Some Thoughts on Nuclear Fission

I’ve been thinking a lot about nuclear fission lately and how I don’t have any. I know that is a strange thing to think about, but it’s not so weird when you realize that “nuclear fission” is my code word for “emotional stability.” In recent months, I’ve come to grips with the fact that I am about as emotionally stable as a dust bunny on a histamine blocker. (I know it doesn’t make sense, but neither do my emotions and that’s my point, isn’t it?) Perhaps the depth of my problem became clearest to me when I felt a deep emotional attachment to our toaster and the relationship became volatile. To be fair, she was intentionally being obstinate, but I digress. The thesis of this paragraph is “I am too emotional,” just in case it was unclear.

As a form of normalizing my deep and tenuous emotions, I have decided to regard my state as “passionate” instead of “emotional” because it seems more, well… manly that way. At any rate, my emotions are as likely to accuse my friends of being the worst sort of liars and cheats as to warmly embrace them as dear allies. Of my many emotional stabilizers (or “addictions” as my therapist calls them, but what does he know?), perhaps my favorite is emotional dependency. Let me explain. Emotional Dependency, or “Ed”, as I affectionately call him, is what happens when one places one’s emotional state in the hands of others people’s actions.

Take the following for example: This is me with a healthy outlook: “I’m quite certain that my friends do not hate me and wish my immediate demise. And I know that, in God’s timing, I will likely find my soulmate and, to the chagrin of some, reproduce. Amen.” This, however, is me with an unhealthy outlook: “OH MY GAWD! THEY DIDN’T INVITE ME?! WHY DID I EVER TRUST THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE? YOU KNOW, LOOKING BACK I CAN SEE THAT OUR ‘FRIENDSHIP’ HAS ONLY BEEN A CONCERTED EFFORT TO DESTROY ME FROM THE BEGINNING. I WANT TO DIE!”

Now, rationally, a Person of Emotional Health might look over the sum of their relationships and recognize that they are not being singled out by a secret group that meets on Thursdays to discuss ways to bring them down to their grave in desolation, but I am not a Person of Emotional Health. Hence, I am more often left tumbling in the hot dryer of emotions until they run out and some sense of sanity returns. This usually involves a long bike ride or an unhealthy stint of screaming to someone about how my life has been a waste of molecules. After that, some form of sanity will return to me and I will recognize that my emotional health does not reside in the treatment I receive from the people around me but in my One True Addiction: God.

Of all the things I’ve gone to for comfort over the years, the most frustrating and most reliable is God. He, unlike most people, can handle my volatile emotions and still loves me despite the screaming and cursing. We are working out a system where he loans me one of his people to remind me that my emotions, while important, are not indicators of reality and that he is still there when I feel overwhelmed by feelings. He also gave me this book called Psalms to read forcefully. Have you read that thing lately? I thought I was crazy...