Gluing Another Shard
Mar. 28th, 2011 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqI took down yesterday's emo post. I wrote it when I was emotionally exhausted and don't really want a permanent record of it, even if it was behind a few filters. LJ stats tells me only a few people accessed it. None of them relevant to the narrative.
I am currently depressed. Not as bad as it could be (I'm functional) but it's still frustrating because the sources never go away. Eventually this episode will pass, but there will be others. Why can't mental injuries simply heal and not bother you anymore the way physical injuries do. I don't get "relapses" of my busted shoulder every year. The bullying ended years ago but the trauma and the coping mechanisms that keep me broken-but-functional remain decades later.
I poke and prod at it in the hopes that a deeper understanding will show me a way through to the other side. 99% of the time this just makes things worse as the brooding drops me into a deeper depression. Rarely, I get an insight that helps a little. I just had one, which somewhat mitigates things.
My family was not overtly abusive, but we were pretty fucked up. The old man had what we would call anger-management issues these days. I didn't get beat, but I got yelled at a lot. I achieved a level of closure with him before he died. The siblings never really interacted with me except to tell me to go away or to make me do a chore. I'm not close to them and that's fine with me. Mom was the only one who came close to understanding me, but I suspect she was dealing with a lot of her own issues.
All of that is old news. What's new was thinking about the intersection of the bullying and my family's reaction to it. I don't think there ever really grokked just how bad it was. Everyone was bullied to some degree or another and my inability to cope with it was seen as a sign of weakness to my family as opposed to evidence that the amount was so high as to be a difference in kind and not just degree. The all encompassing, unrelenting nature of it made it unbelievable to my family.
If a child tells you an unbelievable thing, the reaction is often to think the child is making it up. I imagine a lot of the shame of abuse is related to that unbelief - especially when it's reflected back at the child. You need to re-route the cognitive dissonance somehow. You tell the authority figures in your life that you're being bullied and they say it isn't as bad as you claim, well then there must be something wrong with your understanding of the situation. Maybe it's not bullying, or the fact that it bothers you so much is your own damn fault.
It was only years later, with a wider perspective that I realized that it really was as bad I first thought.
Maybe if they believed me something would have been done about it. Sadly the advice I got from my family was not up to the task. Partially this was because of the lack of belief; partially it was because they didn't have sophistication to address it. Generally my father told me to stand up to the bullies and fight them. No attempt at training me in a martial art ensued - that would have required a level of understanding of martial arts that he simply didn't have. He didn't have the patience for it, he didn't have the skills for it - his own fighting was all instinct and aggression, neither of which I had.
No, I was simply told to do something that I had no idea how to do. Stand up to the bullies and fight them. He might as well have told me to play a concerto or perform surgery.
Similarly, my Mother told me to just try to get along with my tormentors - befriend them. My Mother was a lifelong introvert who had a handful of close friends her whole life. She was never a "just befriend people" sort.
In addition to not giving me any instructions on how to make friends with people (a skill which, to this day, I have yet to figure out beyond the level of "share your toys and try to play well with others") there is the sheer awfulness of saying that I should try to make friends with people who are monsters.
Anyway, that's all just background.
One of my quirks is that I don't make categorical statements unless I am very sure that I'm right. And when I say "right", I mean "I've checked and re-checked my base assumptions and logic to ensure correctness". After all, if someone doesn't believe you then what else can you do but bury them with the fucking proof.
If I can't do this, I'm generally quick to back off. That doesn't mean I've rolled over on the topic. It just means that I'm willing to see counter evidence or acknowledge that the evidence for or against is currently missing.
But if I make a categorical statement and I'm not believed - well that just pokes the eight-year old in my brain that wasn't believed as a child. I'm likely to get hot under the collar. If it's some academic point I keep the reaction in line. If it's a deeply emotional personal point, well then the glove are off.
My two hot-button (and closely-related) topics are my looks and my inability to date. I'll make categorical statements about both and I'm frequently not believed, or I'm given effectively useless advice. People may be well-meaning when this happens, but in my mind that eight-year old is tearing himself up.
It's not that I necessarily regress back to my childhood; It's more that I have certain knee-jerk responses to certain kinds of stimuli, especially where deep emotions are concerned. Most people are like this I expect, but the stimuli/response is personalized to each of us. This is just me explaining mine.
So when you say "You're not that fat", don't be surprised if I react like you said "your childhood bullying wasn't that bad". Or if your advice for when I complain about not having anyone to ask out is "Just join a computer dating service", don't be surprised if I find that advice as useful as "Just play a concerto or perform surgery".
Anyway, I'm not putting this out there to make anyone change their behavior (though understanding is always appreciated). It's more for me to be able to recognize it when it happens to me and try to react differently. The first step to not falling into a hole is to recognize that one is in your path.
I am currently depressed. Not as bad as it could be (I'm functional) but it's still frustrating because the sources never go away. Eventually this episode will pass, but there will be others. Why can't mental injuries simply heal and not bother you anymore the way physical injuries do. I don't get "relapses" of my busted shoulder every year. The bullying ended years ago but the trauma and the coping mechanisms that keep me broken-but-functional remain decades later.
I poke and prod at it in the hopes that a deeper understanding will show me a way through to the other side. 99% of the time this just makes things worse as the brooding drops me into a deeper depression. Rarely, I get an insight that helps a little. I just had one, which somewhat mitigates things.
My family was not overtly abusive, but we were pretty fucked up. The old man had what we would call anger-management issues these days. I didn't get beat, but I got yelled at a lot. I achieved a level of closure with him before he died. The siblings never really interacted with me except to tell me to go away or to make me do a chore. I'm not close to them and that's fine with me. Mom was the only one who came close to understanding me, but I suspect she was dealing with a lot of her own issues.
All of that is old news. What's new was thinking about the intersection of the bullying and my family's reaction to it. I don't think there ever really grokked just how bad it was. Everyone was bullied to some degree or another and my inability to cope with it was seen as a sign of weakness to my family as opposed to evidence that the amount was so high as to be a difference in kind and not just degree. The all encompassing, unrelenting nature of it made it unbelievable to my family.
If a child tells you an unbelievable thing, the reaction is often to think the child is making it up. I imagine a lot of the shame of abuse is related to that unbelief - especially when it's reflected back at the child. You need to re-route the cognitive dissonance somehow. You tell the authority figures in your life that you're being bullied and they say it isn't as bad as you claim, well then there must be something wrong with your understanding of the situation. Maybe it's not bullying, or the fact that it bothers you so much is your own damn fault.
It was only years later, with a wider perspective that I realized that it really was as bad I first thought.
Maybe if they believed me something would have been done about it. Sadly the advice I got from my family was not up to the task. Partially this was because of the lack of belief; partially it was because they didn't have sophistication to address it. Generally my father told me to stand up to the bullies and fight them. No attempt at training me in a martial art ensued - that would have required a level of understanding of martial arts that he simply didn't have. He didn't have the patience for it, he didn't have the skills for it - his own fighting was all instinct and aggression, neither of which I had.
No, I was simply told to do something that I had no idea how to do. Stand up to the bullies and fight them. He might as well have told me to play a concerto or perform surgery.
Similarly, my Mother told me to just try to get along with my tormentors - befriend them. My Mother was a lifelong introvert who had a handful of close friends her whole life. She was never a "just befriend people" sort.
In addition to not giving me any instructions on how to make friends with people (a skill which, to this day, I have yet to figure out beyond the level of "share your toys and try to play well with others") there is the sheer awfulness of saying that I should try to make friends with people who are monsters.
Anyway, that's all just background.
One of my quirks is that I don't make categorical statements unless I am very sure that I'm right. And when I say "right", I mean "I've checked and re-checked my base assumptions and logic to ensure correctness". After all, if someone doesn't believe you then what else can you do but bury them with the fucking proof.
If I can't do this, I'm generally quick to back off. That doesn't mean I've rolled over on the topic. It just means that I'm willing to see counter evidence or acknowledge that the evidence for or against is currently missing.
But if I make a categorical statement and I'm not believed - well that just pokes the eight-year old in my brain that wasn't believed as a child. I'm likely to get hot under the collar. If it's some academic point I keep the reaction in line. If it's a deeply emotional personal point, well then the glove are off.
My two hot-button (and closely-related) topics are my looks and my inability to date. I'll make categorical statements about both and I'm frequently not believed, or I'm given effectively useless advice. People may be well-meaning when this happens, but in my mind that eight-year old is tearing himself up.
It's not that I necessarily regress back to my childhood; It's more that I have certain knee-jerk responses to certain kinds of stimuli, especially where deep emotions are concerned. Most people are like this I expect, but the stimuli/response is personalized to each of us. This is just me explaining mine.
So when you say "You're not that fat", don't be surprised if I react like you said "your childhood bullying wasn't that bad". Or if your advice for when I complain about not having anyone to ask out is "Just join a computer dating service", don't be surprised if I find that advice as useful as "Just play a concerto or perform surgery".
Anyway, I'm not putting this out there to make anyone change their behavior (though understanding is always appreciated). It's more for me to be able to recognize it when it happens to me and try to react differently. The first step to not falling into a hole is to recognize that one is in your path.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 09:23 pm (UTC)If there's anything I can offer, it's this: You do know how to make (and keep) friends, even if it is unconscious. 'Share toys and play nice' is more than at least half the world has managed to get, but you have more: wit and intelligence (smart girls love a guy who makes them laugh) and what at Sheffield was obliquely referred to as 'nice instincts' which was code for gentlemanly/ladylike manners.
It counts, especially perhaps as fewer and fewer people have them.