Challenging Commitment: Part II
As James Brown, "The King of Soul Music," screamed, "I feel good.!" I survived showing "Challenging Commitment: Part I" to the woman with whom I've been both intimately connecting and anxiously creating distance. She only had two comments; not even true objections. First, she wanted to make sure you all realized that her neuroses are not shallow, but are existentially deep. And second, she suggested I "get cloned and marry 'it.'" (If only that were possible...I could immediately start my own 12-step Narcissists Anonymous group, and wouldn't even need to recruit other members.)
Anyway...last column included the first five "Signs of the Commitment Phobic as Gleaned From a Primordial Psyche and Everexpanding and Contracting Cosmic Ego." (No conventional Buddhism practiced here.). Today we complete the "Top Ten." (Though feeling depleted by this brutal expose, have no fear...Like hot air and the South, my ego will rise again.) To refresh your memory, the opening five included: 1) the woman is objectively wonderful, 2) the lust still lurks, 3) the three month wall, 4) the romantic ideal and 5) finding fault (in her, of course).
So now...the "final five," with the requisite precaution. (Warning: This column may be hazardous to the ironically-impaired.)
6. The trap. Perhaps most frightening about commitment is the dread of losing control, of being overwhelmed by my own psychic forces and voices: the guilt of disappointing or hurting another; the acute anxiety and rage over abandonment, the shame of one's own selfish desires and lusts. (Okay, so I have ambivalent emotions on this one.)
The screeching crescendo of critical voices in my head parallels the great "sucking sound" as one is pulled into a psychic vortex - the black hole of intimacy - from which few ever resurface, other than in divorce court. (And you think you have obsessive and paranoid thought patterns?)
7. The primal catch. The fear of being swallowed up by an all powerful mother-figure. How Freudian, how unoriginal, how real. Or, at least, I used to have those actual dreams as a kid. (Mmmm. Are dreams the original virtual reality state? And speaking of being consumed, do you realize how frightening those Sunday School stories can be: Jonah and the Whale; Abraham's near sacrifice of Isaac.)
Yes, let's do get Freudian. But let's not just pick on mother. During my early years, preoccupied by his own inner demons, my father retreated from the Oedipal-family battlefield, thereby helping to create "The Primal Catch-22": When you lose your self by winning the (m)other!
8. The creative life. Enough psychobabble. The easiest and most concrete rationalization for commitment phobia: I'm an artist! Hey, it's not easy being intensely self-absorbed and neurotic both in work and in love. I lust after novelty and variety and physiological arousal. (So you think I'm an adrenalin junkie and should join a 12-step group?) It's my calling to struggle with autonomy and intimacy, separateness and attachment, "the one and the many." (I like it: "Zen and the Art of Commitment Phobia.")
My creative energy and freedom thrive on such bipolar tension. Then again, maybe I'm just bipolar; the highs and lows, ebbs and flows in relationship come chemically, if not naturally. To strengthen further your phobia-mania rationalization strategy, try Kay Redfield Jamison's, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. You'll have plenty of role models to choose from.
9. Never ending self-actualization. Ah, the quest for more life, more achievements, more romance, more penetrating insights. I haven't reached my full potential and power. I'm on the verge of becoming a twenty year overnight success. How can I settle down when I'm climbing up? (Perhaps it is time to start a 12-step support group -- Narcissists Anonymous. Our slogan.: "Come out of the closet. Don't just be a legend in your own mind!")
10. The future is now. Uncertainty, unpredictability, risk...I love it; my hormones love it. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Gee, how could I think college biochemistry was a bore. But, enough with the past. One must pursue the impossible dream. Okay, sometimes it's more escaping the nightmare: when commitment phobia is also the need to avoid "The Bjorn Bored Syndrome": when Mastery times Monotony provides the index of Misery!
Does "Fireproofing Life with Variety" necessarily mean an endless harem of cyberlovers? Maybe two people can just relax, have their personal space and get to know one another gradually, over time. Talk about an outrageous proposition!
I will close with two affirmations for the ongoing battle with intimacy and commitment. The first is my expansion of the "fight or flight" stress response. The phoenix, mentioned below, is the mythical bird and universal symbol of loss and rebirth or renewal:
Fight when you can Take flight when you must Flow like a dream In the phoenix we trust.
And a personal maxim, one that has stood the test of time and a labyrinthine journey: I don't know where I'm going...I just think I know how to get there.
Until then...Practice Safe Stress!
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Mark Gorkin, "The Stress Doc," Licensed Clinical Social Worker, is a nationally recognized speaker, workshop leader and author on stress, reorganizational change, anger, team building, creativity and humor. The Stress Doc is a columnist for the popular cyber-newsletter, Humor From The Edge. Mark is also the "Online Psychohumorist" for the major AOL mental health resource network, Online Psych . His motto: Have Stress? Will Travel! Reach "The Doc" at (202) 232-8662, email: Stress Doc@aol.com