Stifled

I've had a surprising emotional confrontation lately, with myself, and X has been helping me to figure some things out.  Basically, something I have thought for sixteen years was a non-issue has cropped up recently, causing me a lot more angst than a non-issue should, and I've been grappling with (a) why it should be making a nuisance of itself so unexpectedly, and (b) how to deal with it at all.  After something like a week and a half of staring at this thing almost like I've been staring helpless at my novel, feeling dumb as to what I am supposed to do, X reminded me of a couple of things the problem is NOT.  He got me bonking my head on a particular piece of brick wall, and lo and behold a few thoughts came out.

There've been a few thoughts of my own, to be sure.  Some of the feminist posting this weekend was born of the mindset all this has put me into, and I have had a couple of random conversations which have me thinking, too, about the nature of openmindedness and personal autonomy.

Personal autonomy appears to be lying, rather quietly coiled, at the bottom of this thing with me lately.


It has been, for some years now, a matter of policy for me to minimize the dramatics of my life.  This grew centrally out of a marriage in which I was utterly immature, completely self-centered, and frankly just mean in a way so obvious even I could see what a nasty piece of work I was becoming.  Perhaps ironically, and almost certainly cruelly, it seemed to me necessary to dissolve the marriage in order to put myself in the position to grow - and I think that has been the right choice for me, but it was still a bit of a presumption upon the life of my ex-spouse.  An act of selfishness, to overcome selfishness.

To some degree, I've been able to compose a story about some level of growth, out of all this, and as far as I am able, I do work to live up to the narrative I like to believe (and tell) about myself.  Certainly, I'm not the flailing wreck I was back then.  Still, like everyone, there's always room for improvement.


One of the major focal points of the past fifteen years or so has been to discount the premium I place upon myself.  It requires a certain amount of honesty, a certain amount of simple self-denial, and I've taken perhaps inordinate secret pride in my ability to put things first, other than myself.

Women are raised, indeed, to do this.  Some internalize a service ethic so extreme they forget they exist at all, and live lives of generated-generosity which it is possible to view as either admirably altruistic, or extreme and martyred.  I maintain a healthy dubiousness regarding motivations for what is often defined as generosity, and am pretty strict in my judgment regarding anything I may do which could be seen as being "giving".  I know my motives, and I know what lies at the core of those things people tell me are so great, that I do.  I am grateful not to be the wench I used to be, but minimize the illusion I'm exceptionally nice, too.

But there's another thing women do, and that is wink at certain things.  We don't make a big deal about being heard, all the time.  Sometimes, we don't make a big deal about being misunderstood.  We're conditioned into competition with each other.  We're trained in passive aggression.  And victimhood is a part of the curriculum, for every little girl in our society, in our culture.

For a certain segment, the mindset of victimhood is strongly adopted - leading to either the martyrdom I was mentioning above, or to a sense of entitlement accompanied by the soundtrack of drama.  For others, the requirement to repel victimhood is so strong THAT becomes a raison d'etre, and we become so *above* those things we consider remotely victim-ish there can be gratitude for deliverance, and even, sometimes, a tendency to become a bit "above" anyone who "allows" herself to be a victim.  Even pity can express this assumed superiority.

And I think there's an extent to which ... this is my problem.

I have been so loath to "claim" victimhood - "there are so many people who have had it so much worse than I" - that I've shut my eyes, I think, to certain injustices in my life.

This isn't new.  All this thinking, of late, about these things has led to a positive assault of memories, dating back to pretty early youth, I know are worse than I "let" them be.

It's not that I feel some sudden need to sing a song of sorrow, and transform myself from the confident semi grownup I have become.  But I want to give voice, now, to those things I never peeped about before.

To every much-older-than-I-was man who told me as a very young girl that I "needed to smile" - as if my emotional state were nothing more than window-dressing to more attractively decorate his life.  This started at age ten or so.

To the older boys at the party at my cousin's house, who knew I was very young, and who knew my cousin was passed out drunk, who beat on her bedroom door for hours, expecting ... satisfaction.  From an utterly terrified little girl.  And an unconscious one.

To that one frat boy.

To all the other frat boys, who once said of me (a sexual innocent at the time), "Oh, dude, you were alone with Diane, and you didn't nail her?"

To the one who took advantage.

Even to the other one who gained advantage, but whose "fault" I swore from the moment it happened, it was not.

To the ones who scream "whore" at any woman who WON'T service them simply because they shouted out a car window.

To the ones shouting "I need some P****" all night long, the night before graduation.  And gave my mother an all-too-explicit understanding of why I had NOT dated the college boys she'd always been a bit disappointed I spurned, in favor of the townie she in fact came to like very much, when I married him.

To the one who ... left notes on my car.

To that guy in commuter traffic between Dayton and Columbus, in 1991, with the porn magazine prominently held high up, on his steering wheel, so people would be sure to be able to see it.

To the guy who slipped something in my drink - and still failed to make time with me.

To the one who approached me IN MY OFFICE (that night a bit over a year ago, when he thought we were alone in the cube farm), gave me a CHERRY STEM, and said, "NO HANDS" - and I did not instantly go get the guy terminated.  Who, I know, has disconcerted other women too, including a building employee I've seen shudder visibly in his presence.

*Sigh*  And, yeah - the (female) manager, who dismissed that behavior.

To the one who came at me in the hallway with, "I have to say something" and I failed to respond, "No.  You really do not."  (And who then thought that apparently my non-married status meant I surely I must be obligated to date him.)


***


I have always had a facility for adapting, for making the best of situations.  In my professional life, this makes me an asset, but did also lead me into two years with a company which had no use for me, and a job I despised more than I could stand to admit.  In my personal life, certainly there are those who think I 'settle' too easily.

We'll leave that assessment aside (I do still give myself pretty outsized credit for being smarter than my loved ones like to think).


I am not known for my silence.

My ex used to call me a dainty, demure flower as a joke.  The personality on me is as pungent as it comes.  It's fairly bizarre for me to discover the array and breadth of times I have muzzled myself, sometimes perhaps even dangerously.  I've had cognitive dissonance for a week now, coming to terms with this.

I haven't come to terms with this.  (Thank goodness for X, though - at least I have been able to talk it through, to this point, where at least I have some comprehension of it.)

At least I've reached the point where I can at least express some coherent frustration.  It may be whinging to the world.  But it's progress, for me.