Relief

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.

Page 81 of 88 · 20 per page

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  “And as we understand it at the moment, Frank, neither Bill nor Jim have anything at the present time except some nausea. Is that right?” “No, none of us are nauseated now. We’re all fine now.” Dr. Berry told Borman to take a Lomotil tablet, an antidiarrhetic. If needed, Borman was also to take Marezine, a drug used to counter nausea, vomiting, and other symptoms associated with motion sickness. But Borman and his crewmates were more interested in what Berry had not told them to do. He had not told them to come home. At least not yet. Dr. Berry looked at Kraft, the flight directors, and General Samuel Phillips, director of NASA’s Apollo Manned Lunar Landing Program. Ultimately, the decision belonged to Flight Director Cliff Charlesworth, but everyone was involved in this determination. Based on what they’d all just heard, a decision had to be made now, on the spot, about aborting the mission. The men spoke for a few moments, then motioned to Collins to radio back to the crew. “Apollo 8, Houston,” Collins called. “We are closing this circuit down and we will be up in our normal voice loop in about five minutes. And then we will get on with the water dump.” By which NASA meant, “Let’s keep this thing going.” Dr. Berry and the others had determined that Borman’s illness had passed, and that if it recurred, it could be treated. Not long after, the doctor explained his thinking in a press conference, telling reporters that “this may be the type of thing that we see with motion sickness, it is just going to take some more watching to see.” NASA’s public affairs officer announced the same to America. Listening at home, Fred Borman could only smile. He knew his father. Even if he’d suffered a heart attack and was lying paralyzed in the spacecraft, he would have ordered Lovell and Anders to continue the mission. That was his dad.

• From When Breath Becomes Air (2016)

  “Most of your tests are back,” Emma said. “You have a PI3K mutation, but no one’s sure what that means yet. The test for the most common mutation in patients like you, EGFR, is still pending. I’m betting that’s what you have, and if so, there’s a pill called Tarceva that you can take instead of chemotherapy. That result should be back tomorrow, Friday, but you’re sick enough that I’ve set you up for chemo starting Monday in case the EGFR test is negative.” I immediately felt a kinship. This was exactly how I approached neurosurgery: have a plan A, B, and C at all times. “With chemo, our main decision will be carboplatin versus cisplatin. In isolated studies, head-to-head, carboplatin is better tolerated. Cisplatin has potentially better results but much worse toxicity, especially for the nerves, though all the data is old, and there’s no direct comparison within our modern chemo regimens. Do you have any thoughts?” “I’m less worried about protecting my hands for surgery,” I said. “There’s a lot I can do with my life. If I lose my hands, I can find another job, or not work, or something.” She paused. “Let me ask this: Is surgery important to you? Is it something you want to do?” “Well, yes, I’ve spent almost a third of my life preparing for it.” “Okay, then I’m going to suggest we stick with the carboplatin. I don’t think it will change survival, and I do think it could dramatically change your quality of life. Do you have any other questions?” She seemed clear that this was the way to go, and I was happy to follow. Maybe, I began to let myself believe, performing surgery again was a possibility. I felt myself relax a little. “Can I start smoking?” I joked. Lucy laughed, and Emma rolled her eyes. “No. Any serious questions?” “The Kaplan-Meier—” “We’re not discussing that,” she said. I didn’t understand her resistance. After all, I was a doctor familiar with these statistics. I could look them up myself…so that’s what I would have to do. “Okay,” I said, “then I think everything is pretty clear. We’ll hear from you tomorrow about the EGFR results. If yes, then we’ll start a pill, Tarceva. If no, then we start chemotherapy Monday.” “Right. The other thing I want you to know is this: I am your doctor now. Any problem you have, from primary care to whatever, you come to us first.” Again, I felt a pang of kinship. “Thanks,” I said. “And good luck on the inpatient wards.” She left the room, only to pop her head back in a second later. “Feel free to say no to this, but there are some lung cancer fundraisers who would love to meet you. Don’t answer now—think about it, and let Alexis know if you might be interested. Don’t do anything you don’t want to.”

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  The focus on abstinence that is appropriate for severe chemical addictions usually ends up making matters worse when applied to compulsive sex or obsessive “love.” This is not to say that abstinence can’t be a valuable tool as part of the process of erotic change. In Step 3 you saw that under certain conditions choosing to abstain from a problematic sexual pattern can be useful. But I’m convinced that a premature emphasis on abstinence increases the intensity of troublesome sexual urges by encouraging the struggle that fuels them. The erotic equation has shown us why fighting a sexual impulse only makes it stronger. Alcoholics and other substance abusers usually have only one choice when it comes to their preferred drug—stay away from it. But no matter how compulsive sexual behavior may become, for erotic healing to take place, an increasing range of self-affirming choices must be claimed for oneself. One’s power to choose is ultimately what induces sexual well-being. WHAT ABOUT THERAPY?All the people you’ve met in the last three chapters have worked with me in therapy. A supportive, nonjudgmental atmosphere facilitates disclosure of erotic secrets. In addition, some sort of therapeutic involvement is usually necessary to help uncover memories and beliefs that operate unconsciously. I’m not suggesting, however, that everyone with an erotic problem should enter therapy. Many people can make considerable progress on their own—if they are sufficiently motivated and know how to proceed. Nevertheless, it’s very difficult to probe the many layers of your erotic mind by yourself. It’s a great relief to discuss thoughts and feelings honestly with at least one other person who genuinely listens without pushing any particular agenda. If you’re fortunate enough to have a friend who listens respectfully and discloses intimate information of his or her own, perhaps the two of you can help each other with series of discussions. Although many people consider their lovers or spouses their best friends, there’s no set rule about how many of your deepest erotic yearnings you should reveal to your partner. No matter how intimate your relationship, your lover can never be truly neutral about all your turn-ons, especially ones involving other people. Many partners are also threatened by details about each other’s past experiences. That said, I’ve known many couples who openly discussed the most private erotic matters and grew much closer—and quite stimulated—as a result. Especially when the time comes to try out new forms of sexual expression with a partner, your experiments are much more likely to be beneficial if the two of you communicate honestly about your intentions and feelings ahead of time. Sometimes problematic erotic patterns are so much a part of who you are that you are unable to see them clearly—let alone resolve them. Then it may be wise to consult a therapist. But how do you know when to seek professional help? If two or more of the following statements apply to you, at least consider therapy:

• From Augustine: Philosopher and Saint (2005)

  (cid:405) His famous half-hearted prayer at this time was: “Lord, give me continence, but not yet!” (8:7.17). (cid:405) The chain of habit: It is as if his own will had made of itself a chain with which to bind itself (8:5.10). (cid:405) I but not I: His new, good will was his true self, but it was not strong enough to overcome the habits of his old will— which was his own fault. • Stories about books: Pontitianus tells Augustine about how reading a Christian book changed his life (8:6.13–15). • “Take and read”: In the famous scene in the garden in Milan, Augustine hears a voice tell him to “take and read”; he snatches up the writings of the apostle Paul, reads the (cid:191) rst passage he lays eyes on, and is suddenly converted. • The results: (cid:405) He tastes the sweetness of grace: Suddenly it is easy and sweet to will what is right, and the chains of old habit drop away. (cid:405) He quits his teaching job to go into research full time. (cid:405) He envisions a new future as a full-time seeker of the truth. (cid:405) He is (cid:191) nally ready to get baptized. (cid:405) He has discovered the way back to the vision of God, a way consisting of Christ, Church, and Scriptures: The inner vision of our heavenly home has been supplemented with an external way to take on our journey home. Augustine on His Present Situation (“Confessions” 10) • The memory of God. • Having caught a glimpse of God with his mind’s eye (in Confessions 7), he can now love the real God, instead of a (cid:191) gment of his imagination (10:6.8). • Augustine’s love for God is based on a memory of that vision: hence he launches into a long inquiry into the nature of memory, asking how it is that we can remember God (10:7.11–26.37). • His conclusion is that we all remember a happy life we once had with God, presumably before our souls were in this body (10:20.29–24.35). 23

• From The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (2004)

  You can also negotiate changes in the structure of your relationship. You may have agreed to monogamy from the outset. And over the years, monogamy may have come to mean that you refrain not only from sex with others, but from any outside sexual stimulus. You may have stopped fantasizing or even masturbating. “I have seen in my practice that many lesbian couples believe that they should, above all else, remain sexually monogamous regardless of changes in sexual satisfaction and sexual needs over time,” writes Suzanne Iasenza. “In some of these couples, one partner may either consensually or in secret find alternative sexual outlets (affairs, sexual fantasy, sex clubs, paid sex, phone or Internet sex).”10 You may have reasons for staying in the relationship despite a lack of sexual satisfaction. Love, companionship, family, or economics may trump sexual satisfaction for you. If you are staying in a relationship out of fear of loneliness or because you believe that you won’t find another partner—or even because you believe you are needed to care for your partner and family—understand that this is not your lover’s “fault.” You are making a choice—don’t blame your lover for your decision to stay with her regardless of your sexual dissatisfaction. Taking responsibility for your choice can go a long way toward easing resentment—and helping you move forward in your life. It is your right to end a relationship because you see no possibility of sexual happiness. You are not selfish, immature, perverted, or misguided to prioritize a full and rich sex life. Find Your PassionPassion is energy, a specific kind of energy that you can feel in the sensations of the body. In the heightened state of falling in love, your passion is fueled by dopamine flooding your neurological system. But even after those weeks, months, or years have passed, passion is still in you. It’s a romantic myth that if you’re meant to be together, the flame of your passion will never flicker—and that if sexual passion doesn’t last forever, well, then there must be something wrong with the relationship. Or with you. Or your partner. It’s also a myth that the most passionate sex is spontaneous. What you most likely mean by spontaneity is that “something”—an overpowering lust—comes upon you. All other cares fall away, and you fuck fuck fuck until you and your partner are a blissed-out sweaty heap of limbs and discarded clothing. What really is that buzz? Can you describe the sensations of passion? Sexual pleasure radiating from your genitals? Your vaginal muscles vibrating with anticipation? Heat flushing your chest and face? Every hair ringing with arousal? An energy propelling you forward—as if you could come anytime, anyplace? If you can’t locate sexual passion in your sensations, can you locate your passion for something else? When was the last time you were so excited about something you couldn’t sleep? Or sit still? That feeling of excitement is passion, and it can be nurtured in all areas of your life.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  She saw he was fighting back tears. Why did he have to act as if this were a tragedy? She had good reason to believe he had taken a mistress again. This time she really did not care. There was no tightness in her chest, no jealousy, because she was ready to let go. To be her own woman. Why couldn’t Hugo flow forward with the changes in the air, as she did? She urged gently, “Hugo, I know we believed our marriage would be forever, but it’s not good for either of us to keep from growing as individuals.” “I haven’t stopped you from growing,” Hugo said angrily. She made her voice softer. “It won’t feel any different than when I’ve been gone in Los Angeles. For the past three months, you haven’t mentioned once in your letters that you wanted me to come home.” “I haven’t asked you to come back because I have nothing to offer you. When the bank job fell through I tried putting together a syndicate of Miami investors, but that went bust. I’m broke. I have nothing but debts. I can’t earn any money.” “Hugo, you’re exaggerating.” “I wish I were. I don’t know how I’m going to pay next month’s rent. I’ve gone through all our savings. I have a heart condition and doctors’ bills. And now you’re going to leave me.” He gave no resistance to the tears welling in his eyes. He broke down and wept, a hunched, broken man, his narrow, bony shoulders heaving. She kneeled next to him and held him. He lifted his head from his hands and looked at her, pleading, “Let me come to Paris with you.” She was horrified to see him this way and she would have said almost anything to save him, short of telling him he could join her in Paris. She kissed the tears from his face. “I won’t abandon you.” “Please don’t divorce me. We married for better or worse.” He clung to her. “Don’t worry, Hugo. I’ll fix things for you. Whatever money I make, half of it is yours.” With an efficiency that, to her own surprise, she could rally when necessary, she spoke to the manager of their building and moved Hugo into a smaller, cheaper apartment. Feeling like Galahad on his steed, she flew back to LA, having promised Hugo that with the expected option money she would keep him going until she could start earning from her writing in Paris. She felt like a man, buying her way out of a relationship; she discovered it did not feel bad.

• From Action (2014)

  Flicking through my sex-based mental archives (i.e., spank bank), when I finally made it back to my (intact) apartment that time around, I realized it had been a full two and a half years since I had gone without sex for longer than a week running, and I wondered how it might feel to be a single adult who was not seeking out all-new ways to come as one of her more robust priorities. This was a region uncharted in my life, at that point. I had always had boyfriends and girlfriends, or else was rejoicing that I didn’t and bopping around with others for whom that was also true. I decided to put my education to the test and explore the farthest-flung reaches of celibacy I could: I nobly abstained from sex for an entire two weeks. And it didn’t even kill me that hard. This first Celibration meant: no dates, no flirting, no contact, no Hitachi Magic Wand or other fantastic onanistics. I still went out alone or with non-beaus a lot, but I felt domesticated at first, like a dog tag–collared timber wolf glowering at the invisible electric fence in the front yard of a condominium, except hornier. I was my own captor—I wanted to gnaw my own arm off rather than hold out and suffer, but I also wanted to clock what happened when I quarantined the sometimes-rabid species of my own desire and watch how it behaved. I thought about sex a lot, but in the way that I think about going to the beach when it’s cold out: It’s going to get hot again, and I’ll be drunk on light beer for some of it. It never really goes away completely. I found that it agreed with me to live in a world of which sex was a faint, unobtrusive part, like the sound of cars that you can’t see passing outside an open bedroom window. Both are greatly beneficial to my productivity: I am able to maintain the soft-edged awareness that life’s transportational difference is just outside, but also that I don’t have to witness those adventures firsthand that very second if I’m content to sharpen the blades of my own restorative privacy by reading, or figuring out how to build a shelf for my microscope, or lugging a bottle of vodka into my bathroom and taping fake hair onto my head for three hours, aka “drunxtendoing,” or writing letters to my friends. The promise is still there, waiting to be kept whenever I’m ready to keep it. Not all favors are sexual. Sometimes they’re ones you’re content to do for yourself.

• From Action (2014)

  Here’s the lovely thing about non-monogamy: Having realized that my issues have far more to do with my own brain than with what my partner chooses to do with his D, it was actually the hugest relief to me that, on the surface, the reality of my relationship with Wes (he and I slept with other people) was the exact worst-case scenario I would have imagined in my previous history of loving people. The difference is that back then, these dalliances would have been hidden and clandestine, and if I had found out about them on my own, they would have broken my heart (and then I would break everything my partner ever found comfort or enjoyment in) (maybe); whereas in my non-monoggo pairing, I was secure in the knowledge that none of that affected how massively in love we were with each other. Instead of feeling cataclysmic, sex was—whoa, it was great, and if I ever felt jealous, we just talked about it. I no longer let it melt my brain into a rage-magma that overwhelmed all my rationality, empathy, and happiness. Basically, not being pressured to stay sexually faithful to the person I’m committed to drove home the point that boning ≠ love, even though they obviously involve each other quite deeply in most relationships (including mine with Wes). This, in turn, helped me mentally redistribute my self-worth so that I don’t freak out quite as much about increasing the amount of my hair/advanced degrees in comparative literature. • If you’re having sex with more than one person, BE SAFE. I mean, be safe no matter what kind of sex you’re having with anybody, but if you have multiple partners, USE CONDOMS AND/OR OTHER BARRIER METHODS OF PROTECTION AND COMMON SENSE 357 percent of the time, with everybody, including your foremost paramour. I cannot stress this enough. Putting your partner’s sexual health at risk is not only inconsiderate, it can be harmful to them in the long run. So please make a custom of being extra-safe. • Be fair to the people you’re seeing outside the relationship. I feel like all the best romantic wisdom comes from down-home country and blues singers, so here is a mournful old-timey ballad that I just wrote about telling a potential hookup that you’re seriously involved with someone else (imagine that I am casually holding a banjo but not really knowing what to do with it and also I tried to put spurs on my Keds): Tell them as soon as you can without presuming That something’s gonna happen with your mouths or other parts But definitely before getting physical or going on like twelve dates And breaking their doggone heartsssssss

• From The Mystical Tradition

  Sufis discovered new things about Allah not found in the Qur’an? 2. Did Sufism escape or transcend the ethics of the Shari’ah and, therefore, exist outside the boundaries of Islam? III. In his life and his writings, al-Ghazzali experienced and sought to resolve these intellectual and spiritual tensions. A. He wrote more than 70 books. His Deliverance from Error (c. 1100) is something of an intellectual and spiritual autobiography. 1. Born in Tus in Iran, al-Ghazzali was a brilliant student of law, philosophy, and theology. He was appointed professor or dean at Nizamiyah University in Baghdad (1091), where he lectured to as many as 300 students at a time. 2. His polymathic studies led to an intellectual and spiritual crisis in 1095; he abandoned his career and, after a pilgrimage to Mecca, lived as a Sufi. In Sufism, he found a certitude that was based in experience and located in the heart, not the mind. 3. He lectured again at Nizamiyah in 1106, then returned to his hometown, where he died in 1111. B. In the realm of philosophy, al-Ghazzali is best known for his Aims of the Philosophers, summarizing Ibn Sina’s teaching, and The Incoherence of the Philosophers, a rebuttal of the philosophical positions advanced, in particular, by Ibn Sina. 1. He challenges the capacity of philosophy to know what it claims to know, adopting an epistemological skepticism. Only Allah “causes”; only faith gives secure knowledge of what is real. 2. Ibn Rushd wrote The Incoherence of the Incoherence in response to al-Ghazzali. C. In other areas, al-Ghazzali represented a mediating position that enabled faith and the intellectual and mystical life to remain in conversation. 1. In jurisprudence, he championed the Shafi’i school, which recognized the role of ijtihad, “free inquiry.” 2. In theology, he adopted the Ash‘ari position and developed further the agreement of faith and reason, faith remaining primary, but reason inquiring into faith for its internal coherence. 3. In mysticism, he argued that the knowledge and morality of the Sufi must fit within the exoteric frame of the Shari’ah. ©2008 The Teaching Company. 125

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Like two laughing Elmo dolls with fresh batteries, we are intent on keeping spirits high. The truth is that I’m OK, we could afford to take it down a notch. I’m wistful and more than a little reflective, but grateful for this abundance of love, my mother’s delicious food, the fact that I’m 48 and still have my parents here celebrating with me and my children who, without any parental guidance, still figured out how to make my morning special. All of the firsts have been challenging to navigate – my first holidays without Michael, my first summer without Michael, my first birthday without Michael – but I am inundated with the recognition of all the ways in which my life is rich. I am assessing how much I have and am startled to realize that my glass is half-full and not half-empty. All those years of Michael haranguing me, “What’s right, Laura? You only ever say what’s wrong!” and here I am, finally seeing as if for the first time: I’ve lost Michael, but in doing so, I’ve drained my glass and then filled it. Hudson tells me after dessert that he will babysit Georgia so I can go out. I text #4, hoping he will treat me to eye-popping birthday sex, but a text comes back saying that much as he would love to celebrate with me, he is busy. I text #3, who has dinner plans with friends but will meet me for a drink afterwards. I am already well into my glass of rosé at a restaurant bar when he arrives, kissing me hello. We stay for an hour and then he gallantly pays for my birthday drink and walks me to my car. I am leaving for the city in a couple of days; I will be back here and there on weekends but our summer romance is going to have to be redefined. “Can we talk about a serious subject before you go?” he asks, leading me to a bench. “I’m in my 50s and I’ve never been married. I don’t want to find myself in my 60s still saying the same thing. I wasted too much time on a relationship that I should have ended years ago and I can’t afford to make that same mistake again, to casually see where things go if the cards are stacked against it going in the direction I want.” I nod my head, understanding that he has a clear goal, envious of his clarity. “I really like you,” he continues. “You’re smart, funny, beautiful, and I never get tired of talking to you. But I’m worried you might be the right person at the wrong time. You can’t even put my name in your phone because you’re scared your kids will see it, so it’s hard to imagine this is going to work out for me in my time frame. I have to protect myself.” “That’s honest and fair,” I say. “But it’s also sad.

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  The ground was thick with fallen branches, decaying pine needles, and brambly green bushes; the path wound past pine trees sprouting tall and thin, their stubbly needles providing a lace of shade from another sunburned day. And the smaller oak and maple trees, which from Dr. Hyde’s classroom had been invisible beneath the more majestic pines, showed hints of an as-yet-thermally-unforeseeable fall: Their still-green leaves were beginning to droop. We came to a rickety wooden bridge—just thick plywood laid over a concrete foundation—over Culver Creek, the winding rivulet that doubled back over and over again through the outskirts of campus. On the far side of the bridge, there was a tiny path leading down a steep slope. Not even a path so much as a series of hints—a broken branch here, a patch of stomped-down grass there—that people had come this way before. As we walked down single file, Alaska, the Colonel, and Takumi each held back a thick maple branch for one another, passing it along until I, last in line, let it snap back into place behind me. And there, beneath the bridge, an oasis. A slab of concrete, three feet wide and ten feet long, with blue plastic chairs stolen long ago from some classroom. Cooled by the creek and the shade of the bridge, I felt unhot for the first time in weeks. The Colonel dispensed the cigarettes. Takumi passed; the rest of us lit up. “He has no right to condescend to us is all I’m saying,” Alaska said, continuing her conversation with the Colonel. “Pudge is done with staring out the window, and I’m done with going on tirades about it, but he’s a terrible teacher, and you won’t convince me otherwise.” “Fine,” the Colonel said. “Just don’t make another scene. Christ, you nearly killed the poor old bastard.” “Seriously, you’ll never win by crossing Hyde,” Takumi said. “He’ll eat you alive, shit you out, and then piss on his dump. Which by the way is what we should be doing to whoever ratted on Marya. Has anyone heard anything?” “It must have been some Weekday Warrior,” Alaska said. “But apparently they think it was the Colonel. So who knows. Maybe the Eagle just got lucky. She was stupid; she got caught; she got expelled; it’s over. That’s what happens when you’re stupid and you get caught.” Alaska made an O with her lips, moving her mouth like a goldfish eating, trying unsuccessfully to blow smoke rings. “Wow,” Takumi said, “if I ever get kicked out, remind me to even the score myself, since I sure can’t count on you.” “Don’t be ridiculous,” she responded, not angry so much as dismissive. “I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed with figuring out everything that happens here, like we have to unravel every mystery. God, it’s over.

• From The Argonauts (2015)

  Why wasn’t he good enough? He told me that I could work outside the home if I wanted to, so long as his shirts still got ironed and were ready for work the next day, my mother told me. The feminist in me was unmoved. Couldn’t you have told him you didn’t want to iron his shirts, and taken it from there? When my stepfather finally left, my sister and I felt as much relief as grief. The intruder had finally been expelled. The sodomitical mother would melt away, and the maternal body would be ours, at last. No wonder, then, that our mother’s announcement that she was getting married again caught us off guard, just a few years later. As she and her husband-to-be told us the news at a dinner party orchestrated, to our surprise, for just that purpose, I watched my sister turn a furious red, then lunge around for a vine that could hold her. Well, if the wedding is in June, I’m not going, she sputtered. It’s way too hot in June for anyone to get married. If it’s in June I’m not going. She was ruining the moment, and I loved her for it. But this time, so far as I can tell, my mother has not made her husband her desire incarnate, though she does love him very much. And for his part, so far as I can tell, he doesn’t try to talk her out of her self-deprecation, nor does he abet it. He simply loves her. I am learning from him. About twenty-four hours after I gave birth to Iggy, the nice woman at the hospital who tested his hearing gave me a wide white elastic band for my postpartum belly, basically a giant Ace bandage with a Velcro waist. I was grateful for it, as my middle felt like it was about to slide off me and onto the floor. Falling forever, falling to pieces. Maybe this belt would keep it, me, together. When she handed it to me, she winked and said, Thanks for doing your part to keep America beautiful. I stumbled back to my hospital room, newly corseted, my gratitude now speckled with bewilderment. What’s my part? Having a baby? Taking measures to stop the spread? Not falling to pieces? It is unnerving, though, this melting. This pizza-dough-like flesh hanging down in folds where there used to be a pregnant tautness. Don’t think of it as, You’ve lost your body, one postpartum website counseled. Think of it as, You gave your body to your baby. I gave my body to my baby. I gave my body to my baby. I’m not sure I want it back, or in what sense I could ever have it.

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

  Can I ever be normal again? I decided I would just have to identify with others who'd been through trauma, such as chemical dependency, the death of a loved one, other forms of power abuse, or political upheaval. It was easier for me when I learned to identify with others from complicated backgrounds, and not just other cult members. Beliefs. I had to revisit my politics, which during my cult membership had been shaped by the dogma of the group. I actually felt comfortable leaving many beliefs and questions unresolved. I looked around at the world and saw that (a) no one else seemed much clearer than me, and (b) it was okay to be unclear and to have open questions. I truly let go of the need for dogma. I learned to say, "I don't know" and to be quite comfortable with that. I did, however, gather some basic values, mostly from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I saw and appreciated the need to keep these values as broad and inclusive as possible. Friends. It was extremely difficult to break out of my isolation. I worked diligently at this for many years and had a number of false starts. It took me a long time to find the kind of social strata in which I actually felt at home. I ended up finding that I was much more comfortable among artists, writers, intellectuals, and activists than, say, corporate and business professionals, which were the kinds of connections encouraged in the cult. What Helped In the Second Stage• Continuing to study thought reform and the social psychology of cults, and becoming a cult-awareness activist. • Receiving the continued support of other ex-members and other friends and family. • Being able to go to therapists and hand them copies of chapters from various books on cults and social influence. I would tell the therapists they had to read the handouts I gave them. If they weren't willing, I didn't go back. • Having a therapist willing to treat me as an equal, showing herself as a human being rather than a god (the kind of overly rigid boundaries Freudians promote). I needed to be able to ask, "How was your vacation?" and get a normal reply. • Having a therapist willing and able to do some deep work, agreeing to go to that dark place with me, and help me navigate it and find my feet, so to speak. • Studying personality and temperament (and tools like the Myers-Briggs personality assessment) helped me name some of my attributes that transcended the cult experience. It was a validating exercise to say, "Yes, I'm an introvert and a thinker," and so on. And to recognize these as precult and postcult pieces of myself. Of course, in the cult, those qualities had always been scorned, but now I could reclaim them as basic pieces of my personality. What Didn't Help• Encountering overly brief, practical problem-solving therapies; also pop psychology.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  Whatever one’s position, one can feel better than those who have not progressed so far.”10 And, as I describe in the prologue, there was a perverse game of real-life Snakes and Ladders perpetually being played within this hierarchical structure. As people moved in and out of favour with our guru, their position in the hierarchy would change. Someone could go from living at Wolf’s Den to being excommunicated, living with Limori’s son and daughter-in-law as their nanny and housekeeper. When that person returned to favour, they would return to Wolf’s Den and their job as nanny might be filled by someone new, who was “bringing in bad energy” and needed to clean up their act. Those of us living in Vancouver knew that we’d slipped a few notches in the group hierarchy if Limori stopped taking our phone calls or ignored us on Thursday night. But whatever one’s status in the group, exalted flavour of the month or miscreant, our belief was that life outside the group, among those who did not serve God, was profoundly worse than anything we could encounter inside it. It was a very black-and-white world I began to live in, and a black-and-white morality that I adopted. Inside group: good. Outside group: bad. What Limori says: Truth. What anyone else says: to be confirmed or denied by Limori. And honestly, it was a relief to fold myself into a doctrine and morality that had no uncertainty. I didn’t even think of it as morality; everything was simply The Truth or Not The Truth. For those of us living in Vancouver, the cult was non-residential. That is, we all lived in our own homes and had jobs that occupied our days. Debbie, Amber and I became good friends, going to movies and dinners on the weekend. Spiritual topics were never far from our conversation, and any challenge that any one of us encountered at work or with family was always examined, using our much-loved spiritual rhetoric. My friendship with Michael continued to grow as well. He was never far from my thoughts, and we spent many an afternoon in his shoebox-sized apartment getting to know one another. His girlfriend, Jessica, was naturally suspicious of our relationship, but she had nothing to fear from me. Despite the fact that I was falling in love with Michael, I was completely unaware of my own feelings for him and had no interest in examining them. My upbringing, combined with a naturally shy and introverted personality, meant that by the time I met Michael I was more than slightly emotionally stunted, so indeed, I was no threat to Jessica. I was simply grateful to have Michael’s friendship and mentorship. He was a darn good listener, too. As my friendships with Michael, Debbie, Amber and others in the group continued to strengthen, so did my attachment to Limori and her teachings.

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  I was very happy when the chore was over. Limori/Azeen didn’t have much to say to me afterwards, much to my relief. In hindsight, it wouldn’t have mattered what any of us had shared. This was simply an exercise in confession. We were baring our souls in an exercise that bound us to Limori and increased that false sense of intimacy between us. (I really did not want to know about Norman and his intimate relationship with his wife – that’s an image I will never be able to scour from my brain.) At the end of day two, when every last person had read the contents of their notepad (except Limori of course; she didn’t participate in these exercises – that would have lowered her to our level), relief and a small sense of accomplishment spread through the room. Limori told us it was a good beginning and that now we could build on this work in the following days at the workshop. During the evening of the second day we were free to do as we liked. Most of us relaxed in the lodge: reading, playing cards, drawing or chatting with one another. One member of the group, Victor, was a shy, gentle, somewhat socially awkward man in his late fifties. He was an engineer, whose family origins were Estonian. Tall and reed thin, he reminded me a bit of Ichabod Crane. Very much an introvert, Victor kept to himself and during free time at workshops he would often go off by himself, to his cabin or for a walk in the woods. An avid outdoorsman who loved canoeing and kayaking, he was the sort of person who was obviously much more comfortable in communion with nature than with people. As a group, we often teased him about his idiosyncratic habits and I am not proud of the borderline abuse he received from me and his other peers in the group simply because he was a bit different. One of the strongest underlying messages that took hold in the group was that to be different was dangerous. We were all required to fit into a mould that had limited parameters, from the clothes we wore (“women should be feminine and wear skirts and dresses, and men should take pride in their appearance and not dress in a sloppy way”) to any inclination to have close relationships outside the group, to speech patterns that were outside the group norm. So Victor’s inclination to spend time by himself, possibly the result of an introvert’s natural need to recharge by being alone, often made him the target of teasing or, in more serious cases, of being workshopped by Limori. On the third day of the workshop, as we settled into our chairs in the living room, Limori began the day by channelling a meditation.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  “Let’s get some other bidders in here,” Bud pleaded. “This is the finest animal we’ve had in here all week. SEVEN, I GOT SEVEN, NOW HALF, GIMME HALF—” The slaughterhouse man nodded. You could see he was feeling competitive, perhaps a little jealous of his privilege to buy any damn animal he wanted. Maybe he had also heard Doris’s remark about his portliness and thought he’d give her something to think about. By now everyone in the bleachers was watching Doris. Bud also looked reluctantly in her direction. “Who’ll give me eight?” he said. Doris was very still, then said, “I’m sorry, Sonny.” “I know. Thanks, that meant a lot to me.” “SEVEN AND A HALF, GOING ONCE, GOING TWICE—” Sonny tipped his hat. “EIGHT THOUSAND in back,” Bud said. “I’VE GOT EIGHT, GIMME NINE, EIGHT NOW NINE-NINE-NINE…” Doris squeezed Sonny’s hand. Then the slaughterhouse man upped the bid, who knows why, maybe out of spite. It was far beyond a bargain for the purposes he had in mind. “Nine thousand! Nine from the gentleman in front,” Bud cried. “Now we’re talking folks. This is one splendid animal, certainly worth more than that. Who’ll give me ten? TEN-TEN-TEN.” Sonny nodded. “Ten thousand dollars! Someone make it eleven, do I hear eleven?” Bud said, looking at the slaughterhouse man. But the slaughterhouse man shook his head, having made his point, and awarded Sonny a pitying smile. “Sold!” Bud said, “to Sonny Lamb, his own damn bull!” —Sonny drove through the gate of the Apache Springs Ranch around sunset. They were on nine thousand acres an hour south of Marfa and sixty miles from the Mexican border, about as isolated as anybody on the whole continent. Land out here went for a thousand dollars an acre, but it was hardscrabble and in a good season could support only one cow per fifty acres. Lately, it’d been hard to make a go of it with a hundred acres per cow. It wasn’t just the grass dying in the drought, the water was drying up everywhere, stock ponds were shrinking, the earth was beginning to crack into jigsaw pieces. The sky was still light but the valley between the red mesas was soaking in the evening penumbra under a new moon. Had he thought it through, Sonny might have waited another hour till it was dark enough to unload Joaquin without Lola noticing. That would give him time to think up a plausible explanation. But there she was, standing on the porch. Sonny gave her a cheery-looking wave as he passed on his way to the pasture. Lola tracked him down as he was prodding Joaquin out of the trailer. “You bought your own bull?” she said. Sonny hated to disappoint Lola for a million reasons, one of which was that she could make him feel like a total fuck-up. Which he was not. “How’d you know?” “It was on the radio.”

• From What My Bones Know (2022)

  I was shocked. Lacey? Lacey had a book deal. She’s on television sometimes. She has great hair and is from a nice neighborhood in a nice part of the country. People at my office respected Lacey. “You have no idea how relieved I am that you have it,” I frantically typed back. “I thought everyone who had it was a trainwreck. I’ve been spiraling. But you seem totally together.” “I’m not totally together! Nobody is. But I’m here to tell you I’ve done a whole lot of healing. I’ve accepted that I’ll always have more to do, but I’ve made leaps and bounds and it feels manageable in ways I could not have imagined years ago.” She sent me her number. Lacey and I texted for a few minutes. I didn’t know her intimately enough to share my deepest fears with her, and I didn’t want to burden her, either. But her cheerful, exclamation-marked texts showed me, at the very least, that survival wasn’t impossible. Somehow, there would be another side of this thing. A way out, if only I could find it. Lacey said the road would be long and difficult. That sounded about right, considering I was endeavoring to relearn how to be a person. I wanted to learn to be happy and strong and independent so I could support others instead of letting my own depression always take center stage. I wanted to learn how to be a better friend, partner, family member, to invest in permanent relationships. I wanted to be the kind of woman people didn’t leave. I had to find out what was salvageable, if I had good qualities underneath all of those layers of trauma and hurt and workaholism. In order to do that, Lacey said, she’d needed time and space. Long walks in the middle of the day to practice holding awkward, painful new revelations. The ability to step away from her writing when she felt overwhelmed and sad. “The important thing was learning how to take good care of myself. To treat myself kindly,” she told me. And so I knew with certainty what I had to do. The very next day, on April 1, I officially gave my one month’s notice to leave the job I’d wanted my whole life. I told my boss, “Healing needs to be my job now.” [image file=image_rsrc3E4.jpg] PART II [image file=image_rsrc3E5.jpg] CHAPTER 12 [image file=image_rsrc3E3.jpg] I’d always fantasized about indulging in a nervous breakdown. I watched Girl, Interrupted with a twisted, jealous fervor, felt envy when I saw celebrities enter rehab. What entitlement. What privilege, to just let life fall to the wayside, to stop working and pretending and just fall apart. To let my grief-swollen brain split at the seams and spend my days crying and sitting in therapy and drinking lemonade in meditative silence on a manicured lawn. And what impossibility. Because rent.

• From Shunned (2018)

  “No Randy, no Ross,” I said, the words catching in my throat. Ross looked older then, his freckles faded, his hair more burnished than red. His blue eyes looked right through me. “Do you have anything else you want to tell me?” he asked. He knew why I’d come. I just needed to say the words. “Yes,” I said, just as the waiter refilled our coffee cups. Ross didn’t take his eyes away from mine. I took a deep breath. “I’ve moved on, Ross. I’ve gotten involved with someone.” As I held his gaze, his eyes filled with tears. “So here are the words you’ve been wanting to hear: you’re free.” He kept looking at me, expressionless except for the watery eyes. “Free, free, free,” I said in a gentle, steady tone. Ross leaned his head back to keep the tears from streaming down his face. He worked to regain his composure. “I’ve expected this for a long while,” he said, “but hearing it feels terrible.” He wiped his nose with the napkin. “I thought I’d be happy to hear this, but I’m not.” Relief and a bone-tired peace came over me, sitting there, being honest, telling him the truth. Never underestimate the power of an honest answer, even if it means disappointing someone you love. We can all recover from disappointment, but lying about who we really are and how we really feel keeps everyone in chains. Just saying these words made me stronger, more resolved. I sat back in my chair and let out a sigh. “What’s his name?” “No names,” I said, adamant. “I’m afraid to ask how long this has been going on,” he said. “Then don’t ask,” I said, my voice clipped. I felt the absurdity of the situation, confessing to something that happened a year ago, as if it were occurring in the present. “I wanted to tell you sooner, but it’s not exactly the kind of thing you say to a person over the phone.” “I suppose not,” Ross nodded, resigned. “And I was afraid you’d blab to everyone, and I couldn’t do that to my family. I want them to hear this from me, not through the grapevine.” “Probably a good call,” he said. The check was delivered to our table, and Ross picked it up. “Let me get this—a small price to pay for news of my freedom.” He had become distant and lethargic. “Your family will be devastated not to be able to see you.” “As if they have no choice as to how they’ll react or treat me.” I could feel anger rising in my throat. “They won’t see it that way, and you know it.” “No kidding.” I knew he was right. He understood, as I did, that my family would turn away from me if I were to be disfellowshipped. “Mom thinks I’m having breakfast with you to discuss getting back together.” “Hope springs eternal,” Ross said. “She’s in for a grim reckoning.”

• From Looking for Alaska (2005)

  “I suppose I missed my window of opportunity to shower,” he said as he put on a green CULVER CREEK BASKETBALL T-shirt and a pair of shorts. “Oh well. There’s always tomorrow. And it’s not cold. It’s probably eighty.” Grateful to have slept fully dressed, I just put on shoes, and the Colonel and I jogged to the classrooms. I slid into my seat with twenty seconds to spare. Halfway through class, Madame O’Malley turned around to write something in French on the blackboard, and Alaska passed me a note. Nice bedhead. Study at McDonald’s for lunch? Our first significant precalc test was only two days away, so Alaska grabbed the six precalc kids she did not consider Weekday Warriors and piled us into her tiny blue two-door. By happy coincidence, a cute sophomore named Lara ended up sitting on my lap. Lara’d been born in Russia or someplace, and she spoke with a slight accent. Since we were only four layers of clothes from doing it, I took the opportunity to introduce myself. “I know who you are.” She smiled. “You’re Alaska’s freend from FlowReeda.” “Yup. Get ready for a lot of dumb questions, ’cause I suck at precalc,” I said. She started to answer, but then she was thrown back against me as Alaska shot out of the parking lot. “Kids, meet Blue Citrus. So named because she is a lemon,” Alaska said. “Blue Citrus, meet the kids. If you can find them, you might want to fasten your seat belts. Pudge, you might want to serve as a seat belt for Lara.” What the car lacked in speed, Alaska made up for by refusing to move her foot from the accelerator, damn the consequences. Before we even got off campus, Lara was lurching helplessly whenever Alaska took hard turns, so I took Alaska’s advice and wrapped my arms around Lara’s waist. “Thanks,” she said, almost inaudibly. After a fast if reckless three miles to McDonald’s, we ordered seven large french fries to share and then went outside and sat on the lawn. We sat in a circle around the trays of fries, and Alaska taught class, smoking while she ate. Like any good teacher, she tolerated little dissension. She smoked and talked and ate for an hour without stopping, and I scribbled in my notebook as the muddy waters of tangents and cosines began to clarify. But not everyone was so fortunate. As Alaska zipped through something obvious about linear equations, stoner/baller Hank Walsten said, “Wait, wait. I don’t get it.” “That’s because you have eight functioning brain cells.” “Studies show that marijuana is better for your health than those cigarettes,” Hank said. Alaska swallowed a mouthful of french fries, took a drag on her cigarette, and blew smoke at Hank. “I may die young,” she said. “But at least I’ll die smart. Now, back to tangents.” one hundred days before “NOT TO ASK the obvious question, but why Alaska? ” I asked.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Onias was no less enamored of the Laffertys, and what they could do to advance his ambitions for the School of the Prophets. Applying the full brunt of their prodigious energy, the Lafferty brothers dived headlong into the tedious chore of printing, folding, and collating more than fifteen thousand of Onias’s pamphlets, then addressing and mailing them to LDS leaders around the country. “It was like a miracle to us,” Onias says, “for what would have taken us several months to accomplish in our spare time, they were able to accomplish in two weeks working day and night.” By early 1984 the newly established School of the Prophets was meeting on a weekly basis, usually at the Provo home of the Laffertys’ mother, Claudine, upstairs from the family chiropractic clinic. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the five brothers, the school got off to a flying start. Onias appreciated the Laffertys’ pivotal role in his school’s successful launch. The Laffertys, it seemed to him, were heaven-sent. Onias soon got confirmation that in fact they were. On January 8, he received a revelation in which God explained that before the Lafferty boys were even born, He had singled them out “to be an elect people, for they are the true blood of Israel and the chosen seed.” Six weeks later, Onias received another revelation in which God commanded him to appoint Ron Lafferty bishop of the school’s Provo chapter, which he gladly did. All the younger brothers, including Dan, clearly looked up to Ron—as indeed they had their entire lives. When Ron assumed the bishop’s responsibilities, everyone in the School of the Prophets approved. Ron’s promotion to a position of authority lifted his morale at a moment when such a boost was sorely needed, because the prior months had delivered an avalanche of setbacks and disappointments. As Ron recorded in a journal entry, The events of the past year have caused me to do a great deal of research and scripture study and spend a great deal of time on my knees in prayer. I have been stripped of all my material wealth, my family has divorced me and moved to Florida, I have been unjustly excommunicated from the church that I love so dearly. Ron no longer had a job or a regular paycheck. He was regarded as a pariah by his church and community. Because the home he’d so painstakingly built with his own hands had been taken from him, he was reduced to living out of his 1974 Impala station wagon—the only asset of any value still in his possession. And yet he claimed in his journal to be grateful for such humiliations, saying, “These experiences have caused me to establish a personal relationship with my Father in Heaven and He has revealed to me, at least in part, the outcome of all these trials.” Though Ron claimed to enjoy wearing a hair shirt, however, his actions suggested otherwise.