Know Yourself 9-18-2010 (Part 3)

 [Continued from Know Yourself 9-18-2010 (Part 2).]

Whatever improvement I can do with my emotions will need to wait until after I leave prison. There will be no women in prison, therefore no emotional entanglements, and no opportunity to put whatever knowledge I learn to use. Not that I really see any such entanglements after my release - my age and status militate against that. As I see things, prison acts more like stasis than a prod for new behavior.

I worry that I am rationalizing away my own defects in new ways. I feel very self-conscious, and so expose all my thoughts without regard of their weight. Time will tell their true weight.

I told the psychiatrist how I had buried many things under work. He said I did not do a very good job of it. I agreed, but hindsight has 20-20 vision. Looking back, I could see nothing but wrong decisions. Until I stopped being the hamster on the wheel, I did not examine my life closely enough.

I puzzle over whether I had the courage for a thorough self-examination. I knew I harmed myself, I knew I committed sins, and write them off as innate badness. I did not confront them. My mind warred over them. I succumbed to having a mental life that was nihilistic. I saw the need for change. I tried to change. My failures increased my nihilism.

I do not say my depression did not exacerbate my problems. I am sure it did. Still, I failed in asking for help. I just tried pushing forward when all I did was go around and around in a morass.

I was taught my life was to have a purpose. That purpose ran out in September 1986. After that life seemed to be all about paying my bills.

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[Continued in Know Yourself 9-18-2010 (Part 4).]