shesus

Even though I am no longer a religious person and it's been over 10 years since I've been to church, the church newsletters still follow me with every move. I should let them know they can stop sending them, but it's always interesting to read what religious slant they take on things. This weeks 'Letter from the Pastor' was about stigmas and I found it interesting.

People are sometimes assigned stigmas, Dave the Drunk, Kelley the Slut, Larry the Liar, Susie the Slob, Andy the Asshole, etc. These are generally hard to live down. I think this is because they are formed based on a repetitive action.

My uncle Dave is a drunk. He always has been and probably always will be. Even after time in jail, evictions from states, and countless AA meetings, he's still a drunk. He lives with my grandparents and can't get a job. It's a sad situation, but unfortunately he is defined by his stigma.

My cousin Kelley was a slut. There is no other way to say it. She couldn't remember how many people she had been with at age 17. She cheated on her husband and actually was unsure of who the father was of her first child. Luckily, the child looked like her husband. When she left her husband for her current husband, she was still trying to sleep with other guys. I don't think she does that anymore, but she also has 4 kids and has kept on the weight from the pregnancies. So, I often wonder if she could still would be doing that behavior if she did not have the obstacles.

I do think that people can change their behavior, but the tendency to repeat the action is always present because it is in their nature. According to the church newsletter, one way to drop a stigma is to walk into the house of the Lord and leave the stigma with him.

What do you think? Do you know someone who has overcome or not overcome a stigma? Have you overcome a stigma? Do you think everyone has a stigma attached to them? Do you think that sometimes stigmas are attached to people unfairly?

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dlish

what about wally the wanker?

cos i know a lot of guys would love to say they dont wank.

that's probably the hardest one to shake

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Punk.of.Ages

Absolutely. Anybody can change their ways. It's just a matter of willpower. It's hard to break a habit, especially a physically addictive one.

I have a good friend who, a year ago, was known for being the biggest alcoholic in our circle of friends. That's kind of saying a lot too. He has now been sober for over eight months. Because of this, he has completely changed his lot in life for the better.

He put it best I think, "Sometimes you have to piss yourself in front of your mother in order to realize a change needs to be made."

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ratbastid

You're onto something here, shesus: who we are really IS a function of how we're perceived. Without the changes I want to make in my life being heard and counted on by others--even to the point of asking them to hold me to account--there's very little chance I'll actually make them.

The left turn that can be taken here is to say, well, their perception of me is unfair, and they're jerks who are keeping me down. Look: that might even be "true" (in as much as anything ever is), but holding onto that "truth" guarantees that nothing can change. However, if you can create being responsible for their perception of you whether it's the one you want them to have or not, then YOU'RE the source of it, and YOU can be the source of altering it.

There are people who are confronting real, hard stuff in their lives. Addictions that are way beyond "habit"--things that have become part of the neurochemical inevitibility of their lives, at this point. Continuing to regard them as "a drunk" only guarantees they stay a drunk. lurkette's dad is like this--he was an alcoholic and drug user, and then he quit all that but didn't take 12 steps to do it, so now according to lurkette's mom and her family, he's a "dry drunk". They had to actually make up a new category of human being so they could hang onto their view that he's "a drunk". Even though he hasn't had a drink in 20 years or something. For them, he didn't "do it right", so he's still a drunk, just in denial about it. They know best: he never really put it behind him (cough... 20 years has gone by... but still...) and he could relapse at any time (cough... just like anybody in recovery... no matter how many damn steps they've done...) and he's dangerous to be around and rely on (cough... stuck in the past much?) and they've pretty much completely written him off. He has zero chance with them, because they're in love with their judgment and righteousness about how bad he was in the past. And these are GOOD people, people I LOVE. I'm not putting them down--this is an example of something we all do. But it's fucking deadly.

ronnietx59

It can be done. I was one of them drunks.
Then about 17 years ago I got sober, with the help of a power greater than myself. Have not drank since then. I could not do it alone. I tried to quit drinking often, with little success. I had to get help. I found it through AA. They gave me the support I needed to stop drinking and get my chit together.

I have an addictive personality. And do excess in many other areas, poker, porn.......
But if you take all the spots off a leopard what do yo have?

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noodle

If you take the spots off the leopard, you end up with either a black panther or a lion, depending on your view of what color the spots are and the underlying skin/fur. That being siad, both can be just as powerful.

I have an addictive personality and a serious issue with pack-rat-itis. So I was Noodle the Smoker and Noodle the Compulsively UnOrgainzed Hoarder for a long time. It's taken a conscious effort to stop the pack-ratting and I lapse into it a lot but the mandatory times for thinning the possessions are becoming less frequent. It's definitely a process. But I'm light years ahead of where I was. Seriously, I know it sounds like a less serious example than Susie the Slut, but mine was almost pathalogical for awhile.

I think that with serious willpower and a conscious, daily effort the "spots" can fade to the naked eye, but that tendency will always be there. After awhile, the behavior change can be effortless on a daily basis for some things (e.g. smoking for me) but certain triggers will always cause a recurrence of an urge or negative behavior unless something so incredibly traumatic or distasteful happens to turn someone off from it forever (e.g. Susie gets raped).

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shesus

It is sad to read about the people who have changed, but still have the stigma hanging over their head, like in ratbastid's account. Maybe, I have more people in my life that just have the mentality of "If they think that about me, it must be true" and continue to live up to the stigma. My dad is an over-eater. He lost the weight, but then put it back on because people still considered him an over-eater. It's a vicious cycle. This is why I think the capacity to fall back into the stigma is always present. Is it right? No, but it's the thought of 'once a *insert stigma here* always a *insert same stigma*'.

It makes me wonder if people have to want to do it for them and tell everyone else to piss off. In my family, they still think I'm S the Smoker even though I've been quit for almost 3 years. I still have the urge to light up sometimes though. I must admit that if they were cheaper, I just might have one every once in awhile. I'm also considered the nomad, family deserter, and the black sheep. I don't see that all of those as a negative thing though. Maybe some people don't see their stigmas as negatives as other people do. Most people are great at justifying their actions to make them 'correct'. My credit score also labels me irresponsible with finances although I can easily justify every bad mark on the report. It is a hard stigma to overcome, but after a few years of responsible actions that can be erased. If only personal stigmas were so easy to overcome.

Of course, Noodle's last paragraph says my point better than me.

__________________
Whatever did happen to your soul?
I heard you sold it

Choose Heaven for the weather and Hell for the company

oracle2380

The key to making the change is not allowing others to hold you to the old standard. You have two choices in life: 1. Be yourself and have self respect; 2. Be who you think others want you to be and never meet their perceived expectations. It's trying to meet or fill the roles given to us by others that leads to being trapped in a stigma. This something almost everyone does whether consciously or unconsciously, it's part of our animal social instinct. I prefer to be myself.

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"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost

healer

I feel for people who have changed, but still have their stigma pinned to them by those around them. I can't understand why people do it though. Is it a defense mechanism? Do they fear that the person will 'go back to their old ways' and hurt them again? Is it to make them feel better about themselves?

I always commend the people who bite the bullet and fight their stigmas, especially in the face of the people trying to hold them down. It takes a special kind of person, I think, to make that change. I think you have to have a bit of "fuck y'all, I'll show you I can do it" in you. That would be my biggest motivation, if I were stigmatised.

What sucks is that the same people you've given the finger to (and succeeded), are the same people waiting for you to fail, point, and say I told you so.

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ratbastid

Mostly it's so they can continue being right.

And, look, if I've made a real change and other people don't get it, it's NOT their fault. Human nature is: the future is just more of the same of what happened in the past. People are basically resigned and cynical about any real change ever happening. And our attempts to change things generally keep that which we're changing more firmly in place.

So if I'm really altering something, for people to be able to hear that at all, they've first got to hear that the past is over. I've actually got to say to them: look, I see how I've been being, and I see that I'm the source of that. AND I see the impact that has had, and I'm done with all of it. Here's what I'm going to be from now on, and you have my word that I'll be that, AND I request your support in my being that.