MeghanIsMe

Recent events have me thinking again about self-censorship and bowdlerization. I've never read any of the Brontës, but I'll quote Charlotte Brontë in expressing my discomfort with defanging venomous words by replacing them with obvious stand-ins.

“The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent people are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however well meant, is weak and futile.” -Charlotte Bronte

This (self-censorship) is one of a few examples of practices I follow because they have become socially necessary to avoid hurting other people and provoking anger, but with which I fundamentally disagree. (This is not to say I am right or wrong in that disagreement. It may be that I am lacking information or have failed to fully consider the information I have.) This is true from both an outside and inside perspective. When I think of slurs that could be applied to me, the idea that people who have already chosen to use hateful and hurtful language, or those who don't generally have any need to think about the hurt such language can cause, should be spared from facing up to those slurs if I decide to write or talk about what they've said about me is frustrating. It feels like I am taking power away from myself and ceding it to them.

Either I self-censor in ways that make me feel like my communication is less effective and that I have been disempowered, or I become the subject of anger and potential ostracism by people, groups, and communities that I otherwise might support or find togetherness with. This stuff is really hard for me to navigate and is reminiscent of similar issues that I often encounter when thinking about whether I can feel like a part of progressive, activist communities. I'm so naturally inclined to disagreement and analytical discussion, and there's always *something* a group espouses that I disagree with.

"...it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness." -Lenny Bruce

As much time and thought and anxiety as I've been putting into thoughts of actively seeking potential datemates, my relationship with Erik started when he asked if I'd be interested in dating and I, after processing for a while, said yes. I'm still quite frightened of the idea of being the seeker rather than the sought. Perhaps I will do that some day, but I'm so much more comfortable in the relatively passive role of deciding how I feel about others interest than I am in asking others to make those decisions about me. And thanks to experience and therapy, I feel able in ways I never have before to respond to people's expressions of interest in me thoughtfully and without feeling obligated to reciprocate, and without conflating other people's wishes with my own. Being the subject of someone else's interest feels much safer, these days, than it has.

And beyond that, right now, my life feels pleasantly full already. I live with a partner who I continue to love more every day. I have a boyfriend who I continually and joyfully anticipate my next visit with. I have household functions and maintenance to contribute to the success of, and a hobby or two to devote date nights with myself to. I've often envied people who have an array of partners and lovers and playmates to share their joy with, and I still do sometimes. But not only do I think that that would be far more stressful than joyous for me, I also don't have any desire to add external complexity or commitment to my life right now.

Right now, I'm happy, and am in a safe place to keep getting to know *myself* better.

In therapy, Dr. M. noted that, in many ways, I tend to prioritize the needs and wants, and perceived needs and wants, of others above those of myself. They said I do so to the point of "annihlation of self."

That particular wording has echoed in my thoughts ever since. It's language used to describe mystics or saints; people who live their lives in the service of something outside of themselves, or in denial of themselves, for better or worse. Both people who would be labeled mentally ill were it not for the context of faith, and people who are simply labeled mentally ill. "Blessed are the cracked," Groucho Marx supposedly said, "for they shall let in the light." I've always wanted to let in some of that light.

That description doesn't fit me. I am neither a saint nor a mystic, nor mentally ill. At least, in that particular way. Those people, and their works, are things I've been drawn to as long as I can remember. People who live immersed in their own world and show us images from it like Tom Evers or Henry Darger, are mystics in my conception of the word. Similarly mystical, and equally enthralling to me, are those like Peace Pilgrim, whose mysticism was of this world, rather than another, and who believed that something they could do would change that world. (Incidentally, this is possibly the primary reason I have not and don't plan to try anything like LSD. I feel like I've spent a lot of my life itching for an excuse to be Baba Ram Dass, and that kind of experience might give me one. I might go somewhere I'd never come back from.)

I was raised on stories of people who believed in something strongly enough to make it their purpose and to shape their lives around it. That purpose was typically to put an end to some evil, or at least stand against it in any way they could.

So I'm at a sort of crossroads I suppose.

My goal in going to grad school was to understand how urban political economy works and fight against a kind of systemic inequality that hurts so many people so deeply. I ended feeling that that is not possible for me. Because I did not continue to fight in the face of impossibility, I feel that I have failed at being the kind of person I want to be, at least in that way. Some people are able to fight their fights regardless of possibility of success, but I could not. I did not continue that path.

I concluded that the best things I could do were voting and direct action. And with Trump in power, there are so many opportunities for direct action. Horrible things are happening everywhere; nationally, state-wide, locally. I've known for years that slavery exists, but it's most visible manifestations were so far away I could excuse myself from direct action against them. But here in the US, children are being taken away from their parents purely to inspire fear and terror by agents of my government, innocent people are being murdered by those whose official duties include their protection, and people are coming together to act and protest in movements like the Poor People's Campaign, among other things.

Were I the kind of person I want to be, or thought I was, or something, I would be doing things like, at a minimum, standing outside government offices and talking to people. Explaining what's happening and what our representatives should be doing about it. I'm not though. I'm not doing much that's different from what I was doing before Trump's election, other than being more depressed and anxious.

I feel hypocritical. I am tolerating evil that I feel is intolerable. I don't know how to reconcile my fundamental belief in the importance of being the kind of person I want there to be more of in the world with the reality of my life.

I'm trapped by feeling that, to be the best person I could be, that mystical annihalation of self of the ego-death is what I should seek. If not, how can I be self-consistent?

This has me feeling rather depressed and self-critical.

While walking around the park with shelter dogs and other volunteers a couple weeks ago, I had a couple of relatively lengthy conversations about my interest in urban space/place, what I'd intended to achieve by going for a master's degree, and about cities in general. It feels important to me, explaining how the 20th century Great Migration led to northern cities being notably more segregated than southern ones, the discriminatory real estate practices that caused that segregation, and how the move of industry to the sun belt made things even worse. A lot of folks don't realize that the northern US is more highly segregated than the South. I talked about my awareness of deeply unfair playing fields for people born in different places, and how I wanted to be involved with public policy that would address those issues.

( More about trying to make a differnce in the world )

I've been talking to my therapist about the feelings of inadequacy or avoidance I have in situations like seminars in grad school, or even in conversations about complex topics with friends. I've had a deep belief, for all of my life I think, that whatever I have to contribute to a conversation, someone else around will know more about that thing than I do. Thus, I shouldn't bother trying to express my experiences or viewpoint.

When I was little, I never had any interest in being around people my own age. I had nothing in common with them, and what interactions I did have were negative. I felt superior to them I guess. I was always proud to be chosen to read something aloud in class because I was clearly the best reader there. I didn't understand why any of these words were difficult for the other kids who had to slowly sound them out. At recess, I ignored other kids and would sit with a notebook trying to figure out things like the speed of light in miles per hour, or the age in days of famous composers. It was at least partly performative, I think in retrospect. Showing that I wasn't like those other people. I was different. I was smart. Not that it wasn't something I enjoyed, too; creating these arithmetic problems for myself that resulted in strange trivia that I could tell people in conversation.

The conversations I did have were with my parents and their friends. I always fit in much better with my parents' friends and gaming partners than anybody my age. Those were some fairly intelligent people. F, who was a nuclear engineer. G, who possesses a vast array of information on, and analysis of, historical topics. He could probably be teaching at a university somewhere if he wanted to, except for his non-epileptic seizure disorder and other neurological problems. B, who had been a system administrator since long before there were organizations like CompTIA to certify one's ability to do so. Others too, some of whom I still see from time to time. They're wonderful people and I feel close to them. I've known them longer than anyone except my family.

As a kid though, there was no way I could know as much as them about almost anything. I internalized that fact pretty well, too. There's also a culture of one-upmanship in many geek circles I think, and these folks were not immune. I think I had a couple ways of coping with that. First, I would read obsessively about topics that were interesting to me so that I could have interesting things to say to people that they might not know. (That's a habit that has stuck with me, and once upon a time was one of the things that made me wonder if I was on the autism spectrum.) Second, I actively refrained from those interestingness contests because I knew that I would not win them. I was content to just offer the occasional observation and feel like I was part of things.

That's a mindset that I think has stayed with me all my life. Danae and I were at a board game meetup a few weeks ago where that kind of conversation happened (Danae referred to it being the portion of the evening where everybody tries to out-brilliant each other), and I removed myself to the sidelines and listened. That was partly because a lot of their talk was about hard science that I'm not very familiar with (that crowd leans much more physics than humanities), but it was also because there's a part of me that just feels like there's nothing for me to add. And that's a lot more negative an experience as an adult than it was as a child. I felt left out and alone, but not confident enough to say anything. It's the kind of experience that just makes me want to hide.

It's not that I think people should not be communicating in that way. It's a valid model of communication, and I think one that's both traditional and well-understood in that context. It's just also one that's very difficult for me personally because of my own...stuff.

And I felt that way at Syracuse a lot, too. Certainly nothing I have to say would be of much interest to the people I was in seminars with, my instincts told me. I think it was probably even more true there. I was in a humanities graduate seminar on a topic that the people I was with seemed much better read and more knowledgeable about. Before the urban social justice seminar one evening, I was asked what I thought about one of the books we'd just read. It was a relatively positive and hopeful one, and I really enjoyed reading it; I responded that it was my favorite of the ones we'd read so far. The querent's response felt almost scornful to me. Maybe that's me reading things in to the interaction, but in seminar they all dissected the book pretty thoroughly. Vivisected may be a better word: they sliced it up and held bits of it aloft to demonstrate how they failed to come together to form a viable organism. To be fair, that's how we treated all the books, as that is a main point of such a class. Getting at what works and what doesn't in the realm of theory we're exploring.

Regardless, seminars at Syracuse terrified me. I was terrified of going and exposing my ignorance and analytical shallowness to the world. I was terrified of not going, letting so many people down and squandering my opportunity for a fully funded grad degree. I made myself go. I made myself tear madly through the weekly tomes on justice theory and urban space. And in the end I got an A. The professor commented on my term paper that I was exploring interesting ideas and he hoped I'd continue. I still haven't shown that paper to anybody because I'm embarrassed. I somehow feel that I performed terribly. That my paper was rushed and incoherent. That I hadn't said enough in class, and that it was clear the other students were more knowledgeable, more analytical, just better. After the last session, the professor took people out for a meal at a nearby bar. I couldn't go; I was terrified of that, too. Everyone would know I didn't fit in with the group. I just went home.

I never managed to really make friends with the rest of my incoming class. They didn't invite me to things, and I didn't know how to invite them to do anything. A couple of the women talked about starting a group to work on our Spanish together, and I was excited by the idea. We got together once at the co-op that a couple of them live at and had an evening of Spanish conversation and it was great! But it didn't happen again. I wondered what happened. Did the idea fall by the wayside due to everyone's busy schedules? Did they decide they didn't want me to be a part of it? Was I somehow missing the conversations that people had about when it would happen again? Was there some sort of communication happening that everyone assumed I was part of and I didn't know how to be a part of it? Like, if I knew how to start and maintain friendships like most people then I'd just naturally be in the loop, and because I don't, I'm not? My thoughts were not very rational I suppose, and I was too busy hiding in my apartment and working to think about it too much.

The fears in the last paragraph are different in some ways, but the same in others. I fear not fitting in. I fear not being as smart. I fear being a nuisance. I fear being an imposition.

I didn't feel this way during the span after I split up with me ex and before I went back to undergrad and buried myself in school work. At least, I don't remember feeling that way. Maybe it was just far enough in the background that I don't remember it. The therapist asked me to think, this week, about what my life would be like if my inner joy and wonder shaped my life more than my inner fear. (We've had a couple conversations about personifying aspects of myself and talking to them individually. That's been thought-provoking and I'll write about it sooner or later.) Maybe my life would be more like that span, where I was enjoying conversations with strangers at conventions, and apparently being interesting and confidant enough for a certain person to invite me back to her room at Dellacon and then decide she wanted to stick around with me for six years and counting....

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my experiences and feelings to date regarding relationships, dating, and play. As I've written about before, they are areas that I'd really like to expand my experiences within. I've been putting off serious exploration of such things for years, with various distractions and responsibilities. I'm finally in a reprieve from those distractions and responsibilities. Still, this does not seem to be a good time for that exploration.

It's really hard for me to say no to people. Especially people who I feel any personal connection to. This has put me in situations where I endangered myself in real and significant ways, emotionally and physically, rather than say no. Beyond that, I feel very strong obligation to make people happy, even at the expense of significant time and effort, or in ways that are contrary to my own feelings once I figure out what they are, usually at some later time. It also means that I very rarely, if ever, feel confident in asking for things that I want from a relationship, or an individual experience. Sometimes I can't do it at all.

I also have a hard time figuring out how I feel about people and situations. If someone expresses an interest in me, I typically have never really given a thought to how I feel about them in that context. Evaluating such things is a complicated and time-consuming process for me, but I feel on the spot to respond right away. So I instinctively respond in a positive, and perhaps encouraging, way. I don't want them to feel bad, and my need to not make someone else feel bad becomes my most powerful motivation at that point. Other stuff, I work out later.

It also seems like I have a pattern of rationally constructing a model of how I should behave, and of what kind of relationships and experiences I would like to have. Then I disregard, or subconsciously/deliberately misinterpret, emotional states that are contrary to that model. That has led me to decide to do things that I told myself that I should rationally want to do, even when I felt very uncomfortable about them emotionally.

All of those things together suggest that seeking new romantic partners or play partners is more problematic and more potentially dangerous for me than it is for most people. (Because let's face it; these things are always potentially problematic and dangerous.) Danae has said that, given my need and obligation to please people I know, it might even be safer for me to play with strangers than with friends. I think I agree, which feels really strange for me to say since I don't really care for the idea of playing with strangers. And even with strangers, I don't trust myself to stand up for myself in ways I might need to to keep from feeling used or objectified.

I have strong motivation to figure this stuff out for myself. It seems like most of my adult life that I've wanted to be a part of these communities, and I sometimes wonder whether I ever will. Its frustrating and sad. But I don't think I can do it in a safe way at present.

I also think that a lot of this is connected to some difficulties in making decisions that I have in a lot of areas of life. That it is potentially a factor in my choice of masters program, for instance. I've said for a while that I may have made that choice more out of obligation than personal preference, and I have some interesting ideas now about where that obligation might have come from, at least in part.

But that's another post.

So that's some of the stuff I'm going to work on in therapy.

I'm fortunate in having a wonderful partner who is loving and supportive through all of this. As I've told her, there is no one I would rather be monogamous-by-circumstance with!

I'm jotting some notes for my meeting with Mark tomorrow. I'm feeling anxious about it, probably irrationally so. We've talked a little bit, both on the phone and in person, about the work I've done in the past. But it's not work I want to directly continue, and he's interested in talking with me more about my interests. I assume he wants a better understanding, which makes me start worrying that I haven't explained myself properly in the past. Maybe it will turn out that I'm not what he was wanting or expecting. There's a part of me that feels like the notes I'm making for this conversation are an attempt to justify my presence at Syracuse. To not look like I don't know what I'm doing or why I'm here.

I guess I'm supposed to post old pictures on Thursday; I fail at throwback.

This is a picture of me that is twelve years old now, from the first convention I ever went to on my own, without my parents. I spent all of Friday and Saturday at Midwest Furfest 2002 being painfully shy, taking photos of fursuiters, and talking to not a single person except for Dana Simpson. She's an artist from whom I bought an original hand-inked comic strip from Ozzie and Mille. When she wrote before the con about the possibility of selling originals, I emailed her ask her to bring a particular strip, which was a huge feat of bravery for me. I have that strip, now framed, on the wall over to my left.

On Sunday, I finally got up the nerve to approach one person whose name I recognized from lurking on Livejournal. Though him, I kind of got started in being an independently social creature in Chicago furry fandom, and from there, a social creature in general. Though the process was a long and slow one.

This fursuiter had servomotors in the ears that let them move into different expressions. I thought that was so awesome. I still do! I don't know who this was; I don't suppose any of my readers do?

At that point in my life, I knew various members of my parents' social circle who I still consider to be friends, but I had not a single friend who I'd met in person on my own. I recognize parts of myself in that person, but I don't know if he'd recognize me.