Don’t know if I told you that I’ve been reading this book called An Affair of the Mind for research on my script. It’s published by Focus on the Fmily – the religious right org. – and it’s about “One Woman’s Struggle to Save Her Family from the Devastation of Pornography.” Mindblowing. It’s really affected me, not just in the desired way of getting a sense of who my abstinence character is. But it’s also made me think, lo and behold. And it’s my good fortune that this woman just goes off the deep end at a certain point, because there was a while where she was talking about how pornography affects marriages that I was starting to say, “Jeez, maybe she’s right. Maybe the reason I’m experiencing all these things she’s talking about (distance, numbness) in my marriage is because of my involvement with pornography.” But then, as I said, she goes off the deep end on porn and masturbation, so I was able to ignore whatever similarities my relationship presented to those she describes in her book. But what’s started—I mean, I should just say that the point of that last point was that I’m trying to attribute to something some undesireable aspects of my relationship with Persis, aspects which I’ve told you about, but which seem particulary problematic and trenchant…I mean entrenched…these days.

I’ve started a new medication…and this is not irrelevant either. I’m taking Wellbutrin. On top of my Effexor. On top of my Neurontin. And though my psychiatrist has told me that they don’t affect each other, and has not seemed fazed by the fact that I’m taking three psychoactive medications at the same time, all on a longterm (ostensibly) basis, I’m beginning to feel like a cripple, a headcase, someone whose hold on reality is not so strong. And that’s not necessarily because of how I feel – how I feel makes me think that I’m in a bad relationship with insufficient desire and less hope of getting out of it – but rather because of the simple fact that I’m taking all these medications. I feel handicapped.

So the book starts out with this long section on how this particular woman came to start communicating with God about her husband’s porn addiction, then the next section is about the devastation of porn and masturbation (sentences like, “There is a strong link between pornography and masturbation.” Like, what planet does this woman come from?), then the next section, which I’m on now, is about how to start communicating, yourself, with God. It’s a prayer instruction manual, complete with “Read the Bible” exhortations, and all that. (This book is remarkably literate for its stupidity…or articulate. It’s a classic of the genre, is what I’m trying to say. I think about doing a PhD in this: Christian hysteria literature. I’m not joking.) And what’s really struck me is how right this woman is about how actually talking to God does wonders. Now, I’m certainly not accepting her conception of God and prayer; though nor am I disavowing any conception of God – but what I’m feeling is that I need to do this. Because I realize that even the conscious flow of thought in my head is not at all what would come out if I could talk to myself, and that even writing or talking to you is not what would come out. I feel like I would say to myself some basic truths that I manage to avoid in my interior headspace, and my missives to you. (I will spare you for the moment my analysis of why what this women counsels her readers to do is similar to therapy. You probably know what I’d say anyway…)

What would I say to myself…?




I’m taking a moment to articulate it.





”You‘re having a really hard time.”


Hmmm. Not a great start.





“God. I want to pray to you but doing so feels so stupid. I feel like I’m above it. I’m smarter than that. That to even posit your existence by doing so is …stupid… lightheaded. And I feel resentful. I don’t like acknowledging that you might be powerful and specifically be more powerful than I am, because…and this gets into my own psychobaggage…we don’t have to get into that…but…it feels like a denial of my entire intellectual development to break down and pray. It’s just that at this point, I feel like it might be helpful. I’m feeling numb. I feel like I’m in a relationship that has no love. Some, maybe. And no real anti-love. But I don’t feel like I’m sharing a life with someone. At this point I feel like the two of us are bound mostly in our genuine love for our son, and the moments I feel most positively about her are when he reaches out to her. We are walled off from each other. And as much as I have allowed myself to feel that 1) I deserve what I have gotten myself into, or 2) that I am not stable enough psychologically to be able to sustain a warm loving relationship, or 3) that you have put me here because I can handle it and because I might be able to heal Persis…when I step back, I truly feel that it is her personality that has gotten us where we are. And I don’t say that lightly because I know how easy it would be for someone in my position to ascribe blame to the other party. I’m not without fault or participation, and I think the things that Persis complains about in me would haunt me in any relationship. But I think the essential lack of warmth and trust in our relationship is due not to what I bring to it but to what she does. Again, I say this with…I don’t know…it’s embarrassing, because I know that a psychologically blind person in my position would say the same thing, and I don’t think I am psychologically blind. I’m praying because I would like to have warmth and love and frankly some good sex in my life and I am at the bottom of the barrel in terms of hoping that my relationship with Persis will ever become that. I don’t see how it could happen, even in the best of cases. I mean, I can see us living together forever and, you know, enjoying each other. Not minding terribly. But that’s the best case: not minding. And I guess I’m praying because I don’t even know how to get there from here, let alone beyond it to…and I have also to confess that the relationship that I want in my life (warmth, love, good sex)…I don’t even want it with her anymore. I mean, if you were to tell me that it would come with her, okay fine, a long as there’s warmth and love and good sex, I’ll take it. But, as I said, I just don’t see that happening with her. And the thing that I have not been wanting to say is that I don’t think she will ever have that kind of relationship with anyone, that I believe she’s not capable of it currently, but that I am, and that I deserve it. Now this is not to say that she could not find a relationship that she’s happy in, and satisfied. I just don’t think that relationship for her would ever look like the one that I want. Which is not to say that she wouldn’t be happy having the kind of relationship I want… I don’t want to get caught up in the permutations of my thoughts…I want to tell you what I think, and not have to second guess myself all the time. The relationship that I want is not available here, and I believe I truly say that without a dose of anger or resentment toward her; it’s just an honest estimation of the differences between us. And I’m praying because I don’t know what to do about this, and I want to be open to solutions that are Good. And by that I mean not, like, biblically allowed. I mean natural, organic, and as benficial as possible for everyone involved. When my parents broke up, God, as you know, at least my understanding was that my dad did so largely out of anger at my mom’s affair. And as a result, I wonder whether he really considered what it would mean – and I mean considered in a thoughtful way, or realistic way, because as you know my chief complaint about my dad is that he’s a psychological numbskull – to me and Katie. I consider what such a solution would mean to Burt right now, and it breaks my heart. I feel like no freedom or satisfaction that I could get out of leaving this relationship right now is worth what it would do to him. I feel like that old adage, that old no-no “staying together for the sake of the children” is a conventional no-no in order to allow a lot of not sufficiently thoughtful people (I feel a twinge there of a lie, but it’s what I think sometimes) to justify leaving a relationship. Because the truth is that staying with Persis right now for Burt’s sake is a no-brainer. And my only problem is how to get to the not-minding place, if that’s where I’m meant right now to go. I don’t want to ever be away from Burt, as much as being his caregiver is sometimes numbing itself. I just don’t know what to do in the long run to make myself happy, because I’m also aware that condemning (that’s how I think of it) myself to this relationship for the rest of my life may as much as whatever supposed chemical imbalance I have contribute to my needing medication. I continue to believe that if I had a job I loved and a partner I loved that I could ditch the pills, though that may be a little overoptimistic…but three medications? I just don’t feel like that kind of person. I’m not that sick. The Effexor is my fault, but the Neurontin and the Wellbutrin are Persis’s. So I’m opening myself up to you to see myself and my situation and my options in a new way, some way that gives me hope of feeling alive rather than dead. I feel like I took a wrong turn somewhere, and I would very much like to believe that it is all for the best – Burt is certainly for the best, but something else would…some other reason would be nice, too – but I also want to believe that the present result of that wrong turn is not the best, and that there is something better wiating for me.”

So thank you for the space to do that. Now I go back to being the involuted, selfcritical, knowitall patient that has brought me to this point.




Sitting and thinking…





I’m feeling optimistic about the script at least…





It feels good to have been able to say all that simply and straightforwardly. It is a simpler feeling than I think I would have generally allowed myself to articulate, and that’s why this book has affected me in a good way…reminding me of the idea of talking to God, which is sometimes the only way I am able to say the simple truths. I distrust simple truths.