Logan's Run....Fiction---or Future Fact?

I use movies a lot in psychotherapy with my clients.  If someone can't quite understand a point I happen to make...or is somewhat defended against listening to much of anything that represents new data to them---I rely quite a bit on the celluloid closet.....

Logan's Run is one such movie.  When was the last time you watched it?  Have you even  heard of it before? If you were born anytime after 1980...chances are you haven't.  At this point I could insert all sorts of details about the movie and when exactly it came out and who starred in it blah blah blah...but you don't need that information.  What you need is to watch it and think about---what really and truly matters to you most in this life.  Then, what you are going to do about that as the world keeps changing around you...

I know there are lots of science fiction movies.  Back around that same era, "Soylent Green" was another IMHO "classic" film about much more than a science fiction thrill/scare fest.  I mean, when you see one of the Sandmen in Logan's Run look at HIS IPhone screen to read a message----what's up with THAT?!  This movie is (I'm guessing now) 40 or so years old!

Logan's Run tells the story about how humanity functions  in a future where turning 30 is NEVER a very good year.  Just watching the lifestyle of the "Haves" is a trip enough in itself.  There is either tremendous affluence...or group housing.  The middle class, in a word, is g-o-n-e.

I'm not going to spoil the movie for you, but it sure brings up a lot of social, moral, and social justice issues that I know I've seen changing for quite a long time now.  As I said to my husband while watching, in Logan's Run all you have to do is "order" your significant other for the evening as you would a live-and-in-person menu!  Although I wasn't born under a rock, in this movie---all that "stuff" is mainstream society for the under 30 set.  I see it already in our present culture....and with much more heavy duty sexual dysfunction thrown in. I'm just waiting for the time when the DSM (our standard for mental health diagnoses) eliminates all previous mental health diagnoses that has to do with sexual-based behaviors.  Because there won't be any;  you'll be free to do and act on whatever feels good honey!  If you want to marry your cat or your dog....that won't be considered a form of psychosis!  You'll be good!  Get the ring stat!  Pfft!  I tell ya, this world is not so far afield from becoming what Logan's Run presented all those many many decades ago...

Touching on politics, religion, relationships, moral relativism, domestic terrorism, violence...and a whole lot more....this movie isn't just a ride for the strong of stomach.  It's a glimpse into how slippery a slope we reside on in this life of ours without realizing that sooner or later---we reach bottom anyway.

Until next time....

The Letter Written...and Never Sent

I often encourage clients to write a letter to the person who has hurt them so deeply as part of their own healing and recovery process.  After it is written, they are asked to bring it in, read it aloud in my presence, and then do whatever we come up with to release it.  Some will initially balk by asking "What good is that going to do me now?" and other questions or comments along those lines.  Instead of trying to explain the benefits of such an exercise, I decided to blog some examples this week to show you what such letters might look like.  Happy reading...and healing!

Hello Katya:

I received your text.  Do you know that you often use your words, your texts, and your voicemails as a means of trying to "guilt" me into compliance?  I don't know how you believe(d) you have that much power over people...or over me....but I'm here to remind you that you don't.  I am not a thing Katya;  I am a human being with my OWN feelings, beliefs, needs, wants, and dreams.  I am not going to feel guilty about whatever YOU believe I should be saying or doing in accordance with YOUR plans for my life.  You don't have that type of control over me and never did.  It was like the closer I allowed myself to get to you, the more all-encompassing you became.  Like an octopus.  Believe me, that did NOT feel good or safe or anything positive.  It just felt creepy and weird.

When we met, we did have some fun together.  Yet, your life went one way and mine another. Which is fine. Over the years as we saw each other at various parties or social functions, I noticed how quick you would be to share how bitter you were about this person who did you wrong this way...or that person who did you wrong that way, etc.  It got to be a joke between me and my husband:  "Oh oh;  here she comes;  I wonder who's on her sh** list now!"  Were YOU the standard against which everyone else's behavior was judged? Wow!  That's so sad.  Like you were a self-appointed Queen of the Universe and the rest of us your mere subjects to do your bidding---or listen to your litany of complaints---on demand.  Spare me.  Again, you are NOT that powerful and never were. Get over yourself Katya.  This is why so few are friends with you.  You don't know how to give authentically from your heart.  Remember, giving doesn't count when what you are giving is only what you FEEL like giving.  No sacrifice in giving a rock to someone who asked for a fish. Your giving has had so many strings attached, it strangled me into paralysis the longer I knew you and remain involved in your life.

I could go on by I won't.  Your own inflated opinion of yourself is like a Kool Aid I refuse to drink from any longer.  I am done glossing over your attempts at manipulating reality so I see circumstances and other people the way YOU want me to see them.  No thanks.  It's over.  So please, no more texts...no more voicemails...and no more contact.  Thanks!

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Mom:

For far too long, you turned a blind eye to the abuse my father imposed upon me and my half brother.  Why can't you admit that dad walked around the house naked and drunk most of the time...while the rest of us were just supposed to treat "that" as normal household behavior?  What the heck happened to YOU to think such an education was in any way good for your small children?  I remember asking you countless times during my childhood why daddy made me sleep in the same bed with him so much...while you slept in another bedroom with Joey.  When you said "That never happened.." I felt like you hit me across the back with a two by four.  It never happened??!  Are you kidding me?!  That's one of the things that happened so often I NEVER FORGOT IT!  And now you ask out loud why Joey is a drug addict and can't hold down a job...or why the majority of our generation of kids are screw ups as adults?  Are you kidding me?  Take a look in the mirror.  You raised us...or were at least supposed to.  Not the other way around.  I do feel badly for you....but it upsets me more that you think you can get away with lying to me now about the way it was. I know how it was.  I lived it too.  Not just you.

I do forgive you, but I don't like you very much.  I can't trust you.  That's pathetic to say about one's own mother, but it's true.  I'm grateful for the other older women that have been put in my life to teach me the better way.  I will not be a repeat of what you taught me without even realizing it.  I can try to honor you as the woman who gave birth to me, but that does NOT mean I invite the abuse back to my doorstep again...or ever.  The way I honor you is by recognizing that I wouldn't exist without you or dad having been used to create me.  That's it.  The end.  Goodbye.

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To My Ex:

I fear that by starting this letter, I'll never stop writing it.  It's as if I have inside me an infinite amount of pain I could refer to and cite, incident by incident, reference by reference, as to what went so wrong with "us" from the time we met.  Though I think it began when I recognized (only in hindsight mind you!) that from the very beginning, we were both most invested in impressing each other than even being basically honest about who we each were from the inside out.  I lied to you about who I was;  you lied to me.  You thought I was this adventurous spirit;  I was never that.  I thought you were like a guru who knew so much and yet remained at peace in all circumstances.  How wrong we both were!  When the kids started showing up, I was freaked out to realize you didn't "do" kids on a day-to-day basis.  Imagine my shock and disappointment when you went camping for that week with your brother as I was left home with two babies under two years old and no other help.  I should have spoken up I know that now, but I felt guilty for asking since (we both know) you really didn't even want kids at all.  As you said many times, I kept pushing you for kids and now that I got them, I couldn't manage them.  Yet I noticed as they got older, you liked it when they followed you around like puppies doing whatever it was you wanted and suggested at every turn.  Sam with the soccer; Frank with the baseball.  Having sons in sports suddenly wasn't all that bad.  When you found Sherri to play with thanks to Sam's soccer coach, I should have called it quits then.  But I didn't.  I thought it was just a lapse in judgment on your part.  In reality, it was a lapse in judgment on mine.  I wanted so badly to believe you were a "better" guy than to cheat on me...I cut you a wide wide path to excuse your infidelity.  Three girlfriends past Sherri I finally woke up after you served me with the divorce papers.  Thank you.  That was probably the most loving act you ever pursued on my behalf.  Letting me go because I didn't know how to let go myself.

I wish you only the best;  I want our sons to have a good enough father in spite of what I saw while we were together.  And I can only hope and pray I am a good enough mother to them as well before one or both of us is gone.

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The letter written but never sent is one way to identify your own heart-felt feelings that may have never before been articulated to anyone else---including yourself.  Writing can be therapeutic;  try it and see.

Until next post...