Conference Acceptance, First Flowers, and Borderline Revisited

So much going on – as usual. Let’s see…. This week I found out that my proposal was accepted for the American Academy of Religion, AAR, conference (next November in Montreal)! I made my first hike of the year up Mount Sentinel for the sunset last night, along the way discovering the first -to me at least- wildflowers blooming along the hillside. And I plowed through yet another very interesting book on Borderline Personality Disorder…

AAR

I am very, very happy that not only do I get to present a paper at this major conference, but also that I will be joining an amazing group of people, all talking about studies in comparative meditation. They include UM’s own Brad Clough, the excellent new professor of Asian relgions, Father Francis Tiso, a well-known Catholic contemplative who did his Ph.D. on Milarepa and the Tibetan “Rainbow Body” stories, and several other top-notch scholars. I certainly have my work cut out for me in the next 5 months. I’m looking forward to it.

Mountain Hiking and Wildflowers

In 2007 I took daily, or at least regular, hikes up Missoula’s Mount Sentinel for the often stunning sunsets, beautiful wildflowers, and wildlife. Last night, after an early evening jog in the sun, I decided to head up the mountain.

This time of year the mountain looks pretty dead, still dormant from the winter and in fact still covered in snow at the top. But just 50 or so feet up the trail I encountered this little guy:

I’m pretty sure that’s a Buttercup. After spotting this one I noticed tiny dots of yellow and green here and there along the otherwise brown-gray hillside. Realizing that the mountain is waking up made me smile. Before long there will be Arrowleaf Balsamroot, Sage, Mock-Orange, Indian Paintbrush, and much more.

Here’s a shot looking north over Missoula’s north hills and at the top of Snowbowl ski area:

And Borderline PD

Last summer and fall I spent a good deal of time – too much, to be honest – looking into Borderline Personality Disorder. A ‘friend’ of mine had (has) the disorder I believe, and the chaos of her life kind of took over mine for a while. Digging myself out of that chaos, I was very curious about just how that all could have happened – to me and to her.

Last night I finished “The Siren’s Dance, My Marriage to a Borderline: A Case Study.” It’s a very good book, and as one amazon reviewer said, it’s the kind of book we (people who have had borderlines in our life) will want to give to our friends and family and say, “see – this is how it happens.”

It tells the story of Anthony, a medical student who comes across a young woman who has attempted suicide after a break-up. “Something” about her intrigues him – he’s never quite able to say exactly what. Her beauty, charm, spontaneity, her child-like need for total love and affection all run together to hook him. He talks with her, finds out she’s had a rough life and tough breaks and he figures that if she just had some stability in her life, she could be amazing. Not long after her discharge from the hospital, Anthony gets a call from the girl’s mother thanking him and inviting him to a party. He knows it’s a bit odd and perhaps stepping over the patient-doctor line in terms of ethics – but he goes. (and it’s all downhill from there)

Readers unfamiliar with borderline pathology and the typical development of relationships with borderlines might be a bit frustrated with Anthony. He had to know something wasn’t right about her – right? (a question a friend of mine recently asked me in regard to my former friend) “Well… Yes… Of course… But…” goes the answer. The book gives a good view into the life of a person living with a borderline: the treadmill of ever-changing expectations, the hurdles of random demands and confrontations, the roller-coaster of emotional highs and lows, and the mine-field of potential outbursts and breakdowns. It also gives a hint at what it must be like to suffer from the illness, the lack of control over one’s own emotions, the frantic efforts to maintain calm or control, and so on. But I think there are better books for that side of things.

To view it from the outside it’s easy to say, “why the heck would you allow yourself to go through all of that?” But inside the story it’s even more perplexing. Read the book, try to put yourself in Anthony’s shoes and I think you might see how you’d make many of the same mistakes. I found myself jotting down the word “naïveté” in the margins over and over again, but also reflecting back on my own naïveté.

Such is life. In the end Anthony looks back, noting how the relationship made him more empathic to people with the illness and ultimately made him a better doctor (a psychiatrist no less). For my part it has made me reflect deeply on Buddhist psychology and what meditation and Buddhist philosophy might have to offer to borderlines and people in their lives. I can’t say that I’ve come to any grand conclusions as of yet, but I do think it is something I’ll return to again at some point. Another, more broadly reaching book that I am reading is “Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend.” I’d love to write more about that but duty calls (thesis work, a paper on meditation I have to deliver in a week, and more). See the first review on amazon for an excellent summary.