Some people may remember a Lindsay who went out to clubs and restaurants with friends, a woman who would hang out at other people’s houses for days on end. I’m not that person anymore. Truth be told, i was never all that comfortable in loud places – i could never hear anything being said, and felt like i couldn’t speak loudly enough to be heard. The more people there are, the less comfortable i am. I like my own space. I’m an introvert: i enjoy time spent alone – it’s how i recharge my batteries.
Some people may remember a Lindsay who could talk on the phone for hours at a time. I used to like talking on the phone, and then i started doing tech support for a living. Half of a tech support job is making small talk while computers reboot or while antivirus programs do their thing. Nowadays, it’s hard for me to pick up the phone to call someone – even if i really want to talk with them, hear how they’re doing, or tell them that i’ve been thinking about them. Gods bless the internet, because it’s a means of keeping contact with loved ones that does NOT involve phones; an e-mail can be written and sent anytime, whereas phone calls ought to be restricted to non-working or non-sleeping hours. But i’ll admit, i’m not so great at that. I tend to forget there’s a world of people outside of my field of vision. While i used to ignore people out of anger, these days a lack of contact is usually nothing more than sheer forgetfulness – a lack of awareness of the passage of time. That is something that i do try to work on, and it’s not easy.
Some people may remember a Lindsay who wasn’t thin, but wasn’t what you’d call fat, either. I am Officially Fat, and have been for some time. I’m not insulting myself here, just stating a fact. On one hand, i’m no longer inclined to view “fat” as an insult, but as a description – it has no more inherent moral value than tall, short, round or square. On the other hand, i do still have my own self-image issues, as do many people. Those issues have also changed over the years: i’m no longer as concerned about how my belly or upper arms look: i’m more concerned about how my body functions – or how it doesn’t. My health is by no means horrible, but it’s not great either. Fibromyalgia keeps me sore and tired just as often as not, and endometriosis has all but guaranteed that i’ll never pass that on to the next generation. But at the same time, learning to live with those things have taught me how to better take care of myself. I’m better at listening to my body, better at understanding what it can or cannot do, what it does or does not want.
These are but a few examples to show that Lindsay of 10 years ago doesn’t exist anymore. The Lindsay of 5 years ago disappears a little more every day, every week. This Lindsay is a continuous work in progress.
Some people who’ve known me a long time may not see the changes that have occurred, or may not understand how and why those changes have come about. They may be seen as negative things, misinterpreted as having been imposed on me by others. One thing about me that has remained true over the years: i’m not keen on being told what to do, or what to not do. That rebellious streak is less reactive, less self-destructive, but i assure you that it’s still there. The minute i think someone is trying to pin me down, i’m Done. I’m outta there.
Some of the changes may come across as upsetting or depressing, but the Lindsay i am now is a happy Lindsay. I’m married to a wonderful man who loves me – not in spite of all of my idiosyncrasies and faults, but as a whole person. Good and bad, better and worse, in sickness and in health. I’ve long believed that love doesn’t change a person into someone they’re not: it makes them more of who they really are. The Lindsay i am now is more Lindsay than i was a decade ago. I can honestly and openly be who i am, without fear of reprisal or withdrawing of affection.
I remember being a very young Lindsay, a child who would rather curl up in a quiet room with a book, a Lindsay who felt awkward at social gatherings and just wanted to go off by herself. A Lindsay who didn’t understand why she seemed to experience more “growing pains” than any of the other kids around her. I think back on her sometimes, and wish i could tell her that in a whole bunch of years, she’ll get to be herself. She’ll understand more of what’s going on around and inside her, and she’ll be comfortable in her own skin. She’ll have good and bad times, healthy and unhealthy relationships, friends that come and friends that go… and she’ll learn so much from all of those experiences. They’re all Worth It. Chances are, she wouldn’t really understand the depth of all that that entails; i’d have to make do with a “just get through this, kid, and you’ll be okay.”
I remember a Lindsay in her early 20s, a young woman on an emotional roller coaster: intense relationships (good and bad); health issues getting worse, but finally getting names (and treatments) for the causes; loving and losing, and feeling it all perhaps just a little too much. If i could go back in time, i wouldn’t tell her a single thing: i’m a firm believer in giving no spoilers. I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise of how wonderfully her life will turn out for her. I would want her to experience all of the joy and heartache, the frustration and relief, all so that she can learn from them. All of those things made me who i am today, and i like the person i see in the mirror.
I look at myself now, at this Lindsay of present times. Sometimes i still don’t feel like i know who i am, but i’m okay with that: it’s that feeling of not knowing that spurs on the desire to find out, to learn more. I know myself better than i did five years ago. Five years from now, that same statement will be just as true.
I am an organ donor. When i die, i want my body donated. Take what other people can use from it, and then send it on to science, where it can be used to teach medical students or further some understanding of whatever’s applicable.
My grandfather died when i was 2; he had lymphatic cancer, and when he died, he donated his body to science in the hopes of furthering understanding of cancer and such. When my grandma died three years ago (of nothing other than old age – she was 93), we did the same thing. I was not able to be there when she was dying, but i was able to get into town the next day. My dad and i went to the hospital to take care of whatever paperwork needed to be done; when they asked if we wanted to see the body, neither my dad nor i had any interest. Partly because we didn’t want that to be our last memory of her (my dad was also out of town when she died), but also: she wasn’t in there anymore. It was just the shell that, at one point, happened to house one of our favorite souls on the planet.
We told them that, as per her wishes, we wanted her body donated to science. I was more than a little dismayed to find out that this was such a rare request that they had to actually make an hour’s worth of phone calls to find out what all was involved in the process.
I view my body as the temporary housing of my soul. I like to decorate it with piercings and tattoos, because really: who moves into a house and doesn’t decorate? And yet, i have little to no interest in fashion; ironic, perhaps, but that’s another post. My piercings are mostly decorative, but my tattoos are milestone markers – they all tell stories of events and realizations that had a profound impact on my life, on who i am as a person. But again, those stories are a bit of a tangent, so i’ll leave them for a later post.
I do and do not have any huge attachment to my body. Obviously, it’s the only one i have right now, and as such i want to treat it well and keep it in decent working order. I want it to last as long as it can. But here’s where i slightly disagree with the comic i posted above: i don’t subscribe to the belief that when we die, that’s just it. I believe that when i die, my soul will move on to pastures anew – could be another body, could be another level of existence. I dunno. I don’t know if i believe in Heaven/Hell/Valhalla/Nirvana or whatever. I know this much: i can’t prove they don’t exist (given that you can’t prove a negative), but whatever it is that lies beyond, i’m not quite ready to find out for certain.
In a lot of ways, i see my own body as irrelevant. It’s where i live, and so that makes it relevant to this life, to my current life. But it’s not the end-all-be-all, and it’s not the center of the universe; it doesn’t even have to be the center of anyone else’s life. If someone else doesn’t like it? That’s their problem, not mine. If i don’t like it, that’s my problem – not anyone else’s.
Here’s the thing: in the grand scheme of things, i am a speck, standing on a speck of a planet, which is warmed by a star that is a but mere speck in the universe.
Some people (myself included) think of this and see it as awe-inspiring – they marvel at the vast expansiveness of the universe, at the possibilities that such an unimaginably large thing can barely contain. Others see this as a diminishment, as an indicator of their “insignificance”. I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson said it best in his cosmic sermon (which is definitely worth checking out). As he mentions in this speech, he had been contacted by a psychologist who studied the effects of things that made people feel insignificant, and wanted to do a survey with the people who saw one of DeGrasse Tyson’s shows (which involved a ginormous zoom-out from a person to the universe). His response?
“There’s something wrong here. Why does he feel small, but when i look up at the universe, i feel large? Then i realize, the problem is: his ego is too large to begin with. He came to the problem thinking too highly of who and what he was to begin with. Because then, everything that happened in the show destabilized his self-image. Whereas, i know that the molecules in my body are traceable to phenomenon in the cosmos. And it’s our 15 pounds of gray matter that figured this out!”
Parts of this amazing speech are captured beautifully in this video, Symphony of Science:
Do yourself a favor: don’t just scroll past that video. Watch it. Then watch it again. DO EET NAO. For several weeks now, i’ve been trying to resist the temptation to just post the video and the lyrics and shout BECOME ONE WITH THIS KNOWLEDGE!
And yes, if you watch both the (above-linked) sermon and the music video, you’ll notice that they chopped up DeGrasse Tyson’s speech to make it say something only slightly different:
I know that the molecules in my body are traceable
To phenomena in the cosmos
That makes me want to grab people in the street
And say, have you heard this??
It gives me chills just thinking about it. Here’s another awesome quote from Carl Sagan in that video:
The beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it
But the way those atoms are put together
The cosmos is also within us
We’re made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself
It makes my throat lumpy to be faced with such beauty, with such an affirmation of the beauty of being made of star stuff. And sure, some of this may sound a bit new-agey, but like DeGrasse Tyson, i’m not going to apologize for the findings of astrophysicists.
An iron meteor created the Barringer Meteorite Crater in Arizona (which is 4,180 feet across and 570 feet deep) some 50,000 years ago. The iron in my blood comes from the same source as the iron in that meteor. In the light of such amazing stuff, i find it mind-boggling that anyone can have the audacity to think things like the size, shape and/or color are valid reasons for discriminating against another human being. Again, i quote Neil DeGrasse Tyson:
We are all connected;
To each other, biologically
To the earth, chemically
To the rest of the universe atomically
We are all connected. Our own individual atoms are all put together differently, and yet we ultimately have the same origins.
I just subscribed to this blog* based on one particular line (from this post):
I discussed this fear in therapy a lot, which was much more enjoyable than facing the fear.
Ohhhhhhhhh boy, do i ever know all about that. Storytime! Grab your blankies and some cookies.
I started therapy when i was 8 or 9, and i went regularly (once a week) until i went to college at age 18. From that point, i went about once a month until i was about 20. Then, in my mid-20s, i was back in therapy for about two years to help me deal with some really intense life-crap that was going on at the time. Okay, Storytime’s over.
See what i did there? Or rather, what i did not do? I didn’t go into the Why I Was There bits, which i could easily write an entire blog’s worth about (more on that in a minute). In the 8-18 range, i saw three different therapists and one psychiatrist. Each time i saw someone new, it took me about 4-5 sessions just to get them caught up on my history, on why i was there. It was an easy way to Not Talk About It. It was more recitation than actual discussion or explanation. By the time i had the main story out there, i had an idea of who i was working with, and the ways in which i could manipulate them into letting me get away with even more Not Talking About It. I like to think that last bit, the manipulation part, was less a conscious decision – but in all honestly, i don’t know if that’s actually true. I do think it was a defense mechanism: because talking about fear is a hell of a lot easier than actually facing it.
It’s the recitation bit that’s really potentially harmful, though. It lets us fool ourselves into thinking that we’re actually dealing with things, actually making progress. It’s not progress. It’s not moving forward. It’s not always moving backward, but it can be a lot of side-stepping.
To explore this, let’s look at recitation in other mediums – specifically, in theatre. If you go to watch a play once, you’re going to (hopefully) enjoy it, get wrapped up in it, and enjoy the performance. If you’re an usher, and you watch the play multiple times, you’re going to notice that the actors are very often using the same inflections and intonations in each repeat. Some really good actors can stay grounded in the moment of their deliveries, and manage to retain the emotional impact; with those actors, you’ll notice (if you watch repeatedly and carefully) slight variations in the retellings.
I hesitate to use this analogy because it does have its failings – the primary one being that when most individuals break into recitation, it’s not a conscious decision to engage in an act. However, the analogy works in that our recitations can retain phrasing and intonation from previous tellings of our stories. The problems sneak up on us when we’re not grounded in the delivery, when we don’t take into account who we’re telling, why we’re telling, or even what might have changed between this retelling and the last. When that happens, these recitations are not really honest.
To be fair: recitations are partly natural and even potentially helpful. If you have to tell the same story over and over, it’s only natural that you’re going to develop an efficient and effective way of telling it. If you just need to convey information, there’s nothing wrong with it – so long as you are utilizing it as only part of the therapeutic process.
But recitation doesn’t let you look at the situation from a different angle, or let you relate it to current events in your life. It is a snapshot, an elaborate Polaroid of Who You Were At One Point. When we try to use recitation as a means of relating to someone else’s life experience (“I know what you’re going through, [insert story]“), it can be outwardly destructive (although usually unintentionally so).
Very rarely will we encounter someone who calls us out on this behaviour. This is partly because it isn’t always perceived as performance, but also partly because of the cost vs. benefit of calling us on it. This lets us believe that this mode of relating personal experience is, for the most part, a successful one.
In a therapeutic context, recitation is most likely to occur relatively early in the relationship. The therapist, if they’re particularly insightful, may very well see that we are delivering the canonical version of Our Life StoryTM. However, they’re also going to recognize that the trust in the relationship has not yet been established; responding in a manner that might put the person on the defensive is more than a little counter-productive. Calling them out early (or sometimes, at all) runs the risk of making them feel invalidated or alienated – both from the therapist as well as from the therapeutic process.
What this means is that we ultimately cannot rely on others to call us out on our evasive maneuvers or behaviours – can not and should not. Part of the process of becoming more whole and healthy people involves developing more self-awareness and cultivating habits of self-honesty.
* – A few things of note, here: the blog i initially linked is a damn good blog – very insightful and intelligently written – and i would have subscribed to it anyway; the quoted bit was just icing on the proverbial cake. I also don’t mean to detract from the primary point of the post by taking out just one quote and using it to expand on it in an entirely different direction. It’s just such a damn good statement, and can be applied to SO MANY THINGS. Love it, i does.
This is more of a mental bit than a body bit, but it’s my blog so nyer.
I’ve found myself falling back into a mindset of “don’t want to be all interferey”. Don’t want to impose, don’t want to push where i may not be wanted, don’t want to stick my nose in where it might get something stuck up it. Don’t want to overstep boundaries.
What this looks like, how it plays out, is that i rarely speak up, rarely comment on other people’s blogs, journals or facebook entries. Don’t talk much in online chat rooms. I see people i know on facebook and hesitate to add them. I have become a lurker. It means i don’t participate in what’s going on around me, and it’s especially dumb because i put myself in those places and then get a bug up my arse because a community hasn’t magically sprung up around me (or if it has, i’ve effectively put myself on the sidelines of it).
Part of the problem might be that i’m imagining stricter boundaries than are actually there. I assume that people think, not necessarily the worst… but not necessarily the best, either. Somewhere in between.
Part of that honestly boils down to self-esteem issues. It occurred to me as i was lying in bed this morning that it may be as “simple” as a fear of rejection. A fear of being told off. A fear of not knowing how people might respond to what i would say. A fear of misinterpretation, misunderstanding and/or miscommunication, perhaps.
The end result of all of this is that i become more withdrawn, more isolated. That isolation negatively reinforces the idea that i should just keep to myself. Decidedly not too brilliant of me.
The other night, i startled Ben by stomping on the ground and saying “BASTARD! HA! GOT YOU!” I triumphantly flexed my muscles (complete with “hrrr” noises) and then realized Ben was looking at me funny. He hadn’t seen that i’d stomped a cave cricket, so i explained to him what had just occurred. He was talking to some friends online, and said, “the girl who’s not afraid of anything, yet is terrified of cave crickets, just killed one.”
A brief tangent, just to clear something up here: my feelings about cave crickets are not entirely rational. I don’t like things flying up in my face. I don’t like things coming too close to my face. I don’t like my dogs licking my face. My personal bubble is relatively small around my body, and disproportionately large around my head. Cave crickets are, as Ben once described them, the self-feeding popcorn of the insect world. Their primary reaction to a threat is to bodily fling themselves up at its face. This is decidedly Not Cool in my book. I can walk face-first into a spider web and be kind of eugh for a moment, but if a cave cricket jumps up at me, it’s run around and scream like a nelly bitch time. And then i’ll probably need a long, exfoliating shower to adequately rid myself of the skin crawlies.
The idea that i’m seen as fearless grabbed a cup of coffee and found a seat in my brainmeats. I’ve been told that this is the aura or attitude that i tend to project; like many other opinions other people have about me, it baffles me. I’m so far from fearless. I’m afraid of so damn many things, i feel limited by my fears.
I’m afraid of rejection (and it’s cousin, abandonment). I’m afraid of being disliked. I’m afraid of conflict. I’m afraid of making bad decisions. I’m afraid of running out of time. I’m afraid of a whole lot of things. I’m afraid of Changes; to clarify that: i am not afraid of the results of changes, but of the process of changing (insect metaphor time: i’m more afraid of the what’s going on inside the cocoon than i am of the butterfly).
With a lot of my fears, i tend to face them fairly head on. Stare ‘em in the face and get it over with. If there’s gonna be conflict, let’s get it out and over with sooner rather than later. If there’s gonna be change, let the change begin so we can be done with it ASAP. If you dislike me, don’t make any false pretenses – just tell me so we can both move on. So it’s not that i’m fearless. I think it’s more that i’m not afraid of facing the fears that i do indeed have.
Ahh, and it occurs to me that part of that might stem from a desire to have some control over the situations causing (or coming from) the things i fear.
But i want to go back to this fear of interfering, because that’s what kicked this off, and i need to look more at that. Well, not just look at it, because looking only does so much. I do enough looking, and don’t do enough doing. What i need to figure out is how to get the hell over it.
Some of this goes back to the idea of “other people’s opinion of me is none of my damn business” thing. Most people are not going to just come out at tell me what they think of me, especially if it’s something negative (i imagine that if/when that sort of opinion is going to be voiced, i’m not likely to be around to hear it). So not only is this sort of thing just not likely to happen, i need to stop acting like i’m two seconds of opening my mouth away from it happening.
Like most of other fears, i think this one comes down to just facing it and pushing through it. Start commenting, start interacting. Just bloody well DO it. And if bad stuff happens, then it happens and i’ll deal with it and it won’t be the end of the world. One or two unpleasant situations aren’t worth sacrificing all of the potentially awesome interactions and experiences of which i’ve been depriving myself.
Like getting into a swimming pool, there are two approaches to this: the slow easing in (complete with eep and aaah noises), and the Cannonball Depth Charge. While the latter conjures amusing Calvin & Hobbes memories, i don’t think it’s the way to go. It’s not sustainable, long term. It’s harder to ease into it, because as i’ve already mentioned, i’m a rip-the-bandaid-off kinda girl. But i think easing into it is the better idea, because i’m not just easing myself into it; since this is primarily about my interactions with other people, i need to keep in mind that while i’ve made up my mind to be more interacty with the people around me, they haven’t been privvy to that internal process.
I think i’m about done for now. I’m tempted to post this to my facebook & livejournal, just as a heads up kinda thing, but i recognize there’s also some desire to give explanation for my lack of interaction. I want to let people know that no, i haven’t been avoiding them in particular, i’ve just managed to avoid myself into a corner.
And on that note, i’m going to try to get some sleep. Yay for wonky sleep schedules!
I don’t have any kind of stats plugins installed on this blog; this was an active and conscious decision. One of the things i learned looooooooong ago about myself: i can easily spend way too much time and energy looking at site statistics. It’s just not healthy. I cared way too much about the stats on my old FA blog, and that didn’t help me any.
I’m trying to remember where i read it, but i recently came across the statement: “Someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business.”
I like that. I’ve spent an awful lot of time caring about what people thought of me, and the idea that it’s just plain None Of My Business? Feels kind of freeing. The opinions that a person has of me are not based solely on me or my actions – to some extent, they’re going to be based on that person’s life-experiences with their own selves and their interactions with the people around them. Interpersonal chemistry doesn’t exist in a vacuum. So a negative opinion that they might have of me doesn’t necessarily represent a fault or inadequacy on my part.
I’m not at the point where i can casually shrug it off when i find out that someone doesn’t like me. It stings, and i think it always will. I don’t think i can necessarily help that. What i can help is how i react outwardly to that situation. A lot of times, i’ve tried to prove them wrong – which is somewhat like pushing a rope. If someone’s made up their mind about me, that’s their business, not mine. So long as they don’t actively raise a fuss in my direction, i need to learn to leave well enough alone and just let them have their opinions.
I’m talking about the general public here, not friends & family. Obviously, if i’ve done something to hurt or upset a loved one, i’m going to do everything i can to make amends. And it’s not in my nature to go around being a jackass. I can be thoughtless, forgetful and a bit oblivious, and those have caused problems for me in the past, but they’re never intentional things. But that’s another post for another day.
