Exposition pt. 1

As I believe I have mentioned previously, I mean to take as much time between entries to insert enough exposition about who I am personally, in order to gain greater familiarity with my readers.

I started this blog several months ago, while in Stockholm, on one of my backpacking trips. I’d been contemplating doing so for a good long while, trying to find the right motivation to bring the plan to fruition. From now on, I won’t simply be posting my essays on Facebook. Perhaps now, I’ll have a closer chance at gaining the exposure I desire for my writing.

I have considered myself a “traveling man,” not unlike the Ricky Nelson song of the same title. I have adopted this moniker for a long time, now.

If I could sum up the purpose of this blog, it is a means to extol my views and commentary, during my travels afar, and from my station in upstate NY.

Let me start with the basics of my background.

I was born, July 24, 1983. I grew up in Ithaca, NY. My parents split when I was Eight years old.

I received my diploma from Ithaca High School in 2002.

I am an alumnus of Franklin Pierce College, (which is now Franklin Pierce University), located in Rindge, NH. I graduated in 2006, but spent one more semester there after that in order to complete my dual major.

I selected Franklin Pierce as my school of choice because I felt it met my specific needs, emotional and mental, as well as academic.

In all the forms my depressive and obsessive behavior has taken, one common characteristic is my constantly distorted thought process. It has always been under the influence of extreme Highs and Lows. Because of this, I prefer enclosed environments where everyone exists in a small community, and every point of destination is in walking distance. My mind has great difficulty performing tasks that involve certain cognitive skill. Suffice to say I do not drive.

Backpacking is a tremendous challenge for any young person to embark upon, but it is an even more tremendous challenge when you have suffered physical disability and mental illness for most of your life. I have.

As an obsessive compulsive (with possible bipolar attributes) I am a person who generally desires controlled environments. Needless to say, travelling the world is about as uncontrolled as you can get. So when I do travel, I create automatic zones of familiarity and comfort. Mind you, I don’t mean zones with the same shelter as say, the Coalition-occupied Green Zone in Iraq, but you get the idea.

Back to my college days: The FPC campus met all my needs and expectations of control. And I was fortunate enough to have a faculty on hand that gave me the individual attention I sought.

In a way, that fact qualifies as both positive and negative. Positive in that it sustained an environment, which encouraged my study habits perfectly. But negative in that it fostered an environment that supported and fueled my obsessive behavior.

The irony was that I never saw my behavior as obsessive, and if I ever had an inkling so, I never considered it to be a negative thing, because the patterns that I fell into, ultimately worked well for me, academically.

Let me put obsessive behavior into a milieu. buzzle.com has this to say about it:

Obsessive Thinking Patterns

Simply put, obsessive thinking is a personality disorder, wherein people are stuck in a vicious cycle of repeating their behavior due to obsessive thoughts. If a person suffers from obsessive thinking disorder, then he/she would have stressful fears and compulsions. These compulsions are a means of making these obsessive thoughts go away and function as temporary relief. These compulsions can take up a lot lot of time, thus interfering with their normal routine.

Obsessive thinking and anxiety, according to several studies, are a result of a combination of factors, both biological and environmental. There have also been studies to suggest that the lack of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, maybe the cause of obsessive thinking disorder. Obsessive thinking in children and adults can also be a result of chronic usage of drugs or traumatic head injuries. Stress, loss of a loved, one etc., can also cause this disorder. Obsessive thinking and relationships also have a strong connection, as emotional, physical or sexual matters can cause an onset of this disorder.

In short, I fit some, but not all of these characteristics. Especially, feelings of self-loathing, and long bouts of depression. What I know for certain is that I have followed obsessive thought patterns since childhood, but they accelerated to the tenth degree in college.