A schizoid personality

Back, back, and back… Back in France, back to blogging, back from dark places…

I can’t resume properly those past few months. It has been like fast forwarding thru all my schizoid experiences from the darkest older ones to a definite new place I have never been before.

The last article was just the first of many nasty reminiscences I endured. I had forgotten how crowded Paris can be. Malls of course, but just basic groceries, or even getting some bread at the corner bakery, it seems there is always tons of people everywhere. I had to learn anew the habits, the hours and days to avoid. But those changes alone, I could have cope with, once passed the inevitable mistakes and adaptation period.

Sadly there was much more to endure. If only it would have been as simple as taking one problem at a time, adapt to it, then handle the next one and retrieve my former habits quickly, but in reality, everything fell on me at once: Crowded places, more social life than I ever dreamed of in my nightmares (being gone for 10 years have a tendency to raise curiosity; family members want to meet you, people want to chat, vague acquaintances want the whole story… And you can’t argue that you are just passing by and really have no time to see everyone like when you came in vacation.) But also many administrative procedures to go through, adapting to a different culture (not quite the one you left 10 years ago and not the one you left in North America either), job hunting, leaving with the in-laws, house hunting, getting back to overpopulated public transports…

In a nutshell: Much, much more than I could handle all at once. I am not new at this; I have some strong defense mechanisms in place. But if I look strong on the surface, it’s not actually going all the way through, and a few barriers have been chattered along the way. I had probably never been so close of the typical clinical description of SPD behaviors.

A few basic things went off. Like, I started having trouble sleeping (something I had nailed down pretty well before, but the promiscuity in the house, not being able to roam alone or do my usual stuff was a big breaker on that side.) I also slightly lost control of my incursions into fantasy, another thing I had well under control (I could resource myself in my own little world, let my brain go is pace, and then jump back instantly to answer a question, participate, look alive. Honestly nobody, other than my wife, will really notice… I think…), making me look more aloof than usual, missing questions, and slow to come back to reality. And finally, huge scare here: The movies will not reset the clock like they used to… I mean, movies for me were like… The ultimate tool. I could get in any theater, spend a day watching several movies and come out completely “clean”, washed and ready for the world. It always acted like some kind of battery recharging process. Well, no more…

This could have ended up “badly”. I mean, with that degree of control and recovery gone, the only process I had left was closing myself completely, build more walls and close more doors. I could have just keep digging deeper and deeper, close myself in more every day, until I disappear… Maybe I even wanted to…

But… That would have been counting without my wife. Something definitively changed. She started some obvious antisocial humor, joking with me, she protected me from crowded areas while I was giving signs of discomfort, sending me away from long waiting lanes, and she covered for me while I was staying in our room for much needed alone time.

See, it’s not easy on her being with a cold emotionally closed down person like me, and it certainly was not easy when I broke the news why either… BUT, she is the most empathic person I ever met, truly amazing (and disturbing for me at some points). It took some time, but she obviously reached a point where she can grasp what it is like for me. As a result, there is this new “complicity” between us, and it was helpful to stay focused  those past few months for sure.

As for the tools, you know, when they are broken or not appropriate anymore, you need new ones (or older underutilized ones). So I turned into writing a little more chronically than usual (obviously not in the blog). And that took a good chunk of the edge off.

And so, here I am: Back. Much more stable now, I cope with overcrowded public transportation, some dust starts to set in the job, still looking for a suitable home and leaving with the in-laws for now, but got onto a new level of relationship with my wife. So not as confident as I used to, not yet the “secret” schizoid I used to be, but getting there, and the movies are doing their effect again, so I got a solid escape there if needed.

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