Dear Cary,
A friend just posted an old family pic on Facebook of her and her mother on a swing in the woods. My friend’s legs were wrapped around her mother’s waist, and her mom’s hair was flying like a black silk cape on the downswing, the look on her face the essence of motherly adoration. They were fully engaged in life and love. I commented, “They say it’s never too late to have a happy childhood. Is it too late to have yours?”
She replied, “I already had one! And I’m still happy!”
I clarified, “No, dear, is it too late for ME to have yours?”
“Oh….happiness is a choice,” she reminded me. “I forgot it was that easy!” (She “liked” that.)
Is it, Cary? Is it that easy? Because when I look at that picture I am delighted that such motherly love exists for some lucky folk, but mourn my own lack of it when I needed it most, in my infancy and young childhood. All the love my mom tries to heap on me today does nothing to fill the hole of not being given the love that we all deserve as our birthright, upon our entry into this world, without, perhaps, every understanding why. The details don’t matter. She was distracted by other things, other people, other agendas, and I was left in the cold, feeling unloved, unwanted, and unworthy.
I have felt alarmingly alone all my life–and that has both strengthened me and saddened me. There was no one to consult about why I didn’t fit into my own family. I’ve cultivated an interesting life for myself, mostly because I’m willing to take chances and risks to remove myself from situations I don’t want to be in–my family, the city of my birth, jobs I’ve hated, relationships I was done with, etc. But every day I awaken with the same feeling of the emptiness and loneliness of the unloved. It’s not true! I am loved. I am blessed with great friendships worldwide. But I shy away from intimate, romantic relationships and truly prefer to be alone. But can I claim to be happy?
No. I’ve been under medical treatment for bipolar disorder and attention deficit disorder for nearly 20 years. I have many interests and passions, and feel positive and hopeful about the future, although I am unable to pay my October rent and may have to leave both my apartment and San Francisco any day now. I am self-employed with a variety of talents, but the SF cost of living is what it is. So what advice do I seek? Upon your recommendation I picked up David Burns book Feeling Good–and it does make me feel better, now and then. I had made some strides with cognitive behavioral therapy, but for all of 2013 I have been unable to find part-time work … not because I am unqualified for the many openings I’ve applied for … but because I’m pushing 60. I was outright told I’m “probably not a good fit” by a manager whose staff of 55 includes not one face over 30.
And again, for all the wrong reasons, I am feeling unwanted and not a good fit, despite copious evidence to the contrary, and all my resources are tapped out. I have no idea what the future brings — no one does, but most have a pretty good idea what the Tuesday following this Monday will be like. I do not want to be forced out of this city, and I can’t just walk away; I have a family of three cats. I’m looking for a roommate. But always underneath it all, however strong or adventurous or bold I have been in my life, how seemingly confident or aggressive or vivacious, I get laid low by feelings of worthlessness. Do I really just need a strong dose of attitude adjustment? Is it that easy to be happy, Cary?
Desperate in San Francisco
Dear Desperate in San Francisco,
I know this feeling you speak of, and have found ways to live with it and counteract it, by performing acts that take us out of worthlessness into hope and out of loneliness into community. Helping others is one such act. It kindles gratitude in others, which fills us. Yes, helping others can do that. Being essentially immature and self-involved, I spent my youth wondering why people bothered to bring hot dishes to neighbors and help old ladies across the street and ladle out noodles to ragged beggars in worn church kitchens. But now I sort of know:
It’s like a bucket you fill with gratitude. People say thank you and the bucket fills one drop. People say, you helped me and the bucket fills another drop. If in the evening you recount to yourself the ways you have been useful during the day, before falling asleep, in the morning you will awaken with a different feeling.
It’s true. So find ways to voluntarily help other people. In this way it is possible to forget the self, that grinding pit of insufficiency. For the self will never be filled. Yes, your friend says her childhood was happy. There is nothing that can be done about that but to work in the present, feeling what you feel now, and reaching out your hand to others.
I could go on and on about our contemporary obsession with self and safety, and I do fear that on our deathbeds many of us will see mainly how much music and dancing we missed, how many times we might have gone to the zoo. But it is a relatively simple thing to fix. If you were an addict it would be simple: Just join a 12-step recovery group. If you are not an addict you can still identify maladies of the self sufficiently grinding and painful to justify enrolling in a 12-step group. Our grinding maladies are so numerous and we are so inventive in labeling new ones that there must be something you could use to join a 12-step group. If your life has been at all touched by the alcoholism of others, or even in general their insufficiency to your needs you could probably find welcome in an Al-Anon group. Just go and announce yourself as someone trying to get over a lifelong sense that you missed something in childhood. For at the root of all these 12-step groups is the essential human condition of powerlessness and obsession, obsession with impossibilities, the impossibility of changing others, the impossibility of changing the past, the impossibility of being enough onto ourselves without community and reverence.
I do not have the mental illnesses you have but I do know well that presence of absence, that melancholy, that aching for something, that loneliness that walls us off from others, that ever-present lack, that dim certainty that in some primal moment of loss we were tossed out of salvation into this grinding pit of cold, echoing solitude. I know this pattern of longing for completion, this need for some enveloping touch or presence, this raging and implacable incompleteness, and I like you have sought ways to slake it, to fill it, to cover myself in enveloping warmth, to fill myself, to find my place, to be loved, to be comfortable, to just relax for one moment in a room and feel at home. And like you I have had mixed success. There have been days when I wanted to kill myself but those days would pass and mostly I have gratitude for love and color and comfort and beauty.
I, perhaps like you, have tried many things to have this wondered-at and intensely imagined state of well-being and peace. I have tried many things, indeed. I still do.
Now, to some people, such words sound silly and self-indulgent. They will say that everyone feels this way, that you and I are no different from anyone else, that there is no help for this universal feeling and the only responsible thing is to get on with life, that to concentrate on these feelings is morbid and self-indulgent.
But I don’t agree. Rather, I think this exploration is our task here on earth, that by exploring these feelings we will eventually discover our true condition and purpose. And what is that? Our true condition? Our true condition is one of powerlessness over a vast universe we scarcely know. And our purpose? Well, judging from how effectively service to others ameliorates our pain and isolation, surely part of our purpose here is just that: To be of service to other humans and to the planet, to be useful, to be part of what is going on around us
Seriously, I suggest that you become involved in a 12-step group. Not so much because of the 12 steps as because it is one of the few enduring institutions in our culture that can provide the community and connection you so desperately need. If you do not have one of the major qualifying troubles, come up with one. Identify yourself in a way that will open up the 12 steps to you. Because the 12-step life, the practicing of the 12 steps and following the principles embodied in 12-step literature is a workable way to manage the existential state of loneliness and worthlessness. And it is generally free of charge, except for the voluntary donations most 12-step groups accept from their members.
For instance, since you are intensely focused on your past family life, you may be a good candidate for Al-Anon, the offshoot of AA that was originally for family members of alcoholics but has expanded somewhat to serve as a group supporting troubled people through a variety of trials and obsessions. Through doing the 12 steps in Al-Anon, it is possible to free yourself of attachment to old family expectations and resentments, to see the full pattern, to say goodbye to it, and to find some other, outside power in your life that you can rely on.
In short, I think you can live a reasonably happy life if you find a way to be of service to others.
As to the economic pressures on all of us in San Francisco — the rising cost of living, the cost of housing, and changing demographics, especially for minorities and the elderly — well, we are lucky in San Francisco because at least we have advocates. At least we have a dominant and progressive social consensus that is different from the cruel individualistic consensus found in many other parts of the country. We have advocates for affordable housing and for minorities and those who would be discriminated against. If you feel vulnerable there is lots of free or low-cost help. And this help is predicated on the notion that we love our diverse population. This is actually a city of love. It changes but it welcomes newcomers with love.
So now I will close this very first column on my own site by noting that I am glad that the column has moved from Salon.com to here. Already I feel freer to advocate for specific things, and to communicate one-to-one with people. I feel I can be more open about who I am.
This is only the first day so there is much work to be done on the architecture of the site. We will see how the comments section works, and perhaps build a FAQ and other elements to make this a good home for the column.
For now, thank you for writing, and congratulations on being Letter Writer No. 1!
Yours
Cary T.
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Spot on with this write-up, I honestly believe this web site needs much more attention. I’ll probably be returning to read through more, thanks for the advice!
I grew up feeling that my mother didn’t love me… enough.
It took me a very long time to realize how different our world is from the one that our parents grew up in. (When my grandmother, born in 1884, was little, she rode around in a horse driven buggy in her home town. When she died in 1973, airplane travel was already commonplace in the States. She came from a rural town where 10-13 children were the norm, and when she died, her daughter had only two children. Those are enormous differences in the way we live our lives. Great upheaval in a comparatively short time.)
What was a good mother for my mother, and her mother before, was not necessarily a good mother for me, who lived through the revolutionary 1960’s.
So much of the time we judge our parents past behavior according to our own present expectations and context, because we can’t do anything else. That is what the generation gap means, by the way… it is still around, and always will be.
Much of the criticism I directed towards my mother melted as I had to daily deal with my own daughter, and heard coming from her mouth many of the things that I had said, particularly as an adolescent. Sometimes it was frustrating, but sometimes it lit up a bell in my head. (Incidentally, although my mother and I were never close the way she was close to her own mother, my daughter and I are now very close.)
Having one’s own children sometimes helps to put things in perspective, because, for me, it is a question of putting our parents’ actions in perspective, but I recognize that for people who do not have children, this may be particularly difficult…
Lastly, I feel that our society, while having disqualified the value of motherhood for many women has paradoxically put an enormous strain on women to be perfect mothers. As though… maternity is dumped on as being the shits, but.. you sure will catch hell if you are a woman who does not do “it” to perfection…
Consternating, in my opinion.
I unsubscribed from Salon yesterday.
On service… this is an area where my life is in upheaval. Our civilization is in upheaval. I feel that we need to be very careful about “serving” and being “useful” (a word I hate…). Much of the time it involves imprinting our good intentions on other people. Since so many people feel powerless these days, sometimes the most… helpful thing you can do for someone is to let him/her… be of service to YOU. Lots of people running around these days who are suffering/dying from not being able to “help” other people. We need to start questioning this need.
Our civilization has taken evangelism to heights ? depths ? that Jesus himself could hardly have predicted. Much evil can come out of good intentions…
I had been thinking Cary was taking a break or vacation but finally got suspicious when I realized how long it had been since his column had appeared, so I’m another fan who has followed you over here after googling to see what was up. I am so glad you’ll be writing your column here and hope, for selfish reasons, that it may be able to build up to a daily again — sometimes I feel a little like your column and the Daily Show are the only things keeping me sane in a cruel world and in the face of life’s sad and stressful troubles. Your column has been a daily solace to me since I found it several years ago. However, I’ve actually been doing pretty well with a month of no Since You Asked, and I think it’s because I have learned a lot of acceptance and self-comfort/self-kindness from the years of reading your daily kindness to others and yourself, and your very inspiring willingness to listen and apologize when you realize you’ve been wrong. I seem to be ready and able now to give that kindness to myself from the years of daily study with Cary 🙂
I also think that there has been a mismatch between the kindness of your column and the sensationalism and meanness at salon for a long time. I do not miss the salon commenters and am intrigued that this parting has happened soon after you announced your intention to play a more active role and seek for there to be more kindness and respect in the comments on your columns. Perhaps there’s no connection but I am intrigued by the timing!
Aloha Cary-I’m so glad I happened to follow you on Twitter and learned of your move (I noticed a big time lapse on Salon and got worried). I will continue to ‘Cary the message’ and tell others about your work, which has always helped and comforted me in the past.
To ‘Desperate in SF’ I would append your advice with a suggestion to also seek out an ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics)-type 12 Step group. I’m a profoundly grateful member of AA but also qualified for Alanon and went for while, didn’t find any traction. Eventually I found an ACA group and it was a big help, augmenting my other program. Then I found another ACA that was an even better fit; they had amended their group by adding ‘and other dysfunctional families’ and so by charter welcomed those with families with narcotic abuse, emotional abuse, religious zealotry abuse, etc. These groups are out there, and I recommend that she check one out. It is a gift for me to see folks without any substance abuse issues getting better with the steps.
Peace, Love & Be Well.
Salon has sadly become a joke…very parasitic, nothing original anymore. Seems like a good time to move on.
My A.A. group welcomes all people who recognize that they have a spiritual illness, whether the root is in family dynamics or brain chemistry, whether the chemistry is self-inflicted or not. We think the twelve steps are a process of unlearning the anger, fears and sexual misconduct that we inventory in the fourth step. Therefore, anyone is eligible to take the first step toward a new spiritual fitness by acknowledging that they are powerless over the circumstances of their lives. We believe that help will come if sought, and that we don’t have the right to limit the seeking to any specific type of person. We are mostly alcoholics, but also people with other diagnosed illnesses, and some people who simply identify as “unhappy.” Groups like ours call themselves the “Chapter 2” groups – because There Is a Solution. And it ought to be open to everyone.
So glad to see this column continue here. Cary’s point in this meditation is, I think, the same as the twelfth step. Continued spiritual fitness can only be maintained by reaching out to other people in need and helping them.
“Happiness is a choice.” Only someone with a greatly privileged life could ever make such a fatuous statement as that. Terrible things happen to people – or even deeply mediocre things happen to people – and only a vapid person would react to them with happiness.
Cary’s advice is as usual excellent – I just wanted to emphasize that one phrase that jumped out at me.
Well said, Tom! I truly get so tired of hearing that ol’ chestnut about our “choices”. Sometimes there are no choices, only arduous pathways we are forced to follow until we (hopefully) get through…
I have never left a comment before, I do so now that you have moved from the salon to your personal space. I had to do a google search to find you, I will continue to follow your work.
Congrats on leaving the salon. Now post some more letters for your adoring readers.
Me too Kiki – never commented on Salon and followed Cary here by Googling. Commenting on Salon was just too scary, too many nasty people there. This is great! Hopefully only Cary fans will show up. Not that we have to agree with him every time, but hopefully disagreements will stay respectful.
I’m glad you are still writing advice! I never posted on Salon but followed you here!
LW – I am so sorry to hear about how your mom was with you when you needed her the most. I can’t imagine, and words can’t really describe. I have nothing to add more than what Cary could say. Wish you luck!
Yeah Cary! Welcome and welcome back!
The Like button is now installed. Thank you Kansachusetts!
So glad the column lives on here! Cary’s advice always gives me something to mull over.
Great to have you back Cary! Hope RayinKorea and all the other regulars show up.
So glad you are back in action, Cary! And I echo GoneGirl’s hope that Ray and other regulars find you soon.
Thanks for the tip. We’ll get to work on this!
One of your best columns ever, Cary. Welcome back. That was really good. Spread the world, people, Cary is back!
You need a ‘share on Facebook” button.
Cary, I am so glad to “hear” your kind voice again. It is so clear that you come from a place of love and compassion, and I truly appreciate the service you are performing.
Welcome back, Cary, you have not missed a beat. Pragmatic advice, beautifully written–you are the real deal! I am awed–thank you…
congratulations cary on your first letter and once again it is spot on to the LW. the 12 step community for the non-alcoholic can be just as satisfying and fulfilling. within the first 164 pages exists the blueprint for life that has helped many, many, many people who suffer from a variety of ailments that step from a spiritual malady. do the steps in order, one by one – follow the instructions (when it says to pray, you pray, when to write you write etc..) and yes life will provide you with more meaning. but if the 12 steps aren’t for you (and give it a shot – like the ny lotto “you gotta be in it to win it”), ask yourself every day, “how am i treating the guy across the counter of the 7-11?” as a barometer of my relationships to others. then be of service. service. service. there is always going to be someone to help – whether it’s the above suggestions cary has provided or through the service of the 12 steps – those steps that have helped you as the message is carried through another – will be the message that you can help another. one step at a time. best to you and again, cary – buona fortuna !
first 164 pages of the Big Book (sorry about that)
Mothers have an awful lot of power to shape their children, something that I seldom see acknowledged in left liberal cultures where women like to think of themselves as victims of men. I grew up in a time and place where corporal punishment was normal. The pain I experienced from getting hit by my father was passing and easily forgotten, but the exquisite pain of getting the silent treatment for long periods from my mother has never left me. Modern neurology shows that psychological and physical pain light up the same parts of the brain, something human beings have always kind of known, just as they’ve known that the deliberate infliction of psychological pain has the advantage of plausible deniability, while inflicting physical pain is a public statement.
Yay for Cary! Now I don’t think I have a reason to go to Salon anymore.
Oh, Cary, I forgot to say I followed from Salon and am so thrilled that the column continues and that you feel freer to advise in ways that are true to you. Good for you! COngratulations on Day 1! ~Blessings
I was loved by my mother when I was a child, so much so that the world has appeared egregiously missing in love and connection, even though I have a loving husband. But one person isn’t enough. Reminiscent of Sean’s comment, I have found a semblance of the deep nourishing love I grew up with in a church. I am not a Christian, so churches were the last place I looked. To my surprise, I found an acceptable home in Unitarian Universalist Church.
I agree with Louella, it is not too late to accept your mother’s love now. I have a feeling that the process of forgiveness has not been started, or maybe not completed. Your mom needs to be able to hear how you feel, without defense or explanation, analysis, advice, or interruption. She needs to listen so carefully that she can hear and accept your feelings, memories and current thoughts, and ask for your forgiveness. Sometimes, when we right a wrong we delude ourselves into thinking “actions speak louder than words.” But there is no getting around the forgiveness process. It involves saying all there is to say to her, and her listening with an understanding that to listen fully is to help you heal. Then it’s time to switch. Allow your mother to do the same, to say what there is to say and feel what there is to feel. The you listen without defending, analysis, advice, interruption or explanation. I recommend this book to you: Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. All the best to you, truly. The best is ahead of you if you and your mom take the steps of learning to become vulnerable with each other.
Happy to see the column continuing
Cary–just to let you know I followed you here from salon. I can’t add much to what you said to the reader, except to caution her against pathologizing herself with labels.
The thing I love most about Cary’s advice is that it so wonderfully human and understanding. And, it’s true, really, humans are happiest when they are being loving and caring towards others. Think about it. You could have lots of people love you, spouse, parents, children, and still be profoundly depressed. But, acting with love and service towards others really is a balm for the soul. Nice work, Cary!
I read this, and I feel like I am witnessing the re-invention of the wheel. A tired old wheel that has been misused and abused and often turned into something entirely different than its original purpose.
I’m talking about Church. This fear and emptiness, and its expulsion through service, this is the function that Christian churches were made to provide. Too many have turned into self-serving social clubs, and it makes me sad.
This little bit of advice just described a church without any dogma. Go and find it.
Quakers have no dogma.
In fact, they insist on it.
Do ya’ll know the Enneagram? Look up the Enneagram and read about being a Four, the Tragic Romantic, the Individualist. Takes one to know one. We are Fours, focused on what’s missing, suffering from the illusion that others are enjoying an emotional satisfaction denied to us. We are special and we pay for this specialness by suffering intense loneliness. Read about it and read the special advice for special Fours.
Thanks for this reference. As a Four (I am pretty sure), I am always looking for different perspectives on what I perceive as my “situation” lol. This concept is quite interesting!
Dear Letter Writer:
I know of this pain of which you speak, this lack of mother love. Unless you have experienced it firsthand, it might be hard to know what a gaping hole it leaves in our formation. I found it interesting that even though love had once been withheld by your mother, it seems to be available to you now. If she is trying to make amends, still, now, while you are both alive but aging, what do you do with these offerings? Have you talked about forgiveness? What is it you think you missed in those early years that she cannot make amends for now? The reason I ask these questions is that many people denied mother love are denied it for life. The mother lives, the child lives, but there is no coming together, no truth. There is no love.
Can you rejoice in what is being offered now? Can you talk with her about forgiveness? Poor health and economic uncertainty do not offer a strong platform from which to live life. Try hard to find a job. Try hard to find a roommate. Sit across from your mother at the table and drink coffee together. You have more than you think.
I think Cary’s advice is spot-on. I could have written this letter myself a few years ago. And though I’ve addressed the happiness issue (therapy helped a lot; and yes, it really is a choice but you have to be prepared to make it, to commit to it), I am a lonely person. Even though I know I’m loved, I’m lonely. I’ve learned to incorporate it into who I am without passing judgement on it. There are certainly worse things but there is no loneliness like the intimate loneliness of parental rejection. I don’t think loneliness and happiness are a dichotomy. You can be lonely and still be happy. You can be happy, and still have feelings of loneliness. Learning to choose to be happy won’t guarantee you’re never lonely, but it makes the feeling infinitely more bearable.