Ah the life of a therapist's daughter: any behavior(s) you may (or may not) have are given an official title and advice you never asked for is administered with the honest expectations that you'll follow it. Terms such as "transference," and "reframing" are common to our mother-daughter conversations. Everything is a process, and involves a set of coping skills. By their very nature, mothers offer advice to their children, so multiply the "instructions" given to you by your mom by about 100 and that's what I have to listen to from my mum every time I call home. It's annoying as hell, but after 24 years you learn to manage it and I can't say that it's not been at all beneficial.
Most recently, I've been identified as having the absorption trait. When I told my mother that I was having problems getting motivated to write chapters of my thesis and described to her what I'd been doing, she told me that I was the "poster child for the absorption trait." Immediately, I bantered back, "I am a very self-aware, independent person. I don't absorb the behaviors of others I am around, I'm not easily influenced," which revealed my ignorance of the issue. Which is why I'm sharing it with you now, because it's actually pretty interesting.
Absorption is not having the propensity to act like those around you, as I incorrectly concluded in my conversation with mum. Instead, absorption is completely immersing yourself in your experiences. Thinking in images, being very emotionally moved by poetry, music, and art, and associating one type of sensation with another (for example, smelling an odor that produces in your mind a specific image or sound) are characteristic to absorption, as well as disassociation with reality.
I remember learning about synesthesia in my theory of knowledge philosophy class a couple years ago and thinking, "Man, I do that sometimes!" In fact, when I was down in Miami, I was laying out and thinking of the smell of the sun. Not the smell of the beach or sunscreen or anything outdoors: just the sun.
When thinking of the last time I cried, it was while I was thinking about a Renaissance emblem and reading a poem (which I posted a couple months ago, "The Triumph of Death" by Petrarch). Always, I am thinking in visuals, feeling on different levels and often having difficulty articulating exactly what I think or feel in words. I just thought I was weird, flakey and overly romantic with ADHD, but now I can chalk it up to a personality trait. Emphasis on the word trait and not disorder.
There is a neat website and questionnaire on absorption here. Check the questions, as everyone as a degree of the absorption trait.
I think Stella has the same thing going on. We've had some frighteningly imaginative conversations that I don't have the capacity to discuss here and at this point in my life. Think "Babycakes" the cartoon on Super Deluxe.
REVELATION: So after much though about my recent awareness of this trait, I asked myself, "Why, if my normal disposition is carefree, imaginative, artistic and thoughtful, do I smoke pot?" That's a really good fuckin' question. Does one feel the need to justify or explain uncommon/unique personality traits with a habitual behavior known to cause those traits? Subconsciously, am I insecure about this????
I DIDN'T THINK I WAS INSECURE, BUT NOW I'M INSECURE ABOUT BEING INSECURE!!!!!!!
fuck me. fuck having a mother that forces you into self-reflection. and fuck being insecure.
The end result of this reflection is my abandonment of marijuana use for the rest of this working week. thanks a lot, mum.
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