Social Aspects Reflected in "Glee"

The show Glee does a fairly accurate potrayal of teenage group dynamics. The group will band together when threatened by an outside force, or when individuals important to the group's distress are in trouble - for example when the blog kid announced to the whole school that Quinn was pregnant with Finn's baby, and the whole club showed their support. But it also demonstrates that while the group show's friendship, individuals within the group are not necessarily friends. A prime example of this is when Rachel said "I thought we were friends" and Kurt replied "Who said we were friends". Another example would be when Rachel asked Puck if they could still be friends and Puck replied that they weren't friends before.

Similarily, while the individuals bond in the group, they still retain outside ties that may provide them with a stronger identity, than that as a member of Glee Club. The cheerleeders all appear to be enjoying themselves when performing or during impromptu jam sessions. Quinn even admitted that Glee Club was important to her. Yet she and the other cheerleaders continue to spy for Sue Sylvestra and to do her "dirty work". This shows that their identity as a cheerleader is stronger than their identity as a Glee Kid. However now that Quinn is no longer a member of the Cheerios, it will be interesting to see how this effects her identity as a Glee Kid. The football players however...for the most part, have at one point renounced their identities as football players in order to retain their identities as Glee Kids. This shows that for whatever reason, the football players have a stronger tie to their identies as Glee kids than the cheerleaders do... perhaps because Mr. Shue is actually a stronger male authority figure for them then Ken is. While Ken is supposedly an athlete and Mr. Shue is a singer, it is Mr. Shue who is married, and lusted after by Ken's girlfriend, showing him to be the more dominant male, which makes him a stronger roll model for the young football players who see themselves as studs.

Another social issue raised by Glee is the double standard. The men are held to higher standards than the woman, althought the normal stereotypes are reversed. This double standard can be seen in the fact that Quinn looks upset when Finn tells her he wasn't completely honest about what he was doing that Friday night becuase he was actually over at Rachel's house even though nothing happened. However Quinn herself had been trying to use Rachel to distract Quinn so that she could have some time to experiment with Puck, and in fact had been dishonest about what she was doing (babysitting wasn't all she was doing). On top of that, Quinn had been lying the whole time about who the father was since she had in fact broken her chastity vow with Puck, who is the real father. Another aspect of this double standard, is Quinn's insistance that Finn get a job and pay for the pre-natal costs, while she refuses to do anything to pay for them herself, despite the fact that the baby is not even his. Meanwhile she refuses to accept any help from Puck.

Puck in himsefl is an oddity. He is the typical stud... looking for that one thing all teenage male's supposedly want. He is also what is reffered to as a "cub" spending time with "kougars". Meanwhile though, he retains some of his jewish identity, as seen by his desire to date Rachel simply becuase she was a good jewish girl. However some of his morals seems to be strued, so that his jewish identity is in constant conflict with his own self-identification as a "Stud".

You Made Me Bleed My Own Blood

There was blood on my hands again today. I tried to look where it came from but I couldn't see any blood at the back of my throat. That doesn't mean much. Either the blood is from further down, or quite possibly the blood could be from my air passage. I may have accidentally scratched it with a nail when I was too forceful. My head hurts, my stomach hurts, my throat hurts. And still I feel like I can't stop. A little blood is never enough to make me stop, unless I feel like the anxiety has gone away enough that I can last. The time I really scratched up the back of my throat, I kept going even after I saw blood. It wasn't until the actual pain from the scratch hit me that I stopped. And even then I did try to continue but it just hurt to much. I am weak. That's the reason I can't stop, the reason I go on and on. There's a patch of skin on my hand that is ugly and will probably scar. It's from rubbing against on of my teeth... most likely my messed up eye tooth. It's gotten calassed so it doens't even hurt any more. That very fact makes me sad, for it shows me just how bad it's gotten. And yet still I continue.

I am weak


The title of this post is in reference to a line from a movie or show I don't really remember. And in reflection it's not really appropriate for the content but since I couldn't think of anything better I stuck with it.

Home Trouble

I always have the hardest time at home... the hardest time getting along with my family. I get... aggressive at times. I've come to realize that I never really gotten over their failure to protect me. They knew what my older brother was doing to me.... they knew becuase I told them. Sure they gave me the usual advice on how to protect myself... and they always talked about doing things like making it so we were never home alone together, or putting a lock on the door, but they never got around to doing it. I once told them about a dream that I woke up and he was in my room with a flashlight, and I was scared and he shushed me... what I never told them was that it wasn't a dream. I don't know what he was planning in my room that night, he never did anything, but somehow I don't want to know.

One of the worst memories I had came back to me recently... I had almost forgotten about the incident, even though I never forgot about the aftermath. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. I was down in my brother's room, even though I don't remember why I was down there in the first place. Nor do I remember who was home at the time. What I do remember was his hand covering my mouth so no one could hear me scream...

The pain, the fear.... I've spent my life wishing I could just forget. I've even tried to forget, drowning everything in a bottle of Vodka. A lot of good that did me, since I ended up turning to him when I got sick. And not before he had the chance to hurt me again. I'm somewhat glad that the effects of alcoholic blackouts blocks out almost everything except bits and pieces... what I can't block out was what he told me the next day. I think his words may haunt me forever.

In the Depths of Depression

Back in January of '09, I went through a bout of depression. I was stressed out from my co-op job, and my less than stellar performance in my classes the previous semester. Add on top of that the fact that I was thoroughly convinced I would never be able to take care of myself properly (since sometimes I forget to take care of my basic necessities) and it was a recipe for disaster. During that time period I came so close to ending it all. I thought about suicide constantly. I broke down crying at work. It was such a horrible experience. Every day I went to bed panicking because I hadn't done it earlier in the day and it was too late by that time (since I figured the easiest way to do it would be through poisoning but the chemicals I needed were kept in the basement and my brother was always down there at night). I felt extreme anxiety and I felt like it came from the fact that I had no immediate way to kill myself. what I felt was overwhelming.

I can honestly say that one of the few things that kept me going through it was friends. One friend in particular. One of the worst things I could do would be to cause her more pain than I know she has already suffered. I couldn't do that to her and so I kept on living. So in the most unintentional way, just by being there and being a good friend, she saved my life. How do you tell someone they literally saved your life without even knowing it? I feel like I should be thanking her every single day, and yet I don't think she would understand. Ah well, such is the depth of human emotion.

What Scissors Can Do

The other day I was just sitting here and a sudden urge hit me. I started of small, with the same knife I used before. I started off in a rather unusual way, my upper forearm near the shoulder being my chosen target. "It's easier to hide" was the thought that ran through my mind. Of course the knife did no better a job of cutting than it did the first time. All it did was scrape up the skin, though my lack of co-ordination may have had something to do with it. Next I tried using a metal nail file, becuase of something I had seen on tv ages ago. But I didn't have the heart to stab the soft tissue, and I suspected it wouldn't work anyways because in the tv show the nail file had been stabbed through someone's eye, which seems much easier to stab then the arm, for obvious reasons.

Thus I quickly switched to a pair of scissors. Not regular scissors, no but a pair of manicure scissors from my personal care kit. I used the tip of the scissors to scrape away the skin, one layer at a time. As layer after layer fell away, the pain increased. I felt a sense of deep satisfaction at that. For once this was something I could control completely. I didn't manage to draw blood, becuase after a time the pain became too intense that I wimped out and couldn't continue. But I did leave a mark, one that causes me pain when it rubs against my sleeve, a reminder in myself. And in that pain I find my solace.

On another note, I binged agian today. What follows was one of the harder times I've been through.... somehow I can't even bring myself to say the word. But at one point I almost stopped from the pain in my throat. I think I managed to make my throat bleed again, for there was blood on my fingers. This means a couple of days without food. But in starving myslef I will find comfort. As the song says, find comfort in pain.

My own eternal battle

So there's something that has been bothering me a lot lately. And I think maybe I am going to regret writing this post later on, and maybe delete it or edit it but as Garcia says "Once something's out there on the internet sir, you can never take it back".

It all started somewhere back during the summer between 10th and 11th grade. I had been chronically teased about my weight, and I was under so much stress. I became obsessed with my body image. I weighed myself constantly. I started off not eating if I could avoid it, and gradually fell into a very bad pattern that summer and began purging after every meal. I lost a lot of weight that summer, losing somewhere around 20 % of my body weight. But my parent's began to notice something was wrong. I managed to pass it off as being do to nausea. They told my doctor about it. It stopped for a while... sort of.

I did it on and off for the rest of high school. But gradually it changed. Instead of just purging after meals, I was eating large amounts of food, and then purging out of guilt. By now it was the summer between high school and first year of universtiy. By first year of university everything changed. I was living in a residence, with a common shared bathroom, and I just didn't feel comfortable there. The binging still continued, followed by periods of restrained eating, but it was never enough. Over the next two years, I slowly regained all the weight, even though I would falls back into my bad pattern whenever I went home.

This past summer, everything got worse. My weight started to become a big issue. I was working away from home for summer. I was living in a dormitory with shared communal bathrooms but there were so few of us there that I could usually get the bathroom alone. I stopped eating properly. I would purge after every meal except for those increasingly rare occasions when I would eat at work. By the time I got home there would be no point. And even then I didn't really eat 'meals' except for when I had dinner with friends. I would instead binge on junk food and then immediately purge.

This continued for the entire summer. I thought it would end when I went back to university. That I would stop being able to purge and so I would maybe start eating healthy again. But it hasn't. I found myself binging and purging, only occasionally eating a healthy meal on campus. I'm spending way too much moenney on junk food, but I can't stop it. I've tried, but the anxiety becomes to much, and I have to carry though just to make it go away. Even that sometimes doesn't work.

And the anxiety has only gotten worse. First of all... at the end of the summer I had a consultation with a psychologist for a specific reason. The consultation included filling out a one of these inventories, I don't remember which one. There was a question on eating habits there, and I lied on one part just becuase I knew my parents would be filling it out too. It didn't matter though becuase the psychologist still mentioned bulimia nervosa in front of my parents. From my reaction he could see I wasn't comfrotable and so he didn't really address it then.

But here I am, studying psychology myself. And one of the courses I took this semester was psychopathology. And one of the chapters was on... you guessed it, eating disorders. The lecture on eating disorders was given by a guest lecturer. I felt so uncomfortable during the lecture and almost ended up in tears. Between that and the text book and the good old DSM-IV TR I could no longer deny what I had been trying to ignore for the psat 4 years. That if I went to a clinician who had the proper additional 2 years of supervised training and qualifications necessary to preform such diagnoses, that I would probably be diagnosed with an eating disorder.

Yet even that agknowlegement does not help me at all. I can't bring myself to seek treatment, to bring it up withn my parents, or anything. I know the stats... the word chronic if untreated rings through my mind. I am tired of it all yet I just can't seem to stop. My life has suffered, I feel so down sometimes, yet I don't know what to do. earlier this semester I managed to make my throat bleed yet again, but this time it was worse than ever because I scratched the bag of my throat with my finger nail. And then had trouble breathing from the blood I accidently inhaled.

One of the reason I can't talk to my parents is becuase I know I still won't get the help I will need. They will just ignore the porblem like they have for the past 4 years and tell me to stop doing it, the same way they have ignored the problem every other time I have asked for their help. I can't trust them to do the right thing anymore, yet I can't do this alone.

it's taking time from my studies. It's costing me money I can't afford to lose. I have no one to turn to and I feel so lost and confused. This is my silent plea, my final cry for help.

Fear Like No Other

I'm scared. For the first time in my life I'm honestly and truly scared. And the surprising thing, or maybe not so surprising, is the source of my fear - my own mind. No it's not one of those stereotypical "maybe I'll develop schizophrenia because someone in my family has it" type of fears. No this is something else.

Note this a little bit gross but bear with me. For a long time I've suffered from ingrown toenails... on both large toes. (I told you it was gross, but again bear with me). The one on my left foot has always been particularly bothersome. For years now, every time it hurts I've had these thoughts about taking a knife to it, in some perverted attempt to fix the problem. A couple of weeks ago, on all hallows eve, my toe was bothering me particularly badly. It was swollen and sore. For what ever reason, I was in an odd state of mind that night and did something I have never done before.... I acted on my fantasies and took a steak knife too it... or rather, I attempted to act on my fantasies. Unfortunately... or maybe fortunately... the steak knife was much to doll to even break the skin, never the less do what I thought needed to actually be done. However I did manage to cut into it near the nail, where the skin was kind of dry and I guess some of the cells were dead.

Gore Warning Ahead
Let me tell you turned out not to be the brightest idea in the world, aside from the obvious reasons. The knife must not have been clean, becusae the area where I cut, in addition to the entire left side of the nail bed, soon became very infected. It's still infected today, despite the heavy use of antibiotical cream. It's painful, and it's gotten bloody, and I'm afraid that the very piece of skin I attempted to cut of may be rotting off. There is some preverse irony in that.

Now what was the port of this rather disturbing story? Well as I said I had been having these fantasies for a while and this was the first time I had acted on them. And that's what makes me so very afraid. I knew it was irrational, and that had always stopped me before, despite how persitant and compelling the fantasies were... and their promisses of relief. Not only did I act on them, but I acted on them for no reaosn, at least none that I know of. This seems completely irrational to me, and thus leaves me terrified of myself.

And that isn't even the worst part. The fantasies haven't come back... but they've been replaced by new fantasies. Fantasies of suicide pervade my thoughts. I find myself thinking of how easy it would be to go over and take the pills I have, wondering if I have enough to die. These thoughts scare me, since I'm fairly happy right now... happier than I've been in times past, and I had never considered suicide before. And after what happened with the last fantasies, I'm afraid that one day I'll get up and take those pills, or drink that fluid, and die, for no reason at all. I really don't want to die. I have friends I care too much about, I'm doing well in school, I'm managing better than I ever had, yet I am left trully and honestly terrified.

All I can say is one thing. Help

Profiling and Human Behaviour

What gets me the most about criminal profiling, is that fact that even in the most dysfunctional and deviant of behavior, their is sameness. This fact astounds me, while at the same time leaving me with a profound sense of sadness.

It also astounds me that even as there are some who suffer years of emotional abuse and turn into killers, there are some people who have gone through hell and back, yet remain relatively untouched by it. I say relatively untouched, for even the survivor can never be completely free of what has happened to us. Even if years of abuse may not show itself in concrete ways, such as the development of psychopathology, it still helps define us and shape who we are, just as each and every experience we encounter does so.