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It's probably a big old sign of neurosis to take pleasure in being told you look terrible. One evening a few months ago, as I sat next to Eprime in the backseat of A's car (A being C-the-G&S-singing-housemate's girlfriend) slowing chewing wheat thins in an attempt to stave off nausea, A (who had earlier described Eprime and me as 'the walking wounded') remarked that we looked like death eating crackers. That gave me a glow.
It gave me a glow because I am so used to people not being able to tell when I'm feeling sick, down, or otherwise rotten. It's not so much that people don't pay attention to me as I have trained myself to be very good at disguising my feelings. Negative feelings are dangerous - I don't like them in myself, and I don't expect other people to tolerate them in me, so I hide them. It's safer. Of course, it also walls me off from people with big blocks of distance, distrust, and plain old lies. I'm trying to change, to not automatically conceal everything, to give myself the option of saying 'I feel bad,' but it's hard to undo the years of conditioning. And it's all tied up in tangled nets of inferiority and depression and plain old yuck - broken records in my head saying "People aren't going to want to be around you if you're unhappy. Some people are special enough for others to put up with their negative emotions, but you're not one of them. You've got to make yourself acceptable. You've got to not ask so much. You've got to behave" when 'behave' means be even-keeled and unfailingly pleasant, supportive, interested in others, never tiresomely self-occupied, never demanding, never needy. Failing actually feeling those things, faking it is necessary.
So I worked really hard on faking it. And because I'm a reasonably good amateur actor, I've gotten good at it. I couldn't always fool my parents, when I was living at home, or Eprime when we lived together. But now I can fool all of the people 97% of the time. I can sit eighteen inches away from Eprime and be three words from having the tears racing down my face, and she doesn't know. And won't, unless I decide to say the words that will loose the tears. The same with my parents.
I remember sitting on Eprime's bed when we were seniors in college, and hadn't seen each other for several days. "Tuesday was really bad," I said. "You didn't call?" she asked, sounding confused and a bit... hurt, even? And I was stunned to silence at the thought. Why would I ever do that? My bad day is not important enough to call you about. And all the times I went to her room because I felt terrible, and left without telling her why I'd come because I couldn't get up the courage to admit it.
In technical terms, this might be described as binding and gagging oneself and then doing a Bess-the-landlord's-daughter kind of manuever to shoot oneself in the foot.
It gave me a glow because I am so used to people not being able to tell when I'm feeling sick, down, or otherwise rotten. It's not so much that people don't pay attention to me as I have trained myself to be very good at disguising my feelings. Negative feelings are dangerous - I don't like them in myself, and I don't expect other people to tolerate them in me, so I hide them. It's safer. Of course, it also walls me off from people with big blocks of distance, distrust, and plain old lies. I'm trying to change, to not automatically conceal everything, to give myself the option of saying 'I feel bad,' but it's hard to undo the years of conditioning. And it's all tied up in tangled nets of inferiority and depression and plain old yuck - broken records in my head saying "People aren't going to want to be around you if you're unhappy. Some people are special enough for others to put up with their negative emotions, but you're not one of them. You've got to make yourself acceptable. You've got to not ask so much. You've got to behave" when 'behave' means be even-keeled and unfailingly pleasant, supportive, interested in others, never tiresomely self-occupied, never demanding, never needy. Failing actually feeling those things, faking it is necessary.
So I worked really hard on faking it. And because I'm a reasonably good amateur actor, I've gotten good at it. I couldn't always fool my parents, when I was living at home, or Eprime when we lived together. But now I can fool all of the people 97% of the time. I can sit eighteen inches away from Eprime and be three words from having the tears racing down my face, and she doesn't know. And won't, unless I decide to say the words that will loose the tears. The same with my parents.
I remember sitting on Eprime's bed when we were seniors in college, and hadn't seen each other for several days. "Tuesday was really bad," I said. "You didn't call?" she asked, sounding confused and a bit... hurt, even? And I was stunned to silence at the thought. Why would I ever do that? My bad day is not important enough to call you about. And all the times I went to her room because I felt terrible, and left without telling her why I'd come because I couldn't get up the courage to admit it.
In technical terms, this might be described as binding and gagging oneself and then doing a Bess-the-landlord's-daughter kind of manuever to shoot oneself in the foot.
