a little bit of a chauvinist. I get that. Now that I think about it, you're not half bad, Sort of Sexist Guy. Maybe we can hang out some time and you can tell me all about how if I only lost some weight and started reading challenging books, I could really make something of myself.

Well, it's been real. I sort of gotta go do some laundry.

Yours (sort of),
MT

Burdens and the women who bear them

Zora Neale Hurston famously called black women the "mules of the world" in her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. I find this image, resonant within the book, resonant without too. In brief, I've been thinking about burdens, and the women who bear them.

I am also inspired by the article "A Message to Women from a Man: You Are Not Crazy," particularly this quote:

"It’s a whole lot easier to emotionally manipulate someone who has been conditioned by our society to accept it. We continue to burden women because they don’t refuse our burdens as easily. It’s the ultimate cowardice." 

Here are some of the burdens I think women are expected to bear: 

The Burden of Intention

This is a burden that I take on a lot--way more than I should. Perhaps I have mostly myself to thank for that, or perhaps evangelical "purity" culture should get some of the blame. But folks, today we're talking about intention. So let me just put this out there: I worry about the intentions of other people. All the time. 

Yes, I'm talking about romantic intentions. If I'm nice to this guy, will he think that I like him? What if I'm leading him on? What if he thinks I'm leading him on? Is this guy asking me on a date or just asking me to hang out? What if he likes me? Crap. MUST AVERT SITUATION. 

Now, I over-think a lot of things (as if you didn't know that already). But why is the burden on me and not on the man to clearly define his intentions. I don't want to monitor my every word and action so I'm not sending out the wrong signals. I don't want to manage the situation. I don't want to have to straight up ask, "Are you pursuing me romantically?" I don't want to have to make my (non) intentions clear when he hasn't even asked me out.

Why would I think this is my responsibility in the first place? Maybe it has something to do with needing to be "nice." Or maybe it's the mantra to "guard the other person's heart."

This is a burden that I do not want to bear, a price I am unwilling to pay. And yet I pay it.

The Burden of Desire

This one is tricky, but I've been thinking about the different ways that women and men desire in our culture, or more specifically, how our culture thinks about the desire of men versus the desire of women.

Yes, I'm talking about sexual desire. One thing that's always struck me is that a woman's desire is so easily itself made an object of desire (fetishized). Sexualized advertising aimed at men often seems to hinge on [a simulacrum] of female desire--this woman, this beautiful woman, desires ME. 

For whatever reason, I could say something seemingly innocuous, like, "Brad Pitt is hot!" And that could easily turn into: "You think Brad Pitt is hot. Nudge nudge, wink wink." It's as if any acknowledgement on my part that I am a living, breathing and desiring human being makes me something of a tease. Means I'm doing it for the attention. Makes me into a sexual object when really, I was asserting my subjectivity (KEANU REEVES IS HOTTER THAN BRAD PITT). I don't see this happening when a guy calls someone hot.

Let's take this deeper. There's a common rationalization out there that has to do with female desire. I'm sure you've seen this snl video titled "Sexual Harassment and You." No? Go watch it and come back. 

Basically, women are shallow (and kind of dumb). It's only sexual harassment if the guy is ugly. If the guy is Tom Brady, well, I just met you, and this is crazy--

I'm really struggling here, because this rationalization appears to be taken as the God-given--so obvious it hurts--TRUTH. What exactly is this truth saying? 

Women prefer attractive men. Yeah, that makes sense. Is that shallow? Sure. 

Women will tolerate (even welcome) harassment, abuse, etc. from a guy, just because he's hot. Okay, now you're making me queasy. Apparently a woman's desire, her preference for attractive men, makes her sick in the head. What?

Along the same line of reasoning, a woman will only call a guy "creepy" if he is unattractive. If he is attractive and exhibits the same courtship behavior he is not creepy. Women obviously don't really know what they want. That guy wasn't really sexually harassing you. You were just comparing him to Ryan Gosling.

A man's desire, on the other hand, is almost always valid (and validated). It doesn't matter if she desires him (she's irrational, capricious, shallow, and probably likes jerks), it only matters that he desires her. She is not a person. She is a projection of a man's desire.

This explains the fixation on the sartorial choices of rape victims. She may not have desired sex, but what was she wearing? What kind of male desire was being projected? 

A man's desire is pure and unequivocal. The heart wants what it wants.

So how do women bear the burden of desire? Women are required to be open and accepting of the desire of any and all while also accepting that any desire they express could be ridiculed and sneered at (especially if they are considered unattractive).

Tune in next time for...

The Burden of Secrecy

The Burden of Shame
The Burden of Fear

The Burden of the Body

The Burden of Character

Facebook and Telling Our Own Stories

"Is that your girlfriend?"
"What?"
"In your facebook profile picture. The one you're dancing with. Are you a lesbian?"
"No. That's MY TWIN SISTER."
-Not a real life conversation. Oh wait, this actually happened. *facepalm*

I've been thinking recently (and not so recently) about the relationship between my real life and my social media life. I've been thinking about how we "write" our lives--both online and off.

When it comes to social media, it seems that not only do we need to lead a happy, fulfilling, sparkly life, we have to prove that we are living a happy, fulfilling, sparkly life. Having lemonade on the porch with a good friend and a weighty philosophical tome? Instagram it. Convinced you have the best boyfriend everrrr? Tag him in a post on facebook. Losing weight on an awesome new diet/exercise plan? Tweet daily updates of your progress.

Of course these things aren't wrong or bad. It just sometimes feels like the equivalent of grabbing the world by the shoulders and screaming, "Look at me. I'M HAVING FUN AND LIVING LIFE!! DO YOU BELIEVE I'M HAVING FUN YET??!!"

There's something about expectations and being in your 20s. Or expectations and being in your 30s. Or expectations and being in college. Or expectations period. These are the best years of your life, after all. Shouldn't you be out there enjoying them?

And so we post pictures. And we tell a story. A story about our lives and how much fun we're having. Whether we mean to or not, we tell a story of one kind or another.

Facebook, of all things, understands this. I remember joking about the ads I would get when my relationship status was listed as "single."

"__ years old and still single?" (obviously, you're a freak). "Lose weight with this awesome new diet!" (and then you will feel lovely and desirable). "Revolutionary treatment for herpes!" (no wonder I'm single: I weigh 250 pounds and my body is ridden with STDs).

And what could concern me about these ads is their emphasis on controlling women's bodies. My body. My other body. (You're female. Clearly you're unhappy with your body and you want to lose weight.)

But facebook is not the only one telling me stories about myself, repeating back to me the stories I have consciously or unconsciously told.

And it's not all negative, either. I enjoy the stories that my friends tell. I realize that they're not the whole picture, however--not even close.

Have you ever tried talking to someone whose entire picture of your life is based on social media? It's very confusing.

Recently, a (former) facebook friend summed up my life in one damning question: "Still having trouble finding a man?" (Yes. Haven't you been paying attention? Lesbian. 250 pounds. Herpes. 'Nuff said.)

I found this confusing for several reasons. For example, if I'm looking for "a man," will any man do? Why am I trying to find him? Is he lost? I did not remember having a face-to-face, heart-to-heart with this person about my attempts at finding this poor man. And yet, to him, this was my story.

I can't find a man. Done. Finished. Written in bold.

Nevermind that the phrasing is insulting. Nevermind the "still," implying a lengthy search over an extended period of time (It's all I ever do, actually. Really. I'm exhausted.) Nevermind the implication that not having found a man, I am incomplete. Nevermind that this narrative has little to do with what I want and everything to do with being wanted. Nevermind how much it pisses me off that a woman can be belittled so easily with so little.

Most of all, that this was the story I'm telling, via facebook, via blogging. We tell stories. Other people tell them back to us, adding their own spin. I write about dating. I must be beyond desperate to find a man (any man) who will date me.

Bullsh**.

This is my story. I get to write it. Better yet, I get to live it. Granted, I can't completely control the hermeneutic by which other people choose to interpret my story, and that's frustrating. I can't even, on my own, eradicate the harmful stories that advertisers continue to tell women about their bodies, their lives, their worth.

But I will continue to write. And, reader, what you choose to believe is up to you.

Sincerely,
A 250 Pound Lesbian with Herpes

Sex, Text and My Other Body

I'm sure there's a literary/sociological/psychological theory* that addresses this, but I've been thinking about something I can best describe as "my other body."

This is not my actual, physical body, but my symbolic one--not how I experience the world as flesh and blood, but how the world chooses to experience me. Perhaps I can explain.

I might see someone I don't know and based on his appearance alone conclude that he is smart, dumb, nerdy, a douchebag, etc.

Another person might see me and based on appearance alone conclude that I am not American and must be from a different country.

Or a person might view my body as a sexual object, no matter that I am not (an object).

I'll put aside for the moment the question of whether our bodies do have any inherent value, worth, or beauty. Let it suffice for this blog that there are in fact two very different bodies in play. [I imagine someone who saw the two bodies as one and the same would have some kind of body dysmorphia.]

I find this concept extremely helpful as a writer. From the earliest days of literature, writers have identified their works with their own bodies--often as mother or father to an errant child. Anne Bradstreet famously wrote a poem titled "The Author to Her Book" in which she chides the "ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain." In this conception, the work is both intimately associated with the writer's body (as child) and dissociated and excused for its flaws and imperfections (the text as orphan).

Another Renaissance writer wrote of having undergone "pressing" to produce his book (don't you just love a good suggestive pun?). Both of these metaphors indicate the vulnerability (to criticism, etc.) of not only the author, but the author's body.

I'm sure every writer can relate to this in one way or another. You write something. You put a little (or a lot) of yourself into it, then the editor/publisher changes a word here, a phrase there and completely changes what you wished to say.

[I used to metaphorically hit the ceiling every time the school paper came out and the editors had once again marred my flawless copy with one or more grammatical, typographical, or idiomatic errors. Did I mention I was a joy to work with?]

Or someone reads something you've written and takes it completely out of context, interpreting it to mean something it doesn't mean or imputing to you a belief you hate.

And for whatever reason, women's symbolic bodies have always been more vulnerable then the symbolic bodies of men: witness online (or in print) attacks on a woman's looks or sexual history or anatomy, all because she wrote about, I dunno, anything. I can understand why authors like Charlotte Bronte wrote under a male pseudonym. Protection. Safety. No one drawing attention to the vulnerability of your body as female.

I feel this vulnerability--as much as I have tried to protect this other body so intimately associated with my own. I've tried to protect it in the way that I dress (that doesn't really work, by the way). I've stopped writing because a man read my words and thought that he knew me, thought that he could read me, thought that he could take liberties because hadn't I put myself (my body) out there for everyone to read?

I've despaired to think that in the career path I wish to pursue, my male coworkers will see me primarily as the cute girl (with "deep, dark, and soulful eyes," direct quote from one confessional email) and not as competent, smart, or talented.

I know I've been stressing the disconnect between my actual, physical body and this other body, but truthfully, they're not always so disconnected. It's this other body, I think, that causes men to casually touch my leg, my waist, my butt (without, as one friend so memorably put it, even bothering to buy me a happy meal first). It can't be me, right?

I don't know what it's like to be white, male, and heterosexual (a girl can dream), but I imagine there's less of a gap between the way other people perceive you and the way you perceive yourself. I imagine there are fewer moments of disconnect. I could try to primarily see myself as a sexual object, but I think that would get in the way of my writing.


[Based on this, one of the major feats that women in our culture are expected to achieve to become adults is internalizing the male gaze, or viewing themselves as primarily sexually attractive or not. Thus, being sexy is a culturally conditioned behavior that requires seeing a reverse image of yourself (as sexy) and then projecting it back to the world.]


*This might be Lacan and the mirror stage. Or Marx and alienation (alienated from work, from your body, from other people's bodies which then become instruments of production?). Or feminism and the male gaze.