It often seems that the stories we tell about who we are are almost as powerful, if not more so, than who we actually are.
I first noticed this while working as an architect in my 20s - the guys I worked with would constantly puff themselves up to look larger than life, bullshitting like there was no tomorrow.
Nobody seemed to notice! I was always dumbfounded by how many people would take them at their word, at face value, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. There was one guy who was a patent shyster, sitting at his desk all day running some kind of personal business, but because his manager liked the guy, it took them years to get rid of him. Men see themselves in other men, and so have sympathy for them, no matter how bad the behavior. But when it comes to having sympathy for women? Not so much. Men see what they want to see, and not what's actually there.
It's almost as if men (not all of them, but many) so admire the very art of bullshitting itself that they're willing to 'suspend disbelief' just for the sheer enjoyment of a good story. Maybe it's a bit like enjoying a magician's tricks, even though you know you're just being fooled.
(Thought for another time: Do people actually like being fooled? Why would that be? I feel like I'm missing something here, something fairly important, but can't get hold of it just now - maybe after some sleep :-)
****
So the thing to do, it seems to me, is to choose a story you like, and tell it well, and consistently, building the details gradually over time in such a way that you can discover which of them are
really you, and which are imaginary, figments, wishful thinking.
I think integrity must be the ability of a person to align who she wishes to be with who she actually is. Or possibly it's the amount of effort she puts toward said alignment, which people with similar levels of integrity can usually perceive. Which means she'll get credit for trying even when she fails, which she inevitably will, being human and all.
Friday, August 21, 2009
indifferent family
People say they love you so that they can maintain their self-image as a loving person. The thing to watch, though, is what they actually do. It's tough when you grow up in a family where there are constant contradictions between what people claim to feel toward you versus what they actually demonstrate with their behavior. You learn to distrust your own perceptions - you become very confused by the constant cognitive dissonance. It's a form of gaslighting, a kind of constant and insidious bullshit that can become such an ingrained part of the fabric of your life that you can no longer perceive it, kind of like the water the fish swims in - she pretty much takes it for granted.
My brother, for example. I think he likes the idea of himself as a magnanimous, generous guy. And successful - that's important too. Because one of the ways people measure their success is by their ability to give away money.
"See? I've got so much money, I can afford to give some away! Look at me, aren't I great?" Puffed chest, broad grin, like the little boy's first time riding a bicycle.
Thing is, they have no awareness whatsoever of the people or person they're 'helping' - it's all about them, as usual. All about maintaining their self-esteem, their sense of self-worth.
It's not about you at all, is it? It's really about them, and them feeling good about themselves. They really couldn't care less if what they do actually helps you - it's like the parent who says, "You'll take what you get and like it," and then the very same parent wonders why, when they're trapped in old age in the old folks home, no one comes to visit them. Selfish jerks.
The trouble is, when your family sometimes does nice things, it keeps you off guard. There's even a name for it: Stockholm syndrome. You're always waiting for that tiny crumb, that little scrap that keeps you trapped there, hoping against hope that all the other times that they were mean, selfish, careless, thoughtless, inconsiderate, rude, unkind - were just blips on the radar. Despite the massive evidence against such hope, it's what keeps us alive, keeps us from jumping off the nearest bridge.
We take that single speck of apparent kindness - such as a superficially friendly word - and weigh it against all the mountains of evidence that say, This person doesn't really care about me, and then we put our thumb on the scales so that we can't see the reality of the imbalance.
Denial is our favorite coping mechanism, or so it seems to me. Those of us who are suicidal, I think we get there because the mountain of evidence against believing that people are inherently kind finally becomes so huge that we can no longer ignore it, no longer avoid the truth. When reality piles up to the point that it completely obscures everything else, it's kind of hard to miss.
Or, as Lily Tomlin put it, "Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it."
My brother, for example. I think he likes the idea of himself as a magnanimous, generous guy. And successful - that's important too. Because one of the ways people measure their success is by their ability to give away money.
"See? I've got so much money, I can afford to give some away! Look at me, aren't I great?" Puffed chest, broad grin, like the little boy's first time riding a bicycle.
Thing is, they have no awareness whatsoever of the people or person they're 'helping' - it's all about them, as usual. All about maintaining their self-esteem, their sense of self-worth.
It's not about you at all, is it? It's really about them, and them feeling good about themselves. They really couldn't care less if what they do actually helps you - it's like the parent who says, "You'll take what you get and like it," and then the very same parent wonders why, when they're trapped in old age in the old folks home, no one comes to visit them. Selfish jerks.
The trouble is, when your family sometimes does nice things, it keeps you off guard. There's even a name for it: Stockholm syndrome. You're always waiting for that tiny crumb, that little scrap that keeps you trapped there, hoping against hope that all the other times that they were mean, selfish, careless, thoughtless, inconsiderate, rude, unkind - were just blips on the radar. Despite the massive evidence against such hope, it's what keeps us alive, keeps us from jumping off the nearest bridge.
We take that single speck of apparent kindness - such as a superficially friendly word - and weigh it against all the mountains of evidence that say, This person doesn't really care about me, and then we put our thumb on the scales so that we can't see the reality of the imbalance.
Denial is our favorite coping mechanism, or so it seems to me. Those of us who are suicidal, I think we get there because the mountain of evidence against believing that people are inherently kind finally becomes so huge that we can no longer ignore it, no longer avoid the truth. When reality piles up to the point that it completely obscures everything else, it's kind of hard to miss.
Or, as Lily Tomlin put it, "Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it."
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
If I could do it over again...
I'd tell my dad what I felt. Every single time. No matter what. I wouldn't bottle things up.
And I don't blame myself for being afraid of my parents - all children are afraid of parents who abuse their power to take advantage of a child's inherently trusting nature.
It's all the little things - the incessant scowl no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to please him.
The laughter when you're hurt or scared or struggling with something - the mockery, the bottomless feeling that you're no good, that they'll never help you, they'll never credit you with anything or show you how to anything that's really important, like how to frickin' survive on this crazy planet.
And I don't blame myself for being afraid of my parents - all children are afraid of parents who abuse their power to take advantage of a child's inherently trusting nature.
It's all the little things - the incessant scowl no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to please him.
The laughter when you're hurt or scared or struggling with something - the mockery, the bottomless feeling that you're no good, that they'll never help you, they'll never credit you with anything or show you how to anything that's really important, like how to frickin' survive on this crazy planet.
anger
Anger comes up when things feel unfair.
When things feel unfair and you are completely unable to do anything to change the situation, that's when depression starts, and eventually possibly feelings of suicide.
The suicide is not because you really want to die; it's because you feel trapped and hopeless, and can't find a way out.
People murmur sympathetic noises, but DO nothing. They sit on their hands, watching you sink lower and lower in the water, til just the very tip of your nose is visible.
They say, "I'd help you if I could," comfortably ensconced in their half-million-dollar homes, packing for their next vacation, while you're wondering how the hell you're going to pay your measly $500 rent. Rent? Or electric bill? Which will it be? How much longer can you promise to pay them (while failing to come through with the actual dough) before they finally cut you off?
People in these fancy houses speak of how they're 'pinching pennies'.
I wonder what they mean by this? Yes, maybe they've cut back on their lattes, or only buy a $50 haircut instead of a $75 one.
But in real terms? They give up very little. Yes, they may struggle to pay that outrageous mortgage payment every month, but they pay it, it's worth every penny for the status they get from living in this fancy house in this fancy neighborhood.
It gets so you can't enjoy the smallest thing in life, knowing that every move you make toward pleasure is costing you money that 'should' be put toward the bills.
But how can you live with no pleasure, nothing to look forward to? Answer: You can't.
They say the best things in life are free.
'They', are, as usual, full of shit.
As some *other* 'they' used to say in the old days, TANSTAAFL, or, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
Everything has a cost. Absolutely everything, without exception.
***
You want to be let off the hook. You want to be relieved of your guilty conscience. You want to be appreciated for what you have given (which is lots of time and 'listening' energy, for which I am very grateful.)
However: When it comes down to it, I can't eat these things. I can't wear them, or pay the rent with your sympathetic ear.
I wish you would say, "I won't help you," rather than "I can't help you," which seems to me to be patently, obviously a fiction, an outright lie.
Why am I expected to bolster your ego needs at the same time that I've already swallowed my pride to ask for help in the first place, and have had the humiliation of being turned down?
Because this is the very nature of inequity, unfairness, power imbalance: Those who have it take it for granted; those who don't, suffer. Period. End of story.
The best one can hope for in this dog-eat-dog world is to not be the last dog in the chain.
There's a scene in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies where the pirates pull up in some small boats to visit Tia Dalma, a powerful seer. As they climb single file onto the landing, each one says to the next, "Mind the boat." This continues down the chain 'til the only one left is a guy with no tongue who finds himself lower even than the parrot, who does possess a tongue, as well as an acute ability to mimic whatever's necessary for its survival.
Hm. That last line: "Whatever's necessary for survival."
Have to think about that. The key is to define 'survival', which I think varies as one moves up or down the economic ladder.
***
I'm done letting people off the hook. From here on out, I'm calling them on their shit.
When things feel unfair and you are completely unable to do anything to change the situation, that's when depression starts, and eventually possibly feelings of suicide.
The suicide is not because you really want to die; it's because you feel trapped and hopeless, and can't find a way out.
People murmur sympathetic noises, but DO nothing. They sit on their hands, watching you sink lower and lower in the water, til just the very tip of your nose is visible.
They say, "I'd help you if I could," comfortably ensconced in their half-million-dollar homes, packing for their next vacation, while you're wondering how the hell you're going to pay your measly $500 rent. Rent? Or electric bill? Which will it be? How much longer can you promise to pay them (while failing to come through with the actual dough) before they finally cut you off?
People in these fancy houses speak of how they're 'pinching pennies'.
I wonder what they mean by this? Yes, maybe they've cut back on their lattes, or only buy a $50 haircut instead of a $75 one.
But in real terms? They give up very little. Yes, they may struggle to pay that outrageous mortgage payment every month, but they pay it, it's worth every penny for the status they get from living in this fancy house in this fancy neighborhood.
It gets so you can't enjoy the smallest thing in life, knowing that every move you make toward pleasure is costing you money that 'should' be put toward the bills.
But how can you live with no pleasure, nothing to look forward to? Answer: You can't.
They say the best things in life are free.
'They', are, as usual, full of shit.
As some *other* 'they' used to say in the old days, TANSTAAFL, or, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
Everything has a cost. Absolutely everything, without exception.
***
You want to be let off the hook. You want to be relieved of your guilty conscience. You want to be appreciated for what you have given (which is lots of time and 'listening' energy, for which I am very grateful.)
However: When it comes down to it, I can't eat these things. I can't wear them, or pay the rent with your sympathetic ear.
I wish you would say, "I won't help you," rather than "I can't help you," which seems to me to be patently, obviously a fiction, an outright lie.
Why am I expected to bolster your ego needs at the same time that I've already swallowed my pride to ask for help in the first place, and have had the humiliation of being turned down?
Because this is the very nature of inequity, unfairness, power imbalance: Those who have it take it for granted; those who don't, suffer. Period. End of story.
The best one can hope for in this dog-eat-dog world is to not be the last dog in the chain.
There's a scene in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies where the pirates pull up in some small boats to visit Tia Dalma, a powerful seer. As they climb single file onto the landing, each one says to the next, "Mind the boat." This continues down the chain 'til the only one left is a guy with no tongue who finds himself lower even than the parrot, who does possess a tongue, as well as an acute ability to mimic whatever's necessary for its survival.
Hm. That last line: "Whatever's necessary for survival."
Have to think about that. The key is to define 'survival', which I think varies as one moves up or down the economic ladder.
***
I'm done letting people off the hook. From here on out, I'm calling them on their shit.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
my mother *still* resents
my need for anybody but her.
her need to be the center of somebody's universe - anybody's universe - was so great that it became a vortex that tried to suck me in, tried to consume me.
Any time I tried to express a need of my own, tried to escape, tried to be independent, autonomous - she resented it. Became angry.
By her lights I was selfish and inconsiderate for ever needing anything that didn't benefit her in some way, reflect back on her. Like my achievements with music - it was something she'd always wanted for herself, so when I made some inroads, she fed off that heady wind of success like a crack addict inhaling a snootful (not that I know anything about *that*, just the image that first came to mind.)
She abandoned me when I showed any interest in others; to this day, when I ask about my father, when I asked if she'd make copies of photos she had of him and me together (you know, he died over 20 years ago, and I have almost nothing left of him - much was stolen when I got robbed 10 years ago, and all I have left is a mechanical pencil he used in college, plus somewhere a set of compasses that I used for a little bit myself in my architectural drafting classes)
...she got angry and upset that I wanted the photos because it wasn't about her. Fuck. Like they're competing, long after he's dead, after she's never once, in 20 fucking years asked me how I am, how I feel, how it affected me to have my father die when I was so young. All she can think of is that I'm not asking for pictures of her.
Well, yeah, mom - does it occur to you that dad is dead, that pictures are all I have left of him? Whereas you, you're right here in front of me. Though you might as well not be for all the communication we have.
Her need is so great, and she doesn't see my needs at all.
My needs come to her as a - what - an offense. A crime. As if I am somehow hurting her by needing something that she can't give. As if I am intentionally inflicting mental anguish on her by needing anything at all of my very own, anything at all that has nothing to do with her.
She set me up with a room of my own; she set me up to have the kind of privacy she never experienced growing up in a one-room cinder-block house with two parents and two younger brothers.
She resented me when I shut her out - when I took advantage of all that highly-vaunted secrecy and privacy to actually have some space of my own.
So even though she made the actual, tangible effort, she was never able to make the mental leap that recognized that my experience was different from hers.
She never seemed to be able to grasp that we were not one and the same person - that I was and am a separate being, a separate human with totally separate feelings, needs and desires from her.
Maybe that's where this saying (and behavior?) of 'It's not all about you' comes from - those of us who think it's 'all about us' grew up with parents (or at least one parent) who acted exactly this way.
In other words, the parent could not see us as separate. They constantly blurred, or ignored entirely, the line between 'me' and 'she', such that there was no line. There was no boundary, no border, no separation.
****
Now, after all this time, I think she finally doesn't care any more. Or, she does what all children of alcoholics do: Blocks it from her mind. Pretends it never happened. See no evil, speak no evil, whatever. Denial and dissociation are techniques I *should* have learned from her as a cradle language. Or maybe I did, it's just that now I choose them consciously as ways to deal with old emotions until the right conditions are available for me to finally cope with things the way I actually need to.
her need to be the center of somebody's universe - anybody's universe - was so great that it became a vortex that tried to suck me in, tried to consume me.
Any time I tried to express a need of my own, tried to escape, tried to be independent, autonomous - she resented it. Became angry.
By her lights I was selfish and inconsiderate for ever needing anything that didn't benefit her in some way, reflect back on her. Like my achievements with music - it was something she'd always wanted for herself, so when I made some inroads, she fed off that heady wind of success like a crack addict inhaling a snootful (not that I know anything about *that*, just the image that first came to mind.)
She abandoned me when I showed any interest in others; to this day, when I ask about my father, when I asked if she'd make copies of photos she had of him and me together (you know, he died over 20 years ago, and I have almost nothing left of him - much was stolen when I got robbed 10 years ago, and all I have left is a mechanical pencil he used in college, plus somewhere a set of compasses that I used for a little bit myself in my architectural drafting classes)
...she got angry and upset that I wanted the photos because it wasn't about her. Fuck. Like they're competing, long after he's dead, after she's never once, in 20 fucking years asked me how I am, how I feel, how it affected me to have my father die when I was so young. All she can think of is that I'm not asking for pictures of her.
Well, yeah, mom - does it occur to you that dad is dead, that pictures are all I have left of him? Whereas you, you're right here in front of me. Though you might as well not be for all the communication we have.
Her need is so great, and she doesn't see my needs at all.
My needs come to her as a - what - an offense. A crime. As if I am somehow hurting her by needing something that she can't give. As if I am intentionally inflicting mental anguish on her by needing anything at all of my very own, anything at all that has nothing to do with her.
She set me up with a room of my own; she set me up to have the kind of privacy she never experienced growing up in a one-room cinder-block house with two parents and two younger brothers.
She resented me when I shut her out - when I took advantage of all that highly-vaunted secrecy and privacy to actually have some space of my own.
So even though she made the actual, tangible effort, she was never able to make the mental leap that recognized that my experience was different from hers.
She never seemed to be able to grasp that we were not one and the same person - that I was and am a separate being, a separate human with totally separate feelings, needs and desires from her.
Maybe that's where this saying (and behavior?) of 'It's not all about you' comes from - those of us who think it's 'all about us' grew up with parents (or at least one parent) who acted exactly this way.
In other words, the parent could not see us as separate. They constantly blurred, or ignored entirely, the line between 'me' and 'she', such that there was no line. There was no boundary, no border, no separation.
****
Now, after all this time, I think she finally doesn't care any more. Or, she does what all children of alcoholics do: Blocks it from her mind. Pretends it never happened. See no evil, speak no evil, whatever. Denial and dissociation are techniques I *should* have learned from her as a cradle language. Or maybe I did, it's just that now I choose them consciously as ways to deal with old emotions until the right conditions are available for me to finally cope with things the way I actually need to.
finding the missing pieces
of a childhood that was devoid of the emotional and spiritual substance and sustenance that I needed.
Fuck you if you think that's too touchy-feely and Newage-y (pronounced like 'sewage'-y). Girl's gotta grow the way she's gotta. No two ways. I'm a sunflower, and I'm a-bloomin', and you can't fucking stop me. So there. Neener neener. All obstacles will be flattened by my own personal Mack truck, or, alternatively, a sledgehammer. Doubters are not welcome here.
Fuck you if you think that's too touchy-feely and Newage-y (pronounced like 'sewage'-y). Girl's gotta grow the way she's gotta. No two ways. I'm a sunflower, and I'm a-bloomin', and you can't fucking stop me. So there. Neener neener. All obstacles will be flattened by my own personal Mack truck, or, alternatively, a sledgehammer. Doubters are not welcome here.
still trying to throw off the shackles
of a repressed, middle-class, suburban childhood.
Met a kid the other day (late teens, early 20s? Can't tell any more, in my dotage :-) who was absolutely covered from head to foot in tattoos, had the hugest ear-piercings you've ever seen (you know, the kind that look painful, like you could throw a basketball through them?)
He was incredibly open about everything, blabbed non-stop about his fake/phony black rappa/gangsta 'accent' (which I poked a little indirect fun at him for since he looks, aside from the tattoos, like an average, middle-class white kid). He took the indirect comment at face value and said, "Yeah, people think I'm a phony. Even I think I sound phony. But I can't help it - it's what I grew up with, and I slip back into it when I get comfortable with people."
He also told me about what has to be the weirdest, most unbelievable phobia I've ever heard of: Fear of being a certain distance from home???!!?? WTF! I think he was messing with me. But, whatever. It made a good story :-)
I think I was impressed that, by his still obviously wet-behind-the-ears age, he seems to have already made some of the mistakes that most of us don't get to make until we're long out of the nest and have no one to rescue us any more. It's like, he's fucked up so bad and in so many ways that he bottomed out (or possibly, touched bottom?) in a way that seems to have really grounded him in his own sense of self - of who he is and what he wants from life.
I'm so freaking JEALOUS!!!! What I wouldn't give to have a Tom Sawyer phase, a phase where I'm that grubby, grimy little boy who gets to go everywhere and do anything just because I damn well please and because every man who sees me sees a little of himself as that boy, and gives him a hand along because he knows what it's like to be that boy.
Met a kid the other day (late teens, early 20s? Can't tell any more, in my dotage :-) who was absolutely covered from head to foot in tattoos, had the hugest ear-piercings you've ever seen (you know, the kind that look painful, like you could throw a basketball through them?)
He was incredibly open about everything, blabbed non-stop about his fake/phony black rappa/gangsta 'accent' (which I poked a little indirect fun at him for since he looks, aside from the tattoos, like an average, middle-class white kid). He took the indirect comment at face value and said, "Yeah, people think I'm a phony. Even I think I sound phony. But I can't help it - it's what I grew up with, and I slip back into it when I get comfortable with people."
He also told me about what has to be the weirdest, most unbelievable phobia I've ever heard of: Fear of being a certain distance from home???!!?? WTF! I think he was messing with me. But, whatever. It made a good story :-)
I think I was impressed that, by his still obviously wet-behind-the-ears age, he seems to have already made some of the mistakes that most of us don't get to make until we're long out of the nest and have no one to rescue us any more. It's like, he's fucked up so bad and in so many ways that he bottomed out (or possibly, touched bottom?) in a way that seems to have really grounded him in his own sense of self - of who he is and what he wants from life.
I'm so freaking JEALOUS!!!! What I wouldn't give to have a Tom Sawyer phase, a phase where I'm that grubby, grimy little boy who gets to go everywhere and do anything just because I damn well please and because every man who sees me sees a little of himself as that boy, and gives him a hand along because he knows what it's like to be that boy.
Monday, August 10, 2009
giver vs. taker
Niggling thought which may explore later, just trying to capture it before it escapes -
Thinking of this woman who works at the convenience store. Always irritated that she makes no attempt to be friendly to me. I try all kinds of things - jokes, ignoring her, aggressive friendliness, silence, what have you. Nothing works. She's impervious.
The thought knocking at my brain comes from re-reading my 'conditional love' post, and having this flashing thought that maybe people resent it when you need something from them, even the need to be appreciated!
So it's sort of like, if I do something in order to be appreciated, they resent having to appreciate me. If I'm nice to them, or try to get them to like me, they resent it.
Hm. Not sure if I can unravel this one just now.
And it also occurs to me that not everyone is like this.
I also noticed that this lady was really friendly one day when I came in in my black gig clothes, fresh from a gig. Who knows if the two things were related, but my brain is constantly working away at these little 'patterns', trying to solve them, trying to make sense of them, work them out. There are times when I wish I could find a switch to shut the damn thing off, but it seems to be such an indelible (?) part of my nature that I've just about given up on the fight and just spend my energy letting that be part of the flow of who I am. Two-edged swords and all that...(meaning that it's both a feature and a bug - I learned to do this to survive my non-communicative and unresponsive parents, and now I 'use' this brain function all the time, whether I want to or not. Constantly seeking the patterns that never existed with my parents. Seeking that predictability, that 'explanation' that makes it all suddenly make sense. Order out of chaos and whatnot.)
***
Feels like I'm responsible for everything that happens. Instead of seeing it as a flow, a give and take, with people like this who remind me of my mother in their unresponsiveness to me, I get caught in that same pattern of trying to please them.
Well, maybe I can just stop giving a shit. Or, I give a shit, but I don't *do* anything about it. Like I feel the feeling come up, but I just go (in zen fashion), "Oh, there's that feeling again. How nice." Then I let it go, and say, Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.
But really I'm not angry at the feeling, I'm angry at having grown up with a mother (and a father, too, though in a different way) who were so clueless, so unconcerned, distant, uninvolved.
It was as if I had nothing to do with them, I was this - jeez, I can't even describe the feeling. I don't like any of the words and images that are coming to mind. They piss me off.
I want to move on from this, replace these painful ideas and images with something that feels good, that makes me happy to contemplate.
***
Maybe she just finally feels like she 'knows' me well enough to be friendly. Since I always came in during the day at random times, she seemed to assume that I don't work, or something?! When I finally explained (not that she asked, I was just sick of being treated like some rich bum) that I'm a musician and I mostly work nights and weekends, she seemed a little friendlier.
It also reminds me of a little exchange at the cash register at the local shi-shi organic grocery a few weeks back - I was again wearing my musician's black, and had hoped to change before going shopping so that I wouldn't look like an oddball, but had no good place to change (other than the car) and didn't have the time or energy to hunt for someplace. So I said fuck it, I need a couple of things here, fuck these people and their bullshit intolerance of anybody who's not dressed *exactly* the way they are - REI, Eddie Bauer, Gap, whatever. What.EVER. Fuck!
So I'm standing there in line, getting my purchases totted up by the cashier, and to make conversation I ask this lady next in line (who was radiating an icy, unapproachable air) if those were grass seeds on her shirt. (And I admit I'm drawn irresistibly to these people - as if I get them to crack a smile, to open up to me in some way. I have to make some dent in their facade, make an impression, get them to notice me. Ah - layers. The onion, she hab many, many layah. Ah, so, grasshoppah.)
Now admittedly this is probably not the all-time winner in the tactful question department, but I was curious, and I figured anybody bold enough to go around with their gardening clothes on wouldn't mind. Must be pretty self-confident, right?
But no. She came back with this crack about "not feeling any need to dress up to go grocery shopping".
Picture me befuddled. WTF???
It wasn't til I was out in the car that I realized that maybe she thought I'd dressed up to go shopping!!! That maybe she thought, that I thought, that wearing all black to the grocery store was cool and hip.
Wow.
That's when my brain starts hurting, starts overheating.
Even now, in retrospect, I'm still trying to figure it out.
Like, was she maybe feeling a little bristly and defensive at having made the choice to go shopping without changing her shirt? And so she took a pot shot at me assuming that I was trying to make her feel bad?
Truly, I was only curious. I couldn't quite see that far, and at first couldn't figure out what those little specks were on her shirt. I realized they weren't a printed-on pattern, and then suddenly it came to me that they were those little burrs that you get from walking through tall grass.
I was so pleased with my deduction that I just had to find out if I was right, but she was standing far enough away (and seemed to be trying to keep her distance from me) that I couldn't really tell. So I just asked. And got slammed for my question!
It occurs to me also that her keeping her distance may partly have been that she assumed I was 'dressed up' to go shopping (my god, the very notion that we have to be so concerned about what we wear just in order to go fucking shopping makes my head hurt. Jesus FUCKING christ. Get a GRIP, people. This shit does not matter!!!!! To have to calibrate so closely, so perfectly, what I'm wearing so that I blend seamlessly into every environment I pass through, even if it's only for the briefest instant. Maybe it's part of the whole classist thing? AAAAAAAaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Get me out of here!!!!!!!)
Then I found myself wishing I'd said to her that I was a musician and this was my gig clothing, but she could have denied that she was making any comment about my appearance. Fuck. Endless loops. And this was fucking weeks ago.
Classist bullshit. I fucking hate it.
Thinking of this woman who works at the convenience store. Always irritated that she makes no attempt to be friendly to me. I try all kinds of things - jokes, ignoring her, aggressive friendliness, silence, what have you. Nothing works. She's impervious.
The thought knocking at my brain comes from re-reading my 'conditional love' post, and having this flashing thought that maybe people resent it when you need something from them, even the need to be appreciated!
So it's sort of like, if I do something in order to be appreciated, they resent having to appreciate me. If I'm nice to them, or try to get them to like me, they resent it.
Hm. Not sure if I can unravel this one just now.
And it also occurs to me that not everyone is like this.
I also noticed that this lady was really friendly one day when I came in in my black gig clothes, fresh from a gig. Who knows if the two things were related, but my brain is constantly working away at these little 'patterns', trying to solve them, trying to make sense of them, work them out. There are times when I wish I could find a switch to shut the damn thing off, but it seems to be such an indelible (?) part of my nature that I've just about given up on the fight and just spend my energy letting that be part of the flow of who I am. Two-edged swords and all that...(meaning that it's both a feature and a bug - I learned to do this to survive my non-communicative and unresponsive parents, and now I 'use' this brain function all the time, whether I want to or not. Constantly seeking the patterns that never existed with my parents. Seeking that predictability, that 'explanation' that makes it all suddenly make sense. Order out of chaos and whatnot.)
***
Feels like I'm responsible for everything that happens. Instead of seeing it as a flow, a give and take, with people like this who remind me of my mother in their unresponsiveness to me, I get caught in that same pattern of trying to please them.
Well, maybe I can just stop giving a shit. Or, I give a shit, but I don't *do* anything about it. Like I feel the feeling come up, but I just go (in zen fashion), "Oh, there's that feeling again. How nice." Then I let it go, and say, Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.
But really I'm not angry at the feeling, I'm angry at having grown up with a mother (and a father, too, though in a different way) who were so clueless, so unconcerned, distant, uninvolved.
It was as if I had nothing to do with them, I was this - jeez, I can't even describe the feeling. I don't like any of the words and images that are coming to mind. They piss me off.
I want to move on from this, replace these painful ideas and images with something that feels good, that makes me happy to contemplate.
***
Maybe she just finally feels like she 'knows' me well enough to be friendly. Since I always came in during the day at random times, she seemed to assume that I don't work, or something?! When I finally explained (not that she asked, I was just sick of being treated like some rich bum) that I'm a musician and I mostly work nights and weekends, she seemed a little friendlier.
It also reminds me of a little exchange at the cash register at the local shi-shi organic grocery a few weeks back - I was again wearing my musician's black, and had hoped to change before going shopping so that I wouldn't look like an oddball, but had no good place to change (other than the car) and didn't have the time or energy to hunt for someplace. So I said fuck it, I need a couple of things here, fuck these people and their bullshit intolerance of anybody who's not dressed *exactly* the way they are - REI, Eddie Bauer, Gap, whatever. What.EVER. Fuck!
So I'm standing there in line, getting my purchases totted up by the cashier, and to make conversation I ask this lady next in line (who was radiating an icy, unapproachable air) if those were grass seeds on her shirt. (And I admit I'm drawn irresistibly to these people - as if I get them to crack a smile, to open up to me in some way. I have to make some dent in their facade, make an impression, get them to notice me. Ah - layers. The onion, she hab many, many layah. Ah, so, grasshoppah.)
Now admittedly this is probably not the all-time winner in the tactful question department, but I was curious, and I figured anybody bold enough to go around with their gardening clothes on wouldn't mind. Must be pretty self-confident, right?
But no. She came back with this crack about "not feeling any need to dress up to go grocery shopping".
Picture me befuddled. WTF???
It wasn't til I was out in the car that I realized that maybe she thought I'd dressed up to go shopping!!! That maybe she thought, that I thought, that wearing all black to the grocery store was cool and hip.
Wow.
That's when my brain starts hurting, starts overheating.
Even now, in retrospect, I'm still trying to figure it out.
Like, was she maybe feeling a little bristly and defensive at having made the choice to go shopping without changing her shirt? And so she took a pot shot at me assuming that I was trying to make her feel bad?
Truly, I was only curious. I couldn't quite see that far, and at first couldn't figure out what those little specks were on her shirt. I realized they weren't a printed-on pattern, and then suddenly it came to me that they were those little burrs that you get from walking through tall grass.
I was so pleased with my deduction that I just had to find out if I was right, but she was standing far enough away (and seemed to be trying to keep her distance from me) that I couldn't really tell. So I just asked. And got slammed for my question!
It occurs to me also that her keeping her distance may partly have been that she assumed I was 'dressed up' to go shopping (my god, the very notion that we have to be so concerned about what we wear just in order to go fucking shopping makes my head hurt. Jesus FUCKING christ. Get a GRIP, people. This shit does not matter!!!!! To have to calibrate so closely, so perfectly, what I'm wearing so that I blend seamlessly into every environment I pass through, even if it's only for the briefest instant. Maybe it's part of the whole classist thing? AAAAAAAaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Get me out of here!!!!!!!)
Then I found myself wishing I'd said to her that I was a musician and this was my gig clothing, but she could have denied that she was making any comment about my appearance. Fuck. Endless loops. And this was fucking weeks ago.
Classist bullshit. I fucking hate it.
Monday, August 3, 2009
kid with her nose pressed against the candy shop window
always on the outside looking in.
Someone on a feminist blog just put her finger on it for me. She said that a prominent feminist blogger "loathes being a woman and suffers a bit from penis-envy. Can’t say as I blame her. It’s hard to be a woman living under patriarchy."
I think she hit the nail on the head. And it resonated because I feel that way.
I grew-up in a male-dominated family with only brothers and no emotional connections with any of the women in my life - not my mother, not my aunts, not my grandmothers. My mother had only one female friend, and that relationship was quite distant and short-lived.
My mother used me as her emotional prop right from the beginning; when she wasn't turning to me for comfort or 'wisdom' (when I got old enough to talk), she saw me as her best buddy and confidante. And then she'd turn on me any time I failed to be any of those things...confusingly competing with me at the same time she expected me to be her best bud. No wonder my head is so fucked up about women.
I related more to my dad - more logical, more math-oriented, more of a problem-solver. Just like me. Easier to deal with, more predictable, even if an asshole. (Jeez, I sound like a guy!)
But I was a girl. My dad wouldn't let me into his world (any more than mom would let me in to hers - she claimed that she was 'sparing' me from the chores girls always had to do, but what it really felt like was that I was being shut out of her world so she could have some space for herself. And then she wonders why I never liked her much.)
So I had no place in the family. I was the fifth wheel, the one with no use, no purpose, except to get periodically yelled at or lectured by my dad for - what - failing to be male??? seemed to be his basic gripe. I tried to basically disappear by sitting around reading all the time, just like he did. There seemed to be some safe camaraderie in that. And as soon as I was old enough, I was gone a lot playing music. There was nothing for me at home - it was an empty spot, a hole where my safe zone should be. I took to reading late at night, falling asleep on the couch, because it was the only way I could keep myself from noticing how lonely and isolated I felt with my own family. I just simply felt like I didn't belong, like nobody wanted me.
I remember dad used to carry me upstairs to bed for a while when I was little when I would fall asleep on the couch reading. Then I distinctly remember one night where he decided not to, and never did it again - I think he woke me up and asked if I was going to bed, or maybe if I wanted to be carried? and I said no, I was going to read a little longer. And then he never asked me again, and I felt distinctly abandoned.
What is it with parents and putting their own hurt feelings ahead of understanding that children need to go their own way in order to be allowed to grow up? How do they expect us to actually become adults if we're always having to put our own parents' emotional needs ahead of our own? Some seriously fucked up shit there. 'Course dad was probably only in his early 30s at that point. No excuse, but men are pretty clueless, relationship-wise, until at least in their late 40s. They rarely begin to 'get it', at all, until they're in their 50s or later. Something to do with testosterone levels dropping off, I s'pose. Man-o-pause.
***
As I child I never had close female friends - we moved too often, always right at the moment when I was beginning to settle in. I realized this the other day - we moved five times before I was 7 years old! I think I got a bit gun-shy, and since this was the sort of thing my parents would never have thought of, considered, noticed or discussed, it went underground and just became one of those invisible 'patterns' in my life that I didn't unearth for decades.
I had a couple of really good friends in junior high, but they both left suddenly in 9th grade - one moved to the east coast with her family and the other just - disappeared. I can't even remember the details, I just remember feeling abandoned and alone and not having the strength to start again.
I eventually did find a few casual friends in high school, including one friend who was a bookworm like me, and with whom I went bike-riding and had a few other adventures.
But we were never as close as I was with the junior high school friends, they were actually GOOD friends. The high-school friend was, well, a bit of a jerk, to be honest. Her parents were rich, her brothers were weird, her father was a patriarchal, misogynist asshole and her mother was the typical smiley, passive, stay-at-home wife. Bleh.
Wow, just when you think all the crawlies have emerged from under the rocks, you discover still more yet to be revealed...
I think what I'm saying is that I never formed strong connections with women, at any time in my life. I had a chance to do it in jr. high, and got started along that road, but circumstances beyond my control kicked me out of that safe, warm place and found me alone again, stranded alongside the road. Yet another abandonment.
And fuck you if you think I'm making too big a deal about it. My youngest brother was born shortly before we moved into the house my mom lives in now; as far as he's concerned, he lived in the same place for 16 years before dad died. So yes, he's had his share of rough knocks, but he also started out with some significant stability that I never experienced. Something there about growing deep roots that allow you to withstand the later winds of fate. Those of us that were never allowed to grow deep roots - either emotional or physical - are much more subject to being knocked over by those gale-force winds of chance.
There's also something about how mom always sucked up to the men in her family - including her own sons - knowing that they're the ones she'll be dependent on later in life. And yet at the same time she expects me to be her sole-source emotional supporter. While simultaneously throwing me under the bus emotionally, financially, in every real way you can possibly imagine. And at the same time acting like we're best buddies.
Is it any wonder I'm so confused?
I still can't really wrap my head around all this or articulate very clearly how simply betrayed I feel, by my entire family, over and over and over again. My little brother tried to make it up to me for a while, in various ways, but I think he got overwhelmed by how much unfairness there is and how extremely angry I am about it.
Someone on a feminist blog just put her finger on it for me. She said that a prominent feminist blogger "loathes being a woman and suffers a bit from penis-envy. Can’t say as I blame her. It’s hard to be a woman living under patriarchy."
I think she hit the nail on the head. And it resonated because I feel that way.
I grew-up in a male-dominated family with only brothers and no emotional connections with any of the women in my life - not my mother, not my aunts, not my grandmothers. My mother had only one female friend, and that relationship was quite distant and short-lived.
My mother used me as her emotional prop right from the beginning; when she wasn't turning to me for comfort or 'wisdom' (when I got old enough to talk), she saw me as her best buddy and confidante. And then she'd turn on me any time I failed to be any of those things...confusingly competing with me at the same time she expected me to be her best bud. No wonder my head is so fucked up about women.
I related more to my dad - more logical, more math-oriented, more of a problem-solver. Just like me. Easier to deal with, more predictable, even if an asshole. (Jeez, I sound like a guy!)
But I was a girl. My dad wouldn't let me into his world (any more than mom would let me in to hers - she claimed that she was 'sparing' me from the chores girls always had to do, but what it really felt like was that I was being shut out of her world so she could have some space for herself. And then she wonders why I never liked her much.)
So I had no place in the family. I was the fifth wheel, the one with no use, no purpose, except to get periodically yelled at or lectured by my dad for - what - failing to be male??? seemed to be his basic gripe. I tried to basically disappear by sitting around reading all the time, just like he did. There seemed to be some safe camaraderie in that. And as soon as I was old enough, I was gone a lot playing music. There was nothing for me at home - it was an empty spot, a hole where my safe zone should be. I took to reading late at night, falling asleep on the couch, because it was the only way I could keep myself from noticing how lonely and isolated I felt with my own family. I just simply felt like I didn't belong, like nobody wanted me.
I remember dad used to carry me upstairs to bed for a while when I was little when I would fall asleep on the couch reading. Then I distinctly remember one night where he decided not to, and never did it again - I think he woke me up and asked if I was going to bed, or maybe if I wanted to be carried? and I said no, I was going to read a little longer. And then he never asked me again, and I felt distinctly abandoned.
What is it with parents and putting their own hurt feelings ahead of understanding that children need to go their own way in order to be allowed to grow up? How do they expect us to actually become adults if we're always having to put our own parents' emotional needs ahead of our own? Some seriously fucked up shit there. 'Course dad was probably only in his early 30s at that point. No excuse, but men are pretty clueless, relationship-wise, until at least in their late 40s. They rarely begin to 'get it', at all, until they're in their 50s or later. Something to do with testosterone levels dropping off, I s'pose. Man-o-pause.
***
As I child I never had close female friends - we moved too often, always right at the moment when I was beginning to settle in. I realized this the other day - we moved five times before I was 7 years old! I think I got a bit gun-shy, and since this was the sort of thing my parents would never have thought of, considered, noticed or discussed, it went underground and just became one of those invisible 'patterns' in my life that I didn't unearth for decades.
I had a couple of really good friends in junior high, but they both left suddenly in 9th grade - one moved to the east coast with her family and the other just - disappeared. I can't even remember the details, I just remember feeling abandoned and alone and not having the strength to start again.
I eventually did find a few casual friends in high school, including one friend who was a bookworm like me, and with whom I went bike-riding and had a few other adventures.
But we were never as close as I was with the junior high school friends, they were actually GOOD friends. The high-school friend was, well, a bit of a jerk, to be honest. Her parents were rich, her brothers were weird, her father was a patriarchal, misogynist asshole and her mother was the typical smiley, passive, stay-at-home wife. Bleh.
Wow, just when you think all the crawlies have emerged from under the rocks, you discover still more yet to be revealed...
I think what I'm saying is that I never formed strong connections with women, at any time in my life. I had a chance to do it in jr. high, and got started along that road, but circumstances beyond my control kicked me out of that safe, warm place and found me alone again, stranded alongside the road. Yet another abandonment.
And fuck you if you think I'm making too big a deal about it. My youngest brother was born shortly before we moved into the house my mom lives in now; as far as he's concerned, he lived in the same place for 16 years before dad died. So yes, he's had his share of rough knocks, but he also started out with some significant stability that I never experienced. Something there about growing deep roots that allow you to withstand the later winds of fate. Those of us that were never allowed to grow deep roots - either emotional or physical - are much more subject to being knocked over by those gale-force winds of chance.
There's also something about how mom always sucked up to the men in her family - including her own sons - knowing that they're the ones she'll be dependent on later in life. And yet at the same time she expects me to be her sole-source emotional supporter. While simultaneously throwing me under the bus emotionally, financially, in every real way you can possibly imagine. And at the same time acting like we're best buddies.
Is it any wonder I'm so confused?
I still can't really wrap my head around all this or articulate very clearly how simply betrayed I feel, by my entire family, over and over and over again. My little brother tried to make it up to me for a while, in various ways, but I think he got overwhelmed by how much unfairness there is and how extremely angry I am about it.
validation
I've always disliked that word, 'validation' - it reminds me too much of the big machine that goes 'clunk' and stamps your parking ticket. Like I've been slammed in the head by some smarmy, patronizing, phony-ass shrink's bullshit. Sigh.
But the grain of truth is that we all need validation. We need it like water and air.
It's another one of those invisible things where people who get plenty of it take it completely for granted and never have to think about it; while people who never get enough always feel like there's something wrong with them and wonder how to fix it. Kind of like how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
It's like my same old analogy of a plant blaming itself for not getting enough rain. WTF, is what you should be saying. Uh huh - blaming ourselves for not getting enough validation is like a plant blaming itself for not being located in a place where enough rain falls.
Yeah. Crazy shit. But that's what shrinks and self-help gurus tell us: That we're responsible for our own validation or lack thereof.
Bullshit. The only difference between us and the plants is that we have legs, and can move ourselves to a spot where there's more rain. Or validation, as the case may be.
I got to thinking about this while hunting for a quote about making mistakes being compared to the continuous course corrections that an airplane's autopilot makes. Here's a link I found that quotes it, plus a bonus story about how Thomas Edison had to try 10,000 different elements before he found one that would make his lightbulb light up:
I was sitting there nodding my head as usual, going, yeah, right, glass half full vs. glass half empty. Sure. Positive thinking. It's all in your head.
And then I remembered, just before I got sucked (once again) into the bullshit meme-land of shrinks and self-helpers everywhere, that we don't in fact have control over everything that happens in our lives.
Whew, almost got me there!
So, ok. Validation is like rain. Rain falls where it wants to.
Validation is like rain because we don't have any control over where or when or how much of it falls on us.
So if we're not getting enough validation, we have to go somewhere where we get more of what we need.
Now, this seems simple. But remember that humans only learn how to do these things if their environments teach them how to do it. If your environment doesn't teach you, you most likely won't learn it.
Sure, you may randomly stumble on a book or movie that shows how a particular idea works, but most of us are experience-based creatures - that is, we only learn these behavioral patterns by actually going through them. It's the rare human who can learn something just by hearing about it. Most people have to be shown repeatedly, sometimes violently. Many people simply cannot learn new things once the initial 'imprint' has been laid down. It may simply require a certain amount of intelligence. Not to mention motivation.
Anyway. So my point with all this is that those of us who have been socialized to perceive ourselves as failures will be far more likely to be subject to feelings of guilt and shame any time something goes wrong. We've been 'wired' to take the hit, take the blame, take responsibility, regardless of whether we had anything to do with it. It's like when you see that cop car's lights flashing in your rear-view mirror and you wonder what you've done wrong, even if you haven't done anything wrong. We get this kind of built-in 'guilt reaction' that kicks in just because we've been yelled at so many times or falsely accused that it puts us a little off-balance all the time - we're always a little susceptible to being accused of something that we didn't do.
So.
How to change this wiring? BTSOM, as my dad used to say (beats the sh*t out of me. Nice, eh?)
But seriously, I think all a person can do is try to get aware of every time that little voice in your head goes "you're no good, you're a fuckup, let's watch you mess this one up". It's like they set up little trip wires and booby traps and obstacle courses all around you to the point where you're afraid to move for fear of making a mistake.
Whew. Exhausting to even walk through all that again.
So. Overwrite the sons-a-bitches, don't let the bastards get you down. Tell them to shut the fuck up (even if only inside your own head). Don't let them win. Call them on it every single time they try to undermine you or make you feel bad about yourself.
And maybe, eventually, you'll relax a little and have some moment's like ol' Tom had, happily tinkering away in his workshop making a million 'mistakes' a minute and never worrying a bit about it.
Why? Because he was learning. Constantly. Every single thing he did taught him something new, and he was able to learn from each thing and put it to use because he didn't have that constant, nagging voice of shame echoing inside his head telling him that he was a 'failure, failure, failure.'
Shut up, voice-in-my-head. You're on notice.
But the grain of truth is that we all need validation. We need it like water and air.
It's another one of those invisible things where people who get plenty of it take it completely for granted and never have to think about it; while people who never get enough always feel like there's something wrong with them and wonder how to fix it. Kind of like how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
It's like my same old analogy of a plant blaming itself for not getting enough rain. WTF, is what you should be saying. Uh huh - blaming ourselves for not getting enough validation is like a plant blaming itself for not being located in a place where enough rain falls.
Yeah. Crazy shit. But that's what shrinks and self-help gurus tell us: That we're responsible for our own validation or lack thereof.
Bullshit. The only difference between us and the plants is that we have legs, and can move ourselves to a spot where there's more rain. Or validation, as the case may be.
I got to thinking about this while hunting for a quote about making mistakes being compared to the continuous course corrections that an airplane's autopilot makes. Here's a link I found that quotes it, plus a bonus story about how Thomas Edison had to try 10,000 different elements before he found one that would make his lightbulb light up:
****Thomas Edison once mentioned to reporters that he had tried over 10,000 materials as filaments for his new invention, the electric light bulb. One reporter asked how the young inventor maintained his persistence in the face of so much failure. “Failure?” he responded. “I didn't fail. What I did was successfully eliminate 10,000 elements which were unacceptable for my needs.” What most people would call failure, Edison saw as the process of invention.
The ability to accept so-called failure simply as information and then make corrections without self-invalidation is rare. However, it is a critical key to success. Accepting defeat or criticism is never easy, but it is those people who take feedback and make corrections who create lasting success.
Everyone fails. Everyone makes mistakes and has painful experiences. Most people just complain about them, justify them or blame someone else. The self-actualized person learns from them, adjusts, and goes on. No self-condemnation. No pity parties. No blame. Just awareness and correction. It’s not what happens to us but rather what we do with what happens to us that makes the difference.
How do we make corrections without self-invalidation? Here’s an example: If we were to fly to a distant city, our flight would be off course more than 90 percent of the time. Constant feedback and correction would be required to reach our intended destination. As we drift off course, the guidance system reports to the autopilot, and the autopilot makes the necessary adjustments. As our altitude drops or increases slightly, the same thing occurs. This feedback and correction cycle continues over and over again hundreds of thousands of times throughout the course of our flight.
I was sitting there nodding my head as usual, going, yeah, right, glass half full vs. glass half empty. Sure. Positive thinking. It's all in your head.
And then I remembered, just before I got sucked (once again) into the bullshit meme-land of shrinks and self-helpers everywhere, that we don't in fact have control over everything that happens in our lives.
Whew, almost got me there!
So, ok. Validation is like rain. Rain falls where it wants to.
Validation is like rain because we don't have any control over where or when or how much of it falls on us.
So if we're not getting enough validation, we have to go somewhere where we get more of what we need.
Now, this seems simple. But remember that humans only learn how to do these things if their environments teach them how to do it. If your environment doesn't teach you, you most likely won't learn it.
Sure, you may randomly stumble on a book or movie that shows how a particular idea works, but most of us are experience-based creatures - that is, we only learn these behavioral patterns by actually going through them. It's the rare human who can learn something just by hearing about it. Most people have to be shown repeatedly, sometimes violently. Many people simply cannot learn new things once the initial 'imprint' has been laid down. It may simply require a certain amount of intelligence. Not to mention motivation.
Anyway. So my point with all this is that those of us who have been socialized to perceive ourselves as failures will be far more likely to be subject to feelings of guilt and shame any time something goes wrong. We've been 'wired' to take the hit, take the blame, take responsibility, regardless of whether we had anything to do with it. It's like when you see that cop car's lights flashing in your rear-view mirror and you wonder what you've done wrong, even if you haven't done anything wrong. We get this kind of built-in 'guilt reaction' that kicks in just because we've been yelled at so many times or falsely accused that it puts us a little off-balance all the time - we're always a little susceptible to being accused of something that we didn't do.
So.
How to change this wiring? BTSOM, as my dad used to say (beats the sh*t out of me. Nice, eh?)
But seriously, I think all a person can do is try to get aware of every time that little voice in your head goes "you're no good, you're a fuckup, let's watch you mess this one up". It's like they set up little trip wires and booby traps and obstacle courses all around you to the point where you're afraid to move for fear of making a mistake.
Whew. Exhausting to even walk through all that again.
So. Overwrite the sons-a-bitches, don't let the bastards get you down. Tell them to shut the fuck up (even if only inside your own head). Don't let them win. Call them on it every single time they try to undermine you or make you feel bad about yourself.
And maybe, eventually, you'll relax a little and have some moment's like ol' Tom had, happily tinkering away in his workshop making a million 'mistakes' a minute and never worrying a bit about it.
Why? Because he was learning. Constantly. Every single thing he did taught him something new, and he was able to learn from each thing and put it to use because he didn't have that constant, nagging voice of shame echoing inside his head telling him that he was a 'failure, failure, failure.'
Shut up, voice-in-my-head. You're on notice.
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