Quotes from an interview with psychoanalyst and writer, Adam Phillips:

"I'm not on the side of frustration exactly, so much as the idea that one has to be able to bear frustration in order for satisfaction to be realistic. I'm interested in how the culture of consumer capitalism depends on the idea that we can't bear frustration, so that every time we feel a bit restless or bored or irritable, we eat, say, or we shop.

"It's only in an initial state of privation that you can begin to have thoughts about what it is you might want, to really imagine or picture it. It's very difficult to know what we're frustrated by. In making the case for frustration I want to make it more interesting, such that people can talk or think about it in different ways."

For him, psychoanalysis is a set of stories that we tell ourselves and each other, a way of redescribing our experiences. "To begin with, one needs to understand," he says, "but I think the final project is to relieve oneself of the need for self-knowledge. It's not that it's useless – in some areas of life it's very useful – but there are lots of areas in which it isn't, and in some areas it's actually pre-emptive and defensive, and this is where psychoanalysis potentially fails people, by assuming there is an infinite project and that the best thing you can do in life is to know yourself. Well, I don't think that's true."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/01/adam-phillips-life-in-writing


"I believe in what you see being most of what there is… and that life's passed on to us empty. So, while significance weighs heavy, that's the most it does. Hidden meaning is all but absent."
:: Richard Ford (from the novel 'Canada'.)

Hello, I'm a cutter...

Why do I cut? What turned me into a self hater who scars his body and often wants to die?

I'm a 44 year old man who has seen his world fall apart two years ago. I was seriously injured on the job to the point of full disability. I can no longer do the job I lived to do, which was Police work. Add to that the fact that I suffer horrific pain everyday due to my back injury. I have crushed a total of 9 discs in my upper, middle and lower back and have to use a cane to walk.

Not only do I have permanent nerve damage, but as a result I lost function of my bladder and need to urinate with a catheter and a leg bag. I have had several surgeries to include a two level cervical fusion, an interstim implant for my bladder and a Morphine drug pump implant. Despite these surgeries, the Morphine pump and oral pain meds I am still in a great deal of pain all day and night; awake and sleeping. I still have a few more surgeries I must endure in the next year. This physical pain alone is one reason why I cut myself.

Since I don't have any control of the constant pain related to my back injury I at least have control over the pain I endure when I cut myself. I don't scratch myself...when I cut I cut deep and I have scars over 70% of my body. I often cut out of anger or frustration, because I lost my passion for life when I lost my career as a Police Officer. It's extremely difficult to go from being physically able to chase bad guys, make arrests and help others to someone who can barely walk and is in constant pain.

Over the past two years I have gone from a mentally confident and competent person to a mental basket case. Now I must say that prior to my career ending injury I suffered from PTSD and bouts of depression related to my Police experiences while employed by NYPD during 9-11 and survivor's guilt. Also, growing up I would from time to time cut myself. Oh yeah and when I was 13 years old I slit my wrist and OD on medication in an attempt to end my life. It was really tough covering up the huge ass scar on my wrist, especially while applying for work as a Police Officer. I don't regret the scar, I regret the fact that I lived. Looking back I guess there have been many times where I was in harms way and could of, should have died, but didn't. This happened more often of course during my Ten years of Police work. Looking back now I can honestly say that I wanted to be a Police Officer so I could die. Had you asked me while I was still working as a Police Officer I would have said it was so I could help people and save lives.

Anyways, I now suffer from a whole host of mental disorders, such as Major Depressive Disorder, BiPolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD and a couple of other disorders that escape me at this time. I'm taking a handful of medication daily in the hopes of controlling my mental and physical pain.

It's not working, I can't sleep and the urges to cut keep getting stronger. I also envision me cutting my own throat with a knife. I can be sitting on the couch watching a TV show and out of no where I see it...I see the knife in my hand held to my throat. I wonder, is this how I am supposed to die? I always hoped it would be via lead poison ( aka a bullet). No matter, I keep cutting and my wife sees the cuts and scars and naturally freaks out. I'm putting her through hell and that just adds to my anxiety and frustration that often boils over and results in even more cutting! I wish I could post pictures so you can see my scars and know that this is for real. I'm living a nightmare and I'm ashamed of myself for being so weak. Two years ago I was a decent role model for other Officers and the community I lived to protect and serve. Now...now I am suicidal and spend most of my time at home, in pain and alone.

The urges are becoming too great and I'm fast losing any control. My cuts are becoming deeper and deeper. How can I cut out the ugly side of me when...

[ Continued ]

I self harmed for two years. I began starting a new coping skill that has been really effective; eating. Although, I'm worried because I had a slight eating disorder before, eating might draw me back in it agaian.

Hello dear reader, I've recently discovered my disorders and wrote something a while ago in a blog. Sorry if it's too long but I can't really divide it into part, you may find it very boring but I want to thank you to whoever read the whole thing or even just looked at!

Introduction, burning iceberg/frozen flame
I’m not very good at writing; in fact I suck pretty much at everything.

I think of myself as a walking bag of issues. I’m a highly sensitive person, I have borderline personality disorder, social anxiety, I have little bit of OCD and ADD and I often think that I’m bipolar.

I understand that everybody goes through some kind of stress in their lives and that other people might have bigger problems than me…honestly I don’t give a ###$, ###$ those people! ###$ people who judge ( I do that sometimes too but then I get punished at night by my over thinking habit), ###$ people who pretend to be nice, ###$ overconfident people, ###$ people who are shy, ###$ people that like politics, ###$ people that are into religion now that I think of it, ###$ everybody! Myself included!!

I’m sorry I didn’t meant to offend anyone (maybe I did), so I have extreme mood swings(as you’ve already noticed), sometimes I wanna meet people but most of the times I hate people. It’s probably because of my social anxiety, every time I’m in public I feel like everybody’s staring at me, I always thought it was some teenage stuff and that it would eventually subside but it never truly did, in fact sometimes I feel like it’s gotten worse. Each pair of eyes feels like a burn and I start sweating and panicking and I keep telling myself “oh god why are people staring at me? Is it because I’m overweight? (at a time I was but even after I lost weight I felt the same way) is my hair messed up?” Sometimes I do feel ok when I’m in public, most of the time it’s when I’m drunk or in an extremely good mood, unfortunately both don’t last very long and don’t happen very often and sometimes are mutually exclusive.

I feel like I’m the ugliest person in the world, the most weird too but at the same time I realize that I’m just an ordinary guy, nothing special at all. Other times I label myself very special because I’m pathetic and I want that pity but there’s just no one in my world that would ######6 understand me so I only have myself, which is just not enough but sometimes can be overwhelming. My biggest fear and my biggest enemy are both- myself. I tend to over think stuff, stuff that other healthy normal people don’t even care about, don’t notice. I like to analyze my day right before going to sleep, every ######6 time. Every time before going to sleep my brain’s like “Oh you wanna rest? ###$ that! Let’s go through all the ###$ up $#%^ that happened today. The mean stuff people said to you or you said to them. The stupid awkward situations you put yourself or others to, about how it’s gonna haunt you for a couple of years until you do something more ###$ up, which is gonna happen pretty soon by the way.

I always feel lonely and sometimes I just wish I had a girlfriend, actually every guy wants that…but then I remember what it’s like for me to be in a relationship with someone. It’s ######6 hell, both for me and for the unluckiest girl in the world who agreed to be in a relationship with me. Whenever I’m in a relationship (which is SUPER rare now) I tend to idealize (or even idolize) my partner and I cling very tightly to that person. Thinking she can understand me, support me and just always be there (which is literally ALWAYS) and of course eventually I get disappointed, always. Because I’m a selfish bastard, the very kind of people that I hate. It is part of the curse of having the borderline personality disorder, no one will ever be good enough for you and you’re never gonna be good enough for anyone as well. When people I’m really attached to stop messaging me or talking to me for whatever reasons (busy, not in the mood) I instantly take it the wrong wa...

[ Continued ]

About me and how I need help psychologically...

So this page is all about me, myself and my book of wild thoughts. Obviously my name is not Bookof!! I’m intending to keep anonymity at least for now; that’s because I’m a bit ashamed of what I write! I did not even link it to my own personal Facebook profile, I preferred to create a different entity, and this is being applied onto all my self-owned social network profiles. Besides, it’s in my constitutional rights to do so and if anybody’s got a problem with that, well…. Door’s open, please go !!

So what is book of wild thoughts all about, I can hear you mumbling… As said above, this book is all about me and my personality and how I’m intending, with the help of all my readers, to achieve in linking them harmoniously. There are other areas I’m looking forward to improve as well: my own English writing style, some books and stories I wanted to publish. So this website is all about gathering enough courage in me to really do what I always wanted !!

I’ll probably add some more text in the future for that’s all I feel like writing at the moment; my wife’s nearly finished with cooking dinner and it’s about time to wrap the napkin around the closet, oops sorry! I meant around the neck;

Just to let you know how it took me days before I started to lay my hands on my own personal blog, I even threw up out of eating whatever came in, I think it’s the stress LOL ! I don’t know why such a reaction would occur to me, maybe I got too lazy to start working on it… So you can guess by now, or I can already hear you screaming, “How am I supposed to know that?? Ain’t you old enough to know it (oh, btw, how rude of me, I’m male, thirties, and married. Where were my manners!?) yourself why are you asking me??”

So here we go: my answer is exactly your question, I don’t know myself enough and this has caused me (and is still causing me) tremendous trouble in whatever I do, whoever I lived with, in all what you can think of! This lack of personality, of self-esteem has brought me to where I am at present, a lousy web developer after 10 years in the field and writing this blog! Of course, I managed to get a nice girl to fall in love with, a little plot of land I managed to get on a good opportunity, but ‘all’ this achievement (LOL) seems so small as compared to the $#%^ I brought to my family, my wife and luckily no kids so far! Imagine the disaster, for my wife: 2 stubborn kids in the house!

So many of my friends have excelled in the field, they took courage, had the balls still have, and grabbed life with firm hands to build their dreams and be happy with their life now. It would have sounded so selfish if I had ended this sentence with “except me”!! I have a great family, wonderful parents whom I never blame for where I’m standing now, a wonderful wife who has accepted to bear me for three years now and a nice work atmosphere, what more could I want? What more would a man need to start flying on his own ship and start his business ‘happily ever after’ ??

So all these lines of thought, these wild thoughts (I’ve got more, don’t worry!!) have led me to share my life and my own thoughts into a small book which I’ll update online of course, from time to time. I’ll be pretty close with it, since I’m intending to use it anywhere I’ll be, using my mobile phone; yes, even when I’m taking a $#%^ !

That’s because it’s better to be writing something than doing anything else #######5, how about that !?

Thanks for reading my article down to here and hope I can get to read your comments very soon!