( Continue... )
These days I keep cycling between anger and indifference, two big indicators that I might need to talk to someone, and probably someone more positive than you. For once, I don't think I need to talk about what's going on in my life... just simply, my feelings. But where I come from, we don't talk about our feelings. Not in my family, not in my relationship. We second-guess ourselves, saying that everything's OK anyway, that whatever negative emotion we're experiencing will just blow over, feeling guilty that we were ever dissatisfied when look at everything we have, and who really needs that touchy-feeling bullshit anyway-- just as I'm doing as I'm writing this, already apologizing in my head for being such a downer and do I really need to keep track of the thoughts I have if they're things like this?
I think sometimes that I'm not expected to have any feelings at all, and just put up with what life throws at me. Anger is me lashing out at the bad things, the things that don't go my way. Funny enough, anger is the good guy here... it's at least proactive and passionate. It makes me feel better. Indifference, as I've heard several times lately, is the opposite of passion, of love. It's stewing in disappointment and "settling." Both are the children of fear, which, of course, (as always, blah blah blah) is the real problem.
I saw a counselor at the University of Oregon for a while the Spring Term before I went to Japan. For weeks I met with her in a soulless office sitting in an overstuffed chair that made me want to go to sleep. I've never been impressed with psychologists, partially because they fail to help me analyze myself any better than I can already do on my own. This one was no exception. For weeks, I shared my observations, outlining events in my life that caused X, Y, and Z to happen. Finally, it occurred to me that all she did was nod and affirm, letting me talk. That's ok, I understand the psychological method. But one day she turned to me and asked, almost patronizingly, "Why are you here?" Truly, I didn't know what to say. But I thought it obvious that I must be there for a reason and that the reason, at the very least, was something she was supposed to help me find.
I guess I was only there to talk. Perhaps about my feelings, a subject on which we rarely broached. And in that respect she was a poor shrink. I think that's maybe what I need now... a non-judgmental someone whom to spew my thoughts. (Though therapy proves, ahm, costly without insurance coverage.) I don't need a friend who will side with me, or a figment built on the ideals that plague me, or a boyfriend with whom every metaphysical conversation feels more like a slightly defensive debate. I just need some way to be proactive abot everything that goes through my head.
I feel superficially stupid, because I spend so much of the time not talking about ANYthing and so much of the time thinking about everything. It's that fear. It captures me so that I sit, frozen for hours on end, contemplating actions and consequenses like one of those damned Choose Your Own Adventure books. When I do talk to people, it feels nervous, forced, and faked. And mostly, what comes out is either a) angry or b) indifferent.
Having a job would be a nice avoidance mechanism, but getting one is troublesome when all I can seem to accomplish is sitting and thinking. Then there are sporadic instances of mania where I stand up, start moving, and can't STOP until everything. on. the. list. is. done. The mania is so tiring that it makes my catatonic contemplative state even more inviting. And in-between, there is gym time... really the only instance of physical non-attachment I can find in times of stress. Working out, I can move but not really get caught up in it, and just be. I've been meaning to re-read The Power of Now, especially after a serindipitous conversation about the book with my neighbor, the maintenance guy, but I just can't get into it.
People, myself included, go through life asking each other, "How are you?" which no more means "How do you feel?" than does "Can you pass the salt?" It's a simple affirmation, to which to accepted answer is always some rendition of "fine." If I'm not "fine," I'm a fuck-up, and if I'm not a fuck-up, I'd better be fine, because no one will bother to ask me, "How do you feel?"
"You" would ask me how I feel. But did you really? More likely, I'm wishing I could conjure up an ideal companion and conversation partner who would take me on an anything-but-mundane adventure through the landscape of the universe and the psyche. (Blah, blah, more melodramatic bullshit, as dad would say.) I guess the understated epiphany is that the "you" that lives inside me already IS "me," and to create that companion, all I have to do is learn to live with myself. Easier said than done.
And there, really, is the problem that my U of O shrink had with me-- I could get so easily to a realization and be utterly indifferent to it and completely confused as to how to approach it. So it was a pointless conversation, and a pointless journey from point "A" to point "B" with no one stopping in between to ask "How do you feel?"
Posted on October 11, 2005 @ 1:19 PM | 3 comments
Comments:
Your feelings are completly valid Kat. I think that the early twenties are a time where a lot of us suffer a "mini-crisis" of sorts that can really be awful. I know you are somewhat aware of the panic/anxiety that I went throuugh this past year that has only just recently subsided (for good I'm sure of it).
These things are born out of habits and behaviors that are internal and external. Our parents cause them, our teachers cause them, our personal expectations cause them, our culture causes them. I talked with a very good psychologist down here in Eugene for several months and one of the funny things about those encounters was that I always felt really silly talking about myself without a bunch of leading questions and such. And talking certainly was an outlet, but the thing that really hit me along about the 3rd session was that everything that I was saying about how I felt, or how I was treated, or how life sucked was all inside me and part of me I didn't get to choose it.
See, I always assumed that I could pick and choose who I was, but as I talked, all of the neurotic tendencies, the anxiety, the forecasting, all of that was inside of me and part of me too. Everytime I would feel panic I would think of my own imminent doom how inevitable it is, some people react the opposite and get complacient. As I talked about my panic symptoms and episodes, I realized that my panic developed out of a desire to please everyone, to always be the right person and to deny myself any time to live and grow and be. Too focused on the goal and not on the path. Just. Be.
The panic and anxiety symptoms didn't really start to go away for a few month, those were a rough few months (I can't beleive that people live with that for years). I wish that there was a trite little lesson that I could give you from all of that, but hey it's up to everyone to figure it out for themselves. One thing I did find was that getting to the root of these feelings that I was yammering about with the shrink meant going back to my adolescent years and analyzing any similar feelings in my past and attributing them to how I currently felt. As you say knowing is only HALF the battle here. Although establishing a pattern did help, what I think has got me through it all to a place of calm was allowing myself to accept that that is a part of me. To give it a big 'ole hug and welcome it to the party, not to let it control me, but rather to recognize when I was panicked or anxious and to know that that's just who I am. Most of all it has been about just letting myself not be focused and over-achieving and to be happy with that. Admit it Kat, you can coast at 50% your potential and capacity and still be better at most things than 90% of the world. So smile and accept that and use it to your advantage when you need to, don't drill yourself into the ground all the time.
Speaking from observation, it seems to me that you have had an extreme lack of affirmation for who you are from your family (read parents).
(Blah, blah, more melodramatic bullshit, as dad would say.)
That hurts deep. And I don't think that's the only example you can think of where your feelings were completly invalidated by someone who you look up to and respect. I can see how that has shaped you and your personality. The thing is, we don't get to change that, or modify that tendency, that's just the way your antennae has been bent. (no "your mom" jokes there =)
So you may say, "yeah yeah I know this already, I figured this out years ago," and you may well have. But you haven't accepted that your parents were rotten parents in some ways, and that you have a lot of lovin' to do as a result, loving of all the good and bad things inside of you. That's not settling, that's accepting. Acceptance leads to calm and calm is the place to approach all activities from. Find your calm, your acceptance, your love. You don't need to get rid of anything to find it, just accept all those traits you find along the way 'cause they are "you."
*pause*
Not sure if that went anywhere, but I tried....Oh hey check your email or something cause gallery and your oatmail account are done. Maybe I sent it to the wrong address.
Love ya Kat!
-M
By 
Cockblocker, at
8:46 AM, October 12, 2005
I could never had said it better myself.
Give me a call if you need to talk and have someone listen, hunny.
< 3 R
By Waterseek, at
11:59 AM, October 12, 2005
Listen to Micah, he is wise beyond his years (or at least fully wise up to his alottment of years).
Be careful of finding too many avoidance mechanisms - though it is certainly necessary to have a break from the monotonous circles lonely thought leads to, it is important to have a balance, lest you be trapped in by obligation and have no time at all for thought (could I be projecting here?).
In my own defense (or as an offering of some explanation), it is hard to speak of the chaotic world of feelings and wishes to someone who has disavowed herself of drama. It is easy to withdraw when the implication is that you are (in part) the source of that drama. I do not wish that to sound like shifting of blame, but rather as an explanation of my endeavors to avoid (as I saw it) dredging myself up too often as a inconsistent anachronism in your much changed life.
As you know, I do not much like to post my thoughts in the public spaces of the internet (or any other social setting, for that matter). If you want to talk, one to one, I hear that these nifty tMobile things let you do that. I would like very much to speak to you if it is something that you want.
By , at
12:53 PM, October 13, 2005
