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When Ideals Become Obsessions The Quincy Unitarian Church Home
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When Ideals Become Obsessions Presented May 16, 2010, by Alexis Engelbrecht
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When I attended Q.U., I wrote an essay explaining why it was important to have hope in an Advanced Writing course. One of my friends in the class said that "it was the one of the saddest essays" she ever read. This is probably because when I wrote the essay, I was feeling rather hopeless, and the essay was a way for me to remind myself of the power of hope. In a way, this talk is similar to that essay. I am at a point in my life where I'm very much aware of societal ideals - the ideal way to look, the ideal way to live, the ideal modern mother. I'm reevaluating ideals I developed in what seems like another galaxy - when I was graduating from college the day after marrying Jose. I'm very much aware of how ideals can lift one to a higher level of being and I'm even more aware of how they can be dangerous - even life threatening. The purpose of this talk is to explore the various sources of ideals, the difference between authentic ideals and societal ideals, and various ways in which ideals can be used.
Synonyms for the word "ideal" include "perfect", "model", "ultimate", and "best". For something to be an obsession, it must be a persistent preoccupation with an idea or feeling. Most definitions add that an obsession is often irrational and disturbing. You may initially wonder why a person would argue that a word with a seemingly pleasant meaning, such as ideal, would be connected to a behavior for which some people see therapists. To bring the connection to light, let's begin with a brief introductory lesson of a branch of existentialism that I'm going to play with throughout most of my talk. Keep "ideals" and "obsessions" in your thoughts as we delve into the power of the mind and the importance of being fully aware of one's choices.
Jean Paul Sartre coined the phrase "existence precedes essence". We exist then we become whatever we become through a series of choices. Now, when I say "we become what we become", I mean we become who we are at any particular moment. Each new choice creates or reaffirms our previous creation of ourselves. This is what Sartre calls our "original project". We are both the totality of past decisions and the possibility of future decisions - and the potential of a radical conversion always exists. I have an aid to illustrate what I just said. Some people find this overwhelming. I find it encouraging.
For those who find this great responsibility overwhelming, there are various coping mechanisms to help them believe they are distributing the responsibility of their choices to other sources. Some people may call this "denial", Sartre calls these coping mechanisms forms of "bad faith". These acts of bad faith prevent a person from fully living an authentic life - from fully taking on the weight of freedom and acknowledging that they, and only they, are responsible for their life. Sartre uses an alarm clock to illustrate how bad faith is employed. Let's say someone named Ralph sets his alarm clock one evening because he has an important early morning meeting to attend. The problem is that Ralph does not really want to go to the meeting. In fact, he hates his job. When the alarm goes off, he hits the switch and prepares for the day. Later on, a friend tells him he looks tired. Ralph says that he's tired because his alarm woke him up and he had to go to an early meeting. The wording here is very important. Ralph is transferring the responsibility to the alarm clock - he really didn't have to wake up. He really didn't even have to attend the meeting. Ralph chose to set the alarm clock, and Ralph chose to attend the meeting. Ralph chose to apply for the job, and he accepted the position when it was offered to him. There's a lot more that can be said about this example, but I want to use it to make the point that people act in "bad faith" to suppress their awareness of making decisions (which is a decision in and of itself) and to avoid taking responsibility for those decisions.
Trying to please others is a form of bad faith (appropriately titled "being for others"). Let's create another character named Danielle. If Danielle doesn't really want to be a doctor, but goes to medical school and sets up a practice because her parents want her to be a doctor, she is being for others. She decides to fulfill her parents' definition of success (or an ideal) rather than her own. Interestingly, her decision to follow the dream of her parents is also a way of avoiding responsibility. It's their dream, their ideal, so it's their fault if she's miserable.
I don't believe it's wrong to have ideals, but when they become forms of bad faith - which I propose is a form of obsession - they prevent us from actually living up to more authentic ideals, that is, an ideal that is the result of a series of ongoing conscious choices and reflections as well as an awareness of our perpetually changing environment.
A true story about a South Korean couple with two babies illustrates the danger of ideals and obsessions. One of their babies was premature, needy, and nameless. The other was perfect in every way, and her name was Anima. The child who was never named was their biological child. Anima was their baby in a 3-D online world called Prius Online. The couple left their nameless baby alone at home while they cared for Anima at an internet cafe. One day, after spending 12 hours online, the couple returned home to find that their real baby died from malnutrition and dehydration.
According to a police officer, the parents "seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn't have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby." As a result, "they indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby."
After I initially read the online article from Slate magazine which outlined these events, I immediately told Jose about it and used the story as further justification to my ongoing claim that technology is the tool of the devil. He was quick to point out that books can detach one from reality as well, so that conversation ended quickly. Then, I began to think of what this story represents (I can't help it - I'm an English major). We're the parents. The biological baby can symbolize our reality; Anima represents an ideal turning into an obsession. She can also symbolize the various forces in our society, and even in ourselves, that serve as coping mechanisms and forms of escape from our reality. It's easy to point to things in this world that provide distractions from what is meaningful in life: the internet, video games, drugs, movies with Ashton Kutcher . . . but there are other less discernable sources -which are internal. Our thoughts possess great power - but they only have as much power as we give them.
The Zen proverb stating "The arousal of thoughts is sickness; not continuing them is medicine" speaks directly to the idea that everything - even what goes on in our heads - is a choice. Our thoughts spark actions. Whatever we choose to think about - whatever thoughts we allow to root in our brains will grow and bear fruit. The more we water and attend to a thought, the more powerful it becomes. This metaphor is supported by neuroscience. Every time you repeat an action, you are reinforcing the wiring in your brain that makes that action possible. This is how habits are created and why we're able to do things - such as driving the same route home - without even thinking about them. This also means that in order to "break" a habit, we must consciously construct new wiring in our brains. It takes at least six weeks to develop a new habit, which is one reason why people often drift back into old behaviors after only a few days or even weeks of trying to change. The new behavior must still be enforced after six weeks, however, because the old wiring (the old habit) is still present and is usually the pattern of behavior people fall back upon when they're not paying attention. To return to the road analogy, even if you spend six weeks going home a different route from normal, you will probably drive the route you always drove before if you don't pay attention. People fall into old behaviors even if they are unhealthy or unproductive because it's easier not to think about what one is doing. I struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder, and the best thing a therapist, Dr. Ford, said to me was: "You turned it into a habit to do those behaviors, now you have to make it be a habit not to do them." You would think that washing my hands after I touched anything was difficult, but it was easier to do so than to deal with the fears that accompanied not doing so. Eventually, it became a habit not to give in to those fears.
Here we come to the part of the talk that I'll call my "Oprah moment". I'm going to share something with you that I hope is a surprise. Then again, it may cause you to say, "Well, that explains a lot." When I was sixteen, my parents admitted me into a psychiatric hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma to be treated for severe depression, anxiety, and anorexia. The details of this experience and how it came to be can be saved for another talk, and I can answer questions during the "talk back", but what I want to bring out right now is the dangerous nature of ideals and how, when they become obsessions, they can prevent a person from living an authentic way of life. Sometimes they can prevent a person from living entirely.
The first thing you learn at Laureate's eating disorder wing is that eating disorders have nothing to do with eating. An eating disorder is a way to avoid coping with something else. It's a way to feel in control when one is feeling totally out of control. It's easier to focus on what to eat and not eat - how to hide what one is eating or not eating - how to manipulate one's body to fit a particular image - it's easier to do those things than it is to deal with reality. Eventually, when the disorder has completely become a part of your brain, it's a struggle to think about anything other than the mirror, the scale, and food.
I was treated at Laureate for 3 months. My time there provided the foundation from which I look at most everything in life. It should come as no surprise to you that time at a psychiatric hospital is life changing.
Here's what may be a surprise - to some girls, it was not. Many of my peers were there for the second or third time. One girl had been there for over a year and was still very ill. If someone left after a few weeks, it was because their insurance stopped paying for their treatment and their parents didn't have enough money for them to stay. Their quick departure was not a sign that they were healthy. Statistically, half of people who are effectively treated for eating disorders regain their weight and health. Within the other half, a fourth improve with periodic setbacks, and a fourth continue to engage in the disordered behavior. What separates these groups?
I believe there are two major differences between those who continue to act upon the disorder and those who don't. Some do not believe that they can overcome the disorder, while others want to maintain the role the disorder allows them to perform. It's easier to measure self worth with numbers on a scale than it is to really think about who one truly is as human being. It's safer to fall back upon the role of the person who needs to be cared for and who simply diets and exercises than it is to experiment with possibilities and vulnerably engage in meaningful relationships. Recovery does not mean that the disordered thoughts eventually go away. It means that a person makes the conscious decision to refuse to act upon disordered thinking and become sick again. Initially, I decided to stop the disordered behavior because I never wanted my father to drive home after leaving me at a hospital again. I decided to maintain a healthy weight because I wanted to set a good example for my younger sisters. I did not want my mother to cry for fear of losing me. The problem is that this desire to please my family was another form of bad faith.
When I am healthy for the sake of other people, I am "being-for-others". Even though the goal to keep others happy kept me alive throughout high school, it provided a shaky foundation for my health. If it hadn't been for a fortunate high school project in English, I probably would have relapsed. The assignment was to choose a book from a list, then write and present a report on the book and its author. The titles "Nausea" and "No Exit" looked interesting to me, and I never heard of Jean Paul Sartre, so I began a life changing exploration into the philosophy of existentialism. When I came to Sartre's ideas regarding forms of bad faith and how they are deterrents from an authentically meaningful life, I realized how I allowed truly insignificant obsessions (my weight and feelings of self doubt) prevent me from doing productive activities that I truly enjoyed. Obsessing on a physical ideal that was truly impossible to maintain and literally live served as an effective distraction from issues and thoughts I didn't want to address, but the obsession also drained energy away from worthwhile projects, such as becoming a professional ballerina, relationships, and, since you can't really think straight if you're starving, academics.
I still have to keep my thinking in check. If I were to cultivate my disordered thoughts today (which never truly go away), I would be just as sick as I was when I entered the hospital. This very talk illustrates how I still battle my eating disorder and how it serves as a diversion from living. When I emailed Rob about the possibility of giving a talk for Eating Disorder Awareness Week in February, he said that the month was booked, but I could use one of his Sundays in the months that followed. My authentic uncensored self was quick to jump at the opportunity to explore and express ideas, and I accepted his generous offer. Immediately after I pressed "send" on the computer screen, the disordered thoughts began. Instead of thinking about my talk, I thought "I have to lose fifteen pounds". Every time I began planning for today, I had to dismiss plans for weight loss as well as self criticisms regarding my intellectual ability and appearance before focusing on the actual task at hand. I am constantly living with at least two trains of thought. The disordered voice, or, as Fr. J.J. calls it, the "committee in my head" relentlessly berates me for my appearance, my words, my actions, and my decisions. The other train is the one that I must persistently nurture - the side of my thinking that negates the negativity. As you can imagine, this battle is exhausting. In a way, I have to obsess about not obsessing about my appearance.
Now, as President Obama would say, "let me be clear." I don't want to glorify myself as a person who struggles with an eating disorder and other issues. Those characteristics don't deserve glory, and I certainly don't want them to define who I am as a person (which is a major reason why I choose not to act upon them). This experience doesn't make me any more or less special than anyone else. Being a teacher has taught me a lot, and one lesson is that everyone has a reason not to turn in their homework. Everyone has a reason to detach themselves from a particular situation. Everyone has a "demon" of some sort lurking in the corner of their mind preventing them from being themselves - unrated and uncensored.
Nietszche writes of this in "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (another book that saved my life). In a chapter entitled "On the Way of the Creator" he writes " . . . the worst enemy you can encounter will always be you, yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caves and woods" (64). It's not uncommon to assign individuals who accomplish great things in life superhuman qualities or to say that they were born into their position. The reality is that these individuals are no more or less human than anyone else. If people are great due to circumstance, Barack Obama would not be President Obama. People of greatness make a conscience choice to refuse to allow any obstacles, internal or external, to defeat their ability to create their futures. When I say "people of greatness", I do not merely mean people you know from your history books or from watching news reports. I mean people like Colleen, a janitor from my high school, whose smile would truly brighten my day, Mr. Smith, whose eccentric teaching practices inspired me to become an English teacher, and many of you, who have helped Kurtis and me.
The author George Eliot recognizes that a person can be crucial to society's development without being well known in the final chapter of "Middlemarch". In it, she writes of Dorothea, who, throughout the entire novel which spans many years, possesses a great desire to significantly improve the world around her. The novel ends with Dorothea giving up fortune and stability to marry for love and supporting her husband's pursuits while caring for their child. This ending infuriated me in college, but now, I find new meaning in the following passage:
"Her [Dorothea's] full nature had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."
In other words, do not underestimate the power of your choices and your sphere of influence. As Sartre says, "when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible only for his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men"(350). Perhaps this can serve as a guide in determining worthwhile ideals. What would happen if everyone possessed the goal you are intent upon achieving? Here, I must pause and reflect upon Ian Taylor's talk last week. When he was asked to list what he wanted most from life at Madison Church, he did not list material items. He described his objectives as being cheesy, but I found them inspiring. Imagine what our world would be like if everyone strove to maintain deep and meaningful relationships.
Let's return to the basic existentialist idea that our function or role in life is not predetermined. Rather, we are a self creation based upon our choices. As a teacher, I noticed a disturbing trend in students when it came to thinking that a person's position in life was predetermined. During the first weeks of school, it became clear that people knew who the "smart ones" were and who the ones who "didn't get it" were. Studies show that Quincy Junior High School students are not alone in this division of the intellect. Studies also show that while this division is very superficial, the effects are disturbingly real. If an instructor teaches students that their brains are muscles and that intelligence is not set - in fact, it fluctuates depending upon how one trains one's brain - those students do better in classes than those who simply learn study skills. How could this be? Students who are in a study skills class still think that intelligence is set, which means it really doesn't matter how they study - they believe their grade is predetermined and act accordingly. Here again we have an example of bad faith because these students aren't taking responsibility for their academic performance. Instead of acting upon their creative powers, they are conforming to preexisting societal roles: the role of the good student, the class clown, the dunce. Acting within a prescribed role can feel safe, but it's also limiting.
In the beginning of this talk, I said that some people find the power and responsibility of their decisions to be overwhelming, but that I find it to be encouraging. I think I find existentialism to be comforting because I've always been painfully aware of every decision I've made in my life. Remembering that every choice is a new opportunity to redefine who I am - an attempt to work on myself as a project - is exciting and reassuring. The question I now always ask myself is, who am I, as a project?
This brings us again to the struggle between authentic versus externally influenced ideals. An article written by Naomi Woolf for Harper's Bazaar about Angelina Jolie speaks directly to the issues of societal versus personal ideals. In her 1991 book "The Beauty Myth", Woolf analyzes the various ways in which society inhibits women such as through work, sex, and hunger. With this in mind, I was shocked to see her celebrating Angelina Jolie for being "what psychoanalysts call an 'ego ideal' for women - a kind of dream figure that allows women to access, through fantasies of their own, possibilities for their own heightened empowerment and liberation". She writes "her icon status now has to do more with our dream life as women than it does with her career choices solely as a film star". Without analyzing whether or not such "icon status" is a good thing, Woolf goes on to praise Jolie for earning a pilot's license (which means that she'll never have to rely on a man for travel ever again), for becoming involved with Brad Pitt, and for creating what Woolf describes as being "a delicious in-your-face counter move against conventions about who we are to one another and what 'family' is expected to look like". The final point I'm going to relate from the article is Woolf's assertion that Jolie "seems, without breaking stride, to care for half a football team of children while the rest of us tread water with our own biological offspring". I'm embarrassed to say that after I read the article, I actually felt really bad about the fact that I didn't know how to fly a plane. I remembered seeing how skinny Angelina Jolie looked after giving birth the second time to twins and almost began to obsess about my physical shortcomings and the fact that I had never been to a third world country.
Here's the deal, though: I really don't want to learn how to fly a plane and I really don't want to go to a third world country. I am happy being the mother of one wonderful child and I think I'm doing a really good job. And Jose, I'll take you over Brad Pitt any day. I really do not want to take care of eight - or however many she has - children. I cannot manipulate my body to look like hers without causing damage. Her choices represent her project. Angelina Jolie's project is not my project. The talents I want to nurture are those related to being a good life partner to Jose, a good mother to my son, working with gifted and troubled young people, and exploring the world of ideas. Helping children in impoverished nations is important - but so is raising the future president of the United States - or whatever Kurtis wants to be.
You might not be tempted to idolize the lifestyle of the rich and famous, but I think everyone faces different societal pressures regarding various ideals. The societal requirements for success seem to be having a full time steady job, owning a house, having a family, and other things that can be measured because they're material. Obsessing over these ideals will probably bring you the job, the house, the family, and whatever else you want. The obsession also means that you may be blind to opportunities you could never imagine and a more enjoyable lifestyle. While you control your choices, life events are not always within our sphere of power. Trying to constantly will a particular state of being, regardless of changing circumstances, simply because it's what a person always wanted can make someone blind to some beautiful realities.
Jose and I did not imagine parenthood as being a possibility five years ago. We left for Minnesota after living in Quincy for two years with the plan of Jose becoming a chef and I was going to begin either film or graduate school after he earned his culinary degree. Today, we're in Quincy again with the most wonderful little boy I could ever imagine. Jose is a sales manager at Best Buy. I'm what Roseanne Barr calls a "domestic goddess" and work with students around Jose's work schedule, or the schedules of Kurtis' friends. If I refused to let go of our past ideals, I would be blind to the beauty that surrounds me. Returning to Quincy has allowed for a deepening of very important relationships. Jose has found a career that he is really excited about and wants to pursue. I'm able to do what is most important to me - nurture our son. We have a lot to be grateful for, but we wouldn't see it if we compared everything to what we thought would be five years ago. What we have now is really more wonderful than we imagined, because relationships, thoughts, and interactions with others are the key features of our lifestyle - not our possessions or positions in life.
In his book, "The Pleasures of a Nonconformist", Lin Yutang writes: "it does seem curious enough that in modern, neurotic society, men's energies are consumed in making a living, and rarely in living itself". Earlier he observes, "[w]e all submit to social conventions, contribute to charities, read the current popular books, and go to church. But at least in the realm of thought, man ought to reassert his independence". It's so easy to slip into acting in accordance with societal norms or attempting to measure oneself in relationship to someone else. These ideals we accept often do not encourage growth, they stifle the authentic self, which is greater than what we can ever imagine.
Obsessing and striving for material possessions and physical perfection drains a person's time and energy. When you're doing something, it means you're not doing something else; being aware of one's responsibility should lead a person to question if not doing the something else is worth it. I have to remind myself of that when my disorder tells me I need to exercise for one more hour. Is it really worth it if doing so means that I sleep less, which means that I have less energy to play with Kurtis the next day, or if it will affect my ability to think about the article in the "New Yorker" I want to read?
Every so often we would have a "take a risk" day at the hospital. We were encouraged to think about something we really wanted to do, but didn't because we were afraid. I can't remember what my "risks" were, but I remember one girl putting her hair behind her ears. This was a risk because she was terribly self conscious about their size. At the same time, her hair was always in her face, and her fear of exposing her ears to the world prevented her from pulling her hair back. Again, I can't help but find a way to make use of this story through symbolism. I challenge you to challenge your ideals and to see whether they are blinding you from living an authentic and enriching life. Don't be afraid to begin again. Nietzsche writes, "how could you become new unless you had first become ashes?" It's tempting to mourn when unexpected events occur or when something cannot be manipulated into what one wants it to be - however, just as phoenixes are reborn and rise from the ash, these are opportunities to create new ideals and carry one to a new adventure.
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