Before responding, I wanted to say this. I was over at another board for a little bit earlier today. A young woman was there complaining about how unhappy she was with people treating her badly because she was overweight. Several posters tried to help with suggestions about how to lose weight safely and effectively, and she kept responding with hostility and excuses for why she couldn't do any of that. Someone posted that she sounded like she didn't want to change, which was fine, she should just be happy with who she is and not worry about her weight, but if she did want to lose weight she could do it. She just needed to choose one way or the other.
And I saw a little bit of myself, what I'd been doing here in what she was doing. She was unhappy being overweight, but didn't want to do the work it would take to fix it, she just wanted to whine about being unhappy, which was part of what was causing her to be unhappy.
I really don't want to be that person, who whines while never doing anything. I am unhappy with my inability to function when by myself in an unfamiliar social situation. I know that. I am trying to do better on that front, less complaining and more action.
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Originally Posted by Martian
Let me first say that I really hope you can start to feel better about yourself. I hope you realize exactly what is in this thread and what it means; every person who has posted in this thread (including myself) cares about you and truly wants to help you get through this.
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I realize that, and I very much appreciate the feedback I've gotten.
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However, I see that and I wonder. You say being dependent hasn't caused you any problems. But I've been reading this thread and I've noticed a pattern. You are avoidant; you've even edited posts here, in this forum which is about free expression and intelligent people, for fear of what people would think of you if they read those posts. And then when you were challenged on it you immediately apologized. At which point Grace stepped in to fight for you.
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Except for Grace fighting for me, that's all a fair description. Grace doesn't have an account and doesn't post here, and doesn't read anything here unless I ask her to, which I generally don't do. She was gone for most of the first week this thread was in progress.
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I'm not criticizing. And you certainly have the right to edit your posts if you think they'll be offensive to someone, that's not at issue at all. However, the part that I'm worried about is the motive behind it. If you did it because you didn't want to hurt feelings, then that's perfectly acceptable. But I'm a bit worried if you did it (as I expect) because of what you assumed we'd think of you when we read what you had to say.
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I'm not sure what the difference is between the two things you list here.
I deleted my posts because I was embarrassed by what I'd said there. That's probably more the second one.
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Grace, you get a world of credit for doing what you do. You're clearly a very strong, caring and compassionate individual and I want to make sure we're clear on the fact that I take no issue with you for being protective. I do the same thing.
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I passed this on to her, and she says thank you.
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But Gilda, I would posit that you'll never be truly happy with yourself until you learn to stand on your own. I don't think you want Grace and Sissy to fight all your battles for you and I suspect that that's why you started this thread in the first place. You want to be able to have a measure of independence from the people who are close to you. You love them and care about them, but you don't want to define yourself by them. So you're conflicted.
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I don't want my
whole identity to be defined by my relationship to them, and it isn't. I'm an excellent teacher, and I have an active presense here. Those parts of my life are mine.
I do want to define myself in part by my relationship to them. Grace's wife and Sissy's sister are both important parts of my identity, thos are things I'm proud of, and I don't want to give that up.
I am happy with the part of my life that involves Grace and don't want to be independent from her. It's only the part of my life where I have to be assertive on my own that I have problems, and that's the part that I want to work on improving.
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By your own admission, you wouldn't be able to go on without Grace, if for whatever reason she was taken away from you. Do you think that's a healthy way to live your life?
Bottom line is, if you're happy with it, I have no business telling you to change. Just put some very hard thought into whether you are happy with it.
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I don't know if it's healthy or not. I do know that the part of my life that involves Grace makes me happy, and it's only the parts that don't involve her where I'm unhappy.
Do you think that my dependence on Grace for protection and support is part of what's caused me to be so ineffectual on my own?
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I think I know how you're feeling right now. You're scared and anxious and you don't want anything to do with the things and people that are causing you these feelings. Of course you don't; who would? But that's the tricky part, because the only way to get past these feelings is by going through them. You've been trying to find a way around them for a long time now and it doesn't seem to me like that's been working, so maybe it's time to just deal with them.
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That sounds reasonable.
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And then you come here looking for advice on how and everyone sounds like a Nike ad : just do it! And you read this and you're thinking 'that sounds great, but how?' The idea of putting yourself into a position where you may be in a confrontation with someone is so appalling to you that the ability has become something foreign. It just doesn't seem possible. And you start thinking (again) that maybe you're wrong, that we all have something you don't and it's just something that's wrong with you.
Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. I only go by what you've given me, so it's entirely possible that I've missed a few things that change this.
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So far that's a fair assessment.
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Well, there's a few things now that I want to point out to you and one of them really sucks, so let's get that out of the way first. Everyone here is right. There is no way to become more assertive and to be your own person without facing these feelings. There's no workaround, there's no going halfway and there's no support. You either do it or you don't. So that kind of sucks.
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Yeah, it does. Again, I agree.
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The part that doesn't suck so much that you may or may not realize is that you already have the tools to do this. It's all there inside you, it's just all of this other crap is in the way. And you're right that there is no overnight fix and it's not going to be easy, but you'll get there. You're already moving in the right direction. A few suggestions:
When it comes to social interaction, it sounds to me like you have two very good role models who also happen to be people who will do anything for you. So use them! Grace and Sissy sound like very strong, confident people. I would suggest you sit down with them, either together or independently and start by picking their brains. Find out how they do what they do. Find out what was going through Grace's head when you were at the faculty party. Find out how she handled everyone assuming she was Dr. Nakamura. Find out what mistakes or etiquette errors she made and how she dealt with them. Find out if any guys flirted with her and what she did about it. Then do the same thing with Sissy, if you can. Take the time to really sit down with them and find out how they do what they do.
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I'll ask Grace tomorrow. Sissy wasn't at the party, it was faculty and spouses only. However, I have run most of this by Sissy, and she's been helping me with some exercises she picked up in therapy and in Al Anon.
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I'm going to suggest you start with Grace on this one for two reasons : first off is because of the love between you and recognizing that she will do whatever she can to help you through this and second is because I'm reasonably sure she's reading this to make sure we don't pick on you too much (hi Grace!). However, if you feel comfortable sitting down with both of them at once, by all means do so.
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I think you must be confused about something, but I'm not quite sure what it is. Grace isn't a member here and doesn't read or post here. I can show her this if that would help, though.
I do have a question, though. Isn't getting help from Grace and Sissy being more dependent on them, not less? I'm fine with that if it'll help, but earlier you seemed to imply that my dependence on Grace was part of what was holding me back, and now you suggest I go to her for help, when I was trying to do it without her help before. I'm confused.
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Another thing to try is this : start telling yourself that you're smart and funny and confident and outgoing and assertive, or whatever other traits you want. Make a poster and put it up in your bedroom. Put a sticky note on the bathroom mirror that says 'I am beautiful and assertive' and read it every day. The trick is to keep telling yourself these things. It's not something Grace or Sissy can do for you, you have to do this yourself. Tell yourself as often as you can that you are beautiful, that you are assertive, that you are confident. The human mind is kind of funny that way; if you continually try to convince yourself that you have those traits, you will start using them and you will be what you want to be. I can tell you right now that you have the ability to be all the things you want to be. Hell, I can tell you until my joints freeze up from arthritis, but I can't make you believe it. I know it's true, Grace knows it's true, everyone here knows it's true. We wouldn't be trying to help you if we didn't think it was possible for you to achieve your goal. Maybe we're onto something, eh? Just keep telling yourself these things about yourself.
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This is almost identical to something Sissy has had me doing for most of the past week. It's had little effect so far, but I know I saw it work for her when she first started high school (with a different issue in her case).
I don't care about beautiful or funny. I know I'm not, but I don't have a distorted image of those things, nor do they bother me. I know I'm average looking, and I know I'm a bit dull, but I'm actually pretty cool with that, as being better looking or more entertaining aren't really goals that are important to me. I don't think if I were beautiful and funny it would make me happier than I am now.
However, I have been doing this with confident and assertive, and though it hasn't made a difference yet, I'm hopeful that it will.
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In terms of self-defence, I agree with you that it's critical to recognize potential threats. Threat assessment is critical to defensive thinking, but it's only one side of the coin. The part your missing is threat avoidance. You are able to see the threats, but you don't know how to react to them. What you need to do, when you come across a man who could (as you put it) cause you great physical harm if he should so choose, you have to figure out what works for you and how you can protect yourself if he tries.
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Well, this is easy to assess, as pretty much every healthy adult male on the planet fits that description.
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Look for objects and circumstances you can use to your advantage; is it daylight out? Are you in a brightly lit area? Are there people around who would hear you if you shouted? Are there shops or homes that you could take refuge in? Do you have a cell phone, that you could call the police if you had to? Once you start to develop these plans to deal with the threats the anxiety will go away.
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That makes sense. Androphobia is another thing I've been working on. I've gotten past the hating men part of it, but the fear of men part still lingers. I carry a cell phone at all times.
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If you want proof of concept, think of this; when you're interacting with people while Grace is standing next to you, do you have that anxiety? If not, why does it change? Is it because these people are no longer capable of hurting you, that you've become stronger or they've become weaker? Or is it because you know Grace will protect you if they try?
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The last one. Grace is tall, very strong for a woman, and a highly skilled martial artist. She's only had to physically intervene on my behalf once, but boy howdy did the guy who had his hands on me in an aggresive manner live to regret that. The guy who felt me up in a hobby store a couple of months back would also have regretted it greatly had he done it with Grace nearby, though I seriously doubted he'd have done so. I have no doubt of my physical safety when she's nearby.
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As for your dependence on 'scripts,' that goes back (unfortunately) to confidence again. You have an idea of how the interaction is supposed to go and if it doesn't go exactly the way you expect it to (which I'm guessing it rarely does), you start to doubt yourself. You're afraid that anything you say may upset the other party, so you have a hard time saying anything. And then you start to wonder if maybe by not saying anything you're upsetting them and you very quickly turn into a nervous wreck.
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That's it exactly.
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The problem here is that life doesn't come with a script and the more you try to make one up the more nervous you're going to be when life doesn't follow it. And that's when you start to doubt yourself again. 'That didn't go as planned; it didn't follow my script, so my script must've been wrong. What's wrong with me, why can't I get this right?' The reality of it is that there's nothing wrong with your script-writing abilities. It's not that you're using the wrong script, it's that you're trying to guess what it should be when there just isn't one.
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Ok I'm trying to say this without arguing.
Certain interactions operate the same way the vast majority of the time. For example eating in a restaurant. You enter, the host seats you, a server takes your order, brings you your food, you eat, you pay, you leave. That's the way it almost always works. That's what I mean by a script.
I was about to say we all do that all of the time with all kinds of interactions, but maybe that's my problem, the assumption that that's the way everyone does it. Is there not one standard way of getting food in a restaurant, or paying for groceries at the grocery store, or renting a movie, etc. that most people follow? Or does everyone do it differently, and I've been expecting others to just follow my script unreasonably?
I hadn't considered that before, the idea that there is no standard way of doing things. Damn, that's a scary concept.
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Again, I suggest you go back to Grace and ask her if she uses scripts. Does she try to guess ahead of time exactly how a given interaction will go? Or does she go into it with only a general idea of what to expect and what she wants to get out of it?
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I'll do that.
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It's going to be hard for you to stop doing that, too, because it means giving up a measure of control when you feel like you don't have very much to begin with. The truth is, you have more control than you realize, but you aren't going to be able to access it by attempting to be clairvoyant. the only way to have control is to take it; to realize that you have a choice in everything you do and that is more control than any script could ever give you.
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Ok. I'll just have to accept this at face value, because it seems counter-intuitive to me. More planning has always seemed like a the best path to success to me, and usually works.
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I get the idea that you've been hurt very badly in the past by somebody or maybe by several people. I'm sorry if that's the case; as somebody who was hurt too, I really am. And I'm glad that you're doing your best to get over it. You really have been doing well so far, don't let this novel I call a post discourage you or convince you otherwise.
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You needn't worry about that. You've been very helpful. I'll talk to Grace tomorrow morning. There are one or two things I'm still not quite clear on, but it's late, so I'll just sleep on it tonight.
Gilda