My Integral Pathologies

I agree with Ken Wilber's analysis on "Integral Pathologies" in that the pathologies of the first few integral stages tend to arise not from "Integral" itself but rather from unresolved or previously-repressed pathologies or shadows that were disowned in first tier or hidden from self.  In Second Tier, the self is much more relaxed and open.  It has distanced itself from these identities well enough to re-own these various shadows. 

And what are those pathologies for me?  I think it arises originally from unhealthy archaic-sensorimotor and goes anywhere from sensorimotor to mythic-conformity.  Possibly even to a bit of narcissistic.  Although I've never been "politically correct," which is an issue of conformity at the stage of Green.

When I was six months old, for example, my mother recalls that I suddenly stopped smiling, responding, feeding, or wetting or pooping my diapers.  She blames it on her sudden and mysterious inability to lactate when I was six months old and my refusal to be fed by an artificial nipple or bottle-milk.  She took me to every doctor and she even suffered a mini-stroke on one side of her face because of worrying about me so much. I would also add that this "withdrawal" from people is also a phenomenon that occurs in many (but not all) babies on the Autistic Spectrum beginning around 6 months.

Fast forward to the future, to mythic-amber conformity.  I remember becoming acutely aware that I was "different" from other kids around 8 or 10 years old.  In the first grade, for example, my teacher let me stay inside during recess and read stories.  But by the fourth grade, I couldn't do that any more so I began hiding inside of a tractor tire and would never come out the entire recess.  Sometimes kids would "knock" on the outside of it and make fun of me for hiding there.  But between the noise, the balls, an the kids running around and shouting, screaming, or laughing, everything was too scary for me.  I wanted to play, but I didn't know what they were "doing."  Everything and everyone was just a "blur" to me.

However, in additon to the sensory processing issues, I also became concerned about "walking around by myself" at recess and not having any friends to play with.  And looking like a "loner" or a loser.  Everyone else had friends, but not me.  Like the other kids I saw walking around by themselves during recess, who didn't have any friends.  I didn't want to look like them so I hid in a tire.

By the eighth grade, I was still at mythic-amber conformity.  I grew up in the rural Deep South where the races are still deeply divided between black and white.  It left me confused because I was neither black nor white, but half-Japanese and half white instead.  Sometimes, people would confuse me as Chinese or as a Vietnamese refugee.  Sometimes half-black and half-white, and sometimes a Hawaiian or Mexican.

One time, when my teacher came up to me and asked me secretly what my "race" was (so he could put on his records--but at the time, I thought it was because it was "shameful" or something to ask "out loud"), I replied very indignantly, "White!"  And from that point onward, I didn't speak to my teacher any more; in fact, it upset me so much that I lost interest in doing well in school from that point onward.  I did, however, try to make amends by the end of the year by studying and making a 100 on the final exam, after flunking out on every test the whole year out of rebellion.
 

By age 12, I remember looking forward to trying out drugs and getting high.  I finally got the opportunity at age 16 and got kicked out of high school at age 17 for an entire year for having a nickel bag of weed.

I was given the choice to attend America's Youth In Concert, a band composed of high school kids from around the country, or to go to California to live with Tang, who heard about my trouble at school and wanted me to come to California to finish high school there.  I went to California instead.

After one month of being there, Tang started complaining that I was "worse" than her two-year old daughter.  One day, for example, she gave me a task of vacuuming the upstairs bedroom.  I didn't know how to work the vacuum cleaner without it being too loud, so I got down on the carpet and began picking all the dust up with my fingers, and depositing them into a pile.  I spent the whole day doing this.  By the time she got home, I was almost all done.  She screamed at me and said, "I can't believe you don't know how to operate a vacuum cleaner.  You're worse than my two-year old daughter!"

She started telling me to save up all my traveler's checks that my mom had given me so that I could buy towels and things to move out on my own.  And that I would have to use the public transportation buses.  The thought of all of this was too terrifying for me so I moved in with a Mexican guy named Angel.  My mother found out about it and my big brother and my mother came to pick me up a month later.  My mother has not spoken with Tang since.  I could go on but the ramifications of archaic-sensorimotor to mythic are endless.  Although the unhealthy mythic-amber I was able to jettison, I never overcame the sensorimotor issues which still affect me to this day.  And speaking of mythic, I still have issues with not being able to make friends.