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Oct. 7th, 2010 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moominmollySo, I saw people linking to this essay on Single Dad Laughing about bullying, Memoirs of a Bullied Kid. Which led me to You just broke your child. Congratulations., which in turn led me to this post, which is the point of MY post: The Disease Called "Perfection".
His basic idea is that when nobody is willing to talk about the things that are hard in their lives, we all suffer, because we believe everybody else has it made -- they never feel self-loathing, they never fail to do the dishes three days in a row, they never feel lonely or fucked-up or inadequate. And so we don't want to admit to being the only weak person, the only one struggling, which, in turn, just makes the struggle harder.
This feels simultaneously so true and so hard for me. I often choose to think about the good things in my life and focus on those. I usually only post here to be silly or share interesting things; my deepest and hardest trials almost never show up. I'm sure this makes me look a lot more stable and sane than I really am. But part of it is an act of willpower, too: isn't it better to focus on the awesome things, and live in those? I don't ignore the difficult parts of my life, but nor do I dissect them in public. Isn't that good?
Well -- maybe it is. But maybe it only is up to a certain point.
In that post and its followup, Single Dad Laughing encourages people to bring up their difficult and messy parts. I'd like to do this: post some stuff I'm ashamed of in myself, or things I hate, or just... maybe, things you didn't know were messed up inside me but really, they really are. If you feel up to it, post one or two yourself, either anonymously or with your name attached. Maybe he's right - maybe we will all feel less alone.
There. I know those aren't actually deep dark secrets, but each of those things is something I've actively suppressed posting about in the past few weeks because it might look bad, or give people the wrong impression about me somehow. I'm generally pretty positive and happy about myself and my life, but I also spend time feeling crappy and disliking myself for one reason or another.
But, actually, writing them down felt good. There it is: I'm not perfect. I'm pretty up front about some of the ways I'm imperfect (I'm flaky, I'm messy, I'm impossible to schedule with), but I don't spend a lot of time talking about how hard it is to put away my clothes or how sometimes I have angry flashes of self-loathing when my pants don't button or my belly pooches out over the top. Or how some days, I love my kid but I just don't want to be a parent that day, at all.
I love the world, and I love all of you in it, my crazy friends, in all your glorious imperfections. Seeing the things people have dealt with in their lives, the things they still deal with every day - I am in awe of you. I am also impressed by every single one of you (and there are many) who are able to live their trials and hardships out loud. Thank you for sharing them with me. Every one makes it easier for me to live in this world as the flawed, imperfect human that I am.
His basic idea is that when nobody is willing to talk about the things that are hard in their lives, we all suffer, because we believe everybody else has it made -- they never feel self-loathing, they never fail to do the dishes three days in a row, they never feel lonely or fucked-up or inadequate. And so we don't want to admit to being the only weak person, the only one struggling, which, in turn, just makes the struggle harder.
This feels simultaneously so true and so hard for me. I often choose to think about the good things in my life and focus on those. I usually only post here to be silly or share interesting things; my deepest and hardest trials almost never show up. I'm sure this makes me look a lot more stable and sane than I really am. But part of it is an act of willpower, too: isn't it better to focus on the awesome things, and live in those? I don't ignore the difficult parts of my life, but nor do I dissect them in public. Isn't that good?
Well -- maybe it is. But maybe it only is up to a certain point.
In that post and its followup, Single Dad Laughing encourages people to bring up their difficult and messy parts. I'd like to do this: post some stuff I'm ashamed of in myself, or things I hate, or just... maybe, things you didn't know were messed up inside me but really, they really are. If you feel up to it, post one or two yourself, either anonymously or with your name attached. Maybe he's right - maybe we will all feel less alone.
- I'm in more casual debt than I'd care to admit to. I used to be extremely good with money, but when we had Natalie, somehow I stopped keeping track as well as I used to. I'm being careful again now, but I am spending a LOT of time, money, and energy crawling out of a hole I am ashamed to have gotten myself into.
- Like many people I know, I loathed middle school. But I wasn't the bottom rung on the ladder - sure, I was a total outcast, and sure, one day all of my best friends decided to hate me, but somehow that didn't stop me from laughing at the tiered leather skirt that Valerie Palmer proudly wore on the first day of eighth grade, which I never saw again because I'm pretty sure she left school crying that day. I hope to god I don't ever do that as a grownup.
- I sometimes raise my voice in anger at my kid. Not a lot. But... I always try to calm down and talk about it later, and apologize for being out of line, but still: I YELL AT MY KID. Every time I do it, I'm pretty sure it's the worst thing I've ever done.
- Sometimes I can't stand being ON. I enjoy being a dynamic person, but sometimes I just can't face the idea of getting up the energy to be me, so I lie in bed and feel bad about that. Then I get grouchy and snappy. Sometimes I just sit and do nothing at all, rather than enter a social situation - sit in my car, sit in my bedroom, just sit and wait.
- I probably envy more of you folks than you know, for tiny things or huge things, for contradictory things.
There. I know those aren't actually deep dark secrets, but each of those things is something I've actively suppressed posting about in the past few weeks because it might look bad, or give people the wrong impression about me somehow. I'm generally pretty positive and happy about myself and my life, but I also spend time feeling crappy and disliking myself for one reason or another.
But, actually, writing them down felt good. There it is: I'm not perfect. I'm pretty up front about some of the ways I'm imperfect (I'm flaky, I'm messy, I'm impossible to schedule with), but I don't spend a lot of time talking about how hard it is to put away my clothes or how sometimes I have angry flashes of self-loathing when my pants don't button or my belly pooches out over the top. Or how some days, I love my kid but I just don't want to be a parent that day, at all.
I love the world, and I love all of you in it, my crazy friends, in all your glorious imperfections. Seeing the things people have dealt with in their lives, the things they still deal with every day - I am in awe of you. I am also impressed by every single one of you (and there are many) who are able to live their trials and hardships out loud. Thank you for sharing them with me. Every one makes it easier for me to live in this world as the flawed, imperfect human that I am.
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Date: 2010-10-07 10:49 pm (UTC)But I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of flaws that I don't already assume people ascribe to me. This may be a total lack of self-knowledge.
I used to joke about how bad I was at my (previous) job, but seriously, I think I was really bad. I am not somebody you want monitoring your backup server, or watering your plants, or anything else that has to be done every single day and yet doesn't immediately look like a problem when it's neglected (until suddenly it is).
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Date: 2010-10-08 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-09 08:27 pm (UTC)