Inhuman Need

Watched American Gods. Orlando Bloom gives a slavery microwave speech that’s real good. He’s seen my rage. I am not starting a war I am reminding you that we’re in one, and that I need your help to end it. And Crispin Glover is delicious. He looks like he’s dying and speaks like a comic book character. God damn.

Went out to lunch and around downtown with Shanda. Medium good time. Lots of schedule nerves and shopping anxiety from Shanda, and a little crowded for me to last long. But I did get a couple good things. And browsed a makeup store to see what sort of things exist. And lunch was real good; had a cassoulet and some wine.

It was windy today. Very for Seattle. Medium for Iowa. Brought in some cold air which made the day nice. I always like the wind, if I’m dry, and today it threw around my earring which was extra fun. But it did make it quite dark tonight – with reliable overcast and lots of ground lighting it’s rarely dark in Seattle. Tonight it’s clear and dry, all the way to space, and so it’s darker than most nights, and with a larger temperature dip after sundown. Exactly the sort of weather I hope for.

Dog has decided that me having food is a reason to bark continously. Not Shanda, just me. It’s weird. He will pay attention to other requests while it happens – you can get him to move or sit or go to another room but it only stops the barking for a second. He maybe doesn’t like me eating pineapple? It’s unclear but it’s gonna have to stop real soon.

Did LI today in therapy. For sort of imaginary infant me. Obviously it’s not drawing on genuine narrative memory, but the idea is the same – to think about how young you felt and to observe more objectively what should have been happening as current you.

This is tricky for me though, in a way that other versions are not. For one thing I’m not super sure how I survived. I know narc neglect is lowered for infants because they’re more easily seen as part of the narc. And I’m sure there was lots of social pressure or perceived pressure at least. But still it feels like probably a time when I was even les capable and had even higher needs, and so I probably suffered a lot.

It’s hard for me imagine what might have made me safe. My default reaction when I imagine finding infant me unsecured on Mother’s couch is to hide him. To get him onto the floor so he won’t fall and maybe tucked in between a piece of furniture and the wall so he won’t be stepped on. To stare at him until he can be quiet so he doesn’t attract too much attention. But really what I want to do is grab him and escape. If I imagine picking him up it’s sort of all I can think of – running away and never looking back.

Which is sort of my whole life. Only 90 minutes until the next train to Canada.

But even that doesn’t really work. I feel so incapable of protecting a young person. Not in a day to day sort of way – I can definitely handle physically caring for an infant. I did it before when I was much less capable. I did it by stealth and cunning in an environment that punished me for trying. Hence the desire to hide it and quiet it, because for some reason I was in charge of hiding an infant from the Nazi in my house.

But I don’t know how to keep infant me safe from Nazis, or all the other dreadful forms of systematic oppression in our world. I couldn’t the last 3 times I tried. Not for me or my siblings. I knew it was going to happen and all I could do was try to prepare for it. Try to deflect or hide or escape. Try to absorb as much as I could, to keep it off them, even though it was already too much for me.

And I still feel like that today. I can’t protect myself or anyone else from all sorts of things that are both traumatic and inevitable. I’m still desperately worried that the system will kill me give the chance. Or one of you. I still don’t know how to be safe myself, let alone to keep anyone else safe.

Which I suppose is the point. That I feel unsafe all the time and that I feel responsible not only for 100% of my safety but for everyone else’s as well. Even though I am only barely qualified to provide survival safety, let alone protection from the parts of the world that are trying to kill us incrementally.

We also talked for a minute about the concept of need, and how I don’t imagine I’m allowed any. I feel very capable of keeping myself from staving to death or freezing to death or bleeding to death. I have lots of knowledge and experience and absolutely determination to let me do anything that is necessary to keep myself and the people around me breathing.

And beyond that I don’t feel entitled to anything. I don’t even feel entitled to survival but I have convinced myself that I can earn that much. That I can, until I’m too hurt or too beaten down or too unlucky, find ways to technically survive. Perhaps only by doing things that will poison my soul and break my body, but I can make it happen.

Past that it feels blank to me. Certainly there are things I would provide for other people to the extent that I can. I spend most of my waking hours trying to do just that. To ensure that no one ever has to make survival choices under any circumstances, and to provide whatever I can to be sure they can have as much safety and love beyond that as I can arrange.

But none of it is for me. It would be wasted on someone who had learned not to need things. Who couldn’t appreciate them even if he had them. Who doesn’t even really know what they are.

To wit, she offered to provide a list of human needs next time we meet. Which sounds useful. It won’t make me feel like any of them apply to me, but it might give me a starting place for an argument about the way that I’m not human and therefore these do not apply.

The pressure you feel from me seems so unjust sometimes. You’re sure that I’m stopping you from having what you really want or need. That I’m pushing you to do a thing you don’t want, or that you could have just by waiting. But I can’t even guess what you might want and am not pretending to. I’m reacting to what you show and ask for and trying to help keep you pointed at your own goal. I’m trying to get you to tell me what it is, so that I can help you have it. So that maybe I can learn what it is that real boys are supposed to want, and maybe learn to better emulate them myself someday. But like so many other things it hurts you to have me ask. You feel criticized and judged, like I’m using my expertise against you, when really I’m hoping that you’ll be able to teach me.

It can feel particularly hard for you when you aren’t sure what you want. When you have mixed feelings. When you feel incapable or trapped or helpless. When the only thing that feels safe is waiting for the world to get better while you hunker down and try to stay sane and alive. And maybe that is the only thing to do. Sometimes the world is intolerable and hiding is the only choice. But I know a lot about hiding. And I know a lot about feeling like you don’t know what could possibly make it better, because I feel like that all time. You don’t have to do either alone. I’m already doing them, and we could do them together.

I also know that waiting is hard. Whether or not you have a plan for things to be better in the future, waiting is the sort of thing that can pin your soul to the ground. Can weigh on you so heavily that everything starts to feel impossible. Can be so oppressive that only constant distraction and productivity can keep you from screaming. I do know a lot about making your stress feel 2 inches further away so you can have just a little space to run your life.

And I can, if you let me, slip into that space and help you push back against the relentless burden. We can stand together against the universe and figure out which way might move you both toward the surface, though the pressure and heat and endless supply of new stress. Sometimes I don’t know which way is out any more than you do, but I can at least hold your hand and make you some tea while we plan our next move. And sometime, because I’ve been down here so long and walked many paths, I do know the way toward someplace better, and have come to walk it with you. But you always get to decide which of those is true and have whichever you want, if only you’d agree that we are on the same side, that help might exist, and that you are allowed to have some if it does.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.