It's okay to stand out
Nov. 7th, 2014 04:15![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquill[formerly filtered to c]
I thinkakienm may be right. The internal pain isn't fundamental, it's incidental. Though I disagree about the extent of it; if it's soot on the furniture, it's piled an inch or two deep.
It's that pain which I'm hiding, though. It's what I'm afraid people will see and shy away from. Maybe I was wrong, my emotions aren't really much more intense than those of some of the more sensitive geeks -- it's just the accumulated pain and frustration which is out of the ordinary. Which means that if I could ease that pain, heal it, vacuum it off the furniture, I wouldn't be so unusual as to be an outcast even in my own culture. I would be operating on the same level as most of the people I know.
I wonder who it was that taught me that wholehearted displays of emotion were not socially acceptable.
He's wrong in one respect, though; I don't hide my inner self out of shame. I don't feel that my emotional animal is wrong, a perversion, something that is ugly or disgusting enough that it needs to be hidden by default. I'm not ashamed of it. I accept that it is part of who I am, and a necessary (even delightful) part of my psyche. The few times I've consciously locked it away felt wrong, unnerving. I want it to be there, and when we're not wrestling for control, I enjoy what it gives me.
I hide it away because I'm afraid. Sometimes afraid of it, but the rest of the time because I'm afraid for it. Other people do not always understand, and my early childhood taught me that being misunderstood led to pain. My young and vulnerable self got hurt in very tender places, before I grew any emotional armor, before I constructed the cage which was as much for protection as restraint. Even now, my animal hides behind my rational self and the masks I've constructed to fit in, to escape notice, to pass. When I was picked on as a kid, the best defense was to not do anything to attract attention, because attention led to ridicule and pain. For a long time I was wary of recognition for my talents, even though I craved approval; I distinctly recall a couple of times when being singled out for praise made me a target.
And that is why I cry when Akien compliments me... I have been taught to deflect admiration out of self-defense, so accepting it means I have to drop my guard and become vulnerable, and that scares me. I also cry out of relief that I've found a place where praise doesn't make me a target, where attention is not a double-edged sword; a place where the thing I've been hiding is accepted rather than met with wary apprehension. And again, I cry out of fear, because I'm afraid that this tantalizing vision of safety is an illusion, or a fleeting thing.
I think I need to gather together the memories of all the people who have betrayed my trust or abandoned me and do something with them, though I'm not quite sure what. I can feel that I'm carrying them around, though, my subconscious pulling them out as evidence of why I can't believe in safety or trust anyone, because I've been wrong before. I need to move past that.
I'm even afraid of losing the pain, because then I won't have any excuse to hide. Talk about mental habits.
Once I hit a critical point, it should all start unraveling pretty quickly; that's usually how these things go. I'll be a bit of a wreck for a period, and then there's the long process of adjustment, which is almost more stressful than anything else. Plus rebuilding, which should go more easily with help.
I'm realizing, during all this, exactly how much Elise resembles my inner self; I've never identified with her particularly on the outside, and her reactions and background are definitely different from mine, but suddenly the cycle of misunderstanding and betrayal she was stuck in most of her life -- not to mention being outcast and despised even by her own kind -- makes a whole lot more sense. I created her in middle school, but it's only now that I'm beginning to understand why. And I have the sudden urge to complete the Nethes storyline, because it echoes my own experience right now to an eerie degree. I guess, if I'm going to live my own plotlines, one with a happy ending is preferable...
I think
akienm may be right. The internal pain isn't fundamental, it's incidental. Though I disagree about the extent of it; if it's soot on the furniture, it's piled an inch or two deep.It's that pain which I'm hiding, though. It's what I'm afraid people will see and shy away from. Maybe I was wrong, my emotions aren't really much more intense than those of some of the more sensitive geeks -- it's just the accumulated pain and frustration which is out of the ordinary. Which means that if I could ease that pain, heal it, vacuum it off the furniture, I wouldn't be so unusual as to be an outcast even in my own culture. I would be operating on the same level as most of the people I know.
I wonder who it was that taught me that wholehearted displays of emotion were not socially acceptable.
He's wrong in one respect, though; I don't hide my inner self out of shame. I don't feel that my emotional animal is wrong, a perversion, something that is ugly or disgusting enough that it needs to be hidden by default. I'm not ashamed of it. I accept that it is part of who I am, and a necessary (even delightful) part of my psyche. The few times I've consciously locked it away felt wrong, unnerving. I want it to be there, and when we're not wrestling for control, I enjoy what it gives me.
I hide it away because I'm afraid. Sometimes afraid of it, but the rest of the time because I'm afraid for it. Other people do not always understand, and my early childhood taught me that being misunderstood led to pain. My young and vulnerable self got hurt in very tender places, before I grew any emotional armor, before I constructed the cage which was as much for protection as restraint. Even now, my animal hides behind my rational self and the masks I've constructed to fit in, to escape notice, to pass. When I was picked on as a kid, the best defense was to not do anything to attract attention, because attention led to ridicule and pain. For a long time I was wary of recognition for my talents, even though I craved approval; I distinctly recall a couple of times when being singled out for praise made me a target.
And that is why I cry when Akien compliments me... I have been taught to deflect admiration out of self-defense, so accepting it means I have to drop my guard and become vulnerable, and that scares me. I also cry out of relief that I've found a place where praise doesn't make me a target, where attention is not a double-edged sword; a place where the thing I've been hiding is accepted rather than met with wary apprehension. And again, I cry out of fear, because I'm afraid that this tantalizing vision of safety is an illusion, or a fleeting thing.
I think I need to gather together the memories of all the people who have betrayed my trust or abandoned me and do something with them, though I'm not quite sure what. I can feel that I'm carrying them around, though, my subconscious pulling them out as evidence of why I can't believe in safety or trust anyone, because I've been wrong before. I need to move past that.
I'm even afraid of losing the pain, because then I won't have any excuse to hide. Talk about mental habits.
Once I hit a critical point, it should all start unraveling pretty quickly; that's usually how these things go. I'll be a bit of a wreck for a period, and then there's the long process of adjustment, which is almost more stressful than anything else. Plus rebuilding, which should go more easily with help.
I'm realizing, during all this, exactly how much Elise resembles my inner self; I've never identified with her particularly on the outside, and her reactions and background are definitely different from mine, but suddenly the cycle of misunderstanding and betrayal she was stuck in most of her life -- not to mention being outcast and despised even by her own kind -- makes a whole lot more sense. I created her in middle school, but it's only now that I'm beginning to understand why. And I have the sudden urge to complete the Nethes storyline, because it echoes my own experience right now to an eerie degree. I guess, if I'm going to live my own plotlines, one with a happy ending is preferable...
no subject
Date: 2014-11-07 18:12 (UTC)My definition of "shame"
My inner Michael
Generally, I agree about how this will progress. And about the mental habits you're identifying. So the amount of ground you've covered in the last couple of weeks took me about 5 years. I told you this would go better with someone who's been through it to help. ;)
I really liked your distinction about being afraid for that part of you. That was cool.