Creative Numbing

Maybe it is aging, but I don't think so. By evening I'm so wiped out physically and emotionally (and it isn't from work, although working can be emotional sometimes) that all I want to do is numb.

You know what that means, right?

For some people it is Spider Solitaire (played for months, nonstop, before realizing I'm addicted! Quit cold turkey).  There are other games, of course.  Think Angry Birds. 

Another way to numb, a personal fave, is exercise, which is recommended by doctors, so it can't be bad. But when you aren't listening to educational tapes, when you pair exercise with television, it could be filed under numbing.

For some, eating is numbing.  Drink and drugs, surely.  Numbing.

I complained to FD about it this morning, told him that it is mortifying to me that my entire evenings have been spent munching black olives and numbing.

"What's that?  What's numbing?" he asks.

Hearing the explanation, behavior that diverts negative affect but wastes time and isn't socially proactive,* he smiles. "Oh! I do that all the time!" He does work a lot of crossword puzzles.

I think of numbing as coping, really. It is a good thing, and it doesn't have to be a waste of time. FD reinforces this thought.  "Be more creative at night.  Creative numbing! I could compose songs, you could help with the  lyrics, write books!  Why don't you write a book, Creative Numbing?  Ask people who read the blog for help!"

It is what we talk about in therapy, creativity as a venue for mental health, an intervention.  Entire schools of therapy, Music Therapy, Art Therapy, exist because creativity is positive energy, life sustaining in its way.  But it is so hard when you're depressed. Creativity sparks the serotonin, gets the wheels going-- it is what some of us call really getting high. How to spark that creativity to spark that serotonin to get those wheels to turn is the million dollar question.

So we are taking suggestions. We'll put it together, write a book, call it Creative Numbing. Everyone gets an acknowledgment, and maybe even gets to write a personal explanation, take full credit for the idea.  I'll say it  right now, if it's about sex, write your own book.

We are still going to need a really good list of numbing behaviors that aren't necessarily creative, too, for comparison.
 
How hard could that be?

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*You heard that definition here first.  It's copyright for the book, of course.

Angry Birds

 The fractured fairy tale of The Three Little Pigs

Second night in a row, rather than read myself to sleep (The Queen's Fool) I stare at my Iphone, play a silly game, tell myself it's an adult thing, trying to master physics.

This cannot be me!  This is unbelievable, wasting time, repeatedly pulling the sling shot, lifting the bird to the sky, determining the precise arc, angry that it takes so long between turns.  But it is denial; it is me. And it's hard to admit it, although I'm looking for a 12-Step program.

I'm powerless when it comes to Angry Birds.              

The next morning I hold the phone in my hands and glare. "I have a headache," I kvetch to FD. "A hangover from Angry Birds. I'm going to delete it."

"Delete it!" he cries, "and don't even let me see it. You know how easy it is for me to succumb to this sort of thing."

But I don't.  I don't delete it. I think, I'll control this. I can control this. No more headaches. I'll get in bed and read, lose myself in Elizabethan England, and fall asleep unless something very worrisome comes to mind.

Oh, that worrisome part!  We're nearing the spring holiday season, and because I like to enjoy the time with my visitors, most of the cooking is prepared ahead of time, in an ersatz Passover kitchen in the basement. After a few hours of work at the stove, and sorting through dishes, straightening, organizing, doing what a woman does while watching what's in the oven, I am exhausted, but wired. It won't be easy, falling asleep, especially since I've heard some news about a sick family member.

The right thing to do, for someone like me, would be to pray awhile, then go to bed, read, fall asleep. But no. We have Angry Birds.

 I wake up angry at myself, remembering last night, beating the third level of the second tier on the free game, the subtle joy associated with that.  There is an endpoint to this insanity, for never would I shell out money for the ap, the enhanced electronic game, no matter how angry the birds.  And we will run out of free levels to the game.

What is the appeal?  I ask myself, because it's not my thing, not usually, electronic games.  Is it their anger? Does smashing walls to pop pigs unleash some sort of sublimated hostility lurking within me? That's what we say, right?  The game is on my phone because on my last visit, my five-year old granddaughter acted out and nobody had time for her and it was too late to take her outside. I had no idea how far she made it on the game, didn't supervise, but she made it all the way to the second tier. We're talking about a game for five-year olds.

Maybe it's subliminal anger.  Or maybe it's that fairy tale about the wolf and the three pigs. It has to be. Remember? The pigs. launched into the world by kindly Mama Pig, are living peaceably in three different houses, one made of straw, one of sticks, the last of bricks.  Along comes a wolf who cries,

"Let me in or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down."

I can't remember the rest of the story, but it seems the wolf does manage to eat up the pigs, except for the last, perhaps, because he has made more of an effort at architecture.

Do the best you can and you'll survive

is the lesson for the kiddies.

It's hard to hear a story like this when you're five, especially with pictures. Very violent, traumatic. Then you grow up, and some fifty years later, you have the chance, the opportunity.

And you identify with the aggressor on an electronic game.

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