Just Say "No"

My father was 6'4", a drunk, and particularly mean tempered. 

You can say a lot of things to a person like this. You can call him an ass hole. You can call him a drunk. You can tell him that he's doing a shit job of raising his daughter. 

You can't tell him "No"

As a child, "No" was not allowed to be in my vocabulary. Well..I was a difficult child, so I often said it, but nothing I said was ever taken seriously. I was tiny. He was big. I was meak. He was MEAN. And if you hit me hard enough, I'll probably do what you tell me to.   

I simply did not have very much say in what happened to me as a child. 

My dad would leave me with people I didn't know. He didn't care if I did not want to stay with them. He would return days later. 

My dad would move from one city to another or one apartment or another, and I had no power over it. My stuff would be given away or stolen, and I couldn't keep it from happening. My dad would have parties until all hours of the night, and I couldn't get people to be quiet, so that I could get up for school in the morning. 

Sometimes my dad would kill my cats :(

If I cared about something, sooner or later my dad would destroy it.

If I was told to do something, I did it or I would be brutally punished. Sometimes I was punished for not doing things I didn't know I was supposed to do. 

Sometimes I said "No" and paid for it. Won't do that again...

Things got a little easier when I moved in with my mother as a teenager. She was easy to say "No" to. All she did was yell and scream. Who cares about yelling? GAWD

Finally, I learned how to say "No," AND OH MAN DID I SAY NO.

I use "No" as a defense mechanism. It is a way of reclaiming myself and exercising some sort of power over my environment. I use "No" for setting extremely rigid boundaries. I use "No" for anything that scares me.

NO makes me feel safe and snug. 

I can tell people "No" and they actually have to take me seriously. 

NO.NO.NO.NO.NO.NO.NO.NO! - And you have to listen.  

Learning how to say NO is good.

Learning how to say NO is bad.

I say "No" to a lot of things that I want, just because they make me a little uncomfortable. 

The "No" part of my brain has no idea as to how it should go about distinguishing between things that cause me pain and things that cause me discomfort but are ultimately good for me. I don't want to be the sort of person who rejects life just because it stings a little. 

O.K.

Those of you who know me, know that I'm very willing to take on new experiences. I Know. 

But you also know that I scream and howl and say Mother-Fucking-No!about a dozen times before I get around to forcing myself to do it. "No" is a huge part of my process. Sometimes it wins, and I don't like that.  

I just wish that reclaiming myself and learning how to set healthy boundaries didn't have to come between me and having the sorts of experiences that I want in life. Well, it doesn't have to, but learning and unlearning these habits takes a lot of time and energy. 

For those of you nay-sayers out there, I want you to know that learning how to say NO is incredibly important to constructing and maintaining healthy boundaries, but being able to say "No" isn't enough to be a healthy person. 

Its great that we can separate ourselves from the world, so that nothing can hurt us. Having that sort of power over the world is amazing. We also have to be able to return to the world. This means making ourselves vulnerable to the pain that is associated with having experiences. 

We're not happy when we say "No" to everything. We just pretend we are. Being separated from the people and the things that we care about is not fulfilling. And not caring so that we don't get hurt, will never keep us from hurting. 

You need some new experiences to help fill in the holes left by the old ones. 

Personality and Pain

My psychologist once told me that all of personality is a defense mechanism. This means that all of the good things about us and the bad were created as a shield to help us cope with the world around us. Personality is a way of avoiding pain, and helping us gain pleasure.

I like this idea. It helps me put people in perspective.

It means that all of my bad behaviors make sense. It means that I'm not deviant, deranged, or problematic. It means that you're not either.

It means that the worst of us developed in order to keep the best of us safe.

Everything is about protecting our vulnerable little egos.

Rather than raging at the parts of me that make my life chaotic and confusing, I should be thanking them. They kept me sane in an environment full of insanity. I was confused. Naturally, my best efforts at dealing with a confusing situation were a little bit confused.

Sometimes I managed to pull out a behavioral gem, which maintained my suitability as a student and life-long learner. Sometimes I fed myself behavioral garbage, and learned that the only way to maintain a sense of self-esteem was to be intellectually better than everybody else.

The important thing to note here is that my perfectionism, for example, arrived to PRESERVE MY SELF-ESTEEM. This bad behavior of mine, the one that keeps me from moving some days, emerged as the only possible way to keep my ego in tact.

The same is true of a whole heap of other behavioral issues that have manifested themselves in my life. Many of them much more damaging than my perfectionism.

The pain that I have experienced in my life has left its imprint on my personality. The goods and bads in my behavior are the bends and fold of the chaotic life I had as a child. All of it a shield, aiming at keeping me safe.

I have no choice but to come at my psychological problems with a sense of awe. I've done many things in my life that I'm not proud of. But I always have to remember that I did them for me. I do not mean that I did them for me in some uncaring sense of "I want, I get." I mean that much of what I did was because of how much I value myself, and because of how much I wanted to preserve myself as a person.

The devaluation of self comes afterwards. After I look at what I've done and decided that no person should do that. I decided that I couldn't be a person. Not truly. Not if I acted in certain ways.

The reality is that we sometimes act badly, like non-people, like monsters, only to keep ourselves sane. Its our best effort at acting like a person. We're just really really bad at it.

I think it is worthwhile to think of our bad behavior as ugly scars left behind on our personality from particularly ugly encounters with the world. We have gross seeping wounds, and we lash out to protect them from further trauma. We are wounded animals. Sometimes. And there's nothing wrong with that.

We have to protect ourselves. Sometimes it isn't pretty. It isn't nice, and what we do doesn't do much to make us look better.

But we're alive.

The hard part comes when we realize that there's nobody around to hurt us anymore. That we do not need to spend every waking minute trying to protect ourselves from a harsh world. When we realize that we can sit still and let the wounds mend, let the scars fade, and show the world a fresh new face.

Talking Through the Pain

I have been crying a lot lately. My depression seems to be getting the better of me.

This is sad. And I don't like it. And I want it to go away.

I have been cycling a lot. Thoughts about how horrible and inadequate I am keep pressing down on me. And, of course, I follow the cycle right down into the muck and lay there for a little while cursing myself and writhing in pain.

I need an infusion of love and chocolate and yummy coffee.

So, I'm trying to step up my game to take care of it. I'm one of those obnoxious people who refuse treatment for my depression. I don't believe this is a good thing, nor do I believe that other people should do the same. I'm just bad at following my own advice.

I appreciate getting yelled at for this.

I have been coming up with ways to keep myself busy. This includes volunteering as a writing tutor, a lab assistant, and attending ethics lectures. At least this way I can pretend to still be an academic. Maybe it will ease my mind a little bit.

I just wish I could motivate myself to get a few other things done. I have to remind myself that motivating oneself is a skill. It is a difficult one generally and its particularly difficult when working through depression.

I need to have patience. I do not have a very high tolerance for frustration. This makes things difficult. I'm under the impression that the people around me are saints.

So I'm hanging out and trying to work through my problems.

Like everyone.

Cheers.  

They Just Hatin'

My brother recently made, what I would call, a typical-of-facebook facebook post.

He posed the question: Why is it that the more people hate, the better I feel inside?

His question revolves around the idea that sometimes, we weirdos, geeks, goths, and other social aberrations, make the people around us uncomfortable. They sometimes glare, judge, cringe, and generally resent us, and sometimes it makes us warm and fuzzy inside.

One way of responding to my brother's question is to say: They just hatin'

By this I mean, we tend to respond by saying that these people are jealous, or that they are stuck up and egotistical, or that they are bitches, dicks, or assholes. In other words, its their problem, and I can feel self-righteous and self-assured that there is nothing wrong with me and everything wrong with them.


Ooooh, I just had a whiff of protection mechanism. And that means we have something to look at here.


Here's the reality: Its never okay to feel good about someone else's pain.

Even if that person has no reason to be in pain, even if that pain is ridiculous and completely unjustified, it is not okay to feel all gloat-y and mean spirited about that person's having it.


It is not okay to go about provoking the discomfort of others and reveling in it.


This fuzzy feeling is fueled by self-righteousness. Our self-righteousness lets it be okay to hurt people because WE ARE RIGHT.


The problem is NO, we're not in the right, we need to avoid causing pain whenever possible.


I'm pretty sure that feeling happy about other people's discomfort is universally a bad thing. Basically, both people seem to be in the wrong in that instance. They're wrong for being jerks and you're wrong for feeling smug. They're uncomfortable, which means they're confused and scared, which means we need to look on them with an eye towards helping them understand us. This requires love and patience, not self-righteousness. (Unfortunately, this isn't something I'm very good at. I'm the queen of self-righteousness).

Alienating people is never a good thing. It creates more discord and hatred. It means we need to get over ourselves, get off our defensive high horses, and take the time to understand why we make them so uncomfortable - which makes us uncomfortable because we like hiding behind our self-righteousness and not actually dealing with real problems in the world.

It also requires taking a hard look at ourselves because sometimes, unfortunately, other people are right, and admitting that is terrifying.

Self-consciousness is a good thing. It is all about being conscious of self, using our self-awareness to look inward and think about what other people are letting us know. I used to think that other people were idiots. That they were jerks, and that I didn't need to listen to them.

EVER.

Well, we do. Even when people are being jerks we need to listen to them. Even when we're feeling a little offended or vulnerable, we need to listen to them.

Its an opportunity to cultivate understanding.

Sane and Alive

I am 24.

I am alive.

I am sane.

And I care.

SHIT

This is an unexpected outcome.

When I was thirteen, I didn't really believe I would see this day. Everything was black and dark for me, and I prayed and prayed to be sucked into that darkness.

I think I just assumed that I would be dead by the time I turned 20. For certain, I would have committed suicide. Alternatively, I would have gone crazy. Maybe, in this way, I would have found a way to stop noticing my pain. Maybe the voices, maybe the obsession of an eating disorder, maybe my dissociative escapism would have devoured me. Maybe I would be gone mentally. So far gone that I couldn't come back for long enough to care about what happened to me in the real world me anymore. 

Equally disturbing was the very real possibility of a drug addiction. Maybe I could have gone that route. The same route that so many of the kids that I grew up with followed. Getting drugs was so easy. Most of the teens in my house used heroine. My boyfriend at the time used coke and god-knows-what pills. My dad was an alcoholic. If I had had to stick to this life for much longer, spending day-in and day-out high would have been an easy alternative to sitting in my room wracked with pain. 

But I didn't do this. 

I went to college. I loved college. I studied Philosophy and Psychology, and I loved what I was studying. I earned scholarships, and fellowships, and I interned in a few really neat places. 

I did absolutely everything I wanted to do. 

SO, graduating was necessarily horrible. I had NO CLUE about what I wanted to do next. I had already done everything I could have possibly imagined myself doing. I thought I was going to disappear by the time I was 20. Instead, I had had a very successful college career. 

How do you make plans for a life you never really expected to have?

Of course, I want to go to grad school. I applied to the University of Edinburgh. Got in. Worked on my dissertation. HATED EVERY FUCKING SECOND OF IT. Earned my MSc by Research in Philosophy, and now I am in exactly the same boat as I was in when I started, except I now no longer have any easy options. 

I AM TERRIFIED.

I was amazing at Wheaton. Edinburgh left me feeling inadequate and unsuccessful even though I finished the damn degree. I feel like I have reached the end of my skill set. I feel like I have reached the end of everything that I had contingently planned for, and now I feel like there is a huge void looming out in front of me.

And I am too much of a perfectionist to make that jump. What if I fail? What if I'm not absolutely amazing? What if I don't end up doing exactly what I want on the first go? Why should I even bother doing anything then?

My whole identity is tied up in being a student. What if I don't get into grad school? How many times am I willing to be rejected before I give up on doing what I am clearly meant to be doing. (At least I think so now.)

What I'm most afraid of is being swallowed up. What if I return to my disappearing act and try to avoid everything? This is what my perfectionism is begging me to do.

I feel so small and stunted and stranded right now. I don't have a plan. I don't even know how I start making a plan.

My Process

Images by Mikrasov Design

For those of you who don't know me, its worth telling you a little bit about my process.

When I'm working through something, I tend to talk about it a lot. Hence multiple posts on very similar topics. I do not mean to repeat myself. Instead, I try to talk about every aspect of a topic.

There's always overlap.

But this is how I deal with things in general.

I get onto an an issue that needs to be pressed a little bit. We see lots of my behaviors and thoughts and feelings and ideas regarding that topic.

Sometimes I act out. Sometimes I put on a extraordinary model of good behavior for a while. I swing wide and all over the place while I deal with things.

Sometimes I try to defend my bad behavior as my defense mechanisms rally to protect my tender little ego. Then I can set it aside and analyse it with an eye towards change.

Sometimes what I say in my first bit of writing is wrong.

Sometimes I have to say something that completely contradicts what I recently said.

This is how change happens.

I'm not pretending to be a person who isn't just a little bit confused most of the time.

I'm trying to share my whole process with you.

I hope I'm at least an interesting case study.

Too Self-Righteous to Argue

Images by Mikrasov Design

This is another one of those things that seems to be both a tremendous asset and a tremendous flaw.

As the title says, I'm often too self-righteous to be pulled into arguments. I refuse. And if I am pulled into an argument, I fight a bitter battle until I win. Or until we're both so wounded that we can't fight anymore.

I hate being pulled into arguments. THEY ARE SUCH A WASTE OF TIME AND ENERGY. I'm often more angry that I have been pulled into a fight than I am about the topic. WHO CARES!!!!

I mean, I guess you do. But I'll make you wish you didn't.  

This is where the worst part of me comes out. I'm a dirty fighter. So, I generally prefer to avoid fighting. It seems to be the best way to avoid acting like a jerk. 

On the other hand, refusing to talk about something apparently makes me just as much of a jerk.  

The problem is that when I say things, I do not mean to put my claims up for debate. Either you take them seriously or you don't, but having a conversation about it seems simply unnecessary (and a waste of my time). 

As I said, self-righteousness. 

I'm self-righteous because I believe I'm right. I take a lot of time to be right about the things that I think I'm right about. I'm also self-righteous because it hurts too much to be wrong. Sometimes I'm wrong and my little ego has to take a serious beating. 

I think I'm ACTUALLY right most of the time. But that's just me. 

Images by Mikrasov Design

I like that I can be self-righteous. It means that I can say something and REALLY MEAN IT. I am unafraid of looking someone in the face and telling him that he's wrong. I'll willingly say WHY he's wrong, so that there isn't any confusion, but I'm usually not willing to debate the topic from there.

I mean, I am often willing to converse and debate on many topics. I do this for fun. This is, however, different from getting into an argument. 

On some topics, I have said exactly what I mean to say, and I do not mean to say more on the matter. I think that saying more will accomplish nothing, or I think that continuing the topic is prolonging the conversation in a way that is unhealthy and unhelpful. On some topics, I don't think the other party is capable of hearing anything else that I have to say, or of having the discussion like an adult (meaning it will result in an argument). Sometimes I think that the only real alternative is to cut myself off from the other person, making more words futile.  

If I am forced to continue to talk in these situations, I become darn near willing to fight to the death. I need to be convinced of my rightness, and I need to be convinced that conversing further will not be a worthwhile endeavor, and then continuing to talk becomes an exercise in interpersonal idiocy where everyone can witness two people looking like children. Congratulations, we have now become four. 

The issue is that, sometimes, I am not right. And sometimes conversing further is actually worthwhile. 

The reality is that I'm wrong about as often as anybody else is in either of these areas. So, yes, sometimes I get these things wrong. 

And its a problem because it means that I have been insensitive to the needs of someone that I care about. However, I choose this strategy to protect myself from prolonged, useless, and, very likely, volatile discussions. My ego can take an giving an apology better than it can take expending the energy to engage in a long-winded battle. I'm sorry. I don't like either option. I can't think of a better way of doing things. At least, not yet.

Most of my relationships are strong enough to take me making a mistake. I question whether the ones that aren't are worth keeping around. 

I really just HATE getting into fights. I'm not avoidant of confrontation, I'm clearly willing to confront people. I just don't want to have to deal with arguing with them when I take the time to do it. I simply do not see anyone getting anything out of it. I've stated my piece. Its meant to be accepted or rejected but not disputed. 

I know where it stems from. A desire to defend oneself. Frankly, I don't believe a defense is needed. Just because I think someone is wrong, does not mean that I think poorly of them. These words are not synonymous. I make this judgment more as an observation, a statement of fact, a proposition with a truth value. If you think I'm mistaken, tell me and let it go or ignore me (I'll likely ignore you back, but that's fair enough). 

My problem is that people often try to defend themselves by offering reasons for their behavior or their beliefs or whatever. The issue for me is not WHY they do it. Its THAT they do it. I DON'T CARE WHY. I very very rarely ask people to justify themselves. They just seem to do it spontaneously as though it makes a difference in my judgment.  

Knowing why people do things does not often make me any less tolerant of their being wrong. They're still wrong. They should go about fixing their wrongness. 

Its nice that you have a perfectly good explanation for being wrong. That doesn't make you less wrong or justified in being wrong. Your attempt at justifying yourself is a complete non sequitur. Its simply an unrelated conversation, and I don't want to have it. 

Its like me telling you that school is canceled and then you throw a fit because I don't want to talk about who has functioned as a principal for the last thirty years. Yes. This would annoy the hell out of me. 

This is really how my brain parses these things. 

I know its based around protecting myself. I'm trying to get a grasp on it. I don't like it when it gets me into trouble.

It has lately.

Its a behavior that I really want to defend - my self-righteousness.

I really just need to figure out how it can be used in a healthy way. I do not want to spend my time short-changing the people I love because I'm feeling a little bold today.