Relating to Dexter's Darkness

Since the end of Dexter Series 7 in December 2011, I have gone through withdrawals. Breaking Bad was an entertaining interlude, but all series combined could not satisfy my Dexter-lust. I suppose I should be ashamed of having been a TV whore, and get on and read the books for my fix. 

As explored in my first post on Dexter, the character has many traits I relate to as having been a social outcast, and the feelings of dislocation from "normal" society. 

Here are some more excerpts:

" I just know there's something dark in me. I hide it. Certainly don't talk about it. But it's there. Always. This … Dark Passenger. How when he's driving, I feel … alive. Half-sick with the thrill, complete wrongness. I don't fight him. I don't want to. He's all I've got. Nothing else could love me, not even … especially not me. Or is that just a lie the Dark Passenger tells me? Because, lately, there are these moments that I feel connected to something else. Someone. It's like … the mask is slipping, and things, people, that never mattered before, are suddenly starting to matter. It scares the hell out of me."

As previously discussed, the darkness has strong synergies with experiences and descriptions of depression: that feeling that someone can see through your carefully constructed exterior, the shell that hides what you're ashamed of; a shift of your focus [the unfamiliar feeling of having a connection with a person] can shake the sense of security and leave you exposed and vulnerable; unaware of how to act in foreign territory.

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Miguel: "It doesn't have be this way"[with Dexter killing you!]
Dexter: "But it always does. I had high hopes for you, but I guess I just have to accept that I will always be alone."

As friendships, or even having a basic connection with a person is such an alien concept, it is easier to rationalise the situation as a blip in what is experienced as "normal". In order to cope, instead of becoming saddened or distressed at the conflict or loss of a friend (okay, it doesn't have to be through killing them, as in Dexter, but through an argument etc) by assimilating this information with the internal construction of self that "I am a loner, and will always be/ am better off alone", it is easier to cope with.



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[Enter hope] DM Monologue: "The Dark Passenger has been fighting against it, to keep me all to himself. But it is my turn now, to get what I want. To embrace my family. And maybe one day not so long from now, I’ll be rid of the Dark Passenger. It all begins with a getaway. Time away from the old me. Life doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be lived"...[Dexter finds Rita's dead body] "But it doesn't matter what I do, what I choose... I'm what's wrong. This is fate."

Having battled depression for most of my life, I can't begin to explain how many times I've felt like this. I don't mean having someone murdered, but that, on finding hope, something happens to take that hope away, and you internalise its cause:

"What just happened is not only my fault [even when due to external/ uncontrollable circumstances] but happened because I innately deserve it [ie it's fate/karma etc because I'm a bad person] ". 

When internalising self as the root cause of all things bad which occur, this further transforms into not only "bad things always happen to me", but "bad things will always continue to happen to me, purely because I am me, and I deserve it".

It seems incredibly irrational when you say it out loud, or analyse it with the benefit of hindsight, but at the time it feels like an inescapable and endless hopeless situation.


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Dexter monologue: "Lumen said I gave her her life back... a reversal of my usual role. Well the fact is, she gave me mine back too.... Eyes that saw me, finally, for who I really am. And a certainty that nothing... nothing is set in stone. Not even darkness. While she was here, she made me think for the briefest moment I might even have a chance to be human. But wishes, of course, are for children. "

There are so many glimpses of hope- of a life that could be- but so suffocated by the world he knows, when Dexter fails to realise them he is quick to dismiss such thoughts as fleeting fantasies, and therefore unrealistic aspirations. 

This is not uncommon in life. A common scenario:

1- Having a fulfilling relationship 
2- losing that fulfilling relationship 

Then there are the options of how to deal with this:

3a [the depressed self]- resolving the loss of relationship into something which correlates with the damaged self-concept by rationalising it as having never been a realistic possibility  i.e. "I am not worthy of a relationship; should not have fooled myself into believing it was a possibility; therefore the loss was inevitable, even though I didn't foresee it previously". In a way it is the less painful way to deal with things as, although it may appear to some to be an incredibly sad thing- to write yourself and any hope you had off, by negating the thought that the relationship was a genuine chance in the first place, all that is left to deal with is feeling a bit foolish about having believed you had hope in the first place. 

or

3b [the rational self?]- challenging the self and potentially risking descending into conflict, depression, and issues which are harder and more complex to resolve- i.e. dealing with the actual loss itself.

Hollywood vs Real Life

A friend recently recommended a romantic comedy to me named "Love and Other Drugs". I'm not exactly a fan of chick flicks/ romcoms, but it was moderately entertaining. Jake Gyllenhaal's character is a pharmaceutical sales rep (hence why my friend thought I'd like it- as that was one of my many careers too) who falls in love with Anne Hathaway's character- a young artist with Parkinson's disease. 


Synopsis: Boy falls for girl despite her imminent debilitating illness, considers ditching her when having some insight to what the potential future of a wheelchair bound partner in adult nappies is explained to him, but of course (as happens in Hollywood movies) he decides he loves her too much, gives up his career and everything else for love. The end. Awww... 


Anne Hathaway's character does, however, try to warn him many times that getting into a relationship with her would be fraught with complications due to her illness, and this knowledge changed the way she approached things. This got me thinking more about my own situation and possible future.


A few weeks ago I passed the one year mark from when I found out I had a cancerous tumour (See post "Beating the Big C"). Several months and two operations later, an initial screen suggested it hadn't grown back at that point. Although somewhat reassuring, it was also too early to really be able to draw any conclusions about "recovery" from that.


Now, another 6 months down the track, I have another screening coming up to see if the tumour is gone or has returned. This one will be a fairly good indication of whether or not I will be able to at least keep my uterus for a few years and therefore have a chance to have children. The alternative, if it has grown back, is have a hysterectomy, or don't, and let the cancer kill me. 


None of these are particularly appealing options, and the other side of these considerations is what happens with any potential partners.


Even in the best case scenario, that the tumour doesn't regrow, I still carry a high risk Papilloma virus strain which caused it, which could potentially be transferred to a partner and cause penile cancer (although yes, the probability is incredibly low, do you know many men who would put their hand up for that one? In the words of Dennis Leary [although he was referring to cocaine] "Take my penis awaaay!"). This also means that, even though I may be fine for a few more years, it could always eventually grow back.


If I can't have children:
- I wouldn't want to deny anyone the opportunity to have children, if that's something they wanted, by being with me.
- Ironic as it may sound, I'm also not sure I would want to be with someone who didn't want children, even if I couldn't have them. Perhaps it's the presumed lack of empathy there would be in the relationship. 
- Having had a mental illness, and how rare it is in Australia anyway, I will never be eligible to adopt.


If the cancer will develop and make me sick/ die:
- It would be downright deceptive to not tell someone what you know your future will hold, knowing how that would also affect them.
-  How could you possibly expect anyone to sign up to a future with someone that will be short, unpleasant and/or full of illness? I would say its an incredibly selfish expectation, and possibly delusional to believe that you're so wonderful that your personality alone would make up for everything else. 


It's all well and good for Hollywood movies to slather on the cheesy everything-will-be-fine and love-overcomes-everything storylines, but its hardly realistic. I know some people do manage to overcome some incredibly difficult situations/ illnesses, and accept each other exactly as they are, but [especially for those of us who most definitely do not look like Anne Hathaway] I would wager that 99.9% of potential partners would run in the opposite direction at top speed before you could finish the sentence "I'm a barren source of penis-cancer with a slow, painful death in my future".

Cheating

The other day I saw an interview with an author about a book he's launching called " The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating (Sexuality, Identity, and Society)

By Eric Anderson

One internet review says:

Whether straight or gay, most men start their relationships desiring monogamy. This is rooted in the pervasive notion that monogamy exists as a sign of true love. Yet despite this deeply held cultural ideal, cheating remains rampant. In this accessible book, Eric Anderson investigates why 78% of men he interviewed have cheated despite their desire not to. Combining 120 interviews with research from the fields of sociology, biology, and psychology, Anderson identifies cheating as a product of wanting emotional passion for one's partner, along with a steadily growing desire for emotionally-detached recreational se with others. (fishpond.com)

Dishonesty is one thing that can corrode a relationship and ruin trust between partners. Adding in another partner these days more than ever before also holds the risk of introducing new diseases to the relationship.

 

As a sexual health practitioner once told me- the amount of male patients who would come back from a holiday in Thailand (or other overseas locale renowned for low cost, and low quality in terms of safety precautions, prostitution), and say "oh no, I can't use a condom with my wife or she'd know I was with someone else.".

 

This disgusts me on several levels- but the dishonesty is the really insidious part. That they would rather risk infecting their wife with a disease than to be honest with them. It shows a total lack of respect for a partner, and only concern for their own desires.

 

Anderson cites a statistic of 78% of men and 75% of women have cheated at some point in their lives. I have never cheated on a partner- Does this really make me part of the tiny minority? Also- I only suspected two of my partners of cheating on me (and only ever had evidence of one)... is this incredibly naive? Should you EXPECT a partner to cheat on you? Not a terribly encouraging or trust inspiring thought!

 

If the sexualisation of our culture,is now exposin people to a wider array of images, ideas and media, why should this necessarily lead to cheating? Why not try them with your current partner? Perhaps there is a corresponding erosion of respect thats not being recognised in the same way.