Mr. and Mrs. Thurston Howell III, today they would have been in the one percent financial bracket. They are noticeable in the list of passengers as the only couple, They represent my codependent issues, and among other things my gluttony and flair for excess at times. Not completely destructive, that aspect of my psyche and personality also do not let myself be treated too poorly by others, and the being honest with myself lies within that marriage somewhere, I always had the feeling Mrs. Howell was brutally honest when she deemed it necessary, when she deemed to remove that filter of social interactions and tell it as she saw it. Although mistakes were always made, and more being made at this stage on life, she was the rock, and Mr. Howell, a showman, and a circus owner.
When I first learned about this HSP/INFJ angle of this part of my recovery it all made sense, I thought. The sensitivity, the cognitive differences, the being closer to my subconscious more of the time than I am my conscious mind. It is a purgatory of sorts, one that keeps me closer to the mental trappings than it does the daily grind. Like Mr. Howell and his big ideas, yet a close watch on the stock market informs him his budget isn’t there for this endeavor. The dreamer and the realist, come up with the best ideas and then have that same aspect of your personality shut them down for insufficient planning, execution, or funding. When reminiscing about the actual TV series, it was Mr. Howell who was the creative mastermind in many episodes, getting Gilligan or someone else in over their head with wild dreams of some kind of enrichment. Yes, that makes sense too as I look over my own inner history, my own little fourth steps.
There is a trust and fairness doctrine that goes with this part, this synergistic codependency, that must be obeyed. It is almost the most compelling of the unwritten rules that this personality type brings with it. My wife and I are celebrating 26 years of marriage next month, there is a fairness doctrine there too. She is just as much my other half, than she is my better half, and my best friend. So the love and devotion is well developed, the doctrine of duty to the two, to make one, the only way we were going to make it. In the same manner of speaking these conjoined twins, DeVito and Schwarzenegger, Mr. and Mrs. Howell have a similar duty to their relationship with each other. On my wild riding machine concept, they would be a split pedal akin to stop and go at the same time that you have to place your foot on just right to make it do anything. Go wild with Mr. Howell, only to have Mrs. Howell make sure that you go mild, and Mr. Howell takes a chill pill.
“In other cases, the door slam is more dramatic. Take, for example, the break-up of a romantic relationship or a falling out with a good friend. When the INFJ slams the door under these circumstances, they may cut off all contact with the other person, unfollowing them on social media and no longer spending any time with them. It’s said that when you deeply wound an INFJ, they don’t hate you, they nothing you.”
Ahh, recovery… In painting, that would mean to add another layer, to hide the underlayment and past colors. In restoration it means the opposite in many cases, to get past those layers to the base material, and prepare that material for the environmental conditions it will be subjected to for the next (blank) amount of years. My first seven years was just realizing that I had a lot of work to do. For me, and the way I am within this personality type, I had to do the scientific as well as the spiritual. I feel that to do this thing correctly, or at least to my idea of correctly is to go deeper. Change everything, change is difficult, change is impossible if you don’t have any idea where it comes from, or why the thing that needs changing is even there. Recovery – Part adding another layer, part removing the old ones too, now tell me how easy is that to do at the same time? Examination, introspect that this medication had made myopic is my selfishness that comes with Mr. and Mrs. Howell too, as long as it’s fair.
It is of note that Mrs. Howell is allowing this writing to be as open as it is, why she is letting the gossip out of the hut. She is prideful of her outer appearances as the way they reflect her social status. Just as much as Ginger represented an outer ego and vanity, Mrs. Howell represented the inner ego and vanity, but she was older and knew that her social good looks were gone long ago. That is why she is the brakes and the fairness, not only to the inner passengers and crew, but to everyone else too. If she thinks that Gilligan or the Professor is going to mess up on something, she will sabotage them unconsciously. The thing is though, she has never let either of them go anywhere near their potentials because of her lack of trust in them. Now there is some old layers showing, old thinking buried deep and hiding out as something else. This fear body will be revealed in my hunting, and I don’t want to slay it, but I want to know where it is from now on.
I am not studying the personality on websites or looking into it past a glance here and there. I want to begin this examination with my story, just like I did with booze and drugs. Tell my story and sit and listen as it is told by someone else, and then again by another, and another. This won’t get the traction my alcoholism and drugging similarities do as far as a common condition. But it may help some like minded soul, someone else looking for introspect when they are cut off from being their best. It is difficult for anyone, and the more information the better, the digging through layers is a part of getting down to the knitty gritty, to the bedrock, to lay new foundations upon. I never would have expected any of this when I first walked in the rooms, which for someone like me is either an exercise in going home, or an exercise in door slamming. This is all still coming to me, not a week has gone by since this has popped up.
Mr. Howell is mindlessly counting his sea shells as if they were gold. That is a more accurate statement in reality than I would like to admit though. The labeling of these smaller boxes on my shelves will no doubt be a process, and one that is going to bring with it as much pain as it does relief. I am okay with pain today as it allows me to learn from it and make it weaken. I once told a friend that I don’t wish I could take away her pain, I simply wish I could help her suffer less. Stealing someone’s pain will leave them less likely to be able to pick up their own tools, and build their own machines to get through it, and future episodes. Recovery is full of the simple, but less than a few drops of easy. I know that I don’t appear to be suffering from Bipolar, BPD, or Schizophrenia, the honesty required in recovery leaves no choice but to inquire on those areas. That’s why all of this discovery has taken so long, and appeared so…crazy.
The selfishness and grandiosity are evident in this codependent edge of my personality. It may be a more central character pair than I know of at this time. I am just meeting them all, and getting them to open up is going to take some time and more than one Judo match to get them to say uncle. Being in recovery as an INFJ has been challenging and made it almost impossible to get close to anyone. That whole feeling different is an issue to work on, and it is here, on the little labels that I get to work on the little boxes that make up the whole. Somewhere along the way I picked up a personality with some very fat aspects of it. Proper diet and exercise in this realm of recovery is going to be a needed focus for the time being. The Stock Market is fluctuating in the Howell’s “world,” and if attention is not paid, a depression will certainly be in the near future. The emotional economy of recovery is rich and well worth this added expenditure. While I am am still trying to figure out this end of the island, and the problems that may arise if I try to move my crew and passengers. At least my thoughts are today, like they were years ago as well. Always trying to find a way for Gilligan to have Mr. Howell’s money, and to discover where the little umbrellas and flowers the drinks always had were stashed.
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