I got an interesting email from my dad telling me I was using up my bank account pretty fast... whoops! Anyways if you feel like even tossing me a dollar my way, I'd appreciate it :)
Ever had that thing where you thought something was due on day X and it turns out to be due day X-5…. So the Ab Psy final project I thought I was supposed to have done by the 2nd, was due tomorrow. So I got it done, it didn’t take me that long. I’m just glad I got through it without an anxiety attack! Oh this is so cause for a party
I HAVE CONQUERED MY ANXIETY!!!!! Mostly
Anyways with two weeks to go here is what I have for each week.
Sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. Life has been kind of intense, I suppose, and kind of down as well. I’m starting to really feel the emotional effects of my grandfather’s passing and… I dunno… I’m very jumbled up and I still have to finish out the semester. I should have most of it under control.
While Aria and I were watching LMPTM, I decided to bring up an article I read in the Psychology of Joss Whedon about vampirism as a metaphor for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I’m not going to go into detail about how vampires display symptoms of this since if you have seen BTVS and ATS you… well.. know what vampires are like. I went to fetch a list of the symptoms for you here-
Someone with NPD displays 5 or more of the following…
has a grandiose sense of self-importance
is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
believes that he or she is “special” and unique
requires excessive admiration
has a sense of entitlement
is interpersonally exploitative
lacks empathy
is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
Another intriguing note- the presence of a soul seems to take away these qualities. And now a little exploration of Angel and Spike.
Liam -> Angelus -> Angel : Driven by Purpose
Liam was a drunken, whoring, son of a bitch. That’s pretty much the only way to put it. He was the rich white kid of the 1700s who didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to, because his family had money and he was lazy. He had no purpose and hence was pretty much a mess. But that’s what makes his transition to Angelus so interesting. How this lazy boy becomes a feared killer- in becoming a vampire Angelus suddenly had purpose. He was a creature made to kill, made to feed, and he was going to do so to the best of his ability. But it was more than just ‘killing’, his purpose lay in destroying lives, hence the mind games and artistic slaughters.
When Angel got his soul back, he was no longer a full vampire, hence he lost his purpose which is what left him struggling for 90+ years, flailing to survive, doing nothing with his life except for moment and actions done on the spur of the moment, but not for any real reason. It was almost as though he was in a permanent dissociative fugue, cut off from any real identity as he made circles around the country, from New York to Chicago to Montana to Vegas back, eventually, to New York.
Things finally changed in 1996, when he had something to do- look out for Buffy. And you can see over the first few seasons of Buffy that this purpose kept Angel going. But it wasn’t going to last after they split. When he got to LA in the first season of Angel he was still in that isolated, drinking, closed off state. He got purpose again by his connection to the PTB.
In essence, what makes Angel a champion, is the exact same thing that makes Angelus a monster.
William -> Spike : Driven to Connect
William, in life, was someone who spent his time caring for his mother, writing poetry, and generally being a romantic, and about being connected to other people. Perhaps that is how he established his self worth, by connecting to others. In becoming Spike, he showed all the symptoms of NPD/Vampirism, but what I find interesting is that he shows them mostly in regards to his romantic points of view. For him, killing was not really done on his own, but mostly as what seemed like mating rituals with/for either Drusilla or Angelus, or if you don’t buy the Spike/Angelus bit you could say he was trying to prove his worth as a vampire to someone he admired.
He definitely was preoccupied by the concepts of ideal love, especially with Dru and Buffy. And can be seen as lacking empathy for others and interpersonally exploitative for this romantic ideal- case in point the scene where he is going to “make Buffy love him.”
Another interesting thing to point out is that he was not a violent vampire by nature, not until he met Angelus. Which begs the question, how does refined William become bad-ass brawling Spike. Again he is working on connecting to people and building up his self worth. No one will respect a vampire who just sits about writing poetry, they are going to respect one who gets out there and makes a scene. He is building himself up to show himself as someone spectacular, to be feared.
And as Aria pointed out to me, Spike getting his soul back was very different from Angel getting his soul back. Whereas Angel sort of… dissolved from his lack of purpose, Spike still had what drove him- the need to connect to others. And he did so in helping the Scoobies.
I finally found out what that means. There are many kinds of Schizophrenia:
Paranoid- Primary symptoms delusions/hallucinations
Catatonic-… well…. that would involve catatonia
Disorganized- Showing primarily lack of cohesive thought, babbling, “word salad”
Undifferentiated- showing symptoms from various kinds of Schizophrenia
i.e.- Buffy had symptoms of Paranoid and Catatonic Schizophrenia, but since the DSM has this thing about not combining conditions they had to come up with a new one.
Coming to you live from my new laptop. Which I can actually take places because it has a battery that works… and the Sims plays at a speed which makes the game faster than real life. Gasp!
Anyways I have finished my midterms (AbPsy and Shakespeare) for today, I have therapy in a little while, so until then I’m just going to chill with my new compy!
Oh dear. I think I botched my Shakespeare midterm. We had 12 quotes out of which we had to identify and talk about the significance of 10 of them… I knew 8. So out of the four I didn’t know I chose the 2 I could most easily bullshit. I think it was a solid plan.
Today was actually a Saturday that felt like a saturday. Woke up, went to the gym, put in my auditions for BBTL season 2, and started studying for my AbPsy midterm. There was also a portion of the day spent doing trunk room cleanout. It wasn’t much, unlike last year where we were hauling stuff down from the attic to the basement, talk about back pain. Then Aria and I watched some Angel and Buffy.
Seeing people’s discarded stuff is really weird. I mean aside from suitcases full of someone’s underwear, a discarded ATM card that expired 11 years ago, and posters, silverware, TVs and computers… you see little things of people. A senior found photos someone had taken of her during her freshman year. The thing that resonated most with me was a broken board. It was old, starting to mold, but what I noticed was it was dated- 12/13/05 “The day I broke my first board”.
Obviously whoever this board breaker was took Kung Fu, like I did last semester. I remember that feeling, breaking a board for the first time with the sheer energy of you. That day from last semester really stands out in my mind.
I’d spent the entire morning with El. We had breakfast together, and then went over to her place and she worked on her logic final. Then we had the last kung fu class meet up. We did our cheesy skit based on 1950s PSAs about defending yoruself with kung fu. But then there was the board breaking. El was the first one to go and she hesitated, unsure of herself, and sure enough the board didn’t break. She took a break, some other people went, myself included, and then she went again and she and I both learned that as long as you are sure you will break the board, you will… then we went to Starbucks and went back to my place to work/chill.
That was just a great day. Maybe one of the best of my life. I hope I get another day like it again… but then again… everything seems to just fade away.
I had myself completely psyched out about this online quiz I had for AbPsy, I felt like I hadn’t read the book in enough depth to take any kind of quiz on it. But I had to get it done… so I logged on to take the test… it was three questions, to be graded check, check minus, or check plus… and now I feel incredibly dumb.
Did you know that Type A personalities are more likely to develop heart disease? True fact.
Anyways Midterms next week so I guess that means this is a study weekend. Plus I’ll have papers to plan and Hamlet to read over break… unless I read it now. I don’t know. *headdesk*
And just to feed your curiosity, a video on Munchausen by Proxy
Here’s a theory, albeit a probably wrong one about the end of Season 2 of BTVS. Buffy ups and leaves Sunnydale looking as dull and as dim as a burnt out lightbulb. I’m beginning to wonder if she may have been suffering from Dissociative Fugue. The definition of which.. well I could type out from my psych notes but instead I’ll post the definition from the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders.
Dissociative fugue is a rare condition in which a person suddenly, without planning or warning, travels far from home or work and leaves behind a past life. Patients show signs of amnesia and have no conscious understanding or knowledge of the reason for the flight. The condition is usually associated with severe stress or trauma. Because persons cannot remember all or part of their past, at some point they become confused about their identity and the situations in which they find themselves. In rare cases, they may take on new identities.
Granted it’s clear by Anne she’s regained her memory, perhaps there was a triggering event. I don’t know, I highly doubt that this was the reason she left Sunnydale but you never know.
Name: Rachel 
