Last Footage of My Father

On October 5, 2006, my sister Cheryl and I visited my dad, my mom, and my nephew at the house I grew up in. I wanted to show them pictures of my trip to California, having returned just a few weeks before. I had my computer with me, because that's where all my pictures were. I showed my dad how I could take video, and immediately play it back, with my computer. He got a kick out of that. He was a civil engineer, and technology of this sort fascinated him. It befuddled him as well, because for years, I would get weekly calls asking me, one more time, how to program a VCR, duplicate a tape, or just turn a damn piece of equipment on.

The day after this video was taken, my dad broke his hip. He was gone sixteen days later. These are therefore the last images ever taken of my father.

I am grateful that I got to spend part of this day with him. How fortunate I was to capture this video of him and I only hours before he began a slow fade from this life. I miss him more than I can say. And I will always love him. In death as I did in life. He isn't physically here anymore, but that doesn't mean he's not still with me. I feel him today, as I do everyday. If I just go inside. And listen.

Lie To Win

        Pathological lying is a sickness of the soul. As dangerous to human relationships as hatred, and just as powerful. As insidious as cancer, and often even harder to cure. As potentially destructive to another person’s well being as domestic abuse, but who’s signs are much harder to detect.
        Yet you won’t see much coverage of pathological lying in the media. Maybe lying in general is so accepted in our society that taking it to the pathological state just seems like an an extreme extension of something most people do anyway. Why get your shorts in a knot? Similar in that respect to alcoholism. Most people drink. Some drink too much and too often. So what?
        It’s helpful to differentiate between a pathological liar and a compulsive liar:

“A pathological liar is usually defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others. Pathological lying is often viewed as a coping mechanism developed in early childhood. A pathological liar is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused - it is done to get one's way). Pathological liars have little regard or respect for the rights and feelings of others. A pathological liar often comes across as being manipulative, cunning and self-centered.” (definition courtesy of www.truthaboutdeception.com)

“A compulsive liar is defined as someone who lies out of habit. Lying is their normal and reflexive way of responding to questions. Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything, large and small. For a compulsive liar, telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable while lying feels right. Compulsive lying is usually thought to develop in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary. For the most part, compulsive liars are not overly manipulative and cunning (see, Pathological Liar), rather they simply lie out of habit - an automatic response which is hard to break and one that takes its toll on a relationship. The terms Habitual Liar and Chronic Liar are often used to refer to a Compulsive Liar.” (definition courtesy of www.truthaboutdeception.com)

        Having grown up in a family where we have both pathological and compulsive liars, I’ve been surrounded by both kinds my whole life. I can occasionally slip into the habit of telling a little compulsive lie during the course of a conversation. Rarely about anything important, and usually done to make myself look better, like when I’m feeling shame about something I did or didn’t do, I nevertheless always feel bad about it afterward. I did it more when I was younger, when I was more insecure. I didn’t like that about myself, so I set out to change it. Rarely a problem for me now, but, like alcohol for an alcoholic, it’s always around. I have to stay on top of myself, because truth and honesty are important to me, and even a small, seemingly harmless compulsive lie compromises that value for me.
        Statistically, the chances are good that you know at least one pathological liar, and probably more. I believe both pathological lying and substance abuse are far more prevalent in our society than most people realize. In fact, they’re Emotional/Spiritual Epidemics.
        Dealing with a pathological liar or a person with a substance abuse problem regularly can lead us to madness. If we aren’t aware of, and educated about, these ailments, our serenity and sanity eventually end up compromised. The good news is that that often drives us to help ourselves because we end up in so much pain. This leads us down our own path of growth and transformation.
        Eight years ago, I started going to Al-anon because I needed validation that I wasn’t losing my mind. Things were happening around me that I found incredibly disturbing, painful, and unacceptable. Yet they were being fluffed off, denied, rationalized, excused, or completely minimized by just about everyone else involved. So I started to question my own responses, my own thoughts and feelings, my own attitudes, my own sanity. I knew I wasn’t perfect. I knew I was human and wrong about plenty. I knew I had plenty of character flaws. I wanted to own my stuff. But I could no longer be part of what was happening. It was literally driving me out of my mind. So either I was crazy, or the situation I was involved in was. Either way, I needed help.
        I continue to get help, because I’ll always need it. I can’t do this life alone, as much as a part of me wishes it could. But that’s a lonely part of me that just hasn’t seen enough light yet. As I grow, I open, and thus expose and illuminate more of myself.
        Ultimately, this comes down to me. How I deal with a pathological liar is my opportunity to learn and grow. That said, minimizing my contact with them is usually a good idea. They are good at what they do. Far better than I am. I can’t win their game, or even play it. The way I win is not to play their game at all. The way I win is to be myself in the midst of a shit storm. To go inside and get to know me better. As always, the journey leads me back inward.

©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and thousands, no...millions, no...billions, no...all of the Wrongs on earth, ‘cuz they are ALL MINE!) Reserved.

Helpful Links:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_can_you_tell_if_someone_is_a_pathological_liar

http://www.youmeworks.com/sociopaths.html

http://www.truthaboutdeception.com/confront_a_liar/public/pathological-compulsive.html

http://www.healthmad.com/Mental-Health/How-to-Spot-a-Pathological-Liar.

It Wasn't My Time

        Last Saturday, I was biking back from Falmouth. It was a nice ride, pleasant and uneventful, save for one thing. I got hit by a truck.
        Most of my trek was on the fabulous new bike path extension that runs practically to my front door, give or take a few miles. But some of my travel was on open road. When this is the case, I bike on the sidewalk if at all possible, making sure to give pedestrians the room they need to get by. This usually means hopping off the sidewalk and onto the road for a few moments while they pass. So as the two walkers approached me this day, I made my plan to give them room. I was going against the traffic, on what was my left side of the street.
        Checking to make sure there were no oncoming cars, and biking over the sidewalk curb and onto the road, I hit a puddle. Apparently, a pretty wet one. I go through puddles all the time, without ever having a problem. This time, however, because of the angle I hit the puddle at, the extreme wetness of the water, and the phase of the moon in Gemini, I started to skid.
        As I turned to control the bike, I knew if I jerked too hard to the left, I’d hit the bulky curb of the sidewalk and go flying. So I turned right, aware that there were no cars coming towards me. But as I rapidly shifted my weight and turned the handlebars, I skidded once more, most likely because of, once again, the water being far wetter than normal (and possibly because Saturn was in Virgo). This skid was more precarious, however, because I skidded across the road and into the other lane, where a landscaping truck, coming from behind, was headed straight towards me.
        He had already started slowing down and pulling as far over to his right as he could to avoid me. The guy wasn’t speeding, and he was paying attention to the road, which was very fortunate for me. If he had been driving too fast or asleep at the wheel, I would have been toast.
        All of a sudden, I’m in danger of being hit by a truck. What I remember most vividly is that, despite suddenly faced with potential disaster, I was amazingly calm. I didn’t yell. I didn’t panic. And if I was afraid, I certainly didn’t consciously feel it. My mind was incredibly clear and focused. My survival instinct kicked in and determined my best shot for staying alive was not to lose it. I figured out what I needed to do and did it, instantaneously, before I knew I was doing it.
        I instinctively knew my best shot was to avoid hitting the truck broadside, or else I’d suffer the same fate a small boat does when it hits a massive wave facing sideways. So I steered left as hard as I could while still keeping control of the bike and tried to ride alongside the truck. At the same time, I extended my right arm as the truck approached. I wanted to stave off the truck hitting my bike for as long as possible, because every second, his speed decreased. And I knew once my bike got hit, as opposed to my arm or even my shoulder, I would be thrown off the bike, and that was where I could suffer the most damage. The longer I stayed vertical, the better my chances of avoiding serious injury.
        I figured all of this out within a few seconds, and my body was able to execute exactly what I needed to do, instantly. I don’t believe that my brain or my body normally work quite that fast. Or that precisely. But then again, this situation was far from normal. Something else had kicked into gear.
        The first thing that hit the truck was my hand at the end of my outstretched right arm. I pushed off once, then a few more times, as my bike stayed out of the line of fire and I kept my balance, now on a tangent course with the truck. Finally, part if his cab hit my bike, and I was thrown off. This was the moment of truth.
        As I fell, I turned and tucked in my arms, again, instinctively, so that I wouldn’t brace my fall with my hands. What had saved me a moment ago would have resulted in a broken bone now, so in came my arms. As I headed towards the ground, my head came up so it wouldn’t hit the pavement, and I turned and rolled my shoulder, knowing that the most heavily muscled part of my torso, my upper back and shoulder area, was best equipped to deal with the fall. As I hit the ground, I rolled with the blow, further dissipating the impact.
I got up off the ground with nothing but a few scratches on my right upper back. No blood. I wasn’t even shook up. As soon as I got up, I came over to the dude driving the truck and said “I’m fine. Completely. And it was my fault. Don’t worry about it.” He looked more upset than I probably did, even though I was the one who got knocked to the ground. I reassured him several more times that I was completely okay and that the accident was my fault, shook hands with the guy, and biked off.
        The last time I felt my life threatened, I was seventeen. Skiing down Wildcat mountain, I wiped out at high speed and went careening, completely out of control, into a ravine full of trees. I instinctively covered my head, some part of me knowing that if I ever hit my noggin against a tree at this velocity, it would be lights out. Permanently. I also yelled, knowing somewhere in me that if I needed help, yelling sooner rather than later may prove crucial. I didn’t yell when I went skidding into the truck, because yelling at that point wouldn’t do any good. I knew the guy already saw me, and using my voice at all would just redirect energy that I desperately needed elsewhere.
        In my skiing accident, I ended up sideways, slamming against a pine tree, knocking the wind out of me and breaking a rib. My brother and my first cousin, who I was skiing with, wanted to call the ski patrol, but there was no way I was going down the mountain in a stretcher unless I could not physically stand up. Only pussies go down a mountain in a ski patrol stretcher (oh the idiocy of teenage machismo). So I climbed out of the ravine, snow up to my waist, using my skis like hiking sticks, and skied down the rest of the mountain, bent to one side and trying not to wince too noticeably.
        Fear remains a perverse phenomenon. It can save our lives, and it can ruin them as well. The fear of getting hit by a truck is what triggered my survival instinct, or whatever you want to call the physical, emotional, and psychological zone that I was in for those few seconds that I needed focus, strength, coordination, and inner peace to stay alive. But my fear of abandonment, or rejection, can take me out of my life completely.
        Actually, it’s my response to fear that determines how my life gets lived. Or not lived. My response to fear in the face of a true life threatening situation was to focus my mind and body in order to increase my chances of survival. This was an automatic, mostly unconscious response. But then again, so is my reaction to fear of abandonment. It’s mostly unconscious. My growth comes when I make that unconscious fear and automatic emotional reaction conscious, so I can look at it and employ tools to change it. The fear is still there, and may always be. But my response is what I can alter with awareness, acceptance, and action.

Please join me again for part two.

©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and an instinctual number of Wrongs) Reserved.