Calm down

      When I was young, one of my life goals was to be a calm, wise, old-soul type person who didn't panic when things went haywire - just assessed the situation and dealt with it, unruffled. Since that was a tall order for someone who was excitable and prone to overreaction back then, I broke it down into smaller bits like "take a deep breath first, then react," "consider your options, then react," and "consider that the worst option probably isn't the most likely, then react." By never taking out the "then react" part, I avoided feeling like I was not being true to myself, and (with some amount of backsliding now and then, of course) just kept working on it.

     I don't know that I had a time frame for that goal per se, other than a vague sense of "before I'm old and retired and don't have energy to do things;" it was just a "someday" idea. To my surprise, I realized recently that I seem to have attained it without even noticing. Work has been a little rough this year, starting with changing positions and feeling like an utter newbie where I had been the go-to person on the team, to finding out one of my goals would be delayed for a few years due to a pre-req I'd overlooked, to finally getting into a very rarely offered training and then falling sick the week before (I masked up and went anyway, because it's that infrequent). Each time, though, I realized that the urge to get angry and rant and rave or seethe about the injustice of it all just... never arose. After literally decades of internal work, my reaction was more a sigh of acknowledging the situation wasn't what I wanted, and then looking at how I could make it work.

     It is weird changing your image of yourself. You know, that quick boxed summary of yourself that you give when meeting someone new that you'll probably be around a lot. I knew I had a temper when I was younger; I knew that if something pushed me over the edge, I'd run the gamut of loudly angry, quietly angry, then simmering resentment until something overrode it, so I'd include that in my self-intro. It wasn't until someone on my new team pointed out that they'd never seen or heard of me being angry (it's not a huge office, so gossip gets around) that I realized they were right; I wasn't that person anymore. And while it's cool to see how years of work has paid off, and I'm a generally happier person overall, it's weird knowing there's a different you that no longer exists. 

Plans

I wish there were a way to communicate the feeling when the words stop. When the constant turmoil of seeing, comparing, judging, assessing, planning, and noting for later just fades away, and nothing matters but the moment. Plans were made to bring me to this place. Obstacles arose, were assessed, and were overcome – or the plan was modified – so I could keep moving forward. Deviations from the plan were noted and accounted for. Research finished, knowledge assimilated, tweaks and redesigns slid into place. After interminable hours, weeks, years of constantly herding a million aspects of a plan into place – distractible cats that move at different speeds, or can only get started after other cats are done – the papers are signed, the hubbub is done, everyone leaves, and I want becomes I am. 

It doesn’t last long. Sometimes it’s interrupted by glee: that an impossible plan actually worked. Sometimes it morphs into space for long-denied emotions, releasing pent-up tears or pain so that healing can start. Sometimes it becomes a re-ordering of reality, fitting the new piece into a foundation that will support larger plans, and the brain is off again, making lists of new research, assessments, and things to consider. But the memory of that moment, that beautiful, silent, balanced moment when struggle unfolds quietly into accomplishment, is worth everything that went into it. 

Crossing nice people (part 2)

 DISCLAIMER: still not a reference to anyone I know now.

Part 1

     Eventually, after having to smack enough chronic line-crossers in the face with shovels, I did figure out that I do not owe it to anyone to be that nice and accommodating. Allowing people to cross your lines, however, is only part of the problem. Another part is figuring out where your lines are and which ones you really care about if they're crossed. 

     When I was younger, I had a plethora of lines and - now to my regret - I was inconsistent in defending them. I could blame it on bad days, wavering self-esteem, changing ideals, what have you, but ultimately it was just that I didn't have very concrete lines or consistent consequences. 

Self-awareness

     One of my first memories of being aware of how other people perceived me was in second grade. Our class was going to do a recording on a poem to put in some larger school project (I don't recall those details), and we all put in a good amount of time memorizing this short poem and wanting to be the one who'd record it. I remember thinking I should definitely be chosen, and was rather disappointed when I wasn't. I asked why not, and the teacher decided to show me instead of just brushing me off. She recorded me reciting the poem, and played it back... and I discovered I could not properly say the letter R - it came out as W every time.

     I remember instantly going from pride at reciting the poem perfectly to chagrin that I couldn't speak properly and somehow had been utterly ignorant of the fact. I honestly had no idea - my speaking sounded exactly like everyone else's to me in my head, but the mistakes were patently, painfully obvious on the recording. Thankfully, I don't recall anyone being mean about it, but I was still aware of everyone looking at me and definitely did not like it.

     I found myself going to the school's speech therapist once a week after that. I recall walking down huge (to me), empty hallways on my own, partly proud I was being trusted to find my own way there and back, and partly ashamed that I had to go do this thing that no one else did. I don't recall how long it took, but I was determined not to be held back by this, so I read sentence after sentence and poem after poem about rowdy red roosters and rolled my Rs (because hey, at least that was better than saying W) until I finally figured it out. I got some little certificate of completion from the therapist and was told I didn't have to come back the next week.

     It's a minor memory, but it was the first time I realized that other people might not see me the same way I see myself. Every so often, I check in with myself and see if my actions (and others' reactions to me) match what I want to be. Sometimes that involves being okay with others thinking I'm odd - ok, often it does - but every now and then I realize something is out of whack and I need to re-examine those little habits you tend not to notice. Often enough that I'll keep doing it, just in case. 

Gaslighting recovery

     If you're not familiar with the phrase gaslighting (lucky you), it's a psychological control mechanism where the controller makes the victim doubt their own perception/ memory/ judgement, so the victim comes to rely on the controller's version of reality - to their own detriment. I ran into this phrase toward the end of my first relationship, in my mid-20s, and realized I'd fallen into it. There were too many occasions to count where I'd get upset because he didn't do something he said he would - or did something he said he wouldn't - and he'd convince me I was wrong, that never happened, we never agreed to that, whatever... and now he was hurt because I came at him with false accusations. It had been going on for so long that I inevitably backed down, apologized, and internalized that I had a terrible memory.

     Eventually, he made a mistake and tried to tell me I was wrong about something I had an outside witness to; that and some other occurrences gave me the strength to get him out of my life, but I carried that now-familiar doubt of my own memory into other relationships, and fell back into the same trap. Even as I went through my BA and got solid grades while working part-time, I still believed I had a horrible memory - my brain never picked up on the doublethink there.

     I finally started questioning and rejecting that self-doubt when a couple things coincided: my gentleman has pointed out several times that I'm pretty good at keeping mental lists of things, and the concept of "mental load" became vocalized and acceptable to talk about in public (somewhat, but that's another topic). It's taken a couple years, and finishing an MS with great grades while working full-time, but I've gotten to the point where I no longer doubt my memory or interpretation of reality.

Well... much...

Impostor syndrome... or maybe not

     I've been reading a book titled Influence: The psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini lately, about various methods by which people - typically unscrupulous ones - get us to agree to do or buy something we didn't initially want to do or buy. I wouldn't classify myself as a pushover, per se, but I do have a tendency to give people too many chances to make my life difficult and I figured this would hep me to at least be aware of when I fall for fallacious entreaties.

     While I'm only about halfway through the book, it has already been eye-opening and informative. One section talks about what the author calls the fallacy of pluralism: nobody wants to appear flustered or at a loss, so we constantly side-eye what others are doing and take our social cues from what seems to be the status quo. In most cases, this is perfectly fine: you can judge how to interact with a new ticket counter by how others approach it, or that a clown getting in your personal space at a work party is funny rather than something to be offended at, that sort of thing.

#Metoo

     When the #Metoo hashtag started trending, I didn't copy it at first, for a couple reasons. Unfortunately, in bringing awareness to the problem, it's also brought my awareness back to my own experiences, which I thought I'd dealt with and put away. Perhaps those feelings of shame and anger and self-loathing - both immediately after it happened and years later, asking myself why I didn't stand up for myself at the time - will never really go away, I'll just be able to forget them from time to time.

     Anyway, one of the problems with talking about it, as someone who's experienced it, is the fear of reaction. I'm sure it's incomplete, but here are some possible responses:

• Disbelief: will they even believe me? 
• Dismissal: "That was just one instance." As if that makes it okay.
• Justification/ victim-blaming: "I'm sure there's more to it than you're saying - were you drunk, or wearing a short skirt? Were you flirting with him?"
• Avoidance: "Well, not all men do it, there are good men out there, too!" Agreed. But I had to deal with one of the bad ones, and nothing is being done to stop them.
• Pity: Being relegated to being "A Victim," and watching a friend/coworker/boss/whatever treat you differently because you're not a friend/coworker/employee - you're A Victim.

     The biggest thing that keeps me from saying anything, even today when the topic came up at work, is that I don't want the above reactions, but I'm honestly not sure what a positive reaction would be. A friend on facebook posted that his feed was flooded with the hashtag, and he didn't realize it was so pervasive; he didn't know what to say, so he put #ibelieveyou. Just reading that - words on a screen, that someone realized it's an issue and needs worked on - brought me to tears. Because someone believed. Because someone cared. Because things might actually change and fewer people will have to deal with it in the future. 

     Now imagine if someone said that in person, at work, and a coworker started crying. You'd look at them differently, wouldn't you? And that's with a positive response. See why we don't say anything?

Keep it short?

     One of my French teachers once told me that, as a graduate student, she was given a very specific writing assignment. First, the prof had them write a five-page paper about a topic of their choice. After being turned in and graded, they were given back their papers and told to condense it into a 3-page paper. The same thing happened again: break it down into a one-page paper. Then three paragraphs, one paragraph, five sentences, and one sentence. The last stages of the assignment were to get the ideas conveyed in the original five-page paper across in five words, three words, two words, and finally a single word. What an incredible challenge.
 
     That story has stuck with me since, and I finally realized the importance of it this week while (where else?) in the shower. I've been wanting to get back to writing stories again for a while- not these blog posts, but actual "make up a world and everyone in it" stories- but I'm having troubles writing. Remembering my teacher's story made the light go off in my head: Our society has trained us to be as succinct as brief as possible. Granted, many people are not effective at it, but we all still strive for it. Hurry, hurry, be brief, get to the point, stop beating around the bush, summarize, use abbreviations, shortcuts, text speak, hashtags, keep it less than 160 characters.

Hiatus

     Due to schedule changes, rethinking things, and not liking to fall behind on schedule, I am going to take a (hopefully short) hiatus from posting while I work some things out. One way or another, there will be something posted by the beginning of August; here's a quick something to consider til then.

     I am one of those people who loves and hates schedules. On the one hand, I really need deadlines to motivate myself to do things, but on the other, after a while it starts feeling like a chore. Generally speaking, I try to step back and re-evaluate my life, my outlook on things, and what I've committed myself to about every 6 months. I realize, however, that I haven't done that in a while. First it was "gotta finish up the linguistics degree," then it became "gotta add Russian to the mix," then "just gotta finish Russian, make it through graduation," "no wait, gotta make it through the move," and now, I realize, it has become "gotta find a job!"

FTP 52 - Attitudes on the road

     One of the (many) things that I wanted to keep a close eye on when I moved from the midwest to the east coast was my attitude while driving. Having learned to drive in the DC area, it was quite a shock to go out to Colorado and have people actually be nice and move aside to let me pass if they were going slowly. I took complete advantage of it for about a month, and then started thinking about how maybe- just maybe- if they were able to do it, maybe so could I. Slowly but surely, I became a calmer driver, slowed down (a bit), and realized that, if I drove better, I would arrive at my destination maybe a minute or two later, and in a lot better mood. Moving out here, I'm fighting to hang on to that and not revert to the "I'm important so to heck with you" attitude.

     One thing I noticed, however, is that a lot of the east coast attitude seems to hinge upon the desire to judge and improve those around you, rather than yourself. I could be wrong in this, but the message that I see when someone cuts in front of someone else and hits the breaks (if the road is otherwise clear) is that "you're driving slowly and holding people up, so I'm going to show you what it feels like." Or perhaps, "you pissed me off, so I'm going to piss you off." Not because it will actually improve anything- because let's face it, all that attitude is likely to do is continue a cycle of anger and aggression- but because of the first driver's desire to make the offending driver aware of a) first driver's existence, and b) first driver's presumed superiority.

     Along the lines of "wouldn't it be nice if we all just got along," I'd like to add my take on it: "wouldn't it be nice if we could all just concern ourselves first with improving ourselves, and only secondarily with judging and critiquing others." Wouldn't it?

FTP 41 - Fairness to yourself

     When we're young, we're taught that you should be fair, share what you have with others, and try to be the better person. My parents, in particular, focussed on trying to get us to see the other person's point of view when we got in an argument. While this is, in theory, an admirable goal, there are times when it becomes rather a hindrance in life.

     Now, to start with, it takes a fair bit for me to get angry. Like long-term taking advantage of me, or being horrifically rude and never apologizing, or maliciously damaging my stuff. Outside of active ill-will, however, it's very hard for me to stay angry at someone, because my treacherous mind inevitably starts thinking, "well, look at it from their point of view. Do they have a reason for what they did? Is there logic behind their actions?" And, being the nice person I am, I convince myself that yes, they had a reason to do what they did, and then feel guilty about being angry.

A reused picture appears! It's still effective!

FTP 29 - Self-reflection

     This is what I've been working on for the past few weeks. Slow-going, but worth it. 

Original photo by Luc Viatour.