In a Cosplay State of Mind: Interview with Ghostiee Muffinn

We met at Baltimore Comic Con. It was my second year taking my niece. Both her and I have social anxiety, and transforming into our favorite badass women of the superhero world makes us become more outgoing. We walked around the con getting pictures with other cosplayers. She and I gasped out loud when we saw one particular cosplayer come walking across the sky bridge. Decked out in armor, carrying the mighty Mjolnir, there she was: Thor.

Photo: Ghostiee Muffinn as Thor and me, as Mockingbird. Photo credit: @rickcurrrier32 on IG

As long time readers of my blog know, I am endlessly interested in the intersection of mental health and nerd culture, so when I saw a post about this very topic on her instagram, I reached out to Ghostiee Muffinn herself for an interview.

Chris: What do you want [my readers] to know about you first off?

Jess: Hi! I’m Jess, however my online cosplay alias is Ghostiee Muffinn Cosplay. I’ve been cosplaying and attending conventions for 4 years now, and hope to continue! I cosplay almost everything; video games, comics, movies, you name it! Outside of cosplay I attend college and serve [wait staff at a restaurant].

Photo: Ghostiee Muffinn as Ezio from Assassins Creed. Photo by: @casey_mcnaughton on IG

Chris: How did you get into cosplaying? What is your cosplay story?

Jess: One year out of the blue I asked my friend if she wanted to attend Katsucon, I think it was 2015! She had planned to go to otakon, but things fell through so it inspired us to give it a shot. We loved it. It was so much fun crafting our first costumes, and it just became something we wanted to continue! Now, I can’t imagine myself without this hobby, I put hours and lots of money into it!

Chris: What does cosplay mean to you?

Photo: Ghostiee Muffinn as Glaceon from Pokemon. Photo by: @papercube on IG

Jess: Cosplay means the world to me! I’ve met my best friends through cosplay, so close that they are like family to me. Cosplay is my creative outlet, I lead a busy lifestyle and it allows me to cool down through art. I hope to keep pushing myself to craft greater and greater projects.

Chris: What is your life as a frequent cosplayer like?

Jess: It can be stressful, in 2018 I have completed 7 new cosplays and attended 5 conventions. The previous year I had only [attended] 2 conventions and completed about 3 cosplays. I would be lying if I said it didn’t sometimes get stressful pushing myself more and more. Yet, I wouldn’t trade it for anything, while it keeps me busy it keeps me determined. I continue to meet amazing people and learn more about my craft. It can be strange finding the balance between the cosplay world, work world, student world, and social world— yet when those worlds collide (especially social and cosplay) I wouldn’t trade it for a thing!

Chris: On your Instagram, you talk about feeling like cosplaying different characters makes you feel strong. Can you talk more about that?

Photo: Ghostiee Muffinn as Thor. Photo by: @griffin_studios and edited by @kosplaykreationz on IG

Jess: Cosplaying different characters absolutely makes me feel strong—empowered. When you look up to or admire a character, there is hardly a better feeling than becoming that character. It’s like becoming the one who you admire, you begin to admire yourself. Additionally, not all projects are easy! Completing a challenging goal is good for the soul, it induces learned self esteem!

 

Chris: On this blog, we talk about how nerd culture intersects with mental health. What connection do you see between cosplaying and mental health?

Jess: I absolutely can see how cosplay connects to mental health, good and bad. For me, cosplay gives me pride and pleasure when I debut something new I had been crafting for months. I previously mentioned learned self esteem—when one gains confidence through accomplishment— cosplay is my source of learned self esteem! It gives me something to look forward to in dark days. However, it is undeniable that cosplay can be a stressor. Have you heard the term “con crunch”? It refers to that month before a con when cosplayers go blind, seeings stars, trying to finish all their cosplays by the con deadline— usually without sleeping! Cosplay can induce stress, but it can also serve as stress relief to craft after a long day. I would consider it a very healthy hobby!

Chris: What do you wish people understood about cosplaying?

Jess: I feel there are several misconceptions around cosplay. First— it’s not just several adults that never outgrew dress up. We are adults having fun, we are crafting, making friends, staying young, and embracing our unique hobby. Many cosplayers such as myself create cosplays from nothing, so we pride ourselves in our creations! Secondly, there are many types of cosplay. One of the categories, lewd cosplay, I feel gets a bad name. Our motto is cosplay is for everyone, to deny anyone as a cosplayer because they are wearing less is rude and wrong. Similarly, the cosplay world should be a happy world, void of harsh remarks. We are all different skill levels, so we must always embrace all cosplays as “good” rather than “noob” cosplays.

Photo: Ghostiee Muffinn as Jason Vorhees. Photo by: @s1price_lightworks on IG

Chris: Can you tell us about the cosplay community?

Jess: I love the cosplay community, I’ve mentioned that almost all of my close friends come from cosplay—and hold true to that. I’ve met people I consider family. I feel the cosplay community is a supportive and healthy community, nerds helping and supporting eachother! It’s my favorite community to be a part of.

Chris: Is there anything else you want my readers to know about your craft?

Jess: I see cosplay in my future, and I am grateful for everyone who has supported me along the way, I couldn’t do anything without the kindness of others, and I couldn’t imagine myself without the cosplay world.

Photo: Ghostiee Muffinn as Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Photo by: @notsoprophoto_photography on IG

Thank you to Jess for telling us her story. Check out her work on instagram @GhostieeMuffinnCosplay and on facebook Ghostiee Muffinn Cosplay. You can also contribute to her craft over on Ko-Fi.

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Welcome back to the new season of Existential Wednesday. If you enjoyed this interview, worry not, there are more to come. And if you want more walks through existential crises, pop culture, and mental health, come back every Wednesday!

 

Blogtober Day 1!

I really hate this, I say, curling up on myself as I listen to people tell their stories of being haunted. The Spirits podcast was playing an episode where people wrote in their stories, and I was growing increasingly creeped out. It occurred to me more than once this was a bad idea. Afterall, my massive anxiety and insomnia love to tangle up with any spooky material I consume to produce bumps in the night to wake me up right as I am going to sleep. I am already mentally calculating whether I have Xanax to take for sleep tonight if my brain decides that my room is haunted (very unlikely, though not entirely without true believers as you will see tomorrow).

You see, I am truly weird about fear.

I am in no way an adrenaline junkie. Roller coasters are made by the devil, I keep telling people who seem not to believe me. I really did try to give them a go, especially as my older brothers are obsessed with coasters and we have been several times to Hershey

Photo of Lightning Racers at Hershey Park from their website. Aka the ride I almost passed out after.

Park (the chocolate themed wonderland with shockingly scary rides). I went on one, that allows children starting at about 8. I was already almost an adult. It was horrible, but I was always the one who wanted to prove herself to her older brothers so I went 4 times. By the end of the final ride with me insisting I was fine, my parents made me take a seat on a nearby bench because I was so pale they thought I was going to pass out (fainting, the occupation of Victorian corsette wearing ladies and me. I’ve passed out a truly astounding number of times for a real person and honestly pushing it even for a fictional character). The Tower of Terror drops? No way in hell. I was thrilled when my brothers had kids and suddenly I could “escort the kiddos to the children’s rides” and let them roller coaster. I get to be an awesome aunt and escape my own nightmares? Score for me.

So, scares that involve my body being moved in any way are not great. I am also deathly afraid of closed spaces and they are in no way fun.

I do love haunted houses as long as I am surrounded by friends. In which case I will begin laughing hysterically (literal use) the entire time like a cat purring when they are scared (cats do this, look it up). I feel a similar way about haunted houses as I do most scary media. I love what I can handle, but I have a hard line. There is scary media I adore, and there is scary media that triggers my anxiety and leaves me a mess for way too long afterward. It is really hard for me to articulate to anyone where that line is and often it comes down to, I can just tell.

For me, it is a careful balancing act. I like to feel that tingling of fear. I like to get chills (or the giggles) from a good scare, but it has to stay shy of the line of true terror. Terror is not fun for me. I live with near constant high anxiety. My baseline for anxious feeling is well above people without a diagnosed mental health disorder. This means that I have a lot of nervous energy. Often it is freefloating, a term which means not attached to a cause. I sometimes feel anxious for no circumstance based reason. Proper scares me can help me burn off that nervous energy and provide a focus for it. So one minute I am feeling anxious, then that anxiety is aimed at this scary movie instead of roaming around inside my head for a long lost deep dark memory to drag up. But, the moment that I tip over the line and get too scared, I feel sick. I get lightheaded and pale. Another episode of insomnia will be pending come night time. The memory of that fear will last. Adrenaline does not feel good inside my body.

So, I love Halloween. I love the whole season because people like me, with a desire for mild scares and a love of the morbid, can dig into the friendlier side of the celebration. It allows me to fill my life up with cob webs and candy corn like a child, and put on spooky (but not overly scary) movies or TV shows. For a woman who loves the creepy, what a time it is to be alive! Join me this month of Blogtober to celebrate the creepy, weird, morbid, and a touch scary stuff that floods our lives in the best way during my favorite month of the year! I will be posting shorter something every day leading up to Halloween. Sometimes it will be briefer blog posts, others it will be top 10 lists, other times it will be something different entirely. Won’t you come along for the ride?

Happy Haunting!

-Existential Wednesday

Batman, Pettiness, and Distorted Reality

I understand what they are trying to imply, I just decided not to acknowledge it. I am making the decision to not acknowledge passive aggressive words, but instead to take them literally. If someone gives an arch “I’m fine,” I have decided to let that be enough. I will accept the reality they are presenting. When this situation comes up I can usually tell what they mean or at least that they want me to figure it out, but I will no longer play this game.

See, the thing I am learning about myself is that I tend toward wanting to make other people happy. It is the same instinct that helps me succeed as a therapist and professor, but un-moderated, it is a drive to please. I am an Enneagram 2 (1 wing for the initiated out there), which means I am a Helper. When I am unhealthy,  I strive to put other’s needs before my own and then can become resentful when I am taken for granted. Rather than say I feel this way, my default is to be passive aggressive. I may say a “it’s fine I don’t mind,” when I mean, “I can’t believe you don’t recognize how much I do.” For a long time I have been working on growing past this instinct (though it crops up sometimes), but now I am going a step further. I will try not to act this way myself, but it is now time for me to also not cater to this behavior in others.

The way I see it, passive aggressive behavior is a way to force other people to do the work for us. Rather than admitting the problem and opening dialog, it is saying “guess what I mean.” Passive aggression is not taking responsibility for the conversation.

As a teenager, I suffered under the belief that if people truly understood me, I would not need to tell them what is wrong, they would figure it out. The problem here is, like discussed in a previous post, we are messy communicators. Perfect understanding is a perfect lie. People view us through the lens of their own experiences. Even if they do recognize a problem, they may not perceive it the way we do. So, passive aggressively layering our meaning does not convey a clear message. So what is it we are doing? Honestly, passive aggression is manipulation. It is a way to maneuver people into reading our minds.

Let us consider the king of passive aggression, Bruce “Batman” Wayne. To reach back

Photo: Me decked out in Batman gear.

into my Southern roots, bless his petty, petty heart. I can feel a defensive coil coming, so understand that I love Batman! I am a true fan. The whole Batfamily are my favorites in all of comics. One of the reasons I love him as a character is how he can save the world time and again, do great good, and still be very human. I do not mean this in the way you may hear some fans say that if they trained long enough they could be Batman. I know I can’t. I am pretty sure that given enough wealth some of the American Ninja Warriors probably could, but this girl? Not likely. I mean more, he is the kind of character that has pain, trauma, and mental health difficulties in his life but continues to be resilient. He gets up, he fights, when the force of his pain could bowl him over. In Glen Weldon’s The Caped Crusade (an amazing book for anyone wanting to understand the cultural significance of the Dark Knight), he describes the story of a young boy who suffered severe abuse. The kid read Batman and it kept him alive,  because here was someone who suffered but could still be a superhero. Batman, a fictional character, saved a kid in the real world.

Part of the realness of Batman as a person in the stories, is that he is deeply flawed. He is

Cover Art: Batman War Games Volume 1

relatable. He can face the worst enemies but when it comes time to encountering vulnerable emotions with his chosen family, he balks. Rather than an honest “I’m hurt,” he goes out of his way to send a passive aggressive, petty, message. Take for instance, the arc of Batman War Games where Bruce is angry with Tim Drake (who was the topic of last week’s post). Tim’s crime? Deciding to focus on school to make his biological father happy, and thus taking a step back from being Robin. Instead of telling Tim this bothered him, Bruce makes Tim’s girlfriend (Stephanie Brown) Robin, a move he knew would hurt his son. Of course, the joke is on Batman here because he and Stephanie have never gotten along, but the man grits his teeth and bears their dynamic because the power of pettiness is stronger than sense, apparently. He is so damn petty. The Lego Batman movie made this quality the focus of the plot by showing that his passive aggressive behavior stems from a fear of intimacy. The character is beautifully portrayed here, in my opinion.

As I write this, I know there are relationships that do not allow for open disagreement. Maybe you and your friend/partner/family member etc. cannot communicate in a vulnerable way. It could be that direct confrontation leads the other person to shut down, build walls, and retreat behind them. It could be that the person lashes out cruelly. It can seem safer to operate passive aggressively in these situations. This I truly understand, because I have had both these type of friends. One former friend went cold, making his words sound like logic to distance himself from my genuine concerns about our friendship. There is an idea in psychology known as Parataxic Distortion, coined by Harry S. Sullivan. The term is big, but the idea is simple. It basically states that we have a distorted view of other people based on what we have encountered in life. When we start to believe something untrue, it is like we are writing a script and we cast people we encounter as characters in it. The other people may get sucked into our script. So, for my former friend, he cast himself as the logical one and me as emotional. It was demeaning in ways I did not recognize at the time because I often felt like he was right and I was baseless in my claims. I put up with a lot for him for years longer than I should have because of that script. My other former friend, had the tendency to lash out. I would say “this hurt me,” and she would react by listing off every flaw with who I am as a person. For me, I was commenting on a specific moment in time, for her it would be about my whole personality.

It took me a long time to recognize this, but if opening up to a person and confronting them is met with resistance, backlash, or punishment, this is a major red flag. The relationships are at best unhealthy and at worst actively toxic and emotionally abusive. It took time to step away from these people in my life, but I have never regretted it. I feel so full of blessing that I have people in my life now that I can talk about a problem in our relationship with and it leads to communication. It is not always without bumps, but it is so much healthier in the long run.

I also recognize there is a push in some parts of the internet for passive aggressive or petty come backs as a way to show strength. After all, a well done return parry in a conversation can be funny. The problem is, acting like we do not care or the “dgaf” attitude is not necessarily strong. Especially as a way to get the last say in a dying dynamic, it can feel like saying “I am so over you.” I have definitely been in the place where snapping can seem cathartic. But being passive aggressive does not actually send the message we no longer care about the person. It says the other person’s behavior is still defining us. For me, it has become about walking away without having to have the final word in a relationship. While I want people to “get it” or see how I have been hurt, it does not work. Closure is often best sought in our own healing, rather than with the people who did the damage.

But for those relationships we do want to make work? Passive aggressive behavior is a

Cover Daring Greatly by Dr. Brené Brown

barrier to healthy communication, not a pathway to it. The best thing I learned from Dr. Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, which goes over her work on studying vulnerability, is that it is alright and strong to ask directly for what I need. How revolutionary this act was for me! Often with my mother I would find myself getting frustrated because she defaults to finding comfort in facts, she is a Ravenclaw of course, and I find comfort in feelings. Instead of getting frustrated, I began saying, “What I need right now is for you to tell me I am okay,” instead of listing the reasons why. Just…saying it, and letting me hear the words. It was huge for me. I do not have to resort to being passive aggressive to get what I need.

 

So, when I say I no longer want to be passive aggressive and I no longer want to recognize passive aggression in others, I mean I no longer want to cast people in my own parataxic distortions or be cast in theirs. I can unplug from the game of trying to guess what other people need. I have decided to try openly saying what I need and expecting others to be adults and tell me what they want as well. If they do not, and some won’t, I will not coax it out of them. It is their responsibility to speak their needs to me, not mine to put them together from clues. I mean, what do I look like? The World’s Greatest Detective, Batman?

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Enjoy talking superheroes (and other nerdy ephemera) with a heaping helping of existential crises and psychology? Join me again next week for Existential Wednesday.

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Recommends:

In addition to the amazing books and comics listed above, check out these things.

Want to learn what the Enneagram is? I recommend The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. It has helped me a lot in coming to understand myself.

If healthy and wonderful friendship between two strong women is your thing (which, it should be, everyone) please please go see the Spy Who Dumped Me while its in theaters. The friendships are so good and full of expressing themselves honestly and openly stating what they need.

 

Self-Compassion and the Scarlet Speedster

Note: Very specific spoilers for Flash season 3

Here is my Existential Wednesday post a day late because in existential philosophy time only has the meaning we give it…or potentially because I accidentally planned poorly and got behind. One or the other.

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There are two things that my unexpected academic sabbatical has given me: time to catch up on the shows I missed and time for a proper shame spiral. What do I feel shame over? Sometimes it is over feeling useless, which is really just code in my head for less busy than when I was in grad school. Sometimes it is because I feel I could be doing more for the world that seem daily to be on fire. Sometimes I feel like I could be kinder. Sometimes the shame is about not getting into the Ph.D. program or still living at home. It depends on the moment, but it is always under the surface for me to tap into. And it is shame, not guilt. As shame researcher Brene Brown expresses, guilt is something that serves to motivate action. It is a response to behaviors we do. Shame is a threat to our identity. It is a belief that something is wrong inside ourselves. Shame is deeply personal. Shame is destructive.

The other half of my having more time than normal equation is catching up on the Flash, the superhero show about the scarlet speedster and his many friendship and found family woes (also he fights villains). It is a show I love to sink into like a warm bath, letting it into my pores to fill me up and refresh my soul. I cannot get enough of constant Dad Joe West loving his super sons. I adore the sweet friendship of the STAR labs team. And most of all, I love the warm beating heart of the show, the titular speedster: Flash aka Barry Allen.

Screen Cap of Barry Allen from the Flash

In a world full of toxic masculinity, Barry represents the rare intersection of a character shown to be deeply emotional and yet not portrayed as weak. Not a billionaire playboy by day, instead Barry is the same good person in and out of his mask. As Joe tells him when explaining the difference between Barry and Wally (Joe’s other son), Barry is always able to express what he is feeling. Even when he is keeping secrets (sometimes Earth shattering ones), he cannot actually hide his feelings. Barry and the show writers’ both have a willingness to explore feelings and drive toward emotional maturity. With this in mind, season 3 leans in on a gorgeous arc about a topic that does not get enough attention:

Self-compassion.

At the end of season 2, Barry loses his father and in a moment of grief and bad decision

Screen cap Flash. Time rupture explained and my memories triggered

making (seriously, could anything be worse than having powers when emotionally impaired?) he time travels and launches a whole new timeline. Realizing his mistake, Flash resets things as they were but learns a lesson best explained using a coffee cup. Once the cup is broken, fixing it does not completely erase the cracks. (Side bar, this is exactly how virginity was explained to me in a truly horrifying youth group sex lecture. I am scarred and this episode launched a full flash back. You thought the flower metaphor in Jane the Virgin was an exaggeration? It was my life, but I digress.) Barry returns to the present to find things almost entirely as he left them except for a few major changes. The rest of the season deals with the repercussions of time travel and trying to fix mistakes by erasing them. There could be and likely are thousands of words written on the ideas about time travel this season explores, but for me, the infinitely more interesting dimension was the one happening inside Barry’s head.

As primary self-compassion researcher, Dr. Kristin Neff, explains, “With self-compassion we give ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend.” Having self-compassion means being able to step out of the noise inside your head and see yourself with love and acceptance. It is a skill that can be increased with practice and there are brilliant meditations structured around seeking it out. An essential part of the Flash’s character is his taking too much personal responsibility and feeling shame over everything that occurs in this and any other world (thanks to the multiverse). So, I was duly surprised when the season took a turn. Instead of wallowing in Barry’s shame, the show lets him interact with the mentors and motivators in his life and have some of the most beautiful discussions of self-compassion I have ever seen. The narrative weaves itself directly around the elements of self-compassion  throughout the season.

Element of Self-compassion 1) Harry Wells and Common Humanity

Screen cap Flash. Harry and Barry.

Harry Wells serves as a mostly reluctant mentor to young Barry Allen. In season 3, they relate in their feelings of shame, with Wells saying “I know what that feels like…I make mistakes and I want to make up for my mistakes, then I just make more mistakes.” He then adds, “you did once tell me that you have to trust in the long run that the decisions you make are the right ones.” Finally, he comes to the true heart of the moment, “I was always too good at forgiving myself, Allen, and you were never good enough.” Harry Wells struggled with taking responsibility, Barry struggles with taking too much. The moment not only reflects the need for self-compassion, but points to a core element of it. We can become self-compassionate when we learn to see our common humanity, aka when we recognize that others fail too. By sharing in Barry’s pain, Harry opens up a path for the Flash to recognize he is not the only one to fall short.

Element of Self-compassion 2) Oliver Queen and Self-kindness

Screen Cap Flash. Barry and Ollie having a heart to heart

The Flash’s shame reaches a point of near no return in the massive show crossover episodes when Flash collides with Supergirl, Arrow, and Legends of Tomorrow to tackle an actual alien invasion. When the majority of the super powered (or super skilled vigilante) cohort find out about Barry’s time meddling, they are furious, but Oliver sticks with his fleet-footed friend. In true teach what you cannot do fashion, Ollie has a heart-to-heart with Barry about showing himself kindness.

Oliver:  You need to stop beating yourself up over this.

Barry: I’m sorry, but how can you say that? I’m responsible for all of this.

Oliver: Maybe. Maybe not. Barry, you made a choice. You wanted to see your parents alive again. Do you honestly know anyone that if they were in your shoes wouldn’t do the exact same thing? I would do the exact same thing.

He goes on to explain about the traumas he experienced in life and how he would change them if he could, then he says the key point.

Oliver: Barry, the world isn’t different because you changed the timeline. Change happens. Tragedy happens. People make choices and those choices affect everyone else. You’re not a god, Barry.

The lesson does not immediately sink in because when it turns out the aliens are there to capture Barry, he reverts back to his shame spiral. Barry decides to offer himself as a sacrifice to the aliens, but Ollie and the other super friends step in to let him know he is loved. Barry is forced to accept their kindness and forgiveness. With self-kindness we learn to see that we are not gods. We are imperfect and we do not know how our actions will affect the world. With self-kindness, we begin to recognize our limits in the same way we do not expect our friends to be perfect.

Element of Self-compassion 3) The Speed Force and Mindful Acceptance

Screen Cap Flash. Barry and Jay inside the Speedforce

Self-compassion also means being able to sit with our feelings. It means that we, and Barry, cannot run away from the unpleasant emotions we experience. It does not mean we wallow, but we do let ourselves feel. For Barry, this comes in the form of the speedforce the difficult to explain science-magic dimension speedsters can access. For Barry it is a place of re-experiencing memories. In season 3, he goes in and talks to three people from his past that spark his feelings of shame. Barry is forced to face the emotions, and the personification of the speedforce does not let up. It reminds him continuously that his emotions, not his logic, are fueling his choices, but that he is refusing to acknowledge it. Until he recognizes what he is really feeling, which of course is once again a desire to sacrifice himself, he cannot be free of the force of his memories.

Together, between Harry relating to Barry, Oliver sharing his own recognition that it is okay to be imperfect, and the actual spirit of the speedforce making him think about his emotions, Barry has all the elements of self-compassion laid before him. Does he learn from it? Of course not. Barry would probably offer to sacrifice himself to help someone get over a cold if he could, but as viewers, we can learn the lessons he does not.

So, we learn to talk to ourselves with kindness. We learn to recognize that others fail too. We learn to stop running from our emotions like a speedster into danger.

Screen cap Flash. A signature Joe West hug

Maybe, when that gets too hard, we can imagine talking to ourselves like Joe West would talk to his adopted son, Barry. What would ultimate father figure Joe do in those moments of failure and self-doubt? Well, he would put his arm around us and let us know we are loved, no matter what. He would remind us that not everything is our fault. He would cry with us, feel with us, and on the other side remind us to get up. He would give us a safe place to be human. May we all treat ourselves like Joe West treats his kids.

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Want more deep dives into pop cultural and existential psychology? Tune in every Wednesday for another walk on the overthinking side.

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Recommends:

Want to learn more about the fascinating work of Brene Brown on shame, vulnerability, and living a wholehearted life? Check out her website here.

Interested in learning about self-compassion, including how to do self-kindness meditations? Check out the work of Kristin Neff.

Avengers: Infinity Catharsis!

Welcome to the promised very special incredibly spoilery edition of Existential Wednesday. Fair warning, the musings go where they go, and today that is into some deeply spoiler filled places. If you haven’t seen Avengers: Infinity War, beware!

Continue at your own risk:

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Infinity War simultaneously shattered my heart and unwound the knots in my anxiety. It was a bad week. Faithful readers know about my doc program woes, and I was still trying to unravel what was happening with my future. I was finally ready to talk about failing to get into programs, but the prospect of telling everyone who helped me so far about failing left me shaken. At home, prep was beginning for my Dad’s cancer treatment and then he had a stroke. There was no warning. Other than the (unrelated) cancer, my Dad was healthy. One moment he was working his two jobs, the next I was heading to a hospital to see him. The stroke affected the speech area of his brain. I am no neurologist, but I know enough from my psychology training to recognize based on the MRI how fortunate my father was, and how much worse things may have gone. I split my time between work, the hospital, and being there for my mom for a week. My anxiety level was maxing out.

Before the awful week began I made plans to see the newest Avengers endeavor with one of my closest friends. We were prepping by watching through the Marvel movies I missed while in grad school, and planning to go opening night.

Marvel’s Infinity War poster

By opening night, my Dad was out of the hospital. During his week there, I channeled my anxiety into managing everything that happened, but when he got home and life settled, the anxious energy remained at a high tilt. With nowhere to go, the constant strum of anxiety was turning into irritability and sometimes outright anger. I was frustrated at my Dad for being a notoriously difficult patient and with my life for continuing to send terrible surprises my way. It became clear that my mental health was deteriorating and I was one notch from yelling at my parents to just stay healthy as if their recent tendency to take turns visiting the ER was an active attack on my fraying nerves.

So, I decided to keep my appointment with the Avengers.

Infinity War ended up an interesting chicken soup for my stress fractured soul. If you watched the movie, you know that it began with the death of my beloved Loki and ended with half the population of the universe vanishing into dust. I cried when Loki died, but the ending took it a step further. It has been a long time since a movie shocked me as much as Infinity War. Seeing it in a crowded theater, I felt the tension rolling around me. It was horrifying to watch the scenes where everyone vanished. Then in the midst of so many emotional deaths there was that moment.

Screen Cap of Tony Stark in the emotional climax

Catching up on the Marvel movies I missed meant I saw Age of Ultron, Civil War, and Homecoming back to back days before seeing Infinity War. So I watched Tony Stark transform from egocentric Iron man into the beating heart that is Iron Dad in quick succession. I am weak for found family stories, where people who are not related craft together a community. Watching Tony create his android son,Vision (in Infinity War, Bruce even refers to Vision as having part of Tony in his personality) and then adopt Peter Parker (referred to by Dr. Strange as Tony’s ward) triggered all the most warm feelings inside me. So, in the end, to see Tony watch Peter fade out as he holds him pulled every emotional cord in my  body. I cannot think about that moment without getting misty eyed. I was shaky when I left the theater, and for the first time in recent memory, I did not turn on a podcast and instead drove home in silence.

I also came home no longer angry.

Infinity War was a good movie in many respects. It was well crafted and intelligently executed. The acting was superlative. The deaths were haunting. The movie was also good for me. Every emotion that rose up in me over the turns my life was taking, emotions that I buried and tried to muscle past, the movie brushed up against and released. I felt shocked about my father’s unforeseen stroke, and I felt shocked by the carnage at the movie’s end. I was grieving the loss (if temporary) of a doctorate dream, of a 5 year plan, of a life where I felt assured my parents were healthy. I grieved characters along with the loved ones they left behind. I felt the hopeless desperation at the moment when Thanos snaps his fingers reflecting back to me the moment when I stood in the hospital outside my father’s room whispering over and over to myself “this is not how my story is supposed to go.”

Screen cap of Thanos

It was not that in any way the emotions stirred up by this movie were as real or important as the ones I felt for the people who actually exist in my life. In fact, the movie helped me experience those emotions because it was fiction. The narrative allowed  me to feel intensely in a place that was harmless. I know that Black Panter and Spider-man both have sequels pending. I know that in comics, death is a temporary state. Comics use death to achieve narrative goals like resetting a situation to tell new stories or allowing characters to deepen their relationships. Nothing quite brings a family together like one of those family members briefly crossing over to the other side. I can reason my way out of even Loki being truly dead as much as the next person. But I was able to enter fully into the emotions in that moment, knowing that a year from now when the sequel comes out, things will be made right. I may not know where I will be in a year, but I know the the MCU will keep on movie-ing as long as there are tickets to be bought.

In psychology, there is a concept known as catharsis, whereby a person triggers their emotions and experiences them fully, allowing the person to release them. Similarly, in mindfulness therapies, the client learns to sit with emotions in the moment. The idea behind both is that by experiencing, the strength of emotions wane. An emotion that is surpressed grows stronger, while an emotion fully embraced loses its bite.

I saw the movie again today and each emotional beat still packed the same weight, but I also felt a warmness. This movie, like so many before it, is now forever woven into my story. This movie will be linked in my mind to the pain of that impossibly long week, but it will also remind me of the release. As the emotions rose and then faded out like…ash in the wind (too soon?).

Screen cap of Loki moments before his death

That week was hard, this year has been long, and life continues to provide moments of both beauty and pain. But, for me and for the lost Avengers it is as Loki said, “The sun will shine on us again.”

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Enjoy my existential crisis masked as a thought piece on Avengers? Come back next Wednesday for a special Mental Health Awareness Month post, and check out Friday’s bonus post for comic recommendations!

The Best Therapist on TV

Update Note: This post was written before I heard anything about Lethal Weapons potential cancellation because of Clayton Crawford being rude or aggressive to people on set. So all thoughts and opinions existed prior to this.

I really should stop watching Lethal Weapon, I think to myself every time I sit down with a new episode.

Lethal Weapon bros being adorable bros

It is not that the show is bad. In fact, season 1 was an incredibly well-written police procedural that I will defend fully. The leads are dynamic and their friendship is a joy to watch. I am a sucker for a good found family story. Season 2 is mostly pretty harmless if not particularly ground-breaking, although the character’s are often making nonsense choices that are a bit hard to watch. My main problems can be summarized by the fact that the teenagers are written as if the obviously middle aged writers have never once spoken to anyone actually young and sometimes the gun violence is a bit hard to stomach in the era of March for Our Lives and Black Lives Matter. Not to mention the complete unexplained disappearence of my favorite minor character, Cruz, played by incredible actor and actual former gang member, Richard Cabral.

Cruz being incredibly dynamic in every possible shot

I can only hope there is a multi-part arch where the characters explore why Cruz disappeared from the precinct without anyone noticing for months to make up for the fact that they replaced him with the world’s most boring rookie cop.

Bowman (right) literally blending into the scenery

All of these reasons together probably would have been enough to make me lose interest, especially when some of season 2’s story lines got more over the top, if not for the fact that Lethal Weapon has some of the best psychology currently on television. And hands down, it has the best therapist I have ever seen portrayed.

I have seen therapy from both sides. Born anxious, I experienced the care of 5 amazing therapists at different periods in my life (now included). I am also in training to be a therapist with a master’s degree under my belt and an on-going process of pursuing Ph.D/Psy.D. prospects. Studying psychology began for me at age 15 because of a series of sad experiences going on in my friend group. I wanted answers and psychology provided them. So psych is inseparably linked to my thoughts.

Every time a therapist comes on TV, my parents turn to me, wanting to know how well the person is portraying the field. The answer tends to range from not very well to outright horrifying. My dad and I have a running joke that whenever we see his profession (Pastor) or my future one (therapist) on a murder mystery, the person will either be killed or do the killing.

Sometimes the therapist eats people (e.g. Hannibal)

TV and movies are replete with therapist, but they generally leave a lot to be desired. I will always have a soft spot for Counselor Troi on Star Trek TNG, because the show makes her one of the most important members of the crew. It is so encouraging to see mental health taken seriously in that imagined future society. May we get even remotely close to valuing therapy so much. That said, the writers lean heavily on her psychic empathy rather than allowing her to use any actual therapeutic techniques.

Counselor Troi who deserved better

The show, Monk, also prominently features a therapist in Dr. Charles Kroger, who honestly should have lost his license to practice for ignoring professional ethics.  One particular episode had Monk working with a different therapist who turned out to be a murderer. Even still, Monk admitted the homicidal man was better than his regular therapist. Ouch.

Bad at his job, Dr. Kroger

Too often therapy is portrayed poorly or stigmatized. The school counselor on 13 Reasons Why definitely ignored the Hippocratic oath (do no harm) and the traumatized teens on Riverdale scoff at the idea of needing therapy. In the OC, going to therapy leads Marissa to hang out with a dangerous boy she meets in the waiting room, implying that seeking help may just make matters worse. So many of these shows do therapy a disservice.

Then there is Dr. Maureen Cahill.

Would be winner of the Best TV Therapist if such an award existed

Between Jordana Brewster’s ability to extrude empathy from every pore and the writers actually doing their homework on what a therapist says and does, this show continually knocks it out of the park with her story. I will admit a certain bias because of my weakness for Fast and Furious, Brewster’s alma mater show (and yes we will return to that important gem of cinema someday). That said, when Dr. Cahill is on screen, I take notes. She is competent, ethical, and just great at her job. In a discussion with her client who was angry that time was not healing his wounds, she quietly helped him understand that healing is not such a passive process. It takes work, not time. It takes choosing to live one’s life.

Martin Riggs’ lovely windows to the soul

Along with her is the amazing performance of Clayne Crawford as Martin Riggs. Riggs struggles with PTSD, depression, and serious substance abuse and self-harm behavior. Week after week, the show continues to delve into the process of therapy and recovery in heartbreaking ways. I cannot turn away, and I fully recommend other people begin tuning in. This show definitely got something right.

I would be remiss ending this discussion without bringing up Crazy Ex Girlfriend, another show with well-written mental health plot lines as the forefront story arch of the dramedy. I will sing (pun intended as this show is a badass musical) the wonders of this show to anyone who will listen. Crazy Ex wove a long multi-season yarn exploring the mental health of its lead and features a trio of fantastic therapists.

The show’s best therapist and her back up singers

The psychology of this show peaks during season 3 with songs like My Diagnosis and This Session is Going to Be Different! Crazy Ex Girlfriend deserves all the fans and all the awards.

Therapy is a crucial part of healing and health, which deserves to be presented with dignity and attention to detail. Well characterized therapists may go a long way to helping remove the stigma that still remains around this practice. As for Lethal Weapon? As long as Dr. Cahill continues to be a beacon of light in the dark world of TV therapy, I will continue to faithfully tune in and get anyone I can to join me. I will also continue to take notes.

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Today we explored therapy in the world of TV, but there is much more to say about therapy in books and now the beginnings of mental health being seriously explored in comics. Interested in more discussions of this kind?  Check back in every Wednesday for more of the intersection of mental health and nerdom!

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If you feel like you need help, check with your insurance website to get a listing of local therapists or try Find a Therapist through Psychology Today. If the problem is pressing call the National Crisis Hotline to talk to someone right now.

Remember, there are so many good people out there to help. I know, because they helped me when I needed them.

Picard Failed the First Time

When I found out I failed to get into a Ph.D. program, I started watching the end of Coming of Age on loop.

Wesley Crusher prepping for the unknown

I am a relatively new Star Trek TNG fan. My Dad shared it with me as a kid, but it was just the random episodes that appeared in syndication and I remember little from that time. A few weeks ago, I decided I was going to start watching it for real thanks to the amazing podcast, Treks and the City.  I am so glad I did. My life has become a complicated jumble as I went through finishing up my Master’s degree, helping my Dad through cancer, losing a close friend, and discovering that I have OCD. The combination, both painful and intense, led directly to the start of this blog. It also led to a brand new obsession with The Next Generation.

In Coming of Age, Wesley Crusher applies to, tests for, and falls just short of getting into Starfleet Academy. The first time I saw the episode I was waiting to hear back from Ph.D. programs. This process spans from November when applications go in until April 15 when final decisions are made. It is a just two months shy of the full gestation period of a humanoid baby and a truly agonizing amount of time to wait. The episode spoke to me. I recognized Wesley’s impatience and uncertainty about the future. The second time I watched the episode, I was prepping for an interview with one specific program. This time the feeling that every word and action I made was being evaluated connected me to Wesley. Like him, I felt I passed the tests successfully despite my anxiety. It was a 4 hour interview process full of trick questions and poker faces, and I was just trying to hang on to Worf’s advice to face my fears.

Wesley and his friend discussing failure

Now I keep rewatching the end of the episode because I got the email. The one that starts with the word “unfortunately” and where every subsequent word could not matter less. 8 out of 8 Ph.D. programs I applied to sent me rejections. At least the last one was not a form letter.

So, what drew me back to this episode when a heavy wave of sadness started settling on my shoulders? The truth is, I have rarely seen a show tackle failure in quite the way TNG did. Wesley’s friend does not get to test, he is rejected before he steps foot in the door and spends the rest of the episode attempting to run away from his problems and give up. Wesley gets the chance, he aces the tests, but in the end falls just short of his goal. I have failed in both these ways, 7 times not getting to attempt an interview and once getting so close before the door shut.

Like Wesley, I too want to stand in front of windows sadly.

 

Wesley stares out windows sadly

 

The real reason I keep coming back to this episode is the moment at the end when Picard finds Wesley and discusses what it means to fail.

Wesley: I failed you and I failed the Enterprise

Picard: Ridiculous. Did you do your best?

Wesley: Yes

Picard: When you test next year, and you will test next year, do you think your performance will improve?

Wesley: Yes

Picard: Good. The only person you are truly competing against, Wesley, is yourself.

Wesley: Then you’re not disappointed?

Picard: Wesley, you have to measure your successes and failures within not by anything that I or anyone else might think. But um, if it helps you to know this, I failed the first time.

Captain Picard confessing that he failed on his first attempt

Picard failed the first time. I repeat it to myself like a mantra. I know it is a work of fiction, and yet Picard’s words provide more comfort for me than anything people have said. I remind myself that when I apply again next year, and I will, it will go better. It reminds me that even the true Greats in this world were once just people trying. No one’s life is an unending stream of successes. I remember that I can fail without being a failure.

This is why art about failure is so important. We need to tell stories where people fail just like we all do. We need stories of people failing and then trying again. We need these stories to live inside our heads and hearts, waiting to give us strength when we receive the Email, the Phone Call, the Rejection. That is why Parks and Rec provided comfort for me for so long. I will always remember that despite running up against every imaginable obstacle, after years of trying, Leslie did build that park.

 

Leslie Knope being her badass self

 

We also need to keep telling our true stories of failure to gain strength in the pain we share. You never know who else needs to hear the refrain: *insert your name here* failed the first time too.

So I will boldly fail like so many have failed before. I will pick myself up, stop staring sadly out view screens, stretch out all the bruised surfaces in my soul, and keep trying until I get into my own version of Starfleet Academy. But I may watch Coming of Age a few more times first.

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If you enjoyed this first voyage, consider tuning in each Wednesday for a slice of the intersection between existential crises and geek culture. You will find my thoughts on mental health, feminism, culture, and many more such topics along with real talk about TV, comics, books, and movies.

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Want more media on failure? Here’s a few recommendations to keep you pushing on:

Song rec: A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley

Video rec: Elizabeth Gilbert talking about failing