Oh Epictetus...How Wrong You Were

When I was in college, I always loved my philosophy classes. Besides making me feel like I was having superior intellectual conversations with some of the brightest (or highest) minds on campus, learning philosophy helped me make sense of me. The storytelling of ancient Greek philosophers was extraordinary and yet simplistic all in one. Not like these crazy new philosophers like Nietzsche that when you read their works you feel like you just had an aneurysm. One of my favorites was this philosopher called Epictetus. He wrote this very amazing book called “The Art of Living”. Basically, Epictetus is what you would consider a stoic. Stoicism always intrigued me, mainly because I thought my grandmother and father were some of the best modern day examples of stoicism in my life. Overall, I should probably account my lack of emotional flailing to the stoic nature of the heads of my family.

So now I’m sure you’re asking yourself two questions. 1) She was really a philosophy buff in college?! And 2) How can this girl call herself stoic when I witness her emotional vulgarities on a daily basis? The answer to the first question is yes, I was a philosophy minor and the second question, well I’m getting to that.

Since I am a walking dichotomy of myself, most people know that I work in fairly polar opposites of my life. Most things run black and white, and rarely ever the nice shades of grey in between. Therefore, I can be emotional and stoic all in one. Convoluted? Yes. True? Absolutely. I’m sure Epictetus and his philosophy posse is rolling in their ancient Greek graves at my notion of Emotional Stoicism, otherwise known as the Kassandra Complex. (Those are technical terms by the way…I expect to see those in the next edition of the DSM).

So the Kassandra Complex works a little like this. Over the course of time you start hanging out with someone, and being the nice stoic individual that you are, you take things slow. Which if you know me, you know that relationships are about the only thing in life I take slowly, everything else is full steam ahead. Then things start lurking in those deep muddy waters called “What is This? Land”. Is it a relationship? Is it a bootycall? Is it a friend making a nice gesture? Am I being pitied for my lack male companionship? Tread quickly grasshopper…this is quicksand after all. So this is where the emotional part sets in. However, being a stoic and inevitably having the Kassandra Complex, you never let those emotions surface. Instead, they run around like two year old children hyped up on sugar through my head. Then after the two year olds lay down for naps after the sugar crash, the nagging voice of my mother shoots in with her two cents. This is about the time my stoic ass goes to the gym. Ahhhh repression…release.

So, after battling the demons in my head, then comes the stoic silence. The stoic silence is very much unlike a Pinter moment in that it really has little to do with the dramatic pause of silence, but more so a silence of the voice simply because my emotional head won’t shut up. Those who have witnessed the Kassandra Complex will note some key characteristics of this stage. The first is melodrama. This is when all of the “woe is me” damsel in distress half assedly fishing for sympathy remarks vomit out of my mouth. But, instead of ever clearly distinguishing what is wrong, I force myself to speak in super deep philosophical metaphors like “It is what is is.” Next, comes what I call “talking about never talking about it.” This is when those few poor souls who inquire what sort of madness is going on and I respond with the very Hollywood-ish “No Comment”. The final step is the private meltdown where the airs of stoicism collapse and you are sitting on your couch with a bottle of wine, a half eaten box of Papa John’s cheesesticks and watching a Tyler Perry movie crying your eyes out at the overly moral religious undertones that always seems to appear in his movies much like God himself yelling fire and brimstone at us sinners. Ok, maybe I should leave God out of this mess.

So now, this obviously is the point where I’m sure all sorts of mass confusion has set in for the party in question. When viewing someone with the Kassandra Complex they are hardly sure if up is up or if up is down. (In my world, it’s both by the way…get used to it). So, either this person is a brave soldier and says “Man up buddy, I’m in this for the long haul! We’re gonna slay this dragon with ninja-strength force and plow down those stoic walls and rescue our damsel in emotional internal distress!” or this is when they run screaming for the hills. More often than not it’s the latter. And if they don’t choose the latter, I usually push them to the latter after months of painful chipping away.

The very unfortunate part of the Kassandra Complex is that I tend to do this to really great guys. I mean guys that bend over backwards for you. Guys that bring you care kits when you are sick. Guys that drive 40 minutes out of their way just to watch a stupid movie on your couch and guys who drink themselves silly at your birthday party because they are upset that you went with a complete douche bag as your date. Those are the guys I tend to hurt. But, it’s not that I don’t know and understand what amazing guys they are. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s the mere fact that I do understand they are amazing, witty, caring, intelligent guys that makes me push them away. Why you ask? Because deep down I know I don’t deserve that right now.

I don’t deserve the kisses, the hugs, the intimacy. I don’t deserve the intellectual conversations, the caring deeds and the unconditional love. At least right now I don’t. I’m not deserving of all of that just yet. The reason being is that I need to be the one showing myself with love, that agape type of love that is selfless and unyielding. To be that loving person to another, I need to learn to love me better. I’m trying, trust me I am. Because it pains me to no end to see good guy, after good guy slip on by to a woman who has made herself deserving. Each time it happens I take a pause for myself to let myself know that someday, hopefully someday soon that will be mine as well. And that the heartache I have from letting the good ones go by just reassures me that at least I was selfless enough to let them go before I could give them all of my heart.

Therefore, will pain is unfortunately imminent for those with the Kassandra Complex, it unfortunately was my namesake destiny. My parents must have been modern day Nostradamuses. Apparently my name means “entangler of men”. Apollo, one of the greatest Greek characters once loved me, but since I shunned him, with my Kassandra Complex, I was cursed. The curse being that though I had the gift of prophecy, that my prophecies would never be taken seriously. This must be why I blog.