point the 2nd: ownership and responsibility for myself
(yes, i know i'm writing the points out of order. deal :)
gloria asked me in our last session, to look back for instances of the pattern in which i subvert authority to act on my own wants in ways that reinforce the belief that i can do what i want without penalty. even acknowledging the inherent risk of looking for patterns (if you look for evil, odds are good you'll find it whether it's there or not, because you can make *anything* look like something else, if you try hard enough) there are all kinds of things i can find that support the Coex theory of behavioural patterns being formed from linked events that extend far back into an individual's personal history.
everything from my current work ethic, to relationships, to blowing my first year of university (first time living away from home without "responsible adult supervision") to going away to residential summer camps from ages 8-17, to general subversions of parental authority as a teen... these things all look to have certain commonalities.
in all cases, there are three components:
1. a shaped set of expectations on the part of the "authority figure"
2. a separation of some description between myself and the authority figure
3. a direct subversion of the expectations during the separation
in some cases, i could get away with the subversion, typically when i was younger but decreasingly so as i got older and my relationships with those erstwhile authority figures changed.
it occured to me a few days ago that a large part of the disrespect i have for the authority figures had to do with creating a "me versus Them" mindset, and that the only way i was going to get around that was by consciously casting myself into the Authority Figure role myself, and training myself to be complicit in accepting my own decisions. because, really, i haven't been. i hate making decisions, for a lot of reasons documented previously: i hate committing to decisions, i fear being limited in my options; it's easier to say what i don't want than commit to what i do want; i want someone else to do all the legwork. i was going to have to become responsible for my own decisions - all of them, not just the fun or easy or convenient ones.
this last point was something that came back up this morning in conversation with bucky, and suddenly, it hit me. we'd been talking about 'checking in' with partners when there are issues or larger decisions on the table that aren't being resolved all in a sitting. i mentioned that in the repair state with matthew, i'd pretty much busted his balls for eight solid months to sort himself out, define his needs, tell me what he wanted, etc.
this morning's revelation: i was waiting for him to make all the decisions and tell me what he wanted me to do, so that when push came to shove, i'd be able to say (at least in my own head), "sure, i agreed to this, but it wasn't *my decision*, i just said yes because i felt like i had to to make you happy". i was willing to accept all kinds of outcomes that he presented, because it meant getting him to do all the legwork of defining those possible outcomes, so that i could pick and choose whatever looked best to me without being vulnerable during the definition process, and saying what it was that *i* wanted. (which is not to say i at no point made my wants clear, but it wasn't my main tactic of the conversations during that state.)
consider this analogy: you badger your partner to do all the chores around the house so you don't have to/because you don't want to have to do them yourself, but then you either pick apart the partner's technique, or you follow along afterward and redo them to your internal specifications because whatever was done "wasn't good enough". it's a common power struggle tactic for people who don't want to engage on vulnerable levels: "you do all the work, i'll tell you what's wrong with it, then do what i wanted to do all along anyway, once i'm done proving that none of your options are sufficient".
(a propos of nothing, this is also the reason why i dislike conversing with people who only ever see the negative side of things when you're trying to present them with options for issues they're managing; if you're going to shoot down anything and everything i have to offer and focus only on the negatives, i'm eventually going to stop talking to you, because i feel like i'm doing all the work for no return. and yes, i'm looking at a few specific people here, including myself...)
i do this, this pawning off of decision-making responsibility, ALL THE TIME. i don't want to have to make the hard decisions. i'd rather let someone else do all the work.
and then i come along and subvert the decision, because it wasn't *my* choice, i only agreed because i felt i had to... and then i do what i wanted to do anyway.
whoah.
Gordian Knots, thy name is... well, Legion. but for today, you can call me 'Nora.
so, to review the internal process that plays out:
i force other people to define and present the options, so that i don't have to do that work (freeing myself from committing to anything that looks like i'm limiting my options).
then i accept whatever someone else decides is important to them (for example, the relationship and dating-behavioural boundaries that matthew and i put in place to meet matthew's comfort levels), because i feel i have to accept those options and decisions to make someone else happy, instead of because i buy into them, intrinsically, for myself. (and that's another can of worms entirely, right there...)
THEN i subvert those decisions completely in pursuit of my own short-term wants, bringing to bear the full power and might of the Weasel Defence claiming that it's OK, because they weren't *my* decisions in the first place, they don't meet my needs, and this short-term thing isn't a big issue anyway.
whether i agreed to certain decisions or not, i have not been feeling like i own any part of the decision-making process; i am therefore (in my head) not actually responsible for upholding those decisions, and am (again, in my head) completely justified in blowing them off when it's convenient to my weasels to do so.
*blinks*
so this then all comes back around to my supposition that, somehow, i'm missing a component of self-identification that puts me in that Authoritarian role, insofar as my participation in personal decisions is concerned. bucky made a comment this morning that resonated something fierce, about not taking it seriously when i set my own deadlines and goals because, hey, i'm only setting them for myself, and therefore they do not matter. even when those commitments are communicated to someone else who is trying to shape expectations around the information i provide, in my own head, they do not matter, and are entitled to flex and shift as i see fit.
it occurs to me, i have zero idea how to bring about my self-perception and self-identification so that i *do* value those commitments, the ones i make to myself as much as the ones i create with my husband, my lovers, my friends. i don't hold myself accountable, why should anyone else and i react badly when others try to hold me accountable. this goes beyond, i think, gloria's supposition that at the point of decision, there is no Other, but only Self, and gets into the meat of how and why i'm defining Self as i do. presumably that definition, like the patterned behaviours it drives, are based in Coex events in my history, hence the value of continuing to look at those incidents as potential fodder for the embedded patterns.
so here i sit, when i should be documenting Transaction Exception Editing features, tumbling this issue of self-perception in my head. i *don't* see myself as my own Authority Figure; i don't hold myself accountable, i don't value the commitments i make, even internally and for myself. i don't respect external Authority Figures, and subvert them at any opportunity where it suits my short-term wants to do so. this explains why i refuse to stick to a budget or a healthier lifestyle; why my work ethic suffers as it does; why i am chronically incapable of managing my schedule, my priorities, my commitments. it explains (in part) why certain other aspects of my relationship with matthew are likewise currently under fire (i want someone else to take all the control and responsibility, but i don't want to have to comply if i don't feel like it... huh??).
it explains, but like so many other episodes of breakthrough introspection, it solves nothing. it points up the pattern, and sheds light on some of the internal processing that informs the pattern, but gives me no defineable clue for unhinging that processing and thereby the pattern as well.
i know the answers will come in time, but my short-term want is to have someone give me the magic bullet NOW. of course, even if someone did that, and told me "this is what you have to do to fix your inefficient behaviours", i'd likely rebel against the perception of an authority figure telling me what to do, and subvert that whole scenario, too.
*sigh*
how *does* one learn, after almost 40 years of clinging to juvenile processing, to become the Internally-Responsible Adult, the Self-Monitoring Authoritarian we always claimed we'd never grow up to be?
you know, it's entirely possible i have too many tags for this stuff.
gloria asked me in our last session, to look back for instances of the pattern in which i subvert authority to act on my own wants in ways that reinforce the belief that i can do what i want without penalty. even acknowledging the inherent risk of looking for patterns (if you look for evil, odds are good you'll find it whether it's there or not, because you can make *anything* look like something else, if you try hard enough) there are all kinds of things i can find that support the Coex theory of behavioural patterns being formed from linked events that extend far back into an individual's personal history.
everything from my current work ethic, to relationships, to blowing my first year of university (first time living away from home without "responsible adult supervision") to going away to residential summer camps from ages 8-17, to general subversions of parental authority as a teen... these things all look to have certain commonalities.
in all cases, there are three components:
1. a shaped set of expectations on the part of the "authority figure"
2. a separation of some description between myself and the authority figure
3. a direct subversion of the expectations during the separation
in some cases, i could get away with the subversion, typically when i was younger but decreasingly so as i got older and my relationships with those erstwhile authority figures changed.
it occured to me a few days ago that a large part of the disrespect i have for the authority figures had to do with creating a "me versus Them" mindset, and that the only way i was going to get around that was by consciously casting myself into the Authority Figure role myself, and training myself to be complicit in accepting my own decisions. because, really, i haven't been. i hate making decisions, for a lot of reasons documented previously: i hate committing to decisions, i fear being limited in my options; it's easier to say what i don't want than commit to what i do want; i want someone else to do all the legwork. i was going to have to become responsible for my own decisions - all of them, not just the fun or easy or convenient ones.
this last point was something that came back up this morning in conversation with bucky, and suddenly, it hit me. we'd been talking about 'checking in' with partners when there are issues or larger decisions on the table that aren't being resolved all in a sitting. i mentioned that in the repair state with matthew, i'd pretty much busted his balls for eight solid months to sort himself out, define his needs, tell me what he wanted, etc.
this morning's revelation: i was waiting for him to make all the decisions and tell me what he wanted me to do, so that when push came to shove, i'd be able to say (at least in my own head), "sure, i agreed to this, but it wasn't *my decision*, i just said yes because i felt like i had to to make you happy". i was willing to accept all kinds of outcomes that he presented, because it meant getting him to do all the legwork of defining those possible outcomes, so that i could pick and choose whatever looked best to me without being vulnerable during the definition process, and saying what it was that *i* wanted. (which is not to say i at no point made my wants clear, but it wasn't my main tactic of the conversations during that state.)
consider this analogy: you badger your partner to do all the chores around the house so you don't have to/because you don't want to have to do them yourself, but then you either pick apart the partner's technique, or you follow along afterward and redo them to your internal specifications because whatever was done "wasn't good enough". it's a common power struggle tactic for people who don't want to engage on vulnerable levels: "you do all the work, i'll tell you what's wrong with it, then do what i wanted to do all along anyway, once i'm done proving that none of your options are sufficient".
(a propos of nothing, this is also the reason why i dislike conversing with people who only ever see the negative side of things when you're trying to present them with options for issues they're managing; if you're going to shoot down anything and everything i have to offer and focus only on the negatives, i'm eventually going to stop talking to you, because i feel like i'm doing all the work for no return. and yes, i'm looking at a few specific people here, including myself...)
i do this, this pawning off of decision-making responsibility, ALL THE TIME. i don't want to have to make the hard decisions. i'd rather let someone else do all the work.
and then i come along and subvert the decision, because it wasn't *my* choice, i only agreed because i felt i had to... and then i do what i wanted to do anyway.
whoah.
Gordian Knots, thy name is... well, Legion. but for today, you can call me 'Nora.
so, to review the internal process that plays out:
i force other people to define and present the options, so that i don't have to do that work (freeing myself from committing to anything that looks like i'm limiting my options).
then i accept whatever someone else decides is important to them (for example, the relationship and dating-behavioural boundaries that matthew and i put in place to meet matthew's comfort levels), because i feel i have to accept those options and decisions to make someone else happy, instead of because i buy into them, intrinsically, for myself. (and that's another can of worms entirely, right there...)
THEN i subvert those decisions completely in pursuit of my own short-term wants, bringing to bear the full power and might of the Weasel Defence claiming that it's OK, because they weren't *my* decisions in the first place, they don't meet my needs, and this short-term thing isn't a big issue anyway.
whether i agreed to certain decisions or not, i have not been feeling like i own any part of the decision-making process; i am therefore (in my head) not actually responsible for upholding those decisions, and am (again, in my head) completely justified in blowing them off when it's convenient to my weasels to do so.
*blinks*
so this then all comes back around to my supposition that, somehow, i'm missing a component of self-identification that puts me in that Authoritarian role, insofar as my participation in personal decisions is concerned. bucky made a comment this morning that resonated something fierce, about not taking it seriously when i set my own deadlines and goals because, hey, i'm only setting them for myself, and therefore they do not matter. even when those commitments are communicated to someone else who is trying to shape expectations around the information i provide, in my own head, they do not matter, and are entitled to flex and shift as i see fit.
it occurs to me, i have zero idea how to bring about my self-perception and self-identification so that i *do* value those commitments, the ones i make to myself as much as the ones i create with my husband, my lovers, my friends. i don't hold myself accountable, why should anyone else and i react badly when others try to hold me accountable. this goes beyond, i think, gloria's supposition that at the point of decision, there is no Other, but only Self, and gets into the meat of how and why i'm defining Self as i do. presumably that definition, like the patterned behaviours it drives, are based in Coex events in my history, hence the value of continuing to look at those incidents as potential fodder for the embedded patterns.
so here i sit, when i should be documenting Transaction Exception Editing features, tumbling this issue of self-perception in my head. i *don't* see myself as my own Authority Figure; i don't hold myself accountable, i don't value the commitments i make, even internally and for myself. i don't respect external Authority Figures, and subvert them at any opportunity where it suits my short-term wants to do so. this explains why i refuse to stick to a budget or a healthier lifestyle; why my work ethic suffers as it does; why i am chronically incapable of managing my schedule, my priorities, my commitments. it explains (in part) why certain other aspects of my relationship with matthew are likewise currently under fire (i want someone else to take all the control and responsibility, but i don't want to have to comply if i don't feel like it... huh??).
it explains, but like so many other episodes of breakthrough introspection, it solves nothing. it points up the pattern, and sheds light on some of the internal processing that informs the pattern, but gives me no defineable clue for unhinging that processing and thereby the pattern as well.
i know the answers will come in time, but my short-term want is to have someone give me the magic bullet NOW. of course, even if someone did that, and told me "this is what you have to do to fix your inefficient behaviours", i'd likely rebel against the perception of an authority figure telling me what to do, and subvert that whole scenario, too.
*sigh*
how *does* one learn, after almost 40 years of clinging to juvenile processing, to become the Internally-Responsible Adult, the Self-Monitoring Authoritarian we always claimed we'd never grow up to be?
you know, it's entirely possible i have too many tags for this stuff.