Difference

More Readings in Masculinity

Stephanie Zvan

Something interesting happened just the other day. I wrote a blog post that wasn’t political and wasn’t commenting on blog drama somewhere else (not the weird part). It wasn’t Pharyngulated or linked to by half a dozen other bloggers (also not weird). But despite all this, my post on “safe” guys is one of my highest-traffic posts of all time and is 80 comments into a substantive discussion as I write this. Almost as many people have thanked me for it as thanked me for writing about waiting for biopsy results.

I think I touched a nerve. Or possibly two different sets of them, one male and one female. And confused a bunch of people who haven’t seen the behavior I described, but that part doesn’t matter as much.

In any case, I think there is probably a hunger for discussion of the experience of being male that doesn’t rely on either the typical stereotypes or the New Ageyness of drum circles and other gimmicks to overcome the taboos of just talking about this stuff. So I pulled together a few. But before I give them to you, enjoy a quick video.

This kid is eight, and he’s amazing (even if he hasn’t quite figured out how to hold his hands just yet). Of course, he’s amazing because he studies and spends his time practicing, which means the price of being amazing is being treated the way boys who dance are treated. Not by the girls alongside whom they learn to dance. The girls love them. But by everyone who doesn’t dance and doesn’t think boys should coexist in the same places as sequins.

Now, on with the links. First is [long string of superlatives elided for space] Greta Christina, writing about the “5 Stupid, Unfair and Sexist Things Expected of Men.” The five are worth reading, as is the discussion of the more minor sexist expectations that she didn’t include in this post. Here, however, I’d like to excerpt something a little different, her explanation of why she wrote the post in the first place.

I care about this stuff for a lot of reasons. I care because I have men and boys in my life, men and boys who matter to me: I see how they get twisted into knots by gender roles that are not only insanely rigid but impossibly contradictory, and it makes me sick and sad and seriously pissed off. I care because I care about justice: fair is fair, and I don’t want to solve the problem of gender inequality by making things suck worse for men.

And I care for entirely pragmatic, even Machiavellian reasons. I care because I care about feminism… and I think one of the best things we can do to advance feminism is to get more men on board. If we can convince more men that sexism screws up their lives, too — and that life shared with free and equal women is a whole lot more fun — we’re going to get a lot more men on our side. (Like the bumpersticker a friend once had on her truck: “Feminists Fuck Better.”)

What she said.

In some ways, it’s easier for women to write about these things than it is for men. Women don’t get accused of whining or not sucking it up. We don’t get told to grow testes–at least not on this subject. Still there are some guys who talk about it anyway. DuWayne Brayton, for one, writes from time to time, under various categories, about his experiences living outside standard male clothing and sexuality expectations. A short sample to tell you where he’s coming from:

She lived very close to the coffee shop and we were both really in the mood for a coffee, but of course my clothes were all in the laundry. She got this almost menacing grin on her face and said she could probably find something for me to put on (keeping in mind I was a sight bigger than she). She ran upstairs for a few minutes and came back down with clothes on, carrying a fucking hippie shirt and a bright yellow, long and light hippie skirt – also wearing a massive, shit-eating grin.

I shrugged, put it on and was forever hooked. It was the most comfortable thing I had ever worn. And when we strutted into the coffee shop, there wasn’t a single person in the place that failed to look. At least half the people there knew me and many of them weren’t even subtle about their disbelief (more than the skirt, most of them hadn’t seen me in over a year). To make matters more shocking, one of my closest friends ran up and gave me a hug, lifting me off the ground in the process. Then, a spur of the moment thing, he kissed me full on the lips – even slipped some tongue. We all sat down, Kaylee sitting close and doing naughty things under the table, when she whispered in my ear that I was causing her to get a lot of dirty looks from some of the women around us. Long story short, when we headed back to her place, a couple of girls went with us, along with my rather voraciously welcoming friend Chris. Fun was had by all.

In addition to his personal experiences, DuWayne writes well about the intersection of gender expectations and mental health.

Sex In The Public Square has a new blogger who is also writing about the masculine experience. (Interesting to note the intersection of writing about masculinity and writing about sex. Are the taboos surrounding masculinity strong enough that they’re only tackled by habitual taboo breakers?) Richard Newman only has a few posts up so far, but they are quite evocative.

My lover and I did not go out to dinner that night; we talked instead. She was the one person in my life with whom I had been, with whom I could be, completely honest, and so even though I wanted to, I did not know how to withhold from her what had been going on inside me. I told her what I had seen myself doing to her–though in less detail than I have described here–and how scared I was because I had no idea where the vision had come from, because it had never occurred to me that such violence might be in me; and I am, again, as I write this now, more than twenty five years later, as I am every time I tell this story, awestruck, literally awestruck, by the strength and compassion, by the depth and breadth of the love that my lover showed me that night. It is still hard for me to believe that she did not immediately leave for home when I told her what had been going on inside my head, that she was able to sit alone with me in my bedroom, knowing what I had seen, and feel safe talking with me–and I know she felt safe because she told me so–and we talked until I don’t remember what hour of the morning, but nothing we said brought me any closer to understanding what might have triggered the visions I had seen.

They are, in fact, what you’d expect from a man who turned to poetry after discovering that, while editors loved his book on the topic of masculinity, not a one of them thought they could sell it to their own publishing house, much less the public. Happily for us, he plans to excerpt the book at SitPS.

If you appreciate these, tell the authors.
Tell me too, and I’ll continue to look out for more good writing on the topic.

And finally, one more boy who dances and does it damned well (plus a thanks to Tammi, who pointed me to these videos).

More Readings in Masculinity
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For Juniper

Stephanie Zvan6 Comments

Depression is much like that abusive significant other. It’s always there, even after all your friends have gone home. It’s waiting for you after a day out or even the rare short vacation. And it never, ever stops lying to you*.

The lies are the worst part, the little whispers in your ear that tell you you’re nothing–not good enough, not loveable enough, not smart enough, not strong enough–not whatever it is you would need to be to get away. Because it doesn’t want you to get away. It doesn’t like it when you turn your back for even a second, when you’re happy for just a moment without it. It doesn’t like it when you realize that someone else wants you.

Depression is a jealous mate. It wants to possess every tiny bit of you, even if it has to kill you to be sure of you. It goes hardest after the people who love you and want to help you get away to someplace healthier. Sometimes it does it directly and sometimes by whispering more loudly. Sometimes both, because that weakens you more.

That’s why it hurts me as much as it does to see Juniper feeling alone and unable to cope. Those are lies–not Juniper’s lies, mind you, but the lies of her depression.

Juniper is one of the strongest people I know. She has to be. She’s never not had depression following her around, whispering in her ear, yet she’s accomplished so much. She’s carved out an existence independent of her family’s expectations. She’s achieved graduate school despite having to clean up the messes depression has left her. She’s traveled internationally, and not just to some cushy Caribbean resort. She’s shown flexibility, gathering accomplishments in both the humanities and in science. She’s developed a personal sense of style and taste that others look to. She’s written a blog that in a very short time built an audience that will wait months for her next post.

Those are just the few things I know about. They’re things to be proud of in anybody’s book, but to do them while managing the deep depression that Juniper is prone to is astounding. I haven’t done nearly as well, and I admire Juniper for this more than I can say.

Nor am I the only one. In addition to everything else, Juniper is one of those people whom others (except a few poisoned and poisonous internet trolls) quickly come to love. On top of all her accomplishments, Juniper is sweet and loyal and sharp and passionate. People sit up and take notice when she comes on the scene, and they keep an eye out for her when she hasn’t been around for a little while. Juniper is very much not alone, except by the machinations of jealous depression.

Just as it is only that ever-whispering, constantly belittling depression that keeps her from knowing all this on her own.

So, Juniper dear, please, no matter what the depression tells you, don’t ever think you’re weak and don’t ever think you’re alone. Those are lies, told not to protect you, but to isolate you. The truth is that you’re one of the strongest people I know. You’re simply preoccupied with this monster that’s determined not to set you free, and your particular monster is too much work for even the strongest person to handle.

The other happy truth is that there are plenty of us out here who want to help. We can’t make the depression go away. We can’t make it leave you alone. But we can, if you let us, take up some of the work of loving you and believing in you. We are not as strong as you are, and we may not be as accomplished, but this small thing is so much easier for us that we can do it while you continue your fight.

Please let us.

* Yes, I’m going to use dualistic language here. No, I do not believe in a dualist theory of mind. It’s a metaphor.

For Juniper

Whither Allies

Stephanie Zvan2 Comments

A repost, a companion to “What Is an Ally?”

I’m back from ScienceOnline09, with an inaccessible laptop hard drive holding all my notes, and I’ve gotten one mostly full night’s sleep in the last four. It would be wiser of me to hold off on blogging contentiously until I’m better rested. In fact, I have a ton of comments I’m dying to respond to. Instead, I’m writing this, and I ask a small amount of indulgence in the reading, because I think it’s important enough to write even under less than ideal conditions.

I had a number of very nice chats with people before the sessions they were moderating about the topic of the session. Not surprising. Most of the moderators were a little overprepared and very invested in the topic, as they should be.

One of these discussions was with Zuska in the hotel bar. We were talking about lurkers and who reads her blog, and I made a comment about the risks allies take in opening their mouths and the inevitability of screwing something up. She agreed and said something about the responsibilities of allies when that happens.

Janet is now saying something very similar at Adventures in Ethics and Science.

You can’t tell just by looking which purported allies have had a crystalizing experience. When people who say they are allies let you down in the crunch (which happens a lot), it’s hard to trust that any ally can be relied upon. Thus, one lesson for allies (beyond the importance of being reliable at crunch-time) is not to be surprised or offended when you’re not immediately recognized as an ally. Saying you are doesn’t count for nearly as much as showing you are.

Let me say something now: You can’t count on me.

Of course, you can’t count on your parents to step up when your uncle is being an ass about your college choices. You can’t count on your best friend to know what you need to hear about your date. You can’t count on your sweetie(s) to know what you want for your birthday. You can’t count on you to do what’s best for you when you’re feeling tired and unmotivated. As comfortable as it would be and as useful as it is sometimes to act as though the opposite were true, you can’t count on people, even the people who are supposed to be on your side.

There are a couple of reasons you can’t count on me. The first one is implicit in the examples I just gave. I don’t know what you need or want at any given moment. The fact that I recognize you as part of a marginalized group tells me that you’re marginalized. That’s all it tells me, because part of being an ally is recognizing that marginalized and stereotyped groups are just as diverse (if not more so) than the mainstream.

The second reason is one I brought up talking to Zuska. I’m an ally, in part, because I don’t deal well with authority. This means that it’s easier for me than for some to look at the reasons given for marginalization and say that they don’t make sense. However, it also means I take a step back any time someone says allies should behave in a particular way.

On top of that, I’m dealing with my own issues of marginalization. Some are relatively small and many are problems of privilege, but they’re still real and part of the reason I understand marginalization. I may not have brought them up because, well, I’ve been listening. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes have to take a step out of your fight to fight my own.

So, no, you can’t count on me. What you can do, though, is tell me what you would like me to do in a given situation, know that I’m likely to say an enthusiastic “yes” if I can (as I did a couple times this weekend), and know that I don’t make promises lightly. Well, you really can’t know those last two, but those are the areas where I want to be called on the carpet if I screw up.

That’s a lot of speaking for myself, I know. But in the end, that’s all I can do. I’m not your ally because I feel sorry for you and think you need caretaking. I’m your ally because I believe you have things to say I want to hear. I’m your ally because I believe in the intrinsic value of diversity and basic human dignity.

I hope that’s enough. It may not be, in which case, you have every right to decide I’m not your ally. That would sadden me, but I understand that trying to change your mind would waste energy we could both put to use better elsewhere, just as trying to change me would be.

We don’t achieve diversity by insisting that we all be alike.

***

As an aside that’s nothing of the sort, I also want to respond to DrugMonkey‘s comments to Janet’s post. If you follow this blog or DrugMonkey, you’ll know that there was a big to do last month involving a commenter on DrugMonkey who I and some other DrugMonkey regulars felt was a trollish poster child.

Now, I had two purposes in mind in pointing out the trolling. One, I’ve developed an interest (perhaps even an unhealthy fascination) with that kind of thing, and two, I wanted to give people a place away from the fray to react to the manipulation. I thought both worked.

Then I saw this comment from DM:

Some, see Stephanie Z’s post, consider you to be nothing more than an unrelenting disruptive troll. and suggest that I should ban your ass.

I was concerned briefly that DM really thought I was suggesting the troll should be banned, but I didn’t say anything. For one thing, he was delivering an excellent lesson. I didn’t want to interupt. And there are always more chances to talk about trolls and how they should be handled.

[sigh] Always.

But when it keeps coming up, I get more concerned.

Fascinating. And by this may we conclude that those who may have the privilege of ignoring said clueless idiots’ obnoxiousness in case they are redeemable are themselves proving to be bad allies? Is it letting down in the crunch to fail to come to the same conclusions as those with said finite time and energy?

For the record, DM, no.

As I said above, I think it’s silly to expect or even want monolithic behavior from people supporting diversity. Yes, there are times when a massed voice is helpful, but aside from that, well, it’s a lot like my take on science communication. The people we need to reach, in the mainstream or in other marginalized groups, are not monolithic. We need as many ways to reach them as there are people to be reached.

In addition to places for people to sit and rest outside the line of fire, we need both carrots and sticks, and it’s really hard for the same person to provide both at the same time. So as far as I’m concerned, as long as you can handle all the mixed metaphors, I’m happy to apply the pressure and allow you to show someone which way they need to move to get out from under it.

That’s what allies are for.

Whither Allies

Disability Bingo

Stephanie Zvan

I’m deeply ambivalent on the subject of social-interaction bingo cards. On the one hand, I see them warp discussions, as people who are arguing with each other shoehorn nuanced statements into dogwhistle boxes in the name of…oh, I don’t even pretend to understand why someone would have that kind of discussion in the first place. On the other hand, they really can be quick, accessible, visual introductions to the kinds of things people say over and over again that are far less than helpful, or even thoughtful.

My friend Lynne knows how to use a bingo card, which is only one of the reasons she’s awesome.

Caitlin is not “confined” to a wheelchair (a term I saw used recently in another LJ community that drives me absolutely nuts). She uses a wheelchair. It is a tool, that helps her to be mobile. Like a car, but smaller. In a world that, frankly, isn’t as well designed for alternative modes of mobility as it should be, given how many of us over time will need to use similar tools.

We are not trying to “overcome” or fix Caitlin’s disabilities. We are adapting our life and hers to her current abilities so that she can have the fullest life possible, in a society that is not particularly structured for her to, you know, leave the house on a regular basis, interact with other people, etc.

Don’t worry, Lynne doesn’t leave people with just a list of don’ts, which tend to make people self-conscious and lead to the kind of avoidance that isolates people with disabilities. She gives things you can do when someone else’s disability leaves you feeling helpless. You should read them all, so I’m only going to share one:

Be the person who helps to drive demand from libraries and publishers alike for more stories about people with disabilities. Buy them. Read them. Read them to your kids.

Lynne also links indirectly to a fiction contest at the new Redstone Science Fiction (the first issue of which includes an interview with a payload rack officer on the ISS). The contest is asking for short fiction that doesn’t use disability as a shorthand for character traits or group identity or treat it as something to be cured and which is set in a future that sees and accommodates disabilities. If you’re a writer, I strongly encourage you to play. Even if you don’t win, you’ll come away with a story that will do someone some good.

Off to go plot.

Disability Bingo

To the Kids of Fulton, Mississippi

Stephanie Zvan29 Comments

First, since you’re used to being first, to the kids who went to the big dance:

Congratulations. You, with your parents’ help, have just fucked things up for life. Well, maybe not all of you. Some of you were probably planning to start local, dead-end jobs straight out of high school. The rest of you, though…whew.

When it was just school administrators being asses to Constance, you were fine. People looked at that and assumed some of the kids were okay with it, but others were modern humans who were being overly sheltered by idiotic adults. You had a chance to be one of those kids, the ones who have a role to play in the 21st Century. Then you had to go to that dance and ruin everything.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s the one your parents wanted you to go to. It’s the one the cool kids were going to. It’s the one your friends were going to.

Fuck. That. Shit.

What you did was wrong. It was cruel, and pointlessly cruel. It was stupidly easy and easily the stupidest thing I’ve seen in a long time. You gained nothing by it. Hell, you didn’t even have as much fun as you thought prom should be. And you lost everything.

Remember how you thought about getting out of there and doing something with your life? Forget it. You’re one of “those kids from Fulton” now, and everybody knows what you did. Sure, you can find a school to go to, even one away from home, but it’s going to be one of those schools that’s no good for anything but sending you back where you came from.

You can find a job, kid from Fulton, but it will be a job that requires someone just like you. Prepare to spend the next fifty-some years of your life taking the same kind of orders you’ve been taking from your parents and your teachers and your friends. You’ve just waved goodbye to your chance to grow up and determine how you want to live your own life.

You can find people to laugh with, be friends with, marry, but they’ll be the same kind of stupid, cruel people you’ve shown yourself to be. Chances are good they’ll be from Fulton too. Who else would want to hang out with you? But whatever you do, don’t you dare to be any different than they are. You’ve already seen what they do, what you do, to people like that.

Not the life you were looking for? Well, it could still all go differently, I suppose, but it won’t be easy anymore. Your one chance at this point is to figure out why what just happened is all wrong–and to fix it. Your chance is to be one of the kids who left Fulton behind them, one way or another.

Good luck with that. I mean it.

Now, to the kids who went to the official prom:

I love you guys. You’re awesome in a way that nobody’s who’s never had to fight to make their own path can ever understand, much less achieve. That may not seem like a lot right now, but it’s everything. Just wait and see.

To the Kids of Fulton, Mississippi

Beautiful Red Dress

Stephanie Zvan1 Comment

Zuska has a good post up today about the choice for adult females to identify as girls rather than women. It’s decidedly worth a read.

She ends with Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman,” which was part of the soundtrack to my formative years. It was interesting hearing it again. My musical tastes have changed with the years, and they seem to have done so before I’d internalized all of the messages of the song. I appreciate it better on a fresh listen.

I am inspired, however, to post the song that replaced Reddy’s in my musical lexicon.

Beautiful Red Dress

Well, push my button, baby. Here I come.

Yes, “girls” is used with distinct irony. And one more, a very short story.

She said, “Listen. Honey.”

Beautiful Red Dress

On Ailing

Stephanie Zvan1 Comment

I have too many friends who aren’t healthy at the moment: injuries, cancer, infection, and a couple of cases of severe pain with unknown causes. I’m still having fun with that last category myself, as well as coming to grips with how extended illness can change people and perspectives. So I’m seeing more articles on the topic than usual and paying attention even when I may not have the time and energy for everything I want to do. I need to share two of these.

She was arrested because she refused to follow the unspoken rules: as a woman, it is your job to make the people around you comfortable with who you are. And her scars made someone uncomfortable.

We are conditioned to believe that our beauty lies in our ability to bring aesthetic pleasure to others. We’re taught never to leave the house without makeup, just in case we run in to Mr. Right. We spend childhood daydreams imagining our wedding dresses. Come middle age, we spend our hard-earned money on wrinkle creams and Botox. We’re taught to look beautiful. And we’re taught that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

But what if that’s not true? What if the things that make me beautiful are things with which you’re uncomfortable? What if the beholder doesn’t matter, because the things that make me beautiful are an intrinsic part of who I am?

of Scars has a short and sweet post on the intersection of expectations, appearances, and being an ill woman in public.

As I tried to gain my composure, I glanced around the table for help or guidance, or at least stall for time to think. I was trying to find the right words. How do I answer a question I never was able to answer for myself? How do I explain every detail of every day being effected, and give the emotions a sick person goes through with clarity. I could have given up, cracked a joke like I usually do, and changed the subject, but I remember thinking if I don’t try to explain this, how could I ever expect her to understand. If I can’t explain this to my best friend, how could I explain my world to anyone else? I had to at least try.

At that moment, the spoon theory was born. I quickly grabbed every spoon on the table; hell I grabbed spoons off of the other tables. I looked at her in the eyes and said “Here you go, you have Lupus”.

Christine Miserandino explains what it means to be, not so much sick, as not healthy. It is a must-read.

Be well, everyone.

On Ailing

How Unhappy Is Irrational?

Stephanie Zvan12 Comments

I got an interesting response to my post, “Going Emo,” by email. It was specifically in response to the last bit of a single bullet point:

Breaking the social conventions isn’t worth it. It just makes more work. It requires reassuring all the friends whose lives have just been shaken up. It requires holding your tongue on things like, “No. I don’t need to see a professional to have my attitude adjusted. I need to stop being reasonably anxious and in pain for a while. Barring that, I need a fucking hamburger and someone who can moderate their conversation to the right degree of challenging. Not that you asked how you could help.”

The bullet point, in turn, was a response to a note from the same person asking why I was being so negative, since “It’s not like you at all,” accompanied by the question of whether it was time for me to get some professional help with that. Based on my Facebook status updates. Specifically, these status updates:

  • …is just too damned much trouble, really.
  • …falls, on the scale of human companionship, somewhere between utterly unrewarding and actively taxing.

For anyone else who was terribly concerned…I had PMS, made significantly worse by an enforced lack of exercise. I mentioned it over here. It happens. It’s ugly. It’s over in a day or two, but anyone who gets in my way in the meantime might be in for a bit of a surprise and for no good reason. Those two statements are a pretty fair picture of a temporary situation. They might be strongly worded, but one of the cornerstones of training in writing is cutting out wimpy prose.

The next update, by the way, was, “If you need hyperdrive, I can fix that too, but I could never be your wookie.” (Explanation, of sorts, here.)

The idea in this new post-emo-post note was to urge me, once again, to seek professional help. “If I’m the only one of your kajillion and a half friends who has made the suggestion of seeing a professional, then I am shocked.” You might want to sit down. “I don’t know why you might be resistant to seeing a therapist.” Then do allow me to explain.

I’ve been dealing with pain for two months. I’ve been dealing with enforced inactivity for a fair chunk of that. I’ve been dealing with uncertainties about my health for a good bit more. But that’s just it, I’m dealing with them. I’m making my doctors appointments. I’m being appropriately cautious with my activity, which does include some testing of my limits. I’m taking pain medication when appropriate–mostly.

A note about narcotic pain medications: The reason these things have a high street value is that they fuck with your head. Even looking at the list of milder side effects for Vicodin, we see: drowsiness, nausea, and mood changes. Huh. Sounds a lot like the superficial symptoms of depression, doesn’t it? It would be nifty if a chat with a therapist would provide some coping strategies for Vicodin that would make those side effects go away, but that’s not about to happen. That leaves me with a choice between side effects (including a loopiness that makes me hesitate a very long time before spilling my guts on the old blog) and pain.

The emotional side effects of pain are something that a therapist can help you deal with. However, the advice is to keep the pain from interfering with your life as much as possible. For reasons having to do mostly with my not wanting to continue bleeding and partly to do with the inability to immobilize the cervix so jiggling around doesn’t make the pain worse, this hasn’t been entirely possible. I’m very much hoping that tomorrow’s doctor appointment will settle that question. I miss exercise.

I miss exercise in part because I miss being able to eat what I want without gaining weight. I can’t do that if I don’t move around a bunch, so I’m eating very little right now. It’s not a shortcut to weight loss, unfortunately, but at least it means I’m not gaining anything. It does, however, look like one of those signs of depression–until you listen to me bitch about wanting a hamburger. Or see me angling for oatmeal raisin cookies. Vicodin makes me hungry when it’s not making me motion sick.

Then there’s exercise and sleep. Sleep and I have never been very good friends, particularly when sleep means something that’s compatible with a corporate work schedule. Exercise helps keep us mostly reconciled. With enough exercise, sleep takes over some time near the time it should if I’m going to get up at a decent time. I still see the wee sma’s about once every two weeks, but I mostly maintain something like a pattern.

One thing being immobile has done is make me pay out my sleep debt and put me on a more comfortable schedule. I should, apparently, sleep from midnight to eight or so. Unless I’m sick, in which case, I should sleep always. Sleeping always without actually being sick, along with migraines, is what drove me to the doctor in the first place, which is not exactly evidence of being unwilling to see someone about my problems.

So, yes, if you’re looking at me, you’re going to see changes in (apparent) appetite and sleep. You’ll also see that I’m not consistently doing many of the things I would normally enjoy doing, largely because they require concentration or extended attention, which is also a problem with both pain and narcotics. You’ll see that I’m not enjoying many of the things I normally would, because I’m so out of shape (and blood) that getting ready and getting to them leaves me tired out.

Then we come to mood. When was the last time you were sick, injured or in pain for an extended period of time? How did you feel about that? How sad did it make people when you talked about it? How worried did they get? How tired of explaining everything did you get? How long did it take talking about your problems and asking for accommodations that weren’t offered to make you feel selfish?

One of the reasons I’ve been writing about my little health scare is that nobody else was. There was information about the technical aspects of all the procedures I’ve been through, but nobody was talking about what it felt like. I didn’t want other people to have to discover the fear and the pain and the inappropriately funny bits on their own. I didn’t want other people to feel alone.

There are a lot of things about the way our society is set up that make being ill isolating if you’re at all sensitive to social expectations. Not that make it feel isolating, but that actually isolate you from other people. Social interactions that should express genuine interest in another person are used as greetings in passing, so it’s nearly impossible to tell who really wants to know how you’re doing. We live long distances from one another so that visits are occasions, not to be met without a shower and some decent clothes. We set up our interactions around participatory events that don’t have a lot of room for the passive (ask me to expound on wedding and baby shower games sometime) or require cash even when someone may not be getting paid.

We medicalize unhappiness. Let some isolated soul vent irritation about being isolated, let them be honest about being grumpy, and suddenly they’ve got one more fucking problem that requires that they go do something to have it fixed. We say, “Go see a therapist.” We don’t say, “You’re right, that sucks.” We don’t say, “I’d be pretty miserable in your position.” We don’t say, “Can I bring you a cookie?”

Except we do. Some of us. Many of us. We reach out and hug somebody so they feel less isolated. We make sure they know we really
want to know how they’re doing, and then we listen. We sympathize, even when sympathy hurts us too. We recognize that being unhappy is, to a certain extent, exactly the most rational response to pain and disability and disappointment. And we ask, instead of tell, our friends what kind of help they need, because being sick doesn’t make people children incapable of making those decisions.

That, my friend, is why you’re the only person who has suggested I see a therapist, much less done so three times. It’s also why I’m resistant, not to seeing a therapist, but to the pronouncement that a therapist is the appropriate response to the things I’m dealing with when you haven’t taken the time to find out how I’m dealing with them.

How Unhappy Is Irrational?

Going Emo

Stephanie Zvan13 Comments

You were warned.

Some observations from spending far too much time with myself:

  • Competence seems like a pretty cool, objective thing on which to base your self-image…right up to the point where you can’t do what you’ve been doing. Then it all just sort of falls apart. What was the last thing you accomplished? How long ago was it? How good does that next thing need to be to make up for everything undone?
  • Social conventions are basically worthless when things aren’t going well. The answer to “How are you doing?” is “Good. And you?” It isn’t “Just anemic enough to huff and puff every time I walk up a flight of stairs.” It isn’t “Too wiped out to figure out how to get to see you but too proud to ask for help if you won’t think of it on your own.” It isn’t “Bored out of my skull from sitting here alone day after day. How would you be doing in my place?”
  • Breaking the social conventions isn’t worth it. It just makes more work. It requires reassuring all the friends whose lives have just been shaken up. It requires holding your tongue on things like, “No. I don’t need to see a professional to have my attitude adjusted. I need to stop being reasonably anxious and in pain for a while. Barring that, I need a fucking hamburger and someone who can moderate their conversation to the right degree of challenging. Not that you asked how you could help.”
  • There are some social conventions you just don’t break either way. You don’t get sad because someone else’s happiness is a contrast to your situation. You don’t get angry at people who can’t figure out how to say something while you’re doing the work to keep up a good front. You don’t get envious that someone else is moving ahead with their plans while you’re stuck. You don’t get jealous that people flock to the social butterflies while you hold yourself back from bringing storm clouds. Not publicly.
  • Being able to read people really well is not an advantage here. Yes, I can tell that my illness scares you. Yes, I can tell that you’re fooled by the fact that I gather up all my resources for a public appearance and wonder how sick I can be. Yes, I can tell that your respect for me is based largely on what I accomplish and drops off the same way my self-respect does. Yes, I can tell that you resent the dragging anchor that I’ve become and that I’ve stopped taking care of everybody around me. Yes, I can tell you’re bored. Yes, I can tell you think I’m whining.
  • Being used to being able to read people well isn’t an advantage either, particularly when it comes to ambiguous or incautious statements and very low days. It’s hard enough to shake the certainty of depression, harder still when you can’t tell yourself that feeling that certain is abnormal.
  • Introverts really hate talking about themselves. Illness brings on a self-preoccupation that gets really damned tedious even to the ill. Combining the two is roughly equivalent to turning into one of those “See no evil…” figures. Blinded, deafened and muzzled.

And that is as much of that as I can stand. You may now return to your regular, interesting programming.

Going Emo

Minnesota Disability Law Center

Stephanie Zvan1 Comment

A couple of friends of mine recently bought a Smart car. A word of warning for those of you considering a similar purchase: You need to build in extra travel time. It isn’t that the Smart is underpowered. It’s simply that if anyone is around as you get into or out of your car, you’re going to be spending some time in conversation.

I’ve seen this in action. While at a wedding reception this summer, I saw my friends pull up in their new car. About five minutes later, I got to wondering where they were. They were still by the car, chatting with a fairly large group of people. About another five minutes passed before they showed up at the reception.

“That was cool!”

The cool part wasn’t that people had been interested in the car. The cool part was that my friend had enough sign language to understand and answer their questions. The large crowd was because, well, the deaf group picnicking near us wasn’t likely to find another Smart owner able to answer their questions any time soon.

It’s kind of a funny story when it’s a car. It’s much less funny when it’s a hospital visit. The woman in the following video is my friend’s aunt and the reason she knows a respectable amount of sign language. She, and the group featured in the video are the reason deaf people visiting Minnesota hospital rooms don’t have to wait for someone like my friend to come along.

Minnesota Disability Law Center