Linky
My blog is overwhelming me lately. Popularity + interaction with people + being challenged + muddling through structure on what was supposed to be structureless + the actual work of writing = abort/retry/fail.
All the trans arguments in the comments have really tipped me over some sort of edge for the moment. Everything’s kind of a mess internally, with philosophical/intellectual confusion and death-throes of privilege and introversion spread very thin and too much attention from too many people. And then on top of that is my own personal psychological backwash, which I have always known is there, but had had the convenience of avoiding for a while. I have serious social problems, people. I want to laugh laugh laugh anytime one of you is like, “I’d love to hang out with Harriet!”, because hanging out with me is usually A) me flaking out and you hanging out by yourself, or B) me staring unnervingly at you with a big rictus grin before I knock my cup of coffee over in a flutter of jarring hand gestures as I discuss something wildly fucking inappropriate, before giving out a deranged laugh and making an excuse for why I have to go home right now and never speak to you again. SERIOUSLY I AM LIKE THIS, YOU GUYS. Just ask my bear how many glasses I broke while he was courting me.
I have begun the lifelong process of making peace with my five thousand flaws, including my inability to act normal in public, and thus, my inability to make casual friends or do this weird thing called “hanging out.” At this point, “making peace” has involved not doing shit that stresses me out to Panic Attack Land, and accepting that that’s okay. Which means I don’t interact with people all that much, because I no longer force myself to because I MUST BE SOCIAL AND NORMAL I MUST I MUST I MUST. Which means I have forgotten some of the things that happen to me when I do interact with people.
When I made the decision to start accepting that maybe I am just not really good at the casual friendship thing (I seem to be okay at the deep lifelong commitment to your bestest friend in the world thing, but how often does that happen? I’ll let you know that it’s twice or thrice, by my count), that was just after my divorce, when I was extremely fragile and trying to get my feet under me. I just didn’t have the strength to endure the weird triggers that go off in my head during social interaction, so I removed social interaction and stopped beating myself up for it.
Now social interaction has been surprisingly thrust on me (surprising because I did not expect people to be finding my blog like this), and those weird triggers are going off. I’m not yet well enough to breeze over these problems with aplomb, but it appears I am well enough to recognize some of the deeper meanings behind these triggers. What I’ve figured out is:
- Social interactions with people are generally free form (unlike professional interactions), with no necessarily “right” answer, “right” way to behave, “right” things to say or do, and usually cannot be made to go better with preparation for the “right” things. I cannot research all the things friends might ask me about the way I can research statistics on productivity and be assured to perform adequately in a meeting. Though I did (really truly) used to try: I would scan blogs and newspaper articles for whatever the most popular issues were, read through comments, and get a general sense of what topics are being discussed and how to discuss them. Then I would go to a bar for a beer with a friend and parrot all that back, and blink in confusion and fear if they did something like ask, “So how’s your mother?” because I HAD NOT PREPARED THAT NOTECARD. Those were harrowing days.
- The reason this matters to me is because I am fucking terrified of doing the “wrong” thing, because
- In my experience of the world, people abuse you into the goddamn ground whenever you do the wrong thing, and
- This validates the fact that I deserve to be abused, because I cannot manage to do the “right” thing which would keep people from abusing me
It is a whole lot more complicated than that, but that’s the gist of what goes through my head when somebody is like, “Hey, maybe there’s a better way to put this?” OH MY GOD I DID SOMETHING WRONG I WILL NEVER BE FORGIVEN LASH OUT RUN AWAY wait don’t do that it’s ridiculous OH MY GOD I AM RIDICULOUS LASH OUT RUN AWAY I wasn’t saying you were ridiculous I was just saying this way that you act is ridiculous OH MY GOD I ACT WRONG LASH OUT RUN AWAY
The only solution I know of for this surge of triggers is lots of time and lots of quiet and lots of space. I also require a clamp on my mouth, because I am, if you have noticed, long-winded, and I get more so when feeling cornered. I can literally talk myself into almost anything, and if I let myself spin off at the mouth, I will say just about anything to defend myself, and then regret it later and feel like even more of a shithead. So I clamp shut, try to listen when others speak, DO NOT RESPOND, and let the rest of my time be filled with quiet and safety. Which is why the new comments policy, and which is why I have not yet sat down to write a blog entry about the trans stuff: I am pretty against Blogging While Triggered.
Anyway. In the midst of all this, I found somebody who linked to me recently, and I think she hit it on the head. I was impressed down to my little cotton socks; this, THIS is EXACTLY what is happening in my head. Fucking excellent.
Comments are closed.
Dear Harriet,
I’d love to hang out with Harriet, except I sort of prefer to be entirely by myself 80% of the time.
Hmm.
I’d love to play a text-based RPG with Harriet once a week! Wooo! Hardcore social time!
/silliness
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Wow…you described me. I shy away from people because I have ADHD-I. I can’t concentrate on conversations in loud environments, I’m terrified of conversations going wrong and my terror MAKES them go wrong, I don’t read social cues very well, and I’m always making inappropriate comments. As a result, I have few close friends and dread meeting anyone I know in public
The joys. I find it can certainly be freeing, though, when you accept that you are never going to like those socially carefree, extroverted people, stop beating yourself up and just begin to embrace the “socially awkward wierdo” experience. Us socially awkward people are certainly not alone.
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*should be “never going to BE like”
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Harriet, I’m sorry that being thrust into the blogosphere spotlight has resulted in headaches for you.
I giggled when I read about what hanging out with you is like. It made me picture you and me sitting at separate cafe tables in separate cafes, able to wave at each other through the windows and then go back to our laptops and our books.
You are Blog Famous because you are a writer with a masterful command of language and a compelling, honest story to tell. Coming from a creative writing/film background, the way to tell a story that people can relate to in a “universal” sort of way is to be truthful, specific, and detailed about your own experiences.
I’ve been guilty of saying “Thanks for writing this so I don’t have to” on some of your posts about violence and maybe that was the wrong kind of compliment to give, because you don’t have to speak for me or write for me or do anything for me. You telling your own story and expressing your own thoughts in your own way at your own pace is enough, and you don’t owe anyone anything. You could turn commenting off tomorrow and I would still read. I wish you peace and quiet and more good writing.
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Oh, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to say. There are contexts where it really creeps me out the door, but the blog hasn’t really been one of them. It’s just a statement that seems to come with an expectation that I will continue to say the right things at the right times in the right ways. And then I sit down and realize that that expectation is coming from me and nobody else, and I sit in bewildered wonderment for a while that I still, deep down, feel an obligation to do the right things at the right times in the right ways, for complete strangers, no less.
It’s awfully humbling and incredibly frustrating to realize I still feel a driving need to cater to the world outside the end of my nose, and all it takes is one offhand and totally genuine compliment to trigger that impulse so super hard. I mean, if you were all real people, I would have come over to your houses, cleaned them, called your mother for you, and baked three cakes you didn’t want. And for those of you that I don’t like, I would have baked four cakes and bought you a present. Even after a few years in Howard Hughes-like isolation, my need to be liked is still that crushing. I’m lucky this is the internet and the worst I can do is write heinously long comments after I promised myself I wouldn’t.
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Harriet,
What JenniferP says, Yes. Please, turn off the damn comments. We, all, just want to read your posts. We don’t need to be crossing your social boundaries, and fucking up your life, cutting in to your underpants time. Some of us have done that through emergency ‘help me’ emails, and dissecting comments.
Just keep doing what you started to do: “This blog was started, specifically, so I had a place to wade through my thoughts without having to worry about who was reading and what they were thinking”.
I hope you keep posting because if you do, know that we will come, and we’ll be happy with being faceless, nameless, and voiceless readers/friends. Why, because what you have to say leaves us awestruck at your prose: leaves us wanting to read your posts multiple times because there’s just so much there that resonates everywhere.
Hope you feel less stressed, and take some positive action to keep your boundaries intact.
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Must resist ingrained tendency to turn this into one of my trademark awkward thank-yous that attempts to convey my thrilledness at having written something you deemed “fucking excellent” but really winds up being a massive overshare about how much I love your writing and how graceless I am at taking compliments and oh my God, the people-pleasing stuff, do not even start me. although you should know that if your toilet needs cleaning I would be very much up for doing that! Really! It’s no bother!
Wait, where are you going?
[deep breath]
Thank you. Wishing you much happy unfettered underpants time.
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JenniferP, this is lovely: It made me picture you and me sitting at separate cafe tables in separate cafes, able to wave at each other through the windows and then go back to our laptops and our books.
Harriet, I hate that interaction takes away what this space is meant to do for you.
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Aw. My mom-self wants to hug you for days. The rest of my introverted self knows that the last thing you need when you’re already oversocialized is someone getting all in your space, so. More tea! Or booze. Maybe that would be better at this point.
Nobody is perfect. Nobody in the history of the world has ever been perfect. Expecting perfection from anyone, including yourself, is not rational. You don’t need to try to comply with insane pressure to be perfect. I know you know this, but you also spent most of your life under that irrational pressure, and it can’t be as easy to counteract as that, so here’s another drop in the ocean. You’re not perfect, Harriet, and neither am I, neither are any of your other commenters, readers, fans, critics, strangers who’ve never heard of you, anyone. It’s really OK.
You are, however, a good person, and that’s obviously very important to you. That’s where the comments pointing out exclusionary language come from, I think – nobody reading this blog could seriously think you mean to be exclusionary, so it seems polite to point it out when it happens.
I tripped over that language a bit myself (“hey, I know women without vaginas…”) but accepted it as metaphorical truth (trans-women are rape-able cunts as much as any cis-woman, judging by how frequently they are targets of violence, sexual and otherwise – and wow, am I uncomfortable using such ugly language and imagery *cringes*). I know it’s my privilege as a cis-woman that allowed me to deal with it and move on that quickly, though, so I’m glad – for my sake, not yours – that those comments were left.
Anyway, I want to thank you for writing all these thoughts of yours down and sharing them with the world. This blog has really helped me examine my own behaviors and assumptions, and I think I’m a better person for it. That is quite a gift to give to people you don’t know, and way more than any of us have a right to. Thank you.
<3
ps Will you come clean my house now?
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Harriet. Thank you for every word you’ve written, and for speaking up and speaking loud.
My 20 year old daughter recently (3 weeks ago) was assaulted. She was at the apartment of someone she trusted, got drunk, passed out, and woke up to — well, hell.
She got to a friend’s apartment, and they helped her call the police. The police have been universally kind and helpful; they got her to a victim’s advocate, who will be helping her get counselling. She is at UC Davis (California), where there is a large and active feminist presence, so there’s that support as well.
While horrible things are still happening, and sometimes being handled in horrible ways, there is hope on the horizon. What is going on inside my daughter’s head is symptomatic of a larger attitude in society. She is surrounded by friends (male and female) who are *all* telling her that she is NOT at fault, and that they love and support her. Her brain is telling her something else.
This is a girl who is the apple of our eyes. Her father and i have a loving relationship (not perfect, but loving), and have always tried to treat her fairly and with love and support. We’re not perfect, but my parenting included my own mother’s reaction to my rape (at 26, before I met my husband) – to say that it was non-supportive would be to vastly overstate the love and care she displayed.
I haven’t heard all the details — I’m letting her take it at her own pace, and she is opening up slowly. She’s got a load of self-blame and shame, even through the love and support around her. I just wish I knew how to make her feel safe again. I wish I could take all the hurt away, and I definitely wish I could do any number of carefully thought out and creatively horrible things to the creature who created this pain.
I’m writing this with (not the last of many) tears rolling down my face. We found out yesterday that, because the DA in that county doesn’t make deals, she will most likely have to appear at trial and confront this creature. I have no doubt that she will do what needs to be done. From day one, she has said that she will do whatever it takes to make sure he will be stopped.
The world is changing, but not fast enough. Thank you for working to keep the issue alive and in front of the public eye.
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I’m so sorry to hear about this. There are days when I look at the comments on my blog and I think, how heartening, how inspiring, I am not alone in this. And other days when I think, how horrible, how depraved. I’m not alone in this.
I felt the same way reading about how you are trying to support your daughter. How heartening, how inspiring, that she has a mother who understands what she is going through. And how horrible, how depraved, that she has a mother who understands what she is going through.
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Salome: Your comment hurts my heart. Your daughter is very lucky to have such a kind and understanding mom, although Harriet is right–it’s very sad that you now share this awful experience.
I want to say, though, that your daughter is very brave. I certainly wasn’t able to file a complaint against my attacker, but I understand now how important this is. Harriet has shared a lot of great ideas about how we can tell people that rape is not okay: telling jokes about rape is not okay, casually talking about abuse of women is not okay, being friends with a rapist is not okay. Filing a complaint sends the same clear message: NOT OKAY. But it’s difficult, and the survivor feels alone and violated all over again, and your daughter is very strong to stand up for herself.
The other thing is: That the police have been kind and helpful is AMAZING. Good job, Davis PD. I haven’t been a rape advocate for very long, but from what I’ve seen, your experience is very very rare. Astonishingly rare. Painfully rare. I’m happy that the police who worked with your daughter didn’t add to your family’s pain. Good luck to you and your daughter.
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Hi! I don’t mean to add to the overwhelming presence here at your blog, I just wanted to stop in and commend you for everything you have done and written. I found your blog through a friend, and we both are involved in feminist research in psychology (i.e., understanding women, the various gender-normative rules they function under in this oppressive social system, fighting for mental health rights and mental health stigma, etc.). Anyway, just wanted to tell you that I think your talented writing is inspiring many people and stories. Ok, the end! Backing away now. So long!
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