Is your prose too “purple”?

Posted on January 4, 2016 by luckyotter

One of my worst habits as a writer is a tendency to write “purple prose.” According to Wikipedia, purple prose is:

[…]text that is so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw excessive attention to itself. Purple prose is characterized by the extensive use of adjectives, adverbs, zombie nouns, and metaphors. When it is limited to certain passages, they may be termed purple patches or purple passages, standing out from the rest of the work.

Purple prose is criticized for desaturating the meaning in an author’s text by overusing melodramatic and fanciful descriptions. Though there is no precise rule or absolute definition of what constitutes purple prose, deciding if a text, passage, or complete work has fallen victim is a subjective decision. According to Paul West’s words, “. . .a certain amount of sass to speak up for prose that’s rich, succulent and full of novelty. Purple is [widely seen as] immoral, undemocratic and insincere; at best artsy, at worst the exterminating angel of depravity.”

In everyday English, this means purple prose is over the top writing that puts your readers to sleep, makes them want to gag, or makes them want to murder you in your sleep. It also comes off as pompous and pedantic, like someone trying to act smarter than they really are. The same thing can be said in simpler direct language instead of a shitstorm of unnecessary adjectives, overdone descriptions, verbs-turned-into-nouns, and passive voice (“…is characterized by…” is an example of passive voice).

Purple prose was much more common in the early 20th century and before, and maybe in those days of yore people had more patience and time to actually sit and decipher sentences with multiple clauses and descriptors. But if you’re writing for the average person in the early 21st century, you’d better keep it simple if you don’t want to bore your readers to death.

The Writer’s Diet has a neat test that lets you know if your prose is too overdone. All you do is plug in a sample of your writing, press “analyze,” and ta-da! You get a critique and graph!

Here’s a screenshot of mine. I used the last article I posted. I need to work on my use of verbs (the brown line at the top: “Flabby”) but everything else looks okay (Lean and Trim), at least for that article.

writingsample1

writingsample2

Walls of words.

Posted on January 2, 2016 by luckyotter

Nothing will make me avoid reading a post quicker than a long wall of words, unbroken even by paragraphs. I don’t care how well written your post otherwise is, I don’t care how cutting edge or educational or interesting or brilliant your thoughts are, I don’t care how much I might relate to your incredible, moving story. You could write at the level of Shakespeare or Poe, but if my eyes feel like they’re swimming in a vast ocean of text, let me make one thing clear: I won’t read it.

Fortunately I haven’t seen many bloggers who are guilty of this. Most bloggers have at least a rudimentary knowledge of how to use paragraph breaks, pictures, and graphics to break up text. There’s nothing wrong with writing long articles. There’s no need to dumb everything down and write only two sentences just because it’s on the Internet. When a post is too short and the title promises meat, it’s like a bait-and-switch and I feel cheated. If the article’s title suggests there will be meat, then it’s meat that I want, not the appetizer. I don’t want a few words and a bunch of pretty pictures because the blogger is too lazy or doesn’t know enough about what they’re writing about to put anything with more substance there. So there’s nothing wrong with writing long articles. Many of my posts are very long indeed. But when they are, I always try to use something, preferably eye-catching, to break up the words every 3 or 4 paragraphs or so (without overdoing it, of course).

If you’re a minimalist and don’t like too many pictures or graphics in your posts, paragraph breaks or subheaders are just fine. Learn to use them. If you don’t like or don’t know how to use them, perhaps you shouldn’t be blogging at all and should take a class in basic written English. It’s just common courtesy. It’s very rude, in my opinion, to write a post that makes my eyes feel like they’re caught in a digital sandstorm and that bring on pounding migraines.

Anonymity.

Posted on December 25, 2015 by luckyotter

I was thinking about how strange it is that I’m not afraid to reveal my innermost feelings to total strangers I have never met, but it’s so hard to share those same feelings with the people who are closest to me. There are things I’ve written here on my blogs that I couldn’t even tell my therapist yet.

The first sign of spring.

Posted on December 21, 2015 by luckyotter

It’s just like old times! I just counted, and this weekend I made 10 new posts (11 if I count this one), most of them original content. I don’t think I’ve written that much in a few months. It seems like my inspiration’s back, at least for now. Maybe I’m just feeling better because in 2 days the days will start getting longer as they march toward Spring, and with that, an end to this year’s bout of Seasonal Affective Disorder. As far as I’m concerned, the first day of winter is like the first sign of spring.

I may or may not continue in this vein, but I’m not going to worry about it. I just feel great about how busy I was blogging this weekend. I actually found time to read and comment on other blogs too, something I’m really not very good about keeping up with.

Nano Poblano 2015: dead in the water.

Posted on November 23, 2015 by luckyotter

I won’t be able to post a “I Survived Nano Poblano 2015” sticker in my sidebar this year because I didn’t make it through even the first week of November.

Last November, I posted 85 blog posts, mostly original articles. That’s almost three per day. This year is a lot different. November 2015 is almost over and I’ve only posted 28. I estimate that by the last day of this month (only a week from now) I might make it to 40–a little over one post per day–and that’s a big maybe.

A year ago I was a two month old new blogger walking around in a star-struck fog, blissed out by the excitement and novelty of all that went with being a new blogger and knowing people all over the world actually read–and cared–about my thoughts and opinions. The rapid growth of this blog starting around this time last year (mostly because Sam Vaknin decided to Google himself and found an article I wrote about him) was a little like winning the blogging lottery.

But I’m jaded now. Although this blog has far more readers than it did last year, the little kid that was going crazy in the new-blogger candy store stuffing her face with every goody in sight is now a teenager worried about all that candy giving her pimples, and feeling a bit sick from eating all that sugar too. But candy still tastes good, and so does writing, so I’ll keep doing it and enjoying it, even though I can forget about being able to post a “I Survived Nano Poblano 2015” sticker in my sidebar this year.

A year ago my life was still pretty much a mess and I was a lot less emotionally stable. Not that I’m exactly stable now, but I’m a lot more so. At least I think I am. Blogging had a lot do with my growth as a person. I have so much more insight and know so much more about myself than I did at this time last year (and boy, did I ever sound arrogant and full of myself last year too!), and that’s worth so much more than any award I could paste in my sidebar or the false pride that comes when when semi-famous people happen to stumble across my musings.

Not that I don’t appreciate those things. I do. But I’m perfectly okay with NOT having those things too and it was, after all, MY choice to not write every day. So congratulations in advance to all you fellow bloggers who will survive this month’s Nano Poblano challenge, especially the newbies!

A lifetime of writing (part two).

Posted on November 22, 2015 by luckyotter

In Part One, I wrote about my early adventures as a writer, and promised to have Part Two up in a timely fashion. I got distracted by other things but I didn’t forget, so here’s the story of my relationship with the written word after my mid-20s or so. Since all of this takes place as an adult, I’ve decided to divide Part Two up by decades instead of life-stages.

Late 1980s.

In 1986 (also the same year I got married), I got my first job as a kind of/sort of writer, working for a nonprofit organization in New York City, writing technical entries for their manuals. At first I loved the job, as it involved a lot of research (mostly using microfiche) and actual writing, not merely editing someone else’s work (even though the writing was highly technical and had to be written in their own style). I became quite good at following the required style, and soon was training new employees and even asked to write and develop the new style manual. Not being much of a people person, I never felt that comfortable with training others, but was good enough at it to be promoted a year later to Assistant Editor.
That’s when everything began to fall apart. At the time, everything was becoming automated, and I wasn’t at all comfortable with the new method of “writing” the manuals, in which DOS fields had to be filled in and there was now very little writing involved. It seemed the “editorial” job had become nothing more than a glorified data entry job, with the automated system doing most of the work. My attitude went downhill and in 1990 I finally quit for a medical editor’s job at a large publishing company.

Other than my job, I did no other writing, because during this time I was busy as a newlywed and starting a home. At the time, it was fun and what I wanted to do. My husband hadn’t yet begun to show his true colors or started his emotional abuse of me, although the red flags were certainly there.

1990s.

Read on to find out why this factory worker belongs here.

In late 1990, I started working as a medical editor at the publishing company mentioned above. I also was taking freelance proofreading jobs for the nonprofit company I had previously worked for (I’d remained on good terms with them). My new job proved to be disappointing at first–the “editorial” position I’d taken working for a medical journal that focused on skin disorders was nothing more than a secretarial/receptionist job. I spent most of my time answering phones and typing letters. Any “writing” consisted of writing up phone messages for my higher ups. I felt like I was too “good” for this position, and eventually transferred to another department in the same company that was looking for a production editor.

The production editor’s job was highly technical and involved fitting type into the journal pages in a way that looked good but allowed room for ads and pictures, which meant one of my tasks was to act as a liaison between the art department and the advertising department and I didn’t care for this part too much because it required social skills I didn’t really have. The job also involved a lot of proofreading and basic grammar editing. Since doctors wrote the articles that were submitted (this was for a journal that focused on sexual and reproductive disorders), there was little to no actual writing involved in this job, even though most of the submitting doctors were horrible writers. I couldn’t stand trying to decipher their atrocious writing (and spelling–these doctors would probably all fail a third grade spelling bee), but the job itself was interesting. The managing editor was insane and never satisfied. She loved to berate and call us all names. Imagine my surprise when she gave me a great performance review–she had never said anything nice to me before! She even talked about promoting me, which never really happened but I did get a few more actual writing assignments.

In 1991 I got my own column, which was about AIDS and HIV. Basically I had to research new information about HIV/AIDs and write up short summary articles detailing new findings, and then organize them on the dedicated page along with any ads and graphics. Later on I got a second column, about fertility and infertility. The funniest part of my job was editing a column in which doctors submitted humorous stories to the journal. I remember one in which a man who was a factory worker liked to, er, satisfy himself during his lunch break. While everyone went out to lunch and no one was around, he stayed behind and used the machinery to “take care of business.” One day his appendage got stuck in the machinery but he managed to pull himself free (with a lot of blood and pain) before his coworkers returned. Unfortunately, in order to free himself, he pulled it right off! Frantic, he used a staple gun to re-attach his mangled member, stuffed a lot of paper towels in his pants to control the bleeding, and resumed working as if nothing had happened. Not surprisingly, the man developed a terrible infection and a high fever. He finally had no choice but to tell his doctor what happened. I don’t remember whether the man’s private parts were saved or not, but it had to have been very traumatic. It’s a terrible story but funny too, because of the man’s stupidity. My job was to select the best stories and edit them so they were readable. You can imagine this part of the job could be interesting!

In December 1991, two months after my son was born, I returned from maternity leave to find out the journal was folding! It always had an identity problem and never could seem to be taken seriously as a medical journal but at the same time was too clinical to be a health magazine for laypeople. Everyone knew this was coming, it was just a matter of when. I lucked out in that I had my son before we were laid off and was able to take advantage of both the generous maternity leave and 6 month’s severance pay which allowed me to stay home with my son longer than I would have with just the maternity leave alone. A friend of mine worked in another department that published book reviews (actually, a well known publication) and it turned out they were accepting freelance book reviewers. I got the job which paid very little (about $30 a review) but allowed me to stay connected to the writing/publishing world and was something to put on my resume. The job entailed reading a pre-publication copy of one new book per week and writing a review about it. My “specialty” was new pop psychology and self-help books, and general miscellanea. Most of these books weren’t that good, but having been a psychology major the genre I wrote about was right up my alley. I usually wrote a positive review even if I didn’t like the book, because I was afraid to do otherwise. Almost none of these books sold many copies and most have long been forgotten.

Here’s a sample of the sort of reviews I wrote. This one was for Robert Fulghum’s popular book “Oh Oh.”

The author of the bestselling All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten and It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It has put together another volume of bite-sized inspirational whimsies. Drawn from his experiences as a child, as a preacher, and from everyday life, Fulghum’s eye-opening (although never moralistic or preachy) anecdotes are written in a comfortable and unpretentious style, giving one the homey feeling of sitting on grandpa’s porch on a lazy Sunday afternoon sipping iced tea. Some of the essays are reminiscent of Garrison Keillor, flavored with a bit of Norman Vincent Peale. In any case, it is worth taking the time to appreciate simple pleasures and human kindness in today’s hectic and stress-filled world. Fulghum’s book is one way to get started. (Previewed in Prepub Alert, 5/1/91.)

The one time I decided to write a bad review was for a book I felt had no redeeming qualities and I simply couldn’t think of anything good to say about it. That book was “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus,” which went on to become a massive bestseller and still sells well today! The review was published as I wrote it, with only minor changes made. The author was furious! A public retraction had to be written and I was let go. I almost died when I saw it had become #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. If only my review of that book had been a good one! I’ve never been known for my great timing or choices.

Shortly after this, I moved to North Carolina with my family (my daughter was born in 1993, 7 months before we moved). The rest of the 1990s were spent raising my children, trying to handle my husband’s drinking and escalating abuse (sometimes by becoming emotionally abusive myself), and adjusting to the culture shock of a young woman raised in the New York metro area now living in the rural South. The only writing I did was shopping lists. I no longer had any connection to the New York publishing world but was too consumed by my new life to care.

2000s – 2010s.

In early 2000, I began to get my wordsmith feet wet again. I’d become involved in a history and politics forum (still active to this day but overrun by trolls since their only mod left in 2010) and was extremely active on it for about 3 years. People used to tell me I wrote extremely well and the owners of the forum, also authors of a book about cycles in history, used quotes by some of the more well-known forum participants. I was one of them.

In 2003, I wrote a novel. It was the first time I actually finished writing a novel. But it sucked because I deliberately wrote it in a style I thought was “cool” but wasn’t really my own. In fact, I didn’t really like reading other people’s books written in that style. The novel also had no plot to speak of (thinking of good plots and endings has always been something that eludes me, which is why I do better with non-fiction and short stories). The two main characters were both unlikeable and immature (the man was boring and one-dimensional and the woman was probably Borderline-Histrionic), and there were too many badly written and unbelievable sex scenes in leiu of any real character development. I’d include a passage here to illustrate how bad it was (not a sex scene though), but that would mean I’d have to start digging out my overstuffed closet to find it and I’m definitely not in the mood for that right now, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

At the time I didn’t think the novel was that bad, so I let my mother read it. Big mistake. She basically told me it sucked and that I “shouldn’t think of myself as Prima Ballerina without having ever learned to dance.” Ouch! Typical of my mom, undermining what little confidence I had, but in a way she was right. Every publisher I sent the novel to rejected it. After about ten tries, I packed all 300+ pages into a cardboard box and only looked at it again recently. It sucks as bad now as it did in 2003. How did I ever think this self-indulgent POS written at the height of my distastrous marriage when I was also quite mentally ill was any good? But at least it was something.

I continued to post on various forums in a variety of subjects and became addicted to the Internet. Up until this time I continued to be a voracious reader, but the Internet was perfect for someone as asocial and reclusive as myself and satisfied both my need to write and my social needs. I read fewer books but more badly written garbage online. Other than forum posts though, I wrote nothing until I began to blog in September 2014, a little over a year ago.
The rest of the story is told throughout this blog, so I’ll end this post here.

Part One can be read here.

A lifetime of writing (part one).

Posted on November 14, 2015 by luckyotter

Writing, as opposed to the spoken word, has always been my preferred mode of communication. While it’s true I’ve never published a book or made a real career of it, I have a deep love of words and the rhythms and drama of the English language. Writing is where I feel the most at home in myself, and when I’m at my happiest and feel the most productive. Starting this blog, in spite of some painful incidents arising from it in this past year, has been the best decision I ever made.

This blog began as one for victims of narcissistic abuse and of course, as a ranting platform for myself, but recently I’ve been moving away from that subject for several reasons, the most obvious one being that I simply can’t think of anything new to say about narcissism that hasn’t already been said. There are other reasons too. I haven’t decided what this blog’s new focus should be, or if it should have one at all. But I love to write about writing, so that seems like as good a topic as any, at least for today, so I thought I’d share what my lifelong on-again, off-again love affair with the written word has been like.

Childhood.

English was always my favorite subject in school, and my best one too. Once I learned how to form letters and put them together, I found that I loved written assignments and always did well in them. As a child I also loved to draw and often wrote little illustrated stories at home for fun. Not too long ago I wrote the sad story about the little blank books my father brought me home from a business trip, and how I used to fill them with little stories and pictures (usually drawn in marker because I liked the sharp edges of a marker or pen over crayons and you could fit in more detail). Unfortunately, that ended one day when I found out some of my creations had been stolen. After that I was hesitant to write for myself anymore, and pretty much stopped drawing at all.

But my love of writing didn’t die, and as I grew older, my stories became more detailed and longer. I also liked writing papers for school about topics that interested me and enjoyed everything that went with putting together an awesome looking project–choosing what color construction paper to use for the covers (which I liked to slide into a clear plastic cover with a color-coordinated plastic spine to hold it all together), what to draw on the cover (if anything), how to design the letters spelling out the title, organizing the pages, etc. I almost always made A’s on these projects.

Once I learned to read fluently, I couldn’t get enough books. I remember in third grade, I read voraciously. For some reason, I was particularly enamored of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books. I also really liked anything by Beverly Cleary. But I’d read just about anything I could get my hands on. At about age 10, I received “Harriet the Spy” as a gift, and she became my hero. I must have read that book about 10 times, and I read Louise Fitzhugh’s other books as well (too bad she didn’t write more books). To me, Harriet was the coolest girl ever, and she loved writing as much as I did. If I couldn’t be one of the popular girls, then I wanted to be Harriet. She was relatable, but so much cooler than I was. For awhile I even carried around a notebook (a black and white cardboard speckled one just like hers) and wrote down random observations about people. I think Harriet is still relevant. I know Fitzhugh’s books are still popular because so many children who are “different” or feel out of place can relate to Harriet. I wish I still had some samples of my early writing, but unfortunately these were lost a long time ago.

Harriet was my idol when I was about 10.

I was often the target of bullies, especially in 3rd-5th grades, and often would escape to the school library for solace. We had a very sympathetic school librarian. I loved everything about libraries, especially the smell of books. It was very comforting to me, and the only place I felt really at home. Books really were my friends. One of my favorite places to go on the weekends was (drum roll, please!) the public library. I think it’s terrible that government funds for public libraries have been cut in the past decade. I think they’re so important. The Internet is great, but nothing beats a library for nurturing your mind.

Adolescence.

During my teen years, writing became a back-burner activity, something I did when there was nothing else to do. I did continue to read voraciously, but was a lot less inspired to create anything of my own. What I did write tended to be what one of my teachers called “thunder and lightning” poetry–typical adolescent angst poetry about darkness, depression, despair, neverending rain, crashing storm-generated waves, and death imagery. I was Goth before there was such a thing (and liked to dress in black or dark clothes too). I also wrote long, angry screeds about my mother, who I’d decided (rightfully) was the shallowest, most un-maternal person on earth.

I also kept a diary. It was thick sky-blue leather hardcovered book with a golden lock and key. Unfortunately I couldn’t fit much in the spaces for entries, because it was a five-year diary so I only had a 5th of a page to write anything, and the lines were tiny (and my handwriting tended toward the large and florid). I finally quit writing in it after about 2 1/2 years. Like most other things from my growing-up years, I have no idea what happened to it.

Term papers became more of a chore, because now I was required to use and cite sources, etc. but once I got motivated, I did enjoy it and always got high grades. Sometimes, though, I’d wait until the night before it was due (after fretting for weeks) and stay up all night working frantically to finish the project. My teachers could never tell the difference, but I certainly don’t recommend waiting until the last minute to start a school project, if for nothing else other than the enormous stress that causes.

Early Adulthood.

College was basically a continuation of high school as far as my engagement with writing was concerned and was limited mostly to term papers and school projects. Of course, the topics I had to write about were more in keeping with my interests (psychology and art). They were also required to be typewritten and I had recently learned how to type and really liked the “professional looking” fonts available on the school’s IBM Selectric and the futuristic looking font-balls you could snap in and out of the machine (I had a typewriter, but it was a basic Royal ribbon typewriter with standard typeface). In those days before the Internet, access to fonts that didn’t look like “typeface” was considered very cool. I also liked the fact I could backspace and actually erase mistakes, instead of having to use White-Out or erasing strips which only covered them and always looked messy. I still have a few of my psychology papers; sometime soon I’ll dig them up and read over them again.

The only project I ever did badly on in college was a verbal assignment on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (oh, the irony!) for my Abnormal Psychology class, but it wasn’t because I hadn’t done my homework or prepared for it; it was because we had to present it in verbal form, in front of the classroom, and I clammed up terribly and my mind went completely blank. I got a D in that assignment, and it took me a very long time to get over that. In written assignments though, I always got A’s or high B’s.

My love affair with electronic typewriters like the Selectric ended when I started my first office job as a receptionist and had to spend entire days typing up invoices and memos. I remember our first word processor and how cool that seemed. I even took classes in Wang, but once again, it wasn’t too long before that seemed humdrum too.

I only completed three years of college because I got engaged and had to work full time, and something had to go. If I had to do it over again, I would have waited to marry and gotten a degree in journalism or gone for a Masters. While married, I didn’t write anything more ambitious than shopping lists. I wouldn’t dabble in creative writing (for myself) again until my early 40s, although I did take jobs as a technical writer, medical editor and part-time book reviewer during my late 20s and thirties.

(To be continued in Part 2.)

Spiritual crisis.

Posted on October 30, 2015 by luckyotter

I’ve always hesitated about getting too religious on this blog, since people of many different faiths (or none at all) come here and I don’t want to alienate non-Christians or atheists. But there’s no possible way to write what I’m about to write without at least acknowledging the presence of God (good) and Satan (evil). I will be referencing God because He plays such an important part in what happened to me this morning, but prefer to use the term “evil” or “forces of darkness” rather than Satan or the Devil. It’s all the same thing.

This morning I had a wake up call from God. Like so many other times when God knocks me upside the head with the truth, it hurt–a lot! But ultimately, it proved to me He hasn’t given up on me yet and has shown me the way to get out of the spiritual mess I’ve gotten myself into. But when He’s not pleased, He definitely lets you know. It’s my own choice what I do with this information.

As many of you know, I’ve been struggling with depression, lack of motivation, and strange dissociative episodes, where I often feel as if I’m out of my body. My “muse” seemed to have gone AWOL without any warning. I couldn’t figure it out, and thought I was having some kind of mental breakdown or a relapse into the numb depression I was in before I started to blog.

I didn’t realize until this morning that what was happening had little to do with my mind but a lot to do with my soul. Now when I look back at everything, I can’t understand how I didn’t see it, but Evil has a way of sneaking around and convincing you it’s Good when it’s the worst thing imaginable. Evil wants your soul and will do anything it can to get it, even convince you that bad is good and good is bad, and have you questioning your faith, if you have one.

I felt like God was very far away. I prayed, but half-heartedly, and no answers were coming. It was frustrating. Had God played a trick on me, or maybe didn’t even exist? Or maybe God just didn’t like me very much.

For weeks, maybe several months, my efforts at writing new blog posts felt forced. I felt that I was losing interest in narcissism and would have to take this blog in another direction. At the same time (and this is VERY insidious!) I found myself reading a lot about dark subjects, just because I felt drawn to them somehow. Yes, I admit it: while I want to be a good person and walk on the side of what’s good and right, there’s always been a part of me that’s attracted to darkness, even though at the same time I feel repelled by it. In fact, it’s much the same kind of “attraction” I’ve always had to narcissistic men–both attracted and repelled at the same time. I know it’s bad, and know it’s bad for ME, but rationalize to myself why it isn’t that dark or why it’s okay for me to be drawn closer to it. I thought I could delve into dark subjects as a sort of “spectator,” without getting really involved. I rationalized to myself that I wasn’t offending God because I wasn’t actually engaging in these activities. The power of the demonic is in its insidiousness. The way it sneaks up on you.

Evil can masquerade as “good.” Be careful.

Last week I posted an article (which I removed this morning due to its content) about the use of psychedelic drugs as therapy for Cluster B disorders and PTSD. The article was at best irresponsible and misleading, and at worst potentially destructive, even…evil. But at the time I wrote it, I had somehow convinced myself it was okay as long as I prefaced it with a “disclaimer.” It never occurred to me that although I never would take such drugs myself, even as therapy (for the record, I don’t do any drugs and rarely even drink), that someone else might be convinced to do so, and find themselves in the midst of something they would not be able to handle or even in the ER! They could also find their souls in jeopardy.

That might sound dramatic but let me explain. In spite of my unhealthy obsession with dark things, I’ve shied away from anything involving the occult ever since my bad experience using a Ouija board at age 17. The occult scares me because I believe it’s possible to attract dark forces or spirits when engaged in it. Psychedelic drugs scare me too, but I find their effects (including their effects on me in the past, which were always negative) strangely fascinating. But when you take a psychedelic drug, you’re altering your consciousness and this often involves something called “ego death.” When ego death happens, people tend to dissociate quite badly. At high doses–or on strong psychoactive drugs–you lose your sense of yourself and forget who you are, where you are, or even that you’re human. At the same time your cognition remains intact. It’s at this point that many people either freak out and have a bad experience–or enjoy the experience and begin to think of themselves as “like gods” since they feel like disembodied pure consciousness and “see” things that are unbelievable in the context of the material world.

Several things can happen, and none of them are good. You can have a psychotic break and never “return,” you can “come back” believing the lies you’ve been told (that you’re “like a God” and can do anything God can do), or an outside entity (most likely, a bad one) can enter your body when you’re in this vulnerable state. I do realize some people claim to have had enlightening and even humbling experiences, and that may be the case for a few, but I think it’s the exception rather than the rule, and even then, you may have been deceived by dark forces. Some say that because psychoactive plants grown in nature and God created these plants, that they must have been put there by God for humans to use to achieve enlightenment. That may be the case but I doubt God wants us all tripping to know Him. They may have been given to us as medicine, meant to be dispensed by a doctor. We can’t know why they exist, but I have no business encouraging anyone to use them recreationally or as a method of self-therapy. There are too many risks and too many negative outcomes. It’s opening a Pandora’s box to the unknown. Just because you’re curious about what’s in that box doesn’t mean it should be opened. Personally I think psychedelic drugs are a form of sorcery (and I even said so in the article this post is about), and sorcery isn’t anything I want to get involved with.

I can’t help but think of Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge, which may have been a psychoactive plant of some sort. Look what happened to them (and all humanity) after they ate from it! God specifically told them not to eat the fruit but they did anyway. We can’t know why it was put there if they were not to partake, but He must have had his reasons. They listened to the serpent instead who told them it was perfectly okay and not to listen to God. They fell for it and their disobedience led to the Fall. No, I do not believe this was a literal account of creation (I think it’s allegorical) but the message there is still very clear: there are some things God does NOT want us to do, and it’s not for us to question His reasoning. It could be that the answer would be too overwhelming for us to handle.

It fills me with shame now to think that in posting that article last week, I was doing the same thing the serpent was doing in the Garden. Even with all the disclaimers and admission that I’d be too afraid to undertake any psychotherapy using psychedelic drugs, that article was still incredibly irresponsible to say the least. I can’t believe I even wrote such a thing, never mind actually posting it! But the dark forces can be very convincing and even hypnotic (much like a drug–or the serpent) and while engaged in activities that are more pleasing to those forces than to goodness (or godliness), you literally can’t see what you’re doing or why it’s a bad thing. Evil literally becomes “good” and that’s the lie the dark forces wants us to believe.

I now know why I’ve been feeling so depressed and dissociated. My soul was being pulled between good and evil. Being pulled in two opposite directions, I couldn’t “move,” hence the lack of motivation and dearth of new ideas. It also explains the strange out of body experiences and inexplicable sense of foreboding and panic attacks. These are all symptoms of soul sickness. Someone on another blog has said I seem very confused, and it’s true. I am very confused and have been for some time. The dark forces use confusion to disorient us and make us more vulnerable to their attempts to win our souls to their side.

I want to do what’s right; I want to please God, but at the same time I do find dark things alluring and seductive. All my life I’ve been surrounded by evil, and stayed with a very evil man far longer than I should have. I finally escaped, and found God, but the dark forces still want to get their hooks in me and this was their attempt to do so. I’m not strong enough to resist those forces without God, especially taking my background into consideration. If I deliberately dabble in things (and this includes even reading excessively about them) I’m leaving myself wide open to go down a very negative spiritual path.

This morning I saw a comment about this blog on someone else’s blog. The comments were not positive. The drug article was called out as being “evil.” I never thought of it that way, because the last thing I want to be is evil, but I immediately realized this person was right. I don’t want to post things that could be seen that way or could harm someone’s body, mind or soul. But that article WAS very dangerous and suddenly it was like my eyes were opened. I almost felt as if I’d just woken up and seen things as they really were. I saw myself in the mirror and the reflection wasn’t pretty.

My first reaction was extreme. I felt such overpowering shame (similar to what Adam and Eve must have felt in the Garden when they covered their bodies) that for a moment I was VERY tempted to just take down this whole blog and disappear. But suddenly I felt God’s presence and another thought entered my mind–Repent. Retract the article (as well as others that have been seen or may be seen as irresponsible or damaging to ACONs or disordered people, or ANYONE for that matter) and publicly apologize. I knew that God was giving me another solution because He knows that blogging has brought me to Him and didn’t want me to destroy the gift He’d given me to heal myself. To take down this blog and disappear would be the coward’s way out. It’s the way I have handled so many other things in my life when I handled things badly or hurt someone unintentionally. But God doesn’t want us to be cowards. He wants us to take responsibility for our mistakes, to own up to them, even when it’s embarrassing.
I was wrong. There’s no other way to justify what I did.

Many people might think doing such a thing a public retraction and apology would bring more shame than just disappearing. But ironically, I felt relief and gratitude. Gratitude that God had NOT turned his back on me (as I’d feared) and still has a plan for me. A year ago he was working on my mind; now He’s working on my soul, and the lessons you learn are so much harder. God is endlessly patient with us. He knows we’re human and will mess up sometimes. I messed up big time. I asked for forgiveness but I knew that the feeling of relief and gratitude meant He’d already forgiven me, as long as I never do such a thing ever again.

And God does perform miracles too. Several small (or not so small) miracles happened following my eyes being opened this morning. I could have felt hurt by the negative comments on that other blog, but somehow I didn’t–because I knew that person was right. I didn’t feel depressed today, and I felt inspired to write this article. I realized how much I WANTED to write it. I couldn’t wait to get home to write it. I haven’t felt this excited to write any blog post in months! I just knew that it was what God wanted me to do, and God always knows what we need even when we don’t.

When I got home earlier, there was one other little miracle waiting for me. This:

A single bright pink flower on a succulent plant in my kitchen that has NEVER bloomed in the three years I’ve had it. I never noticed it until I got home, and suddenly there it was! I felt God’s presence and knew this was Him letting me know I’d made the right choice and was pleased. So I uttered two words: “Thank you.”

I know there will be many more spiritual crises ahead of me. I’m far from perfect and never will be. But I know if I stay close to God and stray less than I have over to the allure of darkness, I may have fewer of them and find I’m a whole lot happier in general.

Writer’s block.

Posted on October 29, 2015 by luckyotter

I feel like there’s a traffic jam in my brain. Or perhaps, no traffic at all. For some reason I can’t fathom, I can’t work up the motivation to write anything. I feel like my creativity has gone AWOL. I wake up feeling depressed. I go to sleep feeling depressed. It’s a numb, zombie-like depression but underneath that…there’s something coming to the surface. There’s an underlying anxiety and a feeling of impending insanity. I don’t know why. I pray for an answer, some clarity, some ability to process the stuff going on in my head right now, but there don’t seem to be any answers.

I can’t think straight. I had a bad panic attack at work yesterday; it came out of nowhere. I was out of control. I embarrassed myself and was shaken the rest of the day.

I’m using various techniques (prayer, meditation, long hot baths) to calm myself down, but it’s only a temporary fix and I still have no creative ideas for new posts. I forced myself to write this one. I’ve said many times before that writing is at least in part a discipline. You have to make yourself write, even when you don’t want to. Then it gets easier. But I’m ignoring my own advice.

I feel like my small life is growing smaller. I’m isolating myself more. I think about death a lot (not suicide, just the idea of death and it scares me). I keep asking God to intervene and lift my mood but this time he’s sleeping on the job.

I know I have to take responsibility and make myself get out of the house sometimes and make myself write. But when the time comes, I just find it so hard to get motivated. I have problems with the seasons and always get depressed this time of year. But this didn’t happen last year. I wrote like a maniac a year ago and worked through a lot of emotional stuff. I was full of ideas and writing allayed any depression I would have experienced.

I have faith though. I know this is temporary. I know God is there and is sitting back for a reason. He wants me to work through this on my own. I feel like I’m on the edge of an epiphany, something new I need to discover about myself.

I know this post won’t win any Pulitzer prizes and isn’t at all inspiring but at least it’s something. I know I need to just sit down and make myself write SOMETHING every day, even if it sounds uninspired or even stupid. I need to tell my inner critic to STFU. I’m not trying to impress anyone, just get my thoughts on “paper” so I can process them and learn from them. This is only meant to be a journal, after all. Maybe this will even open a discussion about writer’s block and I won’t feel so alone. I’m also going to look into therapy.

Trolls and lack of motivation.

Posted on October 23, 2015 by luckyotter

I thought I had my lack of motivation all figured out, and thought I’d conquered it, but obviously I haven’t, since I’ve been posting a lot less than I used to and it hasn’t gotten any better. I can’t figure out my lack of motivation, because I love writing and blogging has brought me so much insight into myself and my place in the world, and even moments of joy.

I was all set to write up a new post last night (albeit, not a long one). Whenever I start a new blogging session, I always check my comments first. Lately I don’t seem to be getting as many. I have more viewers and hits overall than ever before, but fewer people are commenting. I’m not sure why. I don’t know if this is something to worry about or not. Maybe it’s silly, but I wonder sometimes if people are put off by my frankness and occasionally unpopular opinions. Obviously, they’re reading, and I do know some people appreciate my frankness, so I guess I shouldn’t worry. I know one of my most frequent commenters (who was actually my #1 commenter for awhile) is busy writing a book right now (and also hasn’t been feeling well) and even Opinionated Man doesn’t seem to be getting as many comments these days, so maybe it’s not just me. Maybe it’s just my stupid narcissism making everything all about me and taking everything personally. Maybe it’s just because I’m posting less, duh.

So anyway, last night I was going to write something about covert narcissism and avoidant personality disorder and whether or not they might actually be the same thing. After all, covert narcissism isn’t recognized as a real disorder but AvPD is. I’ll probably still write that article but I do find lately I’ve been veering away from the topic of narcissism and this blog is becoming more of a general interest blog.

I opened up my laptop, and as is my habit, checked my comment folder before starting to write. And the first comment I saw was a very trollish comment which I won’t bother quoting because of how hateful it was. I sent the comment to Trash anyway. The comment wasn’t merely critical (I’ll still approve those and usually respond to them in some way); it was an attack on my character because of an article I posted MONTHS ago. The writer of the comment objected to what she or he felt was my being too soft on narcissists. Bible verses were used to fuel their rage and personal attack on me.

I hate that. I can take criticism if it’s constructive, but can’t stand judgmental people, and I especially can’t stand people who use religion as an excuse to act like assholes. The Bible is wonderful, but so many people these days use it to back up unacceptable behavior, as if this is their holy mission and right. It’s very narcissistic. Churches are filled with narcissists who used scripture as a way to intimidate those they disagree with, so they don’t have to take any responsibility for their cruel and vicious personal attacks. The Internet is full of them too. I can’t say whether or not this person is a narcissist, but their behavior displayed splitting and black and white thinking, and the “us versus them” mindset so prevalent today. Of course, to this person, I’m one of “them.” What they’re doing has a name: religious abuse.

I know I shouldn’t have taken the comment personally. I know that as a blogger who focuses on a sensitive issue, angering people sometimes can’t be avoided. People are sometimes going to disagree with you. You are going to have haters and trolls, especially if your blog becomes widely read, as this one has. It comes with the territory. I know many people read this blog and get a lot out of it, and still get far more positive comments than negative ones, so why I am allowing one stupid negative comment to intimidate me enough to make me not want to post? But that’s exactly what happened: I decided not to post anything at all last night because of that stupid comment. I said to myself, “I’m over this. I don’t want to deal with these haters anymore. I don’t think I should even blog about narcissism anymore.” It’s true that I have been focusing less on narcissism because I feel like I’ve pretty much said everything there is to say about it already. But I allowed this one comment to destroy my motivation to write about anything at all!

I have a message for that commenter should they read this: I don’t care what you have to say. You’re a bully and a jerk. This is MY blog, and if you don’t like it, don’t read it! Go read something you agree with instead. It’s my blog, and I can write about whatever I want and you have no right to dictate to me what I can and can’t say. You may have a valid point in your opinion and the right to express it, but you have no right to personally attack me. I’m going to continue to write honestly about what I feel, not to please you. You do not intimidate me and neither do the Bible verses you spout to make it seem like you’re on a personal mission from God when in fact your behavior is itself very narcissistic. But thank you for giving me an idea for a new article.

I love blogging and don’t want to ever stop. I’m not going to let one judgmental malcontent ruin my motivation or put a damper on what I love to do. It took me too long to get to where I am. I’ve allowed myself to be intimidated by people like that for my whole life, and it’s a big part of why I never achieved much of anything and always doubted myself and eventually gave up anything I ever undertook.