Disappointment

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  The sex and intimacy cycleSex and intimacy are closely linked in our brains, but men and women respond differently to intimacy. Many men can’t feel intimate with their partner unless their sex life is satisfying, but many women can’t enjoy sex without intimacy. For men, sex feeds intimacy, and for women, intimacy feeds sex. These sexual differences can be disruptive to your relationship so it is important to nourish your sex life with intimacy. First love to familiarityWhen you first met your lover, chances are you were overwhelmed with sensations of excitement, bliss, and smoldering desire. When you fall in love, your brain releases chemicals such as serotonin, adrenaline, and oxytocin. These chemicals create feelings of excitement and passion. As time goes by, and you become more comfortable together, your desire wanes and you stop having as much sex. This phase also tends to involve a loss of spark. This happens because, over time, your brain becomes accustomed to these chemicals and requires more hormone to create the initial high. In other words, ongoing intense sexual excitement in a loving relationship goes against our biological instincts. This means you have to work at maintaining a strong sense of intimacy and attraction between you. Obstacles to intimacyWhen you or your partner are having a hard time—for example, at work—your poor mood will affect you both. Similarly, if your sex life is floundering, you will both feel the effects in all parts of your relationship. To keep intimacy in your relationship, you need to have a fulfilling sex life, and vice versa. Nourish your intimacy levels by making sure that you keep a physical connection alive—touching, kissing, and even talking will enhance your bond and intimacy. The deepest and most fulfilling intimacy springs from the closeness of a long-term relationship and time spent keeping passion in your relationship. But if you have been with your partner for a long time, you may discover that you no longer have a high sex drive or get that little “zing” every time you kiss him or he touches you. There are many ways to reignite this spark and keep your sex life intimate and passionate. So get comfortable and keep reading. [image file=image_rsrc39R.jpg] Making Time for SexHow often have you collapsed into bed and fallen asleep exhausted not from a night of passion but from a too-full day of running around trying to take care of everything you need to do? For women especially, achieving a fulfilling sex life is about finding time: time to be intimate with your lover, time for yourself, and time to think about what you want from your sex life. To reinvigorate your relationship, try reassessing your priorities and making time to let sexiness flourish in your life.

• From Real Sex for Real Women (2008)

  [image file=image_rsrc3AG.jpg] How therapy can helpIf your partner’s libido is lower than yours, you need to realize that there is little you can do to change this. Often, the issue behind mismatched libidos is unclear or multi-dimensional. A relationship or sex therapist can help you identify what is causing issues in the bedroom and help you to resolve your differences. Whatever you do, don’t dismiss your concerns. When one or both of you aren’t having your sexual needs met, it can damage your relationship. Sex files: Understanding a libido dipLife events or problems with money can have an impact on your sex drive—this happens to all couples. However, it’s possible to create problems and misunderstandings if you don’t discuss what is happening. Here’s how one couple rescued their relationship from miscommunication. [image file=image_rsrc3AH.jpg] Background Kelly, 60, and Luke, 57, have been married for 30 years. They met at college and have two teenage children. Luke runs his own business, which has been failing in recent years. This, coupled with the fact that Kelly doesn’t work, means that there is considerable financial strain on the family. The problem Despite repeated efforts to seduce him, Kelly felt that Luke no longer wanted sex with her. “He used to be so turned on by me. Just the sight of me getting out of the shower used to give him an erection. Now he doesn’t notice me.” Her main concern was that Luke was having an affair. In an individual session with Luke, I asked him about his sex drive. He said he didn’t feel like sex because he was so stressed about his debts. He also felt he was failing as a provider and his kids didn’t need him anymore. When I explained to Luke that Kelly associated his lack of interest with an affair, he said, “I can’t believe she thinks that. It’s not like she makes moves on me and I turn her down!” Finding solutions My first step was to get Kelly and Luke talking so they could resolve some fairly simple misunderstandings. After explaining to Kelly the reasons for his lack of interest in sex, Luke confessed that he couldn’t remember when he’d turned down her many advances. Kelly reminded him of a time when she suggested they go to bed early and he chose to stay up and balance the checkbook. Laughing, Luke said, “That was an advance?! I don’t notice stuff like that—you have to be more direct.”

• From The Fermata (1994)

  I hovered near the fancy slipcased editions of Poe, observing all this, trying to puzzle out her behavior. The woman didn’t seem to be motivated by a desire to get a look at each Penthouse pet. (“Pet” is offensive, in my opinion.) She sighed in a bored or perhaps resigned way as she did it. Her movements repeated themselves automatically. She didn’t mind opening these magazines, baring them right down to the bent ends of their center-spread staples in the front of the store, in the presence of anyone who happened to be there, but she did it not out of interest but because it was simply part of her job. What exactly, though, was she looking for? I wondered. And then I understood. The store was not going to accept any magazine onto which someone had come. Having been burned in the past by greedy unprincipled men who tried to unload their utterly unresellable porn-libraries, they now had instituted a firm policy of flipping through every issue to make sure that none of its pages were stuck together. The Lebanese man had stood uncomfortably by while all this was going on. Fortunately, he had not personalized a single page of his entire collection. “Nor have you, I take it,” Adele would say when I finished telling her my Avenue Victor Hugo story. “That’s right,” I would answer. “Each of these magazines is as impersonal as the next. Which ones do you want to look at?” I would tell her that Swank was said by insiders to be temporarily in the ascendant and that Leg Show was interesting and funny at times. I would pretend to be more of a connoisseur than I am. Showing someone your pornography collection was, I would reflect to myself, a very straightforward form of exhibitionism: Here are my private sexual things, it said. Look at them, like them, hold them. As I fed magazines through the gap in the door, Adele would leaf through them, at first attentively, then less so. She wouldn’t react as I had hoped. “I don’t know,” she would say several times with different intonations. I would push a few more through to her. Finally she would say, “No. I don’t go for this. The skin has an unreal look. All the women look the same. Why do men need so many identical pictures in one month?” She would finish flipping through the last magazine. “No. I just don’t think I can take any of these to the bath with me; I don’t think I can take seeing any more pictures of women’s vaginas. I’ve never seen so many vaginas in my life. Here.” She would slip the magazines back through the gap in the door to me. I would pile them up neatly as they reappeared, two by two. I would try to recoup through explanation.

• From Wild (2012)

  I took off my boots and sat down, doctoring my chawed-up feet. When Trina’s dog began to bark, I looked up and saw a young man, blond, blue-eyed, and lanky. I knew in an instant that he was a PCT hiker by the drag of his gait. His name was Brent, and once he introduced himself I greeted him like an old friend, though I’d never met him. I’d heard stories about him back in Kennedy Meadows. He’d grown up in a small town in Montana, Greg, Albert, and Matt had told me. He’d once gone into a deli in a town near the trail in southern California, ordered a sandwich with two pounds of roast beef in it, and eaten it in six bites. He laughed when I reminded him about it, and then he took his pack off and squatted down to get a closer look at my feet. “Your boots are too small,” he said, echoing what Greg had told me back in Sierra City. I stared at him vacantly. My boots couldn’t be too small. They were the only boots I had. “I think it was just all that descending from Three Lakes,” I said. “But that’s the point,” replied Brent. “With the right size boots, you’d be able to descend without hashing up your feet. That’s what boots are for, so you can descend.” I thought of the good people of REI. I remembered the man who made me walk up and down a small wooden ramp in the store for just this reason: to make sure my toes didn’t bang up against the ends of my boots when I went down and that my heels didn’t rub against the backs when I went up. They hadn’t seemed to in the store. There was no question now that I’d been wrong or that my feet had grown or that there was any denying that as long as I had these boots on my feet, I was in a living hell. But there was nothing to be done. I didn’t have the money to buy a new pair or any place to do it if I did. I put on my camp sandals and walked back to the store, where I paid a dollar to take a shower and dressed in my rain gear while my clothes washed and dried in the two-machine laundromat. I called Lisa while I waited and was elated when she answered the phone. We talked about her life and I told her what I could convey of mine. Together we went over my new itinerary. After we hung up, I signed the PCT hiker register and scanned it to see when Greg had passed through. His name wasn’t there. It seemed impossible that he was behind me. “Have you heard anything about Greg?” I asked Brent when I returned wearing my clean clothes. “He dropped out because of the snow.” I looked at him, stunned. “Are you sure?”

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Two days following the conclusion of our criminal pact, the Count learned that an uncle, upon whose succession he had not in the least counted, had just left him an income of eighty thousand pounds.... "O Heaven!" I said to myself upon hearing the news, "is it then in thuswise celestial justice punishes the basest conspiracy!" And straightway repenting this blasphemy spoken against Providence, I cast myself upon my knees and implored the Almighty's forgiveness, and happily supposed that this unexpected development should at least change the Count's plans.... What was my error!

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  Your persistence reveals your faith, and your faith moves the heart of God. THIRTEEN Spiritual bypassing is not spiritual at allA while back, a friend of mine killed her car. The worst part is that it was a beautiful Mercedes-Benz; not brand-new or anything, but one of those cars that are timelessly cool, with real personality. Everybody loved it. That made its tragic passing even more painful. Here’s how it happened. My friend had recently moved to LA from the South, with a cute Southern accent and a head full of dreams. Apparently her focus was on her dreams, though, not the oil level in her car. When the “check oil” light first appeared, it was intermittent. But eventually it stayed on permanently, a glowing red alert on the instrument panel every time she drove. She didn’t think too much of it, though. Her dad had always taken care of things like that. She hoped that if she ignored it long enough, it would fix itself. This went on for months. The light stayed on, forlornly trying to warn her that the engine needed attention. Needless to say, ignoring the problem didn’t work, and the car didn’t fix itself. She drove that innocent Mercedes-Benz right into oblivion. There was no funeral. Too bad, because we all would have attended. RIP Mercedes-Benz. We still give my friend a hard time about her naiveté. But I wonder, how often do we do the same thing when it comes to problems in our minds and emotions? We ignore warning signs and hope that our traumas and dramas will fix themselves. Even worse, we often use spiritual language to cover up deep issues. We don’t do this intentionally, at least for the most part. But it’s easier to pray about things than to actually put in the work to fix them. This does a disservice to prayer, and it sets us up for failure. Yes, we should pray about everything, but that doesn’t mean prayer alone will fix everything. It was never meant to be a cure-all, a magic potion that would make all pain go away with no effort on our part. Prayer should accompany action, not replace it. Prayer should bring pain points to light, not hide them. Prayer should facilitate healing, not enable continued abuse. Prayer should empower and direct our efforts, not excuse our laziness. “JUST PRAY ABOUT IT” The tendency to use prayer and other spiritual practices or beliefs to avoid doing real work has a name.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I gazed again at the figure in the shaft of limelight and thought quite bitterly, You would be marvellous, if I were here or not. You would be marvellous, without my admiration. I might as well be at home, putting crab-meat in a paper cone, for all you know of me!But even as I thought it, something rather curious happened. She had reached the end of her song - there was the business with the flower and the pretty girl; and when this was done she wheeled into the wing. And as she did it I saw her head go up - and she looked - looked, I swear it - towards the empty chair in which I usually sat, then lowered her head and moved on. If I had only been in my box tonight, I would have had her eyes upon me! If I had only been in my box, instead of here -!I glanced at Davy and Father: they were both on their feet calling for more; but letting their calls die, and beginning to stretch. Beside me Freddy was still smiling at the stage. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his lip was dark where he was letting whiskers grow; his cheek was red and had a pimple on it. ‘Ain’t she a peach?’ he said to me. Then he rubbed his eyes, and shouted to Davy for a beer. Behind me I heard Mother ask, How did the lady in the evening dress read all those numbers with a blindfold on?The cheers were fading, Tricky’s candle was out; the gasoliers flared, making us blink. Kitty Butler had looked for me - had raised her head and looked for me; and I was lost and sitting with strangers. I spent the next day, Sunday, at the cockle-stall; and when Freddy called that night to ask me out walking, I said I was too tired. That day was cooler, and by Monday the weather seemed really to have broken. Father came back to the Parlour full-time, and I spent the day in the kitchen, gutting and filleting. We worked till almost seven: I had just enough time between the closing of the shop and the leaving of the Canterbury train to change my dress, to pull on a pair of elastic-sided boots and to sit down with Father and Mother, Alice, Davy and Rhoda for a hasty supper.

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  ‘I have not been alone with Justine for months now. Do you understand? It ended when the painting ended. If you wish us to be friends you will never refer to this subject again’ smiling a little tremulously, for in the same breath Justine came sailing down upon them, smiling warmly, radiantly. (It is quite possible to love those whom you most wound.) She passed, turning in the candlelight of the room like some great sea-bird, and came at last to where I was standing. ‘I cannot come tonight’ she whispered. ‘Nessim wants me to stay at home.’ I can feel still the uncomprehending weight of my disappointment at the words. ‘You must’ I muttered. Should I have known that not ten minutes before she had said to Nessim, knowing he hated bridge: ‘Darling, can I go and play bridge with the Cervonis — do you need the car?’ It must have been one of those rare evenings when Pursewarden consented to meet her out in the desert — meetings to which she went unerringly, like a sleep-walker. Why? Why?

• From Justine (Alexandria Quartet vol. 1) (1957)

  It is difficult to describe how unspeakably strange I found it to sit beside this vulgar double of the Nessim I had once known. I studied him keenly but he avoided my eye and confined his conversation to laboured commonplaces which he punctuated by yawns that were one by one tapped away behind ringed fingers. Here and there, however, behind this new façade stirred a hint of the old diffidence, but buried — as a fine physique may be buried in a mountain of fat. In the washroom Zoltan the waiter confided in me: ‘He has become truly himself since his wife went away. All Alexandria says so.’ The truth was that he had become like all Alexandria. Late that night the whim seized him to drive me to Montaza in the late moonlight; we sat in the car for a long time in silence, smoking, gazing out at the moonlit waves hobbling across the sand bar. It was during this silence that I apprehended the truth about him. He had not really changed inside. He had merely adopted a new mask. * * * * * In the early summer I received a long letter from Clea with which this brief introductory memorial to Alexandria may well be brought to a close. ‘You may perhaps be interested in my account of a brief meeting with Justine a few weeks ago. We had, as you know, been exchanging occasional cards from our respective countries for some time past, and hearing that I was due to pass through Palestine into Syria she herself suggested a brief meeting. She would come, she said, to the border station where the Haifa train waits for half an hour. The settlement in which she works is somewhere near at hand, she could get a lift. We might talk for a while on the platform. To this I agreed. ‘At first I had some difficulty in recognizing her. She has gone a good deal fatter in the face and has chopped off her hair carelessly at the back so that it sticks out in rats’ tails. I gather that for the most part she wears it done up in a cloth. No trace remains of the old elegance or chic. Her features seem to have broadened, become more classically Jewish, lip and nose inclining more towards each other. I was shocked at first by the glittering eyes and the quick incisive way of breathing and talking — as if she were feverish. As you can imagine we were both mortally shy of each other.

• From Worried about Everything Because I Pray about Nothing (2022)

  Now in his eighties, Ron has a philosophical approach toward the decision. He doesn’t bemoan the fact that he could be a billionaire. He knows why he made those choices in the moment, and he doesn’t want to waste energy on regret.1 I can’t second-guess poor Ron, of course. Money doesn’t buy happiness anyway, as we all know. But you still have to wonder—what if he had found a way to stay in the game? If he had trusted the abilities of his partners rather than feeling intimidated by them? What if he hadn’t given up after twelve days? History is full of other almost-millionaires, almost-celebrities, almost-victors. Hindsight is always 20/20, so I’m not judging them, but that doesn’t make their decisions any less agonizing. At the same time, I wonder how many times I’ve given up too easily, too quickly, in my prayers. Have there been times when I’ve been unwilling to trust God, my senior partner, to carry me through? Have I stopped believing too soon? I’m sure I have. Maybe you have too. That’s why Jesus’ words are for us today. Always pray. Never give up. Call out day and night. Let Jesus find faith, not doubt, in your heart. ASK, WATCH, WAIT, REPEAT The Old Testament prophet Elijah has a lot to teach us about persistent prayer. James used his life to illustrate how powerful it is when humans pray: The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. 5:16–18 Elijah was a prophet sent to Israel when the nation was in a bad place. Evil, oppressive leadership had moved the nation away from God and from justice. As a way to get people to wake up and return to God, Elijah prayed that the rains would stop in Israel. From that day on, it didn’t rain. Three years later, God spoke to Elijah and said it was time for the drought to end. He was going to bring rain to the land. But first, Elijah needed to confront the nation about their idolatry and ask them to repent. What followed was the most epic showdown imaginable between Elijah and the false religion of Baal worship that had captivated Israel. Essentially, Elijah challenged the priests of Baal to a divine duel. Their god didn’t do a thing, of course. Then God sent fire from heaven, and Israel realized they needed to get their act together. It still hadn’t rained, but Elijah knew what God had promised.

• From The Lives of Great Christians (2007)

  B. To introduce himself to Roman Christians and to gain their support for his trip to Spain, Paul wrote what became his most important letter—Romans. C. Before heading west, Paul took his final journey to Jerusalem to deliver money for the poor that he had helped to collect from his Christian communities. D. While in Jerusalem, Paul was arrested and held for perhaps two years. E. Given that he was a Roman citizen, Paul demanded that he be sent to Rome. F. Paul probably did go to Spain via Rome. He was not received well by the Christians of Rome, and his expedition to Spain was a failure. G. After returning to the East, including a stop at Ephesus, Paul traveled to Rome a second time. 1. This was about the time of the great fire in Rome that some accused Nero of setting. 2. Paul was one of the Christians arrested in the aftermath of the fire. 3. It was probably during his time in prison that he wrote his last letter, today known as II Timothy. XI. Paul was executed in Rome, by tradition at the place where today stands the Church of St. Paul Outside the Walls. Essential Reading: Paul’s letters, especially Romans, and Acts of the Apostles, beginning with chapter 9. Supplementary Reading: Wayne Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: His Story. Questions to Consider: 1. What was the basis of Paul’s faith, which saw him through such hardships, setbacks, and rejections? ©2007 The Teaching Company. 10 2. Why is the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians so important in the earliest years of Christianity? 3. Is Paul’s greatness largely due to the fact that he was the first Christian writer we have, or because of his commitment, insights, and perseverance? ©2007 The Teaching Company. 11 Lecture Three The Early Martyrs Scope: The 3rd-century theologian Tertullian claimed that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. Beginning with the story of Stephen in Acts of the Apostles and the letters written by St. Ignatius of Antioch as he was about to be martyred, we will look at a series of stories, some quite well documented and others, no doubt, considerably embellished in their retelling, of those who imitated Christ by dying for Him just as He died for them. For example, we will consider Perpetua and Felicity, whose martyrdoms are known through documents written shortly after their heroic deaths. Although the names of some early martyrs, for example, St. Lawrence and St. Lucy, are well known, others are known only from rather obscure sources. Keep in mind that although the “age of martyrdom” ended with the conversion of Constantine, there have been Christian martyrs in each of the Christian centuries.

• From The Chronology of Water (2011)

  It isn’t a very good novel. Whatever it was we entered, it wasn’t a novel. And if we followed an ex-con priest into a cave, all we found was sea lion excrement. I don’t know if the posse would agree with me on this, but it seemed to me like what we’d entered that year was an ending. The most extreme part or point of something. Or a small piece of something that is left after it has been used. Or perhaps it was simply Kesey’s last act - to further his own end. Every Oregon writer has a Kesey story. I’m serious - go to literary readings in Oregon and 85 percent of the time his name will rise, whether or not whoever is speaking knew him. Sometimes it’s about his house in Pleasant Hill. Sometimes it’s about the bus. Sometimes it’s about writing. Sometimes it’s about his “wild spirit.” Often, if I’m in the audience, it gives me a stomachache to hear his name used in such … soft and impotent ways. I think that everyone that knew Kesey knew him differently. Maybe that’s true about all larger than life people, or it may be that no one really ever knows them at all - we just have experiences near them and claim them as our own. We say their names and wish that something intimate is coming out of our mouths. But intimacy isn’t like in books or movies. It wasn’t until the following year, the year that was not the collaborative writing class, the year after the book we wrote that was not very good came out that made me feel like we’d utterly failed Kesey, the year after he’d ended up in the Mayo clinic for his affair with his lover, vodka, we met once at his coast house by ourselves. That night he boiled water and cooked pasta and dumped a jar of Ragu on it and we ate it with bent old forks. We drank whiskey out of tin cups. He told life stories. That’s what he was best at. Me? I didn’t have any stories. Did I? When it got dark he lit some crappy looking ancient candles. We sat in two wooden chairs next to each other looking out at the moonlit water. I distinctly remember trying to sit in the chair older and like I had been part of history. Which amounted to extending my legs out and crossing one ankle over the other and crossing my arms over my chest. I looked like Abe Lincoln. Then he said, “What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you in your life?” I sat there like a lump trying to conjure up the best thing that had ever happened to me. We both already knew what the worst thing was. Nothing best had happened to me. Had it? I could only answer worst. I looked out at the ocean. Finally I said, “Swimming.”

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  “I always wanted to be like my mother. She was everything I wanted to be.” Naomi looks at me and adds in embarrassment, “But I failed.” I recognize how similar those feelings are to how Naomi feels about Isabella. In her idealization of both women she splits between good and bad and perceives them as all good and herself as a failure. This is her way to defend against feelings she can’t tolerate having about them and about herself. Naomi can’t let herself know how ambivalent she feels about them, how envious she can be, how angry. Rather, she directs those negative feelings toward herself. “She was always better than I was. She was beautiful, smart, talented, and I was myself. I know it’s childish but I feel like pointing at my mom and saying, ‘It’s not fair, it’s not what you promised me.’” Naomi takes a deep breath and then says with annoyance, “My parents loved each other; they were the perfect couple. Doesn’t that mean I am supposed to be happy in my own marriage? Isn’t that how it works?” I pause and wonder if I should state the obvious. “It sounds like you felt inferior, maybe even unworthy compared to your mother.” Naomi looks intrigued, as if my words force her to recalculate everything. I continue: “While our parents’ relationship can serve as a model for our romantic life, it is usually our relationship with them that we repeat in later intimate relationships.” Naomi seems startled and I’m worried that maybe I have just put into words the forbidden—that which was known but not allowed to be spoken. “Unworthy,” she repeats my word. “I remember that when I was about ten years old I told my mother that I didn’t believe they loved me the way they loved each other.” Naomi sighs and continues. “My mother got so upset. She said that I shouldn’t talk like that, that of course they loved me, and that one day I’d grow up and have a love exactly like theirs.” Naomi stops and looks at me. “But I never did,” she says. “Sam loves me, but he has never loved me the way he loved Isabella. She was his first love.” Naomi tries to hold back her tears. She doesn’t want to cry but she can’t help it. “I hope you know how much I love Isabella,” she says. “I feel devastated. I feel awful to compare the two of us right now, when she is so sick.” Isabella is fighting for her life while Naomi is trying to figure out her life. Isabella’s illness forces Naomi to face the excruciating limitations of our existence: that nothing is all good or lasts forever, that we are all flawed and vulnerable, and that bad things happen to everyone, even those we idealize. Before she leaves, Naomi asks to meet me again tomorrow, and we schedule a session to follow her breakfast with Isabella. Naomi leaves and my heart is heavy.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  It is a profound injury that touches an essential insecurity about one’s body and existence. Like many people, Alice struggles with the feelings that her inability to get pregnant might be a sign that she is not supposed to have a baby, that she doesn’t deserve it, and that she won’t be a good mother. She tries to push those painful feelings aside. She sees herself as damaged with bad genes and defends against her disappointment. While disappointed in herself, she is preoccupied with the ways she disappoints others, especially, as I come to learn, the surrogate mother. “I feel like she wants me to be involved in this process but I constantly forget to call her. I feel guilty that I don’t care about her or the baby. I’ve heard that some people talk with their surrogate every few days. I call her only once in a while. What am I supposed to ask her? How is she feeling? Sure, I can do that, but it would be fake. I don’t really care to hear the details about how she is doing. The most difficult decision I have to make now is whether I should be there when she gives birth. I mean in the room,” she clarifies. “What do you think?” “I think it’s hard to have someone else carry and give birth to your baby while making believe that it’s only easy and happy. It evokes a lot of feelings, positive and negative. It can be insulting and disappointing,” I say. “Exactly,” Alice agrees. “Finally someone understands. People don’t get it. They say how happy they are for me and how exciting it is that we will have a baby soon, as if it’s all good. A friend told me the other day, ‘The minute you have the baby, you don’t remember how it came into the world.’ What nonsense.” Alice sounds angry. “People are so stupid, or maybe they just feel bad for me and try to console me. But that’s dishonest and it makes me feel totally invisible. Like they don’t see what I’m going through. Also, I feel absolutely weird about being in the room with her when she gives birth. I wouldn’t want some woman to be there, looking between my legs, if I were giving birth. I want to give her privacy. I don’t know. How do you think she feels? What do other people do?” I believe Alice is afraid that it might be too painful for her to witness another woman giving birth to her daughter. “I think you are worried about what you might feel there, in the delivery room,” I say. “I’ll be an outsider,” Alice states. She is silent for a moment and then adds, “Now I understand how fathers feel. They don’t carry babies inside them, they don’t give birth to them, they don’t breastfeed them.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  Isabella didn’t mind. She was in love with another guy; she gave Naomi her blessing. A few years later, Isabella was a bridesmaid in Naomi and Sam’s wedding. Now, in her late thirties, Naomi looks back and tries to understand why she isn’t happy. I listen as she begins to unpack her relationship with her mother, her friendship with Isabella, her marriage with Sam. “What am I missing?” Naomi asks again, sounding desperate. It is clear to both of us that she has worked hard to keep herself from knowing the truth about her life and about the people around her. “I know it’s a cliché,” she says apologetically, “but life is short.” I’m aware that Naomi is referencing Isabella’s illness, which brings her in touch with the fragility of life. She feels frightened and disappointed. “On the surface I have everything I ever wanted and I love my family, but I feel so defeated, as if life were supposed to be something else, more than what it turned out to be. Now Isabella is sick and it makes me angry.” Naomi’s voice becomes louder. “Sometimes I feel that I don’t know anyone at all, not even Isabella. I feel betrayed and I’m not sure why.” I know what Naomi means. Naomi views Isabella, as well as her own childhood and her perfect mother, in ways that often don’t feel real. She idealizes the world around her as a way to protect herself from seeing things as they really are. It’s not just that she doesn’t know others; she is afraid to discover herself. Idealization is a defense mechanism that serves to keep the illusion that things, or people, are perfect, and even better than reality. It is based on the splitting between good and bad, which children do in order to organize a safe and predictable world. As we grow up and become less fragile, we allow ourselves to see the world as more complex. As adults, we sometimes use idealization to pretend that things are perfect, that people are not flawed and that we don’t have any negative feelings or ambivalence about them. “I always wanted to be like my mother. She was everything I wanted to be.” Naomi looks at me and adds in embarrassment, “But I failed.” I recognize how similar those feelings are to how Naomi feels about Isabella. In her idealization of both women she splits between good and bad and perceives them as all good and herself as a failure. This is her way to defend against feelings she can’t tolerate having about them and about herself. Naomi can’t let herself know how ambivalent she feels about them, how envious she can be, how angry. Rather, she directs those negative feelings toward herself. “She was always better than I was. She was beautiful, smart, talented, and I was myself.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  Our parents tend to live inside us without our permission. Our relationships with them are the first we have, and our future relationships exist only in dialogue with them. Guy had to move away but he still struggles with the guilt of leaving—and living. As I have come to learn from him over time, he hasn’t been able to create a safe-enough home in New York or to have an intimate relationship. He isn’t sure that he can love or trust others, and he certainly doesn’t trust himself to protect the people he loves from his legacy of brutality and abuse. Being alone feels like the best way to hide, and hiding, after all, is the only way to survive. In our first session, hiding behind his gray winter coat, Guy told me that he had researched me, wondering about who I was and about the people I had left behind. He questioned if therapy was even for him: Could he have an honest relationship, where he felt known, without being too vulnerable or threatened? Could he heal the abused boy he once was without feeling humiliated and ashamed? Could he ever love and be loved? On a snowy day, one year after Guy started his therapy, he walks into my office, nods, and says softly, “I think I’m getting used to this weather.” He takes off his coat and smiles. We both notice the difference. 11 THE UNEXAMINED LIFE ALICE LOOKS YOUNGER than her age. Maybe it’s her long black hair, or maybe it’s the sweatpants and sneakers she wears to our first session that make me think of her as a girl. She comes to see me right after celebrating her forty-fourth birthday. Very quickly her age becomes a topic. Alice was in her late thirties when she met Art, I learn. It was right after she got divorced, and she was worried that she might be too old to have children. “I don’t care about marriage,” she tells me in that first session. “My parents separated when I was five years old. They had a messy divorce and after my father officially remarried, he was not in the picture anymore.” I ask her what she means by “officially remarried.” Alice rolls her eyes. “It’s not why I came to therapy, but I guess it’s all relevant to what I’m dealing with,” she says. “I had a shitty childhood. Again, it’s not why I’m here.” “Why are you here?” I ask. “We are about to have a child,” Alice says, and I’m a bit surprised because she doesn’t look pregnant at all. “We tried to get pregnant for years. Between you and me, from our first week together we knew that we wanted to have children, but I couldn’t get pregnant. I tried everything. Many cycles of IVF.” She turns to me. “Do you know how expensive that is?

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  • What do I need to do to make my family or personal life more positive and rewarding now? Issues of BeliefSome former members liken their cult involvement to spiritual rape. This wound is deep and takes time to heal. Through the cult's indoctrination and manipulative techniques, members become convinced that their spiritual experiences are a consequence of allegiance to the leader and his carefully crafted path to enlightenment. In secular cults, members are led to feel that they are fulfilling their highest human potential through unquestioning belief and dedication to the group's ideology. Whether your experience was religious or secular, your realization that an enormous betrayal has taken place may cause you considerable pain. In response, you may now tend to reject all forms of belief. It can take many years to overcome your disillusionment and learn not only to trust your inner self but also to believe in something again. [image file=img/page0195_0000.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0001.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0002.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0003.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0004.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0005.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0006.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0007.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0008.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0009.svg] [image file=img/page0195_0010.svg] Although it is a widespread misconception that all cults are religious, it is true that all cults tend to disrupt a person's core beliefs. This tends to affect all areas of life, which is why it is sometimes said that a cult experience has an effect on the spiritual being, the psyche, or the inner person. Coming to terms with spirituality or personal beliefs may be the most upsetting part of some people's postcult experience. Counselor William Kent Burtner writes: The emotions of wonder and awe, transcendence and mystery, are a deep part of each person.... While in most of us those feelings are directed toward God, creation and the discovery of the "really real," like any other emotion, they are subject to manipulation. Ex-cultists have experienced these manipulations profoundly and the memory of them remains vivid. If they have not rejected those feelings totally as a result of their "heavenly sting," they question whether they can find that sense of transcendence anywhere other than in the cult. The cult has told them that no other path exists beyond that of the group. In essence cultists have never really made a choice for the group, but rather have experienced a program that causes them to progressively close the door on alternatives. The only "choice" that remains to them is the group itself. The lingering question of where to experience that sense of transcendence needs to be addressed.... In leaving such a group, the ex-member finds himself in an enormous vacuum.10 A related difficulty may be a persistent nagging thought that you made a giant mistake in the group, that perhaps the teachings are true and the leader right; perhaps it is you who failed. Because of the cult's "mystical manipulation" (see Chapter 3), coupled with the most human desire to believe, people may search for a way to continue believing even after leaving the group.

• From Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (2000)

  In that same year, Anuttama Dasa, ISKCON's public affairs director, and the Communications Ministry commissioned Professor Burke Rochford Jr. to research and produce an academic report on the history ofgurukula. A sociology professor in Vermont and author of a prominent book about ISKCON, Rochford had been studying the boarding schools for almost twenty years.' Initially he learned of the child abuse in the same way as everyone else, by reading accounts of former students that came out in the 199os. Reform-minded devotees published Rochford's analysis in the ISKCON Communications Journal without clearing it with the hierarchy.9 Further, the public relations office supplied copies to the media, and the New York Times published a front-page report.10 A similar article by the Associated Press appeared in newspapers across the United States," and Rochford appeared on numerous talk shows to discuss his findings. My opinion, as an outside observer, is that this was the most meaningful gesture that ISKCON made toward reconciling with its children. As one ISKCON official told the media, "Even if we have to go through ten years of court cases and we lose every building in North America, it's more important [to resolve the issues so] we can give people spirituality."" Unfortunately, the publication of Rochford's paper led to internal divisions and outright hostility toward abuse survivors, including fistfights at temples. By 1999, ISKCON had polarized into two camps. The reformers genuinely wanted to help the victims and bring the matter out in the open. However, the conservative wing, which consisted of the majority of gurus and GBC members (and their followers), outnumbered the reformers, and seemed to want the victims to just go away. They opposed any open discussion or acknowledg ment of the problems. For his part, Rochford said he felt torn over his involvement. He wrote the article to help the survivors, but he expressed regret over the way it was received, saying, "Essentially I had been drawn into writing the article and exposing child abuse to promote a partisan political agenda."13 In 1999, the ISKCON Communications Office published a press release stating that it would raise one million dollars for Children of Krishna, Inc., and the Office of Child Protection.14 Unfortunately, the money never materialized. Moving OnIt seemed apparent to the victims and observers like me that ISKCON did not want to help. Many survivors needed counseling. They were trying to raise their own children, and many were suicidal or depressed. A few of us got together in 1999 and located an attorney who was interested in the case. Windle Turley met with the survivors, and in 2000, he initiated Children of ISKCON v. ISKCON. In May 2005, ISKCON settled the complaint, going into bankruptcy reorganization to pay millions in damages to the victims. Unfortunately, according to various reports, the organization has welcomed back some of the most notorious child abusers. In addition, the abuse was criminal in nature; yet, so far, no criminal charges have been filed.

• From Emotional Inheritance (2022)

  Isabella and Sam were a couple for a few years. He was the first guy she had sex with, and she shared that secret with Naomi, her best friend. When they graduated high school, Isabella and Sam broke up and went to different colleges. When they were in their twenties, Isabella had one boyfriend after another, passionate love affairs, which Naomi followed, always a little jealous and feeling slightly betrayed when Isabella prioritized her boyfriends over Naomi. She wanted to be loved the way Isabella was, but instead—as in her relationship with her mother—she was a witness to someone else’s love. One day, when she was in her twenties, Naomi ran into Sam on the street. She called Isabella right away to tell her about it. She asked her if she would give her permission to go out with Sam. Isabella didn’t mind. She was in love with another guy; she gave Naomi her blessing. A few years later, Isabella was a bridesmaid in Naomi and Sam’s wedding. Now, in her late thirties, Naomi looks back and tries to understand why she isn’t happy. I listen as she begins to unpack her relationship with her mother, her friendship with Isabella, her marriage with Sam. “What am I missing?” Naomi asks again, sounding desperate. It is clear to both of us that she has worked hard to keep herself from knowing the truth about her life and about the people around her. “I know it’s a cliché,” she says apologetically, “but life is short.” I’m aware that Naomi is referencing Isabella’s illness, which brings her in touch with the fragility of life. She feels frightened and disappointed. “On the surface I have everything I ever wanted and I love my family, but I feel so defeated, as if life were supposed to be something else, more than what it turned out to be. Now Isabella is sick and it makes me angry.” Naomi’s voice becomes louder. “Sometimes I feel that I don’t know anyone at all, not even Isabella. I feel betrayed and I’m not sure why.” I know what Naomi means. Naomi views Isabella, as well as her own childhood and her perfect mother, in ways that often don’t feel real. She idealizes the world around her as a way to protect herself from seeing things as they really are. It’s not just that she doesn’t know others; she is afraid to discover herself. Idealization is a defense mechanism that serves to keep the illusion that things, or people, are perfect, and even better than reality. It is based on the splitting between good and bad, which children do in order to organize a safe and predictable world. As we grow up and become less fragile, we allow ourselves to see the world as more complex. As adults, we sometimes use idealization to pretend that things are perfect, that people are not flawed and that we don’t have any negative feelings or ambivalence about them.

• From Less (2017)

  To Less’s delight, the name of the hotel is the Monkey House, and it is filled with art and music: in the front hallway is an enormous portrait of Frida Kahlo holding a heart in each hand. Below her, a player piano works through a roll of Scott Joplin. Arturo speaks in rapid Spanish to a portly older man, his hair slick as silver, who then turns to Less and says, “Welcome to our little home! I hear you are a famous poet!” “No,” Less said. “But I knew a famous poet. That seems to be enough, these days.” “Yes, he knew Robert Brownburn,” Arturo gravely explains, hands clasped. “Brownburn!” the hotel owner shouts. “To me he is better than Ross! When did you meet him?” “Oh, a long time ago. I was twenty-one.” “Your first time in Mexico?” “Yes, yes, it is.” “Welcome to Mexico!” What other desperate characters have they invited to this shindig? He dreads the appearance of any acquaintances; he can bear only a private humiliation. Arturo turns to Less with the pained expression of one who has just broken something beloved of yours. “Señor Less, I am so sorry,” he begins. “I think you speak no Spanish, am I correct?” “You are correct,” Less says. He is so weary, and the festival packet is so heavy. “It’s a long story. I chose German. A terrible mistake in my youth, but I blame my parents.” “Yes. Youth. And so tomorrow the festival is completely in Spanish. Yes, I can take you in the morning to the festival center. But you are not to speak until the third day.” “I’m not on until the third day?” His face takes on the expression of a bronze-medal winner in a three-man race. “Perhaps”—here Arturo takes a deep breath—“I take you downtown to see our city instead? With a compatriot?” Less sighs and smiles. “Arturo, that is a wonderful suggestion.” At ten the next morning, Arthur Less stands outside his hotel. The sun shines brightly, and overhead in the jacarandas three fantailed black birds make peculiar, merry noises. It takes a moment before Less understands they have learned to imitate the player piano. Less is in search of a café; the hotel’s coffee is surprisingly weak and American flavored, and a poor night’s sleep (Less painfully fondling the memory of a good-bye kiss) has led to an exhausted state. “Are you Arthur Less?” North American accent, coming from a lion of a man in his sixties, with a shaggy gray mane and a golden stare. He introduces himself as the festival organizer. “I’m the Head,” he says, holding out a surprisingly dainty paw for a handshake. He names the midwestern university at which he is a professor. “Harold Van Dervander. I helped the director shape this year’s conference and put together the panels.” “That’s wonderful, Professor Vander…van…”