They’re All Gonna Laugh at You

One of the reasons people find me hard to tolerate is because I can see how they’re feeling, can read some of their motivations and guess others, and generally have trouble ignoring such information. I don’t understand the line you want to draw between what you feel and how you behave, or between what you know how to share and what you are actually sharing. It’s part of what makes me “too much”, it’s part of the pressure you feel, the way you see me relentlessly pushing at pieces you aren’t offering for notice, that you imagine as unrelated to your day to day life but that I see as fundamental to your being.

And you’re not wrong. I am doing something that isn’t part of other interactions. I am making connections that feel too close to your heart, that are new to you and that you aren’t prepared to have noticed, or so old that you imagine they no longer apply. Things you might know are there but that you feel are none of my business to notice or respond to even when I see them. That if only I wouldn’t draw arrows that point at your pain or your fear you wouldn’t have it, or would be able to better handle it. That it wouldn’t impact you if I didn’t go poking at it, and that you could save it for some indefinite future when it would be the right time to acknowledge.

I don’t want to distress you. I try very hard to respect your boundaries, to give you space and time for your own feelings, to choose the things you spend your spoons on. To only respond to things I can actually see and respect the secrets you try to keep. To share all my assumptions and intentions and fears so that I do not act in ways that are difficult for you to predict, or based on faulty information. But I also don’t know how to not notice your emotional state, or how to guess which pieces are safe for current discussion and which are supposed to be saved for the indefinite future. To draw the line between “safe” daily life and “dangerous” issues that you aren’t considering right now. Or to know when that future comes and when we can talk about it.

Sometimes you love me for knowing things you never said and responding to them anyway. For seeing past your sunglasses and sharing a thing that I can see is killing you. And sometimes you feel like I am always criticizing and pushing and forcing irrelevant emotional baggage into a part of life you try to keep separate from those things. You feel like I just won’t stop overwhelming you with things from the other side of your line, things that you are trying to keep from affecting you and that I just won’t let go. Things you are sure aren’t relevant right now and that I’m making stressful by injecting into your life.

But I’m not sure how to not see all of you. I don’t really understand why you don’t want me to notice some of the things you show me. And when you ask me to, when you tell me that my attention is too much, that it’s distressing for me to see past the curtain, it pushes that button that Mother built when I was punished for knowing what she felt.

I know that’s not what your hoping for. You’re entitled to your reaction to me, even if my own response to that is unfortunate. You’re allowed to have whatever space you need on any topic, whether or not I can see it. But I also would appreciate your sensitivity on the issue. To understand that I have been hurt so badly in this way that even minor exposure feels like deadly rejection. That my whole life has been hiding myself to protect people, and that I feel like a monster for noticing things that you don’t want me to see.

There’s a great scene in Russian Doll where mother behaves badly, gets what she wants but feels bad anyway, and is eventually calmed by her 11-year-old daughter. Once she’s clam though she’s still angry for having been upset, and she dispatches her daughter as a henchmen to enact pain, maybe even violence on the person she imagines is responsible for that feeling. Daughter not only has to manage mother’s emotions and be responsible for interacting with old people for mother, but also must choose to hurt others to keep mother satisfied afterward. And to lie about all of it. To keep it all seperate and to be loyal to the only person who loves her at all. Even if that love comes at a great cost it’s better than being alone. Than dying because everyone else loves you even less. The scene is great because it plays the henchmen bit so quietly against the literal fruit cart in the foreground. Without dialog or objection. It’s just what must be done to survive.

I got socks in December for many years. Into my time in undergrad. And then I stared getting other things. A scarf one year, and gloves another. Good pieces, either stylish or warm or sometimes both. Things I would have desperately wished for when I was younger, if wishing did anything other than foster disappointment. And suddenly I had them not only without years of planning but without even asking. I didn’t need them anymore; I had enough money to own winter clothes and I had long since trained myself not to care about being cold. Plus I had a place of my own and so I could be inside anytime I wanted to be. But still, it was nice to have the things. To imagine they maybe after decades of training I had made Mother one inch better and, while still abusive with gifts, she at least put effort into finding things that might be useful.

Some of that is true. Mother definitely did put more effort into gifts after I left, since it was part of the only interaction we had many years. And because it was a chance to demonstrate to others how she did her mother duty if care at me. But then I remembered how I had put years of work into this, once I knew exactly which “this” she was doing.

When I was in high school I got a black wool overcoat. It wasn’t quite as warm as a giant polyfill jacket but it was shin-length and warm even when wet and it made 3/4 of a blanket and, if you didn’t mind it looking bad, was tough as shit. And Mother responded to this costume. Bought me pieces to go with it so that I looked the part. I imagined the jacket as protection against homelessness and I wore it that way, only removing it when I was required to by authoritarian policy. But she saw it as me finally looking like a human, or at least like a humanoid shape she wanted to dress. And so she added pieces to the costume to make it look more like she wanted. To dress me up for her benefit, without ever imagining what I might want or need.

It’s disappointing to see how even things that could have been good were just lucky accidents as a result of narcissism. I’m glad there were a couple of years in there where I got things that were useful (before the corporate gift boxes started) but it’s hard to go from hoping that things might be getting better to knowing that if you had looked prettier Mother would have loved you enough to buy you a scarf. To see how, with her, everything is manipulation because she doesn’t know her own mind well enough to make real decisions, and anything you do can be pulled apart from your soul and used to please her.

One of the ways she thought I could be prettier was to be skinny. I was skinny, when I was young. I didn’t have enough food so there wasn’t really any other choice. She called me fat anyway, at times when she couldn’t seperate me from herself, or whenever I outgrew my clothes, or just as lazy insult. But I definitely wasn’t. Those tube socks had to be rolled so many times to fit – it’s one of the reasons I went with ankle socks later. And I think she liked me being skinny because it helped her imagine me not just as pretty but as young and feminine ¹Which was always a problem for her, the fact that I was designated male. She didn’t identify with masculinity in any positive way, and that made it harder for her to narc at me because I didn’t match. But she did see masculinity as authority – something she hates viscerally but also desires above all else – and she felt it her duty to … Continue reading. When she felt like I was pretty I got better clothes. Not clothes for daily use but clothes she could demand that I wear when it suited her, and clothes that mostly fit. Likewise when I wasn’t pretty enough I got worse treatment. Excluded from things that prettier people in my family did get, because I was “fat”. And it only got worse as I got older and better fed and more masculine looking. It eventually led to recurring sexual harassment and humiliation, and insistence that I change my body to stop insulting and degrading her. The only medical care I was ever offered was to change the way my face looked (mostly but not exclusively skin imperfections). Eventually I was fat enough that she didn’t want to use me as a target for those feelings. Distant enough that she didn’t often feel I was the same person as her. Masculine enough that she didn’t want me in her perception. Right up until she saw me as a coat rack and bought me a scarf.

M was abused today via the civil justice system. The way we let rich people with staff lawyers shove around individuals is bad enough, but the fact that it’s permissible – expected even – to construct intentional traumatic experiences for the purposes of negotiating a financial settlement is insane. I know rich people mostly don’t have to participate directly ²And when they do they often like the way they get to make the process social and petty and removed from any semblance of justice – it’s why they got involved., and so mostly don’t care, but it is a thing we could fix. We could disallow whole classes of claims and questions without prima facia evidence of relevance. We could narrowly examine relevance with with respect to likely outcomes. We could socially and professionally disavow the licensed professionals and officers of the court who create these scenarios. But we don’t. And so they’re allowed to attack you as a form of intimidation, about a topic that you’re not wrong to be sensitive about. I’m sorry the world allows you to be attacked like this. Know that it’s the world that’s wrong, and not you. That even though someone wants you to feel bad – is being paid to make you feel bad – you have nothing to be ashamed of. Even though I know your feelings are sure you do.

Cowboy popped up yesterday, with more context and discussion for your life. You’re in a tough spot, and convinced you must act independently. That only your actions are relevant and that you are incapable of doing anything that actually makes it better. But I know you’re not alone, and that there are options other than disengaging. I’m proud of you for the effort you’ve put into considering those possibilities.

Broke my glasses. First time with these hingless, rimless frames after at least half a decade of wear. Not quite broken but introduced a bend near the interface of the right temple and the lens and now they sit inside my eyelash interference range. I’ve got a backup pair that’s almost identical but it’s always weird switching to new glasses. And I think these aren’t UV reactive, though I haven’t actually been outside and remembered to check at the same time yet. I really love these frames for practical reasons but color does sound exciting. And I could probably own more than one of an item I usenall day every single day. So I’m going to take a minute to pick frames with a style other than invisible, though I haven’t convinced myself yet to buy any.

“I mean someday, maybe, I’ll have 15 minutes to go out with a nice guy like Steve. But not right now.” – Bob’s Burgers (Fox) S09E16 – Roamin’ Bob-iday. Burnout is a thing, even if you’ve learned to push through it. Even if you’re doing things you like. Even if you’re afraid of who you might be when you have a minute alone with yourself. Doing things that make you feel good is important, but so is feeling good when you’re not doing things. And none of it matters if you can’t find time to share with the people you love, because eventually nothing will be good enough to make up for losing them. It’s a pretty decent adaptation for a 22-minute prime-time broadcast TV episode.

High stress today in the household. Undirected anger that is ready to latch on to any point of conflict it hits at the right angle. Projection of feelings onto Dog. Accusations about the improper form of a discussion that was hardly organized enough to have a topic let alone a covert agenda. And feelings on four different sides of the same thing, all in the same stream of consciousness. It’s a tough day to be here, and I can’t seem to make it any better. I can’t even make it stop getting worse.

Fell while walking Dog. With new shoes even. No muscle or tendon damage but I gouged up one palm and embedded some debris, and busied the other one pretty decently. Should mostly be fine, though it will be hard to get the wounds clean enough to heal without at least some infection. And it will hurt to use the first joint on my right thumb for a while, until the skin on my palm is less inflamed.

Art art art art art,
ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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