Tag: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Switching Perspectives (Analysis of In Touch) [Part 1]

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Why is it so much easier for me to write from the point of view of a male? In Touch, being the third story I’ve completed, was by far the most effortless piece I’ve written to date. One could claim this is because the themes of In Touch were purely an autobiographical experience against the backdrop of a fiction story. The odd but magical part of writing this book, though, laid in the fact that I was writing about obsessive compulsive disorder from an outsider’s point of view… a male’s point of view. Sitting in this Starbucks, for the second Sunday in a row, now writing scenes for another story through a male narrator, I find myself asking the question- why is writing from a male’s perspective so much easier for me? My guess is that it has something to do with the prisons we call ego and expectations.

If you’ve read any of my poetry and prose work then you’ll quickly realize it is no secret that I am extremely tied to my female identity. So you would think I would write more effortlessly from the female point of view, but from a personal standpoint that just doesn’t feel like the case.

In Touch was honestly the easiest book I’ve written to date. Was it the “best”? I don’t know. But it was certainly less difficult. Most notably, it was effortless. The words flowed from my brain with no hesitation. I barely had to think. I just wrote. I remember lying in bed scribbling dialogues between the main characters, Jef and Lacey, with no interruption of thought. I remember phrases and comments popping in my head when I was working my retail job and jotting them down on scrap pieces of paper. Many brief but key comments unraveled into beautiful chapters and concepts that I genuinely do not feel took any brain power. They just popped into existence and my mind acted as the translator between wherever art spawns and where it is destined to be recorded. Bringing my daily thoughts and imaginary conversations alive on paper was as easy watching TV.

In Touch (Cover, No Binding)

Writing as a person who is so obviously not me, that being a young man, brings no pressure. There’s no ego conflicts or stress to “get it right”. Any expectations I have on the identity I project to the world is irrelevant. All that matters is writing meaningful passages. The ego that haunts “Valerie” is no longer in control. It really is freeing. I imagine this kind of disconnect from the self but connection to the collective consciousness that is the rest of the world is what it is like to feel free. And for this reason I think I not only have a more effortless experience purging the words on paper through a male narrator’s voice. The idea that it is easier to write as somebody who is not me is rich with irony, and that fascinates me more and more every day.

When I have writer’s block I look at that 488 page novel and wonder how the heck I did that. Then at moments like today when I started writing from another male narrator’s perspective new words flowed instantly and I remembered what it was like to be inspired.

Yes, I identify with all my narrators to some extent. We do share the same brain after all. But there’s something flawless and liberating about writing without Val’s ego and Val’s expectations breathing down my throat. No interruptions. It’s easier to write and write and write until the thoughts dry out. I feel more “natural” writing as a different gender and identity, and I think that’s why In Touch came out exactly as I dreamed it would.

To purchase In Touch you can go to Amazon.com!

“In Touch” by Valerie Parente

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I have officially published my first full length fiction novel, “In Touch”!

In Touch by Valerie Parente (Book Jacket)

You can purchase “In Touch” by Valerie Parente on Amazon.com

Buy “In Touch” by Valerie Parente

 

“Undergraduate physics student, Jef Sterling, has done enough textbook reading to know that the universe is home to countless mind-blowing discoveries. But Jef never expected one of those discoveries to be the mind of an obsessive compulsive writer sharing the same campus as him. After reading a poem by Lacey Parker about her personal struggle with OCD, Jef’s highly rational brain fixates on uncovering the mysteries held captive in Lacey’s highly irrational brain. Throughout the course of a school year these two students exchange ideas that merge science with art, reality with fantasy, and physical phenomena with mental phenomena. While learning from one another Jef makes it his mission to make sense of Lacey’s nonsensical disorder and all of its incredible ironies; how she lives by the notion of feeling everything emotionally but dreads feeling anything physically, how her mind lives to protect as it gradually wreaks destruction, and most paradoxically how both Lacey’s most rewarding qualities and most detrimental flaws manifest from the same brain. In Touch by Valerie Parente is a realistic fiction novel alive with intellectual discussion, mental strife, heartache, and anecdotal insight into the cognitive confines of obsessive compulsive disorder.”

– Valerie Parente (8-5-2018)

Protection

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One of the hardest notions for me to come to terms with in my tug-of-war with OCD is that you don’t need to be afraid to be protected. The intrusive thoughts make baseless threats, and entertaining them with your attention or compulsions only gives them artificial credibility. Peace of mind does not come from obsessing and the arduous resisting or amusing of OCD thoughts that might follow. Peace of mind comes from trust in the greater scheme of things and acceptance in what you cannot control.

– Valerie Parente (5-24-2018)

Investigating the Nostalgia Flood

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Investigating the Nostalgia Flood by Valerie Parente

 

Phenomena?

The nostalgia flood.

This is the term I am coining for a recent struggle I have been facing for the past few days. Recently I have been thinking vehemently about the past lately, to a deeply emotive point that my thoughts are beginning to hurt from the very core of my being. I am struggling to come to an emotional understanding as to whether this intense flood of seemingly random and eclectic waves of nostalgia are resurfacing for a specific reason, one which might correlate with my physical circumstances, or if the bittersweet reminiscing is simply a mental product of neurons going haywire in my brain.

 

What Is Going On?

I can’t help but question two key aspects of the nostalgia flood; first, is there an obsessive compulsive component to the reminiscing? If so are these memories purely the OCD playing head games with me, or do these memories hold some sort of objective meaning in the light of a mind that was not plagued with obsessive compulsive disorder? Second, is there something that each of these (seemingly) random memories have in common? If so why now am I revisiting the underlying psychological thesis behind these flashbacks?

Confessional

 

How Does It Feel?

Before I try to make sense of what has been happening to me alongside the guide of the latter questions I would like to note the emotional quality of the mental memorabilia that has been pressing at the forefront of my conscience for a few days now. Every one of these memories are good memories. They are times that I hold near and dear in my heart and consider some of the best moments of my childhood or adolescence. Every time I remember the heartwarming moment my breath is taken away and, as dramatic as it sounds, feel as if I need to cry, initially out of happiness and then the more I think about the memory I feel compelled to cry out of sadness. Never do I get to the point of actually tearing up though. There is just this strange sensation of resounding love that fills up my chest and then a horrible wave of sadness that follows. If I had to categorize it as any psychological state I’d call it grief. Grief not for a life lost, but a time lost. The heavy sadness that festers in my mind, after the joyous flashbacks begin to blur, always feels comparable to mourning. And this odd but powerful experience makes me wonder: why am I mourning? Why do I not stay in that initial happy state when the intrusive OCD mechanism calls up the memory? These are memories of old friends, love interests, family! One particular memory is of a time when I felt very socially accepted, specifically regarding a person I would wind up catching feelings for. Another example of a memory revolves around sleepovers and parties with some long-lost best friends when we would laugh until we cried!  … Oh. Interesting. I am catching something significant as I sort this out in a Word document. “Laugh until we cried”. This phrase unnervingly reflects the exact recent state of mind I have been in as I reminisce. It seems that the very content of these memories, incidents like laughing until I am crying with a best friend (or feeling the ecstasy of social acceptance which would soon melt into fragile infatuation) projects happiness that deteriorates into vulnerability. Of course this could be dismissed as a coincidence, but I personally do not believe the universe works in coincidences. And for that reason I think it is safe to say the metaphorical nature of my nostalgia, much like psychoanalytical dream theory (theories of dreams that accredit dream motifs to the subconscious), actually proves a commonality among my memories. The commonality subsequently causes me to believe that the flood of nostalgia is not random or even eclectic, but that each of these fond moments from the past and people associated with these fond moments are purposely being called up by my brain, an OCD brain that is operating with rhyme and reason.

 

Who Is Involved?

The memories that I have been dwelling on were very prosocial in nature. These were times when I was thriving in my social circle. Now, I think it is fair to acknowledge that in some respect most of us can get sad when thinking back to positive moments because we recognize that they are over. Time moves laterally and irreversibly. This fact is just a discomfort we all have with our temporal confines as we undergo the human experience. Good times will always come to an end. And yes, that is sad if you choose to be sad about it, but I do not feel as though I am making a choice, and for that reason I do not allocate much responsibility to this factual perspective when talking about the nostalgia flood. If anything I am saddened because of the context in which these memories ended. For example, and I hinted at this a little before, but every person that I am reminiscing about is a person that I no longer have a relationship with. In fact if any of these people knew that I was thinking about them recently, let alone getting genuinely upset about the relationship which, to my everlasting dismay, fizzled out, they would probably think I was a complete lunatic (honestly I can’t say I’d disagree). I never quite felt satisfied with how things ended with any of these several people. Each and every relationship, for one reason or another, stands in my mind as a relationship that should have endured. Relationships that are incomplete. Some people I lost communication with a decade ago, some people 5 years ago, some people a few months ago, and each person was somebody that I never truly wanted to lose a friendship with. I always wanted more, more laughs, more memories, more attention, etc. Nevertheless, these are all people that I got close to at one point and wound up losing touch with. I do not think that the selection of people associated with my nostalgia is random. Between the emotional timeline within these individual memories, converting from high-as-a-kite happiness to profound grief, and the correlated social position each person has in my mind, demoting from close companion to complete stranger, I have come to the conclusion that there absolutely is a theme taking place in my psyche.

 

Why Now?

When a theme is taking place in the psyche of somebody with obsessive compulsive disorder, there is always a question of whether or not that theme is relevant to the current circumstances of that person. When it comes to the nostalgia flood and its eerie resemblance to OCD intrusive thinking, what is the theme?

The theme overarching my nostalgia revolve around losing something before I was ready to lose it. There was a sense of incompletion. The memories embody lost relationships and elicit a mourning-esque response. Why now would I be reaching back into my long-term memory and pulling out these snippets of emotional density? Why is my brain reminding me of heavy emotions? Why does my brain want me to feel the high of happiness and the low of loss that follows?

Honestly answering this question after dissecting the qualities of the nostalgia flood is not difficult. The only feat left is to describe how my life has been going in the current day. Without going into too much personal detail, I can modestly say that I am at a paradox in my life. I have never felt more rich with life experience or more proud to be me, but at the same time I have never felt more lost with where I am going or more longing to engage with a (certain) person who shares a similar mindset as me. I do not know how to satiate my mind socially in the way that it wants to be satiated because the person that I would like to spend time with is a person I am having a hard time communicating with due to the trials and tribulations that adulthood presents. This social predicament has been key in my confusion with which direction I should take next. After investigating the nostalgia flood in the past few paragraphs it should come as no surprise that my memories of wonderful yet lost relationships can accurately represent this inner mentality of feeling positive about myself but lost in the social department.

– Valerie Parente (4-25-2018)

The Artist, The Muse: A Poetry & Prose Collection

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The Artist, The Muse: A Poetry & Prose Collection by Valerie Parente OUT NOW

Buy THE ARTIST, THE MUSE Via Amazon

The Artist, The Muse is what you get when you interweave psychology, creativity, and spirituality into the poetic fabric of a mentally disordered daydreamer’s mind. Valerie Parente artfully hones the craft of written word in this collection of poetry and prose through fantastical metaphors, rhythmic patterns, heartfelt emotions, metaphysical references, and breath-taking epiphanies. Dark daydreams and silver-lining mantras blossom out of the obsessive compulsive writer’s verbal landscape as the artist becomes her own muse.

Includes poetry, prose, and artwork by Valerie Parente.

Table of Contents:

The Artist, The Muse
Conscience of Nonsense
Glitter In The Air
Shy of Me
The Gargoyle Mindset
An Inadequate Reflection
Ink
You’ve Made An Author Out Of Me
Essence
Grandiosity of the Sick
Daydreams Are Shadows
Sanctuary
Hindsight of the Falsehood
Echoes
Idu Ego
The Silver Screen
Realize These Butterflies
The Writer
Natural
The Instinct of Intuition
The Masterpiece Tragedy of Marionette
Egomaniac
Inquiries
Playing with Dolls
Imagination Is Not Free
Validation
I Wish You Well
Bleeding
Paradox Lock
Dreams of Floating
Give & Take
Her Bright Pink Shoes
Why I Apologize
My Heart Thaws
Mars
Sage of Tarkus
Normal
The Creeper
Young Sapling
Scarecrow
she could not master astral projection
Touch the Heart
Creator
To Be Human
Lady Luna and the Light Inside
Tiara
The Answer
Order In Disorder
Trust the Stars
Novelty
Message From The Universe

The Artist, The Muse by Valerie Parente

Embracing Pain

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inkblot make up

It is a fallacy to believe that embracing your pain means wallowing in melancholy as you let it overpower you. Truthfully embracing your pain means facing your melancholy until the melancholy loses its power over you.

– Valerie Parente (10-14-2017)

Hindsight of the Falsehood

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Hindsight of the Falsehood by Valerie Parente

I thought a lot about things that weren’t true,
and took for granted the innocence of something new.
Some feelings more common than I realized,
sculpted from hormones, wrongly idealized.
Written off as young love gone wrong,
no more than a dramatic falsehood all along.
Turning fleeting feelings into fixations,
a pruning brain learning the process of iterations.
But I am older now and I know the truth,
New wisdom can only enrich my youth.

"Eponia's Token" by Valerie Parente

– Valerie Parente (10-14-2017)

Normal

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Normal by Valerie Parente

Tell me what it’s like.
To not obsess. To feel and not get addicted to the emotion. To be a fleeting presence of mindfulness in each moment. To care for a subject without surrendering full control of your brain.
How does it feel to be normal?
Because I never wanted to know until I met you.

"I do not want to go back to my fantasy land, but I cannot handle reality without your hand." by Valerie Parente

“I do not want to go back to my fantasy land, but I cannot handle reality without your hand.” by Valerie Parente

– Valerie Parente (10-8-2017)

Feelings Are Not Facts

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Feelings are not facts.

I have always had an obsession with “staying true to myself” (a fixation inevitably misguided through that tumultuous identity crisis phase of life called adolescence). To bolster that very egocentric obsession I made it my goal to identify each and every one of my current feelings. Sometimes a simple mental identification was not enough to satiate the irksome “who am I?” question scratching at my conscience, so I would try to preserve my emotional experience through art. As a young girl this meant poetry and diary entries. This meant falling prone to the vice of greed and using written word to further intensify feelings that, through hindsight and therapy, turned out to be not as idiosyncratic as I had liked to believe. This also meant wallowing in certain songs, scribbling lyrics out on lacerated notebook pages in class, impulsively imagining them tattooed one day. This meant drawing and painting and photographing anything and everything that felt like an expression of how I currently felt. Identifying feelings might be healthy in moderate doses, but being somebody with obsessive compulsive disorder I tend to gravitate towards all-or-nothing thinking. Moderation does not come easily. So, to no surprise, I overdid it when it came to treating feelings like end-all-be-all factual information.

Feelings can sometimes be factual, but this is certainly not always the case. In my experience I have found two major contradictions which highlight the underlying truth that feelings are not the same thing as facts.

First, feelings are transient. Feelings come and go just as our circumstances come and go. Any and every emotional state is fleeting, and to treat a mood such as outrage or excitement like a veridical truth that can substitute as an all-encompassing proverb would do a disservice to anybody undergoing either a positive or negative mood.
For example, if I am depressed about a literary rejection, feeling discouraged and dry on hope, I have every right to feel that way- but to mistake that feeling with a fact like “I am unworthy of publication” could lead to an unfair condemnation of “I do not deserve to live my dream as a published author” and end with “I have no rational choice but to give up on my dream.” Another, more relatable example is how, in our self-consciousness, we sometimes “guess” others’ opinions of us. If you have a bad hair day and feel insecure, you might distribute that feeling of insecurity outwards and let it pollute your perception of the world. One moment of eye contact with a peer in the hallway and you assume that they think you are ugly or unattractive. Just because you feel a certain way inside, does not mean you can mindread other people and say, for a fact, what an individual might think of you. This way of thinking could easily lead to many missed opportunities, unfair judgments, and unnecessary travesties.

The second contradiction in equating feelings to facts derives from the very human quality that you are capable of feeling more than one emotion at once, including ones that are polar opposite to each other.
We have more than one situation going for us in our every day lives, some bad, some good. For a long time I would undergo a sort of existential confusion when relaying information about my moods to therapists. For instance, I could not understand why I felt very confident and optimistic about the future while also feeling frustrated and sad about certain problem areas in my life. It took a simple “a-ha” moment of realizing that feelings are not facts to accept that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with me for feeling more than one contradictory emotion at once. It is possible to feel enthusiastic about a promotion and also deeply hurt about a strained relationship. It is possible to love and care about your well-being while still feeling shame over your imperfections. It is possible to be in a very grateful mood for all the laughs and joys of life while experiencing simultaneous bitterness around the shortcomings in your life. Humans are sentient beings capable of feeling more than one emotion at a time. That is a fact.

stitch myself up

To clarify, I am not saying that I no longer acknowledge or draw inspiration from my emotions- what I am saying is that I am no longer going to be a slave to my emotions and the muses that spawn from them. I will always love expressing myself artistically, and I will always tune into my emotions to be the aesthete I thrive in being- but I will be damned if I let a creative drive knock me down a peg in all of my social and spiritual growth. It has taken me a decade of mental health struggles to realize that wallowing in melancholy and solitude (at the expense of my youth and my relationships) is not the right path to go down. I say this as somebody who struggles with extremist tendencies- staying “true to yourself” does not mean focus all your energy into present emotions. Moderate that energy into feelings, thoughts, and instincts. I know we hear it all the time between culture to culture, but life really is better with balance.

So by all means feel, emote, and if you so desire then preserve a feeling in artwork, but give yourself the compassion you deserve and recognize when you are inflicting more harm than good by dwelling on past pains or nostalgia.

Feelings are not facts. That, is a fact.

– Valerie Parente (3-9-17)

The Silver Screen

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Bloom

The Silver Screen by Valerie Parente

My daydreams bloom from whatever prominent emotion I am feeling.

My daydreams seem to subconsciously and intuitively unravel themselves into ideal scenarios.
Like a movie the daydreams play out in a succession of mental frames on a cortical film reel. At best the mental fabrication distributes its duty between the two-track mind and I maintain my presence; above the absolute threshold I am in the audience and below the absolute threshold I am in the director’s chair. The dialogues between imaginary friends on the silver screen happen so instantaneously that the script’s origin teeters on the line between voluntary and involuntary awareness.

My daydreams are finalized by obsessive and repetitive hindsight.
When mentally reviewed these fantastic mental purges reveal subliminal truths. The loose reigns of control over the internal screenplays, regularly referred to as “imagination”, masquerade as intrusive images too appropriate and too satisfying to be resented.

– Valerie Parente (2-18-17)