Another facet of Users, Usees, and the Truth

I was looking over the comments that people made on my recent carpool posts. I had to smile at the 'emperor's-new-clothes' congruency: as I tiptoed cautiously around the term, hesitated to apply it, and even blamed myself for it, the commenters pointed out the obvious: "Users!" I was busy examining the DNA of the feathers (so there'd be no mistake) to confirm that it was, indeed, a duck while you were all calling it what it was: "Duck!"

This realization was further confirmed when I was talking with a social worker friend of mine. Here I thought I'd been having this private experience of angst, and it turns out that it's so widespread there's a name for it. Well, I don't remember the name for it, but it falls into a classification of 'personality disorder'; and, one of the signs that I'm dealing with someone with a personality disorder is that very feeling of revulsion (ick) I was feeling.

It's curious to consider that an internal experience I have in response to another person might be a clue about them.

I suppose what felt icky was the fundamental untruth in regards to the nature of the thing. They were treating their request(s) as if it(they) came from a context of us being equal participants in a reciprocal relationship. For me to accede to their expanding requests meant to lie about what was really going on. To be in alignment with Truth, there would have had to have been a mutual acknowledgment, initiated by them, that they were asking me to put my needs and priorities behind theirs. In the absence of such candor I was being asked in effect to lie.

Now what's interesting to me is the anguish this caused me, faced with the prospect of telling the truth and setting the record straight, or going along with the fiction. What on earth was generating that electrical shock feeling that deterred me from seeing the situation as it was--and in fact feeling as if it was a flaw in me that I would have feelings that were telling me I was being used?

Apparently it's been very important to allow myself to be used, and to suppress any contrary feelings that surfaced as a result. It's actually been nearly second nature, as I look back over my life (through my written record of diaries) and find that I was ashamed when I had feelings objecting to contributing to the smooth running of somebody else's world. I truly thought the feelings meant something unworthy about me. Something would have to be wrong with me for accusing a family of using me when the 'evidence' seemed flimsy. I must be imagining it, or projecting something small in myself onto them. Or I must have invited it, somehow--maybe led them to believe that it was ok to ask...Why was it so much easier to blame myself than assign responsibility to the Other?

At any rate, naming reality was as painful, or maybe even a little more painful, than just doing as I was "asked" (in quotes because the implication was that 'No' was not an acceptable answer). It was excruciating to me to be in a situation where lying feels fundamentally wrong , but telling the truth was in effect an accusation. And one of the ways I coped was to be 'confused' about the truth--how can I say for sure that someone is seeing me only as a means to take care of their needs? How can I know that's true about them? And since chances are if it was true they'd never admit it, I never can know. And if I can't know, shouldn't I give them the benefit of the doubt? Maybe it's my feelings that are wrong.

The other day I came around to a way of looking at it that made confronting the truth less frightening for me--if I need to set boundaries it doesn't have to be a reflection of the other person's worth. And this is why it felt so uncomfortable, 'icky' to me to say no to Benjamin and have him protest that he wasn't 'trying to impose.' It was uncomfortable for me because it seemed like it was unacceptable for me to be seen as a person who was accusing him of imposing. It seemed I was impugning his worth.

Now I see that refusing to go along with a loaded situation that threatens feeling bad/icky as a consequence (punishment, deterrent) of refusal is reality clarification. It is saying, excuse me, but I am not an extension of your will. Furthermore it says, You are behaving as if I am an extension of your will and I beg to differ. I guess there's no other conclusion the 'User' can come to than that he/she has imposed.

And, I. Don't. Care.


Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

What I've come up with

I spent the morning thinking about 'icky'. And, I think, in a nutshell, it boils down to this:

There are people in this world with whom I feel a strong need to keep my boundaries explicitly clear.

This can be interpreted as my thinking something is 'wrong' with them, the other people. In fact, in white-bread culture there's an implicit rule against highlighting boundaries: the implication is that it's impolite. That it implies something negative about the other. That it will hurt someone's feelings. That it is selfish. ...This is probably the dynamic that runs the widespread and fabled reticence of saying 'no' to a request, at least in white American culture. There's a sort of phobia to being anything other than 'nice'.

There's a difference between feeling a need to delineate boundaries and a criticism or accusation of another. But sometimes that distinction gets blurred and it's hard to tell one from the other. Certainly it's not occurred to me before to interpret that feeling inside in that way, instead: I need to make my boundaries absolutely clear became I-don't-like that-person/something's-wrong-with-that-person (which in turn became something's-wrong-with-me-for-feeling-that-way). I've interpreted it before in terms of the 'worth' of the Other. To see it instead as a need for distinction puts it in terms of mySelf. This feeling is a fact; I can't deny that I have this feeling. This is about a personal internal experience which has little to do with another's intrinsic worth.

It's interesting that in the same way distinctions between the need to clarify boundaries and the worth of another become blurred, I think it's the sense of an impending boundary breach that activates the need to clarify. Most other people I know don't activate the need, but occasionally someone enters my life who does. Traditionally I've second-guessed that need and thought if I wanted daylight between myself and another that it was because there was something about them I didn't like and there must be something wrong with me for feeling that way. Maybe it meant I was mean-spirited. And I'd be troubled when the feeling persisted.

In a way I owe this family gratitude. It was through my ruminations about the escalations of their requests that I got the 'Yes/No' insight, which was big. This latest insight...might be huge.

Interesting

Today is Connor's 11th birthday.

His big gift was "Guitar Hero" for the Wii, which was his present last year. I can hear the strains of 'Slow Ride' from downstairs, and figure I'll probably be drafted into a 'guitar' battle before much time has passed. I actually did try it (to "Slow Ride", the easiest of the pieces) and felt almost as if I was pulled into a dance, or an amusement park ride. I felt like a rock star!

Today was also a day that Gary got a basal cell lesion excised from his cheek. He was gone a few hours this morning and came home sporting a rather bulky bandage on his face. By the time we were going to a local pizza party for a small family celebration Gary was fading a little, tuckered.

We met his mother there.

We had our meal and Connor opened his gift from her (he'd already wheedled us into letting him open his from us earlier in the day.) She realized when his gifts were open that she'd forgotten to take his picture. So she shot one and was getting into position to take one with Gary and Connor.

Gary said, "No pictures." (He tends to be self-conscious about blemishes on his face; asked me to be the one who went to the counter to do the ordering and such.) She said, "why not?" He said, "I don't want to be in any pictures." She said, "I'm going to shoot it from this side and your bandage won't even be in it." He said, "I just don't want to be in a picture."

She said, "It isn't for you. It's for me." She said, "Tough tarts." And, she took the picture. I could not believe it. She really believed that the fact that she wasn't going to give him the photo trumped his wish to not have a picture taken of him. I'll bet she doesn't believe there was anything at all wrong in what she did.

I suppose this sheds some light in what I've recently realized about Gary and differentiation.

Excuse me, I've got a guitar to play...