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It’s been an exhausting and stressful week trying to multitask between four major work projects – each needing my concentration and attention before either of the others. After repeatedly hitting brick walls and each project defying not only my logic but the wide and extremely reliable experience and logic of my legitimately genius tech-geek husband, I gave up and yelled, “I am not a computer programmer, goddammit!” and took our daughter shopping.
Jan has a staff Christmas party tomorrow and needed a last minute outfit for it, and I’ve been on a kick for, oh, about a year now, of actively trying (but failing) to create an actual wardrobe for myself, rather than my usual hodge-podge of rapidly deteriorating bargain finds. Jan and I enjoy going clothes shopping together, far more than when we go with anyone else, so I thought it would be a welcome break.
I should have just stuck with the obstinate computer – it’s not nearly as demoralizing.
In my recent post about Pet Peeves, I can’t believe that I forgot to list CLOTHING MANUFACTURERS!!!
Aaargh!!! I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me what demon from hell brainwashed middle class retail companies into believing that the only people who buy clothes are stick-figure midgets or “plus size women”. It’s almost impossible to find anything off-the-rack that’s built to fit average-sized women with average curves! I can find things that fit me like a tent and make me look pregnant, or I can find things that 20 year olds (who clearly have a different idea of “cleavage” than I do) would wear only if they want to avoid student loans and never buy their own drinks.
And good gawd – enough with the sequins, already!
I have hips.
I have a waist.
I have boobs.
I have arms, legs, and a torso longer than a 12 year old’s.
I have a modicum of class and morals.
Apparently I’m a freak who shouldn’t be seen out in public.
Oh gawd, oh gawd, oh gawd….
Please, for the love of all things non-geeky, save me!
The doorbell rings unexpectedly with a morning courier delivery. It’s been a cruddy week – head colds for some of the family and borderline migraines for me. I’m wearing torn pyjama pants that have a bold funky print and an oversize T-shirt, and I haven’t psyched myself up enough to brush my hair yet. Doc is wearing decent sweat pants and a matching sweat jacket.
“Can you get that, please?” I ask.
“Can you, please?” he tosses back.
Tension crackles between us and our irritability levels jack up. It’s rare that we’re ever at odds with each other.
“I don’t really wanna go to the door looking like this,” I protest and gesture at the mess I am.
“Neither do I,” he counters gruffly.
The delivery guy is waiting. He’ll leave soon, and I need the items today. No time to discuss and find a compromise.
With unconcealed exasperation, I march to the door, open it and peek out from behind, and take the parcel with a forced friendly “Thank you.” On the way back past my husband’s office, my inner five-year old escapes.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t have – you look fine,” I grumble immaturely.
“Well maybe I just care about my appearance more than you do!” he snaps back.
……!
…………?!?
Ouch.
I’m utterly speechless.
Two hours later. It’s a busy work day for both of us. I’ve buried myself in stubborn website code and bullshit correspondence. I haven’t cried, but it came kinda close. This totally isn’t us.
Most of the heavy negativity has burned off with time and the day’s activity. Only the faint last threads are left. But loose threads build up and get in the way if ignored.
I pause in the doorway to his office. He’s staring into space but notices my movement and looks up.
“What you said this morning,” I start, “about caring about your appearance more than I did? Did you mean you care more than I do about my own, or more than I do about yours?”
“About mine,” he answers quickly.
“Not the way I took it,” I tell him softly.
“Weird,” he says with the beginning of a smile. “I was just replaying it in my head in the last ten minutes and realized you might have heard different than I meant.”
“What a coincidence, it just occurred to me in the last five that I might’ve got it wrong.”
I’ve had this bookmarked (no pun intended) for weeks, meaning to link to it….
Brian Dettmer is an artist who, among other things, carves into old books and creates amazingly intricate 3D sculptures by revealing specific sections of the text and graphics from the pages below.
I have to admit, there’s something a bit viscerally disturbing about seeing a sliced-up antique book, but holy cow, his work is amazing. Hell, when I get old and dusty and forgotten on a shelf, if someone can make me look as cool and beautiful as this, I say pass the knife….
Go here to see many more cool photos, and here, and here.
Found via Centripetal Notion
When the surgeon warned me that “there’s no two ways about it, the surgeries are going to be really tough on you”, it got my attention. Wow, I thought the first thing med school taught was how to patronize and placate patients! It’s a change to have a medical team treating me as a person with brains, rather than a chart.
So a little over a year ago, when he gave me the date for the bone graft surgery (which I had last January) in the ongoing series of stuff to fix the 2003 car accident damage, I vowed to get in the best shape physically, mentally and emotionally that I could for it. I’ve got stuff to do, things to be – I am NOT a patient patient, plus I had no intention of being a weight on Doc and our kids any longer than necessary.
Who me? Pride issues? Pfft… nah….
Okay, fine, I was scared shitless. The surgery wasn’t going to be major major, as in liver transplant or heart bypass or anything, but plenty major enough for me and my busted-up, obstinate body. But the most intimidating part was that this was something I had to do solo. I’ve been with Doc since I was sixteen years old, and with everything we’ve gone through, we’ve shouldered the weight together. This was going to be the toughest thing that was just on me, and me alone. With this otherwise peaceful year, everybody else in my family is just fine and dandy and there’s really no excuse for me to avoid focusing on my own stuff. What a gyp! I’ve always been able to get through any amount of crisis, but I never realized before how much my coping skills involved stifling my own emotions by putting all my attention onto someone else instead of myself.
~ * ~
Addiction: a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences to the individual’s health, mental state or social life.
Habit: an automatic routine of behaviour that is repeated regularly, without thinking.
~ * ~
So the surgeries and the trips (and stumbles, and sometimes full-out face-plants) down memory lane all coincided with, and collected into, a conscious decision that I’d made to “get clean”, so to speak, once and for all. Part of that was to be more deliberately selfish. Oh, don’t get me wrong – I have plenty of selfish moments! But that’s a very different thing than when you actually make the commitment, no matter what your logic or emotions may tell you in the moment, to do what’s best for you, before anything else.
At least… it’s very different for me. I’ve kinda sorta, more or less, made a half-assed version of that decision plenty of times before. But like a smoker having a nic-fit, I wimp out partway through and fall back to old habits and the comfort that comes with their familiarity.
And the approval. The approval and lack of conflict make for a lot less negative sensations bombarding me, and less armour I have to cart around. A lot of people in my life expect me to be strong and forgiving because that’s what I’ve taught them to expect from me. I did that not because I’m a martyr, but as part of my method of survival.
But that doesn’t fit me any more, and I need to change. Unfortunately, good intentions are tough to adhere to when people are perfectly content and happy with how you are and have a vested interest in you staying that way. Luckily, I married a man who has a vested interest in me being happy, and lets me evolve however I need to evolve.
Our family is older now. Our kids don’t need my strength and attention nearly so much – they’ve got plenty of power and wisdom of their own. If there’s anything that’s capable of cutting through my fog of laziness and cluelessness, it’s been the realization that our children may be in danger of developing the same damaging habits as adults that have caused me so much grief and loss.
Fuck that.
The stronger and more self-aware I’ve gotten, the more I’ve felt at odds with myself. It took several years of navel-gazing but I managed to trace the line to the point where I realized, much to my chagrin, that I enjoy being far more feminine than I’ve allowed myself. Just as with sensitivity, I had equated femininity with weakness, too. A lot.
From there, I worked through some messy knots and had the epiphany that I’m strong enough now to sometimes want to be weak by choice. I’m kind of in the middle of trying to deal with and remember that, and rearranging my life to include people who understand and allow it, and to minimize the damage caused by people who don’t.
Which brings me to the most recent knot. Or speed bump. Or blockage. Or whatever metaphor or analogy you want to use (hell, I mix mine like a fickle bartender :-)). I figured out that when childhood stuff caused me pain, I stopped physically feeling the emotions in order to survive it, and although that was useful in plenty of ways, it’s not as needed as it once was. And it’s not wanted, because it’s not who I am at my core.
I’ve been given lots of good advice over the years, and come to many important realizations, but a lot of times it makes a difference for a while and then I slide back. Months later, I find myself having the same arguments in my head and the same frustrated conversations with friends as I’ve had before. I feel like a complete idiot, because I have to be hit over the head with it several times over before any significant change sticks. It’s almost like I can know it intellectually, but I can’t properly absorb it.
Of course I can’t – I haven’t just turned off a tap for most of my life, I’ve almost completely severed the physical-emotional cord.
Duhhhhhhh…….
So I’ve spent the last year consciously trying to rebuild it. Trying to find, and then re-braid the frayed and sometimes dead ends, and not immediately panic when anything connects and feels too strong or too deep.
I read “Dance of Anger”, by Harriet Lerner. The concepts weren’t really new, but the timing was right. For whatever reason, I actually absorbed, for the first time, that anger can have a purpose. It should be acknowledged, and not ignored. It’s allowed. As is pain. And fear.
So that’s where I am now. It’s still too much to handle some days – I still chicken out and turn it off. But more and more I’m trying to actually let anger and pain and whatever else comes along past the armour and through me, hyper-sensitivity and all. It’s been brutally hard, and humbling. I thought I was tough but damn, being numb isn’t being tough. It’s just… being numb. It’s far harder to let stuff in, and to try to keep the faith that it will eventually pass and won’t get stuck there forever and become a part of who I am.
I think I might have enough faith now. If I can do this – if I manage to learn to make sense of the chaos of sensations that I feel when I’m not guarded, and still keep myself open – then, as I had secretly feared, I’m really not the person I thought I was. I’m stronger.
I’ve tried at least half a dozen different ways to continue this post about pain and anger. And fear. I should’ve probably tacked “fear” on there, too.
I thought I had gotten to a point where I could write about this pretty easily. It sure seemed like I had, since stuff was rattling off quite eloquently and succinctly in my head! But the succinctly should have been my first clue. I can’t do succinct in real life, no matter how hard I try. Everything that wrote itself smugly buggered off the moment I sat at the keyboard.
Here’s the thing… there’s stuff from my early life that had a large impact on my developing psyche. Stuff that caused pain, and anger, and fear. I’m hardly an anomaly – I’m sure anyone reading this could be writing much the same. Which is pretty much the only thing that makes me inclined to try to write about it at all – the simple fact that I’m not special or unusual. Countless people can relate to some degree.
I don’t know how others do it, but I suspect alcohol or drugs are sometimes the choice. My coping method had always been to shove stuff to the side and ignore it. Don’t acknowledge it. Cut it off before I feel it too deep. Stop it before it gets past the wall. Sever the nerve. Refuse to let it be. And if it absolutely has to be, make it mine. Make it be my fault, somehow. That way, I’m never a victim. That way, I maintain power.
See below re: hyper-sensitivity. Very early in life I realized that I couldn’t control how deeply and intensely I felt, and I saw this as a major weakness. Actually, that’s not accurate – it was a major vulnerability. But I managed to develop a valve — a tap, of sorts. I didn’t have the skills or resources to handle anything in between, but I could do either full-on, or full-off.
So off the tap went. With rare exception, and despite – or sometime because of – my natural passion, I stopped letting myself physically feel the effects of my emotions. For a lot of years, it was how I could survive.
I could mentally process my emotions and feel empowered. I could mentally control my body and feel strong. But allowing my body to physically react to emotions, especially negative ones, almost always left me feeling deeply disturbed and vulnerable.
I grew from being a child who was vulnerable, to being married with a young family of my own that needed my strength and attention. We went through a variety of significant life experiences, often one right after the other with barely time to catch a breath between, and the issues and the people affected needed my strength and attention, too. I was far too engrossed in current events to have the time, or energy, or interest in slogging through ancient history! There was no point to it. It would be useless. Inconvenient. Not to mention uncomfortable.
Besides, I really like the person I am now, so I can’t very well be angry or upset with what, or who, contributed to making me that way, now can I?
Can I?!?
This has been a HUGE argument I’ve had with myself, for as long as I can remember. Underpinning the argument was the unacknowledged fear that if I looked too closely, maybe I’d find that I’m not the person I thought I was after all.
It wasn’t an unfounded fear.
Somewhere along the line, I completely blocked any memory or awareness of having turned the tap off, and in doing so I denied a huge chunk of who I am – to myself as much or more than to anyone else.
If someone says “he’s a sensitive guy”, do you silently (or maybe not so silently) think “wimp”? If a woman is described as sensitive, do you equate that with irrational, easily offended, or maybe even hysterical?
See… I do, to some degree. I tack a mental line between “sensitive” and “weakness”. And yet, I know better! It makes no sense that this is my knee-jerk thought, because I know plenty of exceptions who prove that there’s little or no correlation between sensitivity and strength and guts!
But the roots of the stigma and stereotype go deep for me.
I was born physically hyper-sensitive. As we go about life, sight is the first line employed for most people but it’s one of my weakest and least used senses, despite 20/20 vision. People who know me well know that I’m blind as a bat. Not literally, but metaphorically. Touch is by far the more dominant classical sense for me. I’m highly receptive and responsive to environment, to people’s emotions, to energy, to changes in my body, to changes in a loved one’s body, to magnetism…
If there’s an undercurrent of anything in a room, chances are very good that I’m feeling it.
If there’s an elephant in a room, chances are good that I haven’t even noticed.
Oh, I’ll have quickly picked up on everyone else’s discomfort about… something… and that there’s a stew of emotions, but I’ll be confused about what or why. I’m usually too inexperienced or just too damned busy trying to guard against the sensations, unsure about what’s mine and what’s someone else’s, and trying to negotiate a deal to let only a small amount filter in so I can attempt to figure out what’s going on, without allowing so much past the wall that it swamps me.
Meanwhile, the elephant could be standing on my foot taking a massive dump.
There is endless fascination and irony available from the fact that I’m so hyper-sensitive, and yet I have RCD making it so parts of my body are physically numb. The older that I get and the more I realize and explore, I’m pretty sure it’s not just a coincidence.
= 
Did you ever have Freshie Day at high school, where Seniors got to initiate Freshman by making them do all kinds of weird shit? Frosh Day, some called it. Of course now all that hazing type stuff, no matter how benign it might be, is zero tolerance. Well, back in the day, one of my brothers (let’s call him “A”) was a Senior, and A pulled some strings to be able to get assigned his younger brother “B” as his Freshie. School-sanctioned humiliation and torture of a sibling, whoohoo!
Brother A got the inspired idea of filling a pair of wellies with cold porridge, which Brother B had to wear all day, along with a rubber shower cap and girdle, even when he was washing A’s car with a toothbrush in the school parking lot.
Good times, good times.
Why am I telling you this? Because walking in rubber boots filled with cold and solidifying oatmeal pretty much describes the essence of my year better than anything else I can think of.
The car/toothbrush fits in nicely as well.
Don’t even get me started on the cap and girdle.
Most people contemplate the previous 12 months of their life at New Years, but I usually do it around now, shortly after my birthday. Winter is already a time when I’m apt to navel gaze and get all introspective and emotional and gunk, so I figure let’s shoot for a two-fer and get it over with faster.
You know, Doc and I have had quite an interesting life together. We joke about waiting impatiently for the boring part of marriage that everyone warned us would come. Hah! One can only hope. But this last year was, on the surface, quite possibly the most calm and peaceful our family has ever had. There were no deaths, no floods, no moves, no psycho landlords, no backstabbing stealing friends, no car accidents, no major job changes… really, it’s been remarkably secure! (Touch wood.)
And yet, personally, it has been one of the toughest and most uncomfortable I’ve ever slogged through.
I recently visited with my parents for my mother’s 80th birthday. It was a pleasant and peaceful trip, as far as trips back home go. A year ago I drove back from visiting for her 79th birthday, seriously considering never returning. My father hadn’t been any different than he ever is, my mother had been the same as always, but for some reason they had gotten to me… big time. I came away deeply hurt and frustrated, even more than usual. It took the better part of the year to build my armor back up. Or, rather, to get to a place where I didn’t feel that I needed it as much any more.
I believe that a human body is comprised of three parts: emotional, mental, and physical. And the goal is to find a balance that makes it so the parts work as a team, rather than choking the life out of each other or driving the person as a whole absolutely batshit nuts.
I’ve think I’ve got the emotional-mental connection running fairly smooth. And from necessity I’ve managed to wrestle a compromise out of the mental-physical link. Mind over matter. Well, mostly. I just try not to say that too loud or too often, because, ya know, I might hear me. But the last part of the triangle – the physical-emotional pipeline – is… well…
It’s almost like I stuffed a sock in it temporarily, and then forgot about it. Hey, don’t judge! It worked damned well for a lot of years! All the aforementioned non-boring life was manageable largely in part because I didn’t allow myself to acknowledge or feel pain. Of any sort. And anger only rarely, before it was quickly stifled. Who had time for that nonsense? I had things to do, stuff to prove, and more than anything, loved ones to help through the same crisises that I was going through. Pain and anger are so… so… useless! And unnecessary. And draining. And inconvenient. And really, really uncomfortable. Sometimes even a bit frightening.
Whereas I’ve always strived to be useful, and wanted, and strong, and independent, and relaxed, and open….
See? Accepting pain or anger was completely out of the question because it was totally at odds with who I wanted to be. I mean… cha! How can a sane person choose anything other?
We all go through spots in life where you just want to tune out and go numb. I think that I, being passionate clueless the person I am, took that to the extreme at some point. Some early, early point. Like, I can’t remember a time when I haven’t.
Basically, there were things that I didn’t want to feel. They were uncomfortable. Inconvenient. Humbling. And god knows, I was so not into ‘humbling’ as a kid. But I was bright. So… easy-peasy, Heather, just sever the nerve, why doncha? There ya go, problem solved, lovely, good, moving on….
Hey, I said I was bright. You can be bright and still be a flaming jackass of an idiot.
(tbc…)
Comic strips that aren’t funny. When did they decide that it’s their job to teach us about real life (and death)? If I want to look at real life, why would I want to do it through the eyes of a character consisting of ink and lines and disproportionate features that came solely from someone else’s imagination?
The success of the Tragically Hip. They are the only group that I have to change radio stations every time one of their songs come on.
People who talk and laugh during our national anthem. Some of us take it seriously, or at least try to. Even if you don’t, how about just standing still and shutting up for three minutes? Thanks.
Motion sensor thingies in the bathroom that spit out one scrawny piece of paper towel, then make you wait and wait before it will give you another.
Store fitting rooms without mirrors.
People who voluntarily immigrate to a country and then expect that country to change to suit them. Fucking adapt, or die. (And I’m first generation Canadian, so consider that before anyone flames)
Women who dress to draw attention then act indignant and abusive when they get it.
Litterbugs.
People who stomp all over someone else’s rights as they indignantly demand a life custom-made for their wants. The irony isn’t amusing.
Toddlers and young adults taking up chairs in a crowded waiting room while the elderly are forced to stand.
People who don’t understand the concept, or useful purpose, of Bcc for emails. I may as well put my email address on a freakin’ billboard.
Stores that have double entry doors, but they unlock only one side. It’s always the side I don’t pull on.
PETA, and their peers.
Bank ATMs that have a loud alarm when it’s waiting for you to insert the deposit envelope. Like it isn’t bad enough that I have to do mental math on camera, everyone gets to see me fumble like a twit as well? Do they think I’m going to start a deposit and then forget to finish it?
