Neon Lights! Limo Seating!
Jul. 10th, 2004 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueWhen you're depressive, you have a kind of sixth sense for identifying other depressive people. Depressive gaydar, effectively - a set of mannerisms you pick up on, maybe on a subconscious level, maybe using a more critical faculty. Stoners have this also. I've had a stoner friend know that another friend was a stoner before he ever picked up his first cigarette, just like I've had gay friends tagged as gay long before they were out of the closet even to themselves. It's not about behavior; it's something that they are.
Depressive people are like that too. Even when they're happy, they're still depressive, and it shows in little ways. There's a gentleness to them physically, an almost pathological respect for personal boundaries. This tends to show up in their gestures, which are emphatic, but which keep their elbows close to their sides. These are people who would never squeeze your hand too hard in a handshake, because they're careful. Controlled. They're (we're) careful about their (our) facts, too; I've never met a depressive person who wasn't able to be incredibly precise. Arguments are well-reasoned, but often disturbingly rigid.
Most of all, depressive people are . . . friendly isn't really the right word, because friendly is too outgoing. Attentive. Appreciative of kindness. They're easy to like, but hard to get close to. The boundaries again. The formality. Still, I rather like them (us). Whenever I meet another depressed person, on or off medication, I know it immediately, and I usually get the sense that we're going to be best friends. This never pans out, for fairly obvious reasons, but I still feel a great sense of tenderness for them, as though we are the only remnants of a lost civilization, "passing" through assimilation into a wider culture.
It's a sad fact that as we get older, we have less and less in common with the majority of our peers. (I mean all of us now, not just those of us with mental illnesses.) In high school, there were certain experiences you knew you shared. You were probably living with your parents, or at least some guardian relative. You spent five days of your week taking classes, some of which were probably English and Math. There was a good chance you played an instrument or played sports. You were almost definitely unmarried, and you probably didn't have children. If you did, you still weren't expected to be the breadwinner for the family. You had Christmas and summer "off". Lunch, you brought from home or bought from a cafeteria. You thought about whether and where you were going to go to college.
Popular or unpopular, you were still part of the same system. Rich or poor, private or public school, you still worried about passing Chemistry. When you met someone, your main concern was whether or not you liked them, not whether you could find a subject on which to converse. Sure, you might completely disagree about appropriate Spring Break activities, but at least you both knew what Spring Break was.
Now, some of my friends' lives revolve around being parents. Some of my friends aren't interested in dating, some are members of match.com, and some are married. Some have fixed work schedules, some have flex schedules, some freelance, and some are unemployed. That's okay; we still find stuff to talk about, because we know what interests we each hold. I know which writers they're into, their exercize regimens, their taste in food and music. I know what magazines they get, what scientific breakthroughs they follow. I know all their small obsessions.
This is no help at all when trying to make new friends.
I don't know what to say to people anymore. Politics are right out these days. I don't watch television, or listen to the radio. I don't read best-sellers. I rarely see movies. I don't have a typical job, but I also don't have an impressive job. I don't have pets or children. Unless I'm at an art gallery, I am genuinely restricted to talking about the weather. It's not that I'm uninteresting; I just can't rely on common ground of any sort. I can't tell you how many party conversations I've had which center on how difficult it is to have conversations at parties. It's all very Woody Allen.
I'm going to try a social experiment, and I'd like it if all of you would join me. The social experiment is this: be less defensive. That's all: be less defensive. It's not going to be easy, and it might not do anything, but there's a chance that it will. You might be saying to yourself, "but I'm not defensive at all!" If that's true, good for you. But you're probably saying that defensively. I certainly would be. People constantly ask me what I do for a living. The real answer is: I'm not entirely sure. Every once in a while, I make money doing something random, usually arts & entertainment oriented. The rest of the time, I actively avoid spending that money. You wouldn't believe how much time that takes up.
Do you think I ever say that to people? Absolutely not. I say that I freelance, because it sounds more professional and gets people off my back. At the moment, I actually am working, and moreover working as a script supervisor, which is kind of cool, and so I can say that to people. After that, I'm going to be writing the score to a movie. People get sidetracked on the coolness of it and don't get to the part where it's deferred payment. Deferred-to-possibly-never payment. And a bad script. (It's still pretty cool, though.)
This is all a sidetrack from the point, which is that I usually say I freelance when what I mean is that I strenuously avoid actually having to work a regular job. I'm not lazy or anything; I'm busy all the time. Or, okay, I am lazy, but hectically lazy. No, I'm not lazy, just busy thinking about things and getting them straight in my head, and then every once in a while coming up with (and enacting) grandiose schemes, (also known as "stupid boy-projects," thanks to Join Me).
So why don't I just say that, which is both more interesting and informative? Well, I get all defensive. Obviously, this defensiveness was a natural adaptive response to some kind of external threat. Do you know what that threat was? Other people's defensiveness. That's right. Do you know why people try to make you feel bad about not having the exact life they do? It's because they're terrified that their life might not be the right one and want confirmation that it is. They want to believe that they didn't make any mistakes and that they are the best they could possibly be. They know this is probably not true, but they certainly don't want you coming around and saying it. Maybe they even know there are downsides to their choices, but the last thing they need is someone fucking them around for it. It is a defensive . . . pre-emptive strike!
Will this work, this non-defensiveness? I don't know. I like it because it's vaguely Taoist. Maybe it will fail, like the hippie idea that you just have to love everybody and the world will heal itself. But I want to believe that we still have more in common than we don't. And, at the very least, I want to take the fall as the actual me, not as some pretend social-forces-theory smaller-than-life me.
Depressive people are like that too. Even when they're happy, they're still depressive, and it shows in little ways. There's a gentleness to them physically, an almost pathological respect for personal boundaries. This tends to show up in their gestures, which are emphatic, but which keep their elbows close to their sides. These are people who would never squeeze your hand too hard in a handshake, because they're careful. Controlled. They're (we're) careful about their (our) facts, too; I've never met a depressive person who wasn't able to be incredibly precise. Arguments are well-reasoned, but often disturbingly rigid.
Most of all, depressive people are . . . friendly isn't really the right word, because friendly is too outgoing. Attentive. Appreciative of kindness. They're easy to like, but hard to get close to. The boundaries again. The formality. Still, I rather like them (us). Whenever I meet another depressed person, on or off medication, I know it immediately, and I usually get the sense that we're going to be best friends. This never pans out, for fairly obvious reasons, but I still feel a great sense of tenderness for them, as though we are the only remnants of a lost civilization, "passing" through assimilation into a wider culture.
It's a sad fact that as we get older, we have less and less in common with the majority of our peers. (I mean all of us now, not just those of us with mental illnesses.) In high school, there were certain experiences you knew you shared. You were probably living with your parents, or at least some guardian relative. You spent five days of your week taking classes, some of which were probably English and Math. There was a good chance you played an instrument or played sports. You were almost definitely unmarried, and you probably didn't have children. If you did, you still weren't expected to be the breadwinner for the family. You had Christmas and summer "off". Lunch, you brought from home or bought from a cafeteria. You thought about whether and where you were going to go to college.
Popular or unpopular, you were still part of the same system. Rich or poor, private or public school, you still worried about passing Chemistry. When you met someone, your main concern was whether or not you liked them, not whether you could find a subject on which to converse. Sure, you might completely disagree about appropriate Spring Break activities, but at least you both knew what Spring Break was.
Now, some of my friends' lives revolve around being parents. Some of my friends aren't interested in dating, some are members of match.com, and some are married. Some have fixed work schedules, some have flex schedules, some freelance, and some are unemployed. That's okay; we still find stuff to talk about, because we know what interests we each hold. I know which writers they're into, their exercize regimens, their taste in food and music. I know what magazines they get, what scientific breakthroughs they follow. I know all their small obsessions.
This is no help at all when trying to make new friends.
I don't know what to say to people anymore. Politics are right out these days. I don't watch television, or listen to the radio. I don't read best-sellers. I rarely see movies. I don't have a typical job, but I also don't have an impressive job. I don't have pets or children. Unless I'm at an art gallery, I am genuinely restricted to talking about the weather. It's not that I'm uninteresting; I just can't rely on common ground of any sort. I can't tell you how many party conversations I've had which center on how difficult it is to have conversations at parties. It's all very Woody Allen.
I'm going to try a social experiment, and I'd like it if all of you would join me. The social experiment is this: be less defensive. That's all: be less defensive. It's not going to be easy, and it might not do anything, but there's a chance that it will. You might be saying to yourself, "but I'm not defensive at all!" If that's true, good for you. But you're probably saying that defensively. I certainly would be. People constantly ask me what I do for a living. The real answer is: I'm not entirely sure. Every once in a while, I make money doing something random, usually arts & entertainment oriented. The rest of the time, I actively avoid spending that money. You wouldn't believe how much time that takes up.
Do you think I ever say that to people? Absolutely not. I say that I freelance, because it sounds more professional and gets people off my back. At the moment, I actually am working, and moreover working as a script supervisor, which is kind of cool, and so I can say that to people. After that, I'm going to be writing the score to a movie. People get sidetracked on the coolness of it and don't get to the part where it's deferred payment. Deferred-to-possibly-never payment. And a bad script. (It's still pretty cool, though.)
This is all a sidetrack from the point, which is that I usually say I freelance when what I mean is that I strenuously avoid actually having to work a regular job. I'm not lazy or anything; I'm busy all the time. Or, okay, I am lazy, but hectically lazy. No, I'm not lazy, just busy thinking about things and getting them straight in my head, and then every once in a while coming up with (and enacting) grandiose schemes, (also known as "stupid boy-projects," thanks to Join Me).
So why don't I just say that, which is both more interesting and informative? Well, I get all defensive. Obviously, this defensiveness was a natural adaptive response to some kind of external threat. Do you know what that threat was? Other people's defensiveness. That's right. Do you know why people try to make you feel bad about not having the exact life they do? It's because they're terrified that their life might not be the right one and want confirmation that it is. They want to believe that they didn't make any mistakes and that they are the best they could possibly be. They know this is probably not true, but they certainly don't want you coming around and saying it. Maybe they even know there are downsides to their choices, but the last thing they need is someone fucking them around for it. It is a defensive . . . pre-emptive strike!
Will this work, this non-defensiveness? I don't know. I like it because it's vaguely Taoist. Maybe it will fail, like the hippie idea that you just have to love everybody and the world will heal itself. But I want to believe that we still have more in common than we don't. And, at the very least, I want to take the fall as the actual me, not as some pretend social-forces-theory smaller-than-life me.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
in which I rant at great dull length about myself mainly but yr post was damned cool
Date: 2004-07-10 12:02 am (UTC)HEH! I loved this. I would add also -- it extends to addicts, especially recovering addicts. If you've ever tried even a tiny bit of recovery, you can know instantly who in the room likes their martinis a little too early and a little too often, who had a coke problem wayy back in college, who relies a little too heavily on the major tranks when the panic attacks come knocking on the door of the heart at three ayem. It's bizarre. It's like all of a sudden your nose can sniff out a really distinctive scent, is the only way I can put it (although it's not really like that at all).
They're (we're) careful about their (our) facts, too; I've never met a depressive person who wasn't able to be incredibly precise. Arguments are well-reasoned, but often disturbingly rigid.
I like all that too, and agree with it....I wonder why that is? Maybe because a lot of depressives are aware that they got handed a TON of shit, essentially a three-ton fucken problem that wasn't really their fault but now they have to spend a lifetime carrying around, so it makes them, I d'know, more sensitive to matters of justice or something. (Ha, isn't that flattering.) People in recovery (ghod how I hate that term) are also really really aware of boundaries. Probably because when you first show up in recovery you don't have any. And I guess of course all this is squared or cubed, or whatever, for those of us who're dual diagnosis....
They're easy to like, but hard to get close to. The boundaries again. The formality. Still, I rather like them (us). Whenever I meet another depressed person, on or off medication, I know it immediately, and I usually get the sense that we're going to be best friends
Heh. I feel this frequently too. I think part of it is depressive people, having been so isolated for most of their lives, have a real appreciation for human contact -- but at the same time, know how transitory and fragile that contact really is (and also, because they hadn't had that much of it, they may just not be that good at it/that comfortable with it). There's also a whole shared vocabulary, not just that, a shared landscape of experience, that depressives have when they meet each other, and they know it. Of course, that shared experience also usually consists of SHITTY THINGS, which makes it a bit awkward as something connective. But still, it's there.
In high school, there were certain experiences you knew you shared.
I didn't go to high school, but I went to a small liberal arts private college (St. John's) where the whole curriculum is basically built on everyone in the same class reading the same thing at the same time, which creates such an utter bond you would not believe it. No matter what cliques and backbiting exist in the college itself (and they do, virulently, because it's so fucken tiny), once you graduate, if you meet another Johnnie, it's like you're Bonded. Sort of like the depressive shared experiences I was talking about above....
CONT
CONT
Date: 2004-07-10 12:03 am (UTC)****
I don't know what to say to people anymore.
I frequently feel like I don't have common ground with, say, my neighbors or people I wind up working with (LJ is another, huge, wholly different story) but I can fake it really well. That is, til the toll of faking it gets to be too much and I sort of snap and run off and hide in the bathroom and wish either I or everyone else could just painlessly instantly disappear. I was Trained to be Social. I am in fact rather good at it, despite being introverted and reclusive and anti-social and fairly agoraphobic by nature. I HATE crowds. I HATE big parties. I don't like most social occasions. Yet if you plunk me in the middle of one, I'll manage to impersonate someone at ease and having a fairly good time. But it's pretty much a Big Fucking Lie, at least from the inside (as someone said, "charm is always a con"). I can slip into this manner really easily and without thinking about it, even (talk about defensive mechanisms) which leaves me in a quandry. Should I be polite and make chitchat? Should I try to feel this person out about favorite books, movies, television shows? Should I just let them go on about whatever? (As you can tell, when I was a drinker this made parties a helluva lot easier, because I would just get all nicely mentally lubricated and then it would all be Fine. Ha.)
The social experiment is this: be less defensive. That's all: be less defensive.
I'm one of those people who would probably say, "Well I'm not defensive," mainly cause I blab about my life on my LJ (although not completely open even there -- there's flocked posts, a lot I don't put online about my life, &c). I can look outgoing and even confident in RL (see above), but in RL I'm really not inclined to talk to people about what matters most to me -- writing, sobriety, family issues, books, individualism vs. conformity -- and just stick to safe, dull, whatever topics (usually what they have seen last on television, which is never what I have seen last on television, because I don't watch sitcoms). I can feel people out in a sort of gingerly way to see if it's safe to "really" talk to them, but if you're stuck chitchatting about television programs, Real Stuff just isn't that likely to come up. I try to be open about certain things, like being a sober alcoholic, having depression and taking meds for it, blahblah, but those are more sort of political considerations than anything else.
Do you know why people try to make you feel bad about not having the exact life they do? It's because they're terrified that their life might not be the right one and want confirmation that it is.
Heh, that reminds me of something Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in a YA novel that I read a long time ago: ((paraphrasing)) if We all sew the patches on our blue jeans exactly the same way, then We are all together and no one has to be alone or die. But then there's You, standing over there with the wrong patches on your jeans even if you tried to sew them on right. If You're lucky We'll ignore You. If not, We'll throw rocks. Because We don't like You standing there reminding us that we're really all of us each along and none of us is safe and in the dark.
I like it because it's vaguely Taoist.
Taoism is good.
((trying to be all open and nondefensive)) I wish you posted more. I really like your insights and dry way of putting things. There's some cool quirky way your mind works that I really like.
Well UGH, that felt all horribly vulnerable and grossly needy. Still, now it's out there. ("I can't take it back, it's already out there....")
Re: CONT
Date: 2004-07-11 07:29 pm (UTC)I'm not really sure. I have a theory that it's because I mostly interact with the same group of people every day, and we're so used to each other that I have trouble noticing which of my ideas are new and different. It's hard to explain what I mean by that. Let us accept at least for the sake of argument that I am a complicated and interesting person, and that a lot of what makes me interesting is the ways in which I think and behave differently from everyone else. These differences are most apparent when I meet new people or when I do something that I think of as ordinary but which I am then told is odd. People who are used to having me around don't react to my behaviors in that way because they've adapted to them. Naturally. This is good and makes it easier for us to be close. However, when I am not reminded of my diferentness, I start thinking that I'm banal and that I don't have anything interesting to write about - that everyone has already thought my ideas on their own.
But, yeah, I really should write more often. Get back into the habit, and so forth.
As a side note, I was interested in what you said about being "open." I've thought about it, and I'm not sure that "open" means "not-defensive." A lot of the things that I'm open about are the things about which I'm most traditionally defensive - it's kind of like saying "here, here is the thing I'm afraid you'll make fun of, and because I said it first and said it in a funny way, you can use it." And the other person is looking back at me like "I just asked you if you wanted some more water." The person I'm buying a movie ticket from doesn't need to know that I'm bisexual but now feel estranged from the gay community because I married a guy. More to the point, there's no reason to assume it'll bother them.
That's what I mean about non-defensiveness. There's no reason to assume when I meet someone that they're going to ask whether I'm employed, or that they'll disapprove if I'm not. Even in Dallas, I doubt anyone's wondering whether I remembered to exercize today, or noticing that I don't usually eat meat but felt like getting a hamburger. And, I mean, most people are *excited* when you ask their opinion on something philosophical, once it's obvious you're not making fun of them. Anyway, I'm trying to start remembering that again.
Thanks again for the comment, which I hope I haven't minimized at all. I haven't responded to most of it just because I already think it says everything that needs to be said. You're awesome.
love,
Romie
Re: CONT
Date: 2004-07-12 02:39 am (UTC)((blush)) Well, jeez....that's the nicest compliment I've had in....quite a while. Thank you.
These differences are most apparent when I meet new people or when I do something that I think of as ordinary but which I am then told is odd. People who are used to having me around don't react to my behaviors in that way because they've adapted to them.
Ya know, that makes sense. I am reclusive and don't go out that much, so I bash away at my poor LJ all the time. I think people can become accustomed to just about anything -- which is both a necessity to just get along in life, and also a curse, dulled vision &c. But I hadn't thought of it in a social setting like that. (It's like growing up with my parents. People meet them and get starry-eyed about how my parents are so Exotic! and Artistic! and Bohemian! and Free-spirited! and I look at them in annoyance thinking, They're just my parents....)
I start thinking that I'm banal and that I don't have anything interesting to write about - that everyone has already thought my ideas on their own.
YOU banal? ((choke)) Yyyyyyyyyeah, pull the other one, it's got bells on. (And nearly every time I sit down to write I have the oh-my-god-it's-all-been-said-before willies, so who says that self-perception is accurate? As one friend of mine said, defiantly, "It might have been said by someone else before, but I've never said it before." I love that idea that there are only three plots or twelve plots or twenty plots or whatever the number. Because it's true -- lots of books and movies &c tell the same story, but it differs with the teller. There is nothing new under the sun, but that's liberating.) ((throttles tangent before it can eat post))
But, yeah, I really should write more often. Get back into the habit, and so forth.
Yes! that would be lovely.
A lot of the things that I'm open about are the things about which I'm most traditionally defensive - it's kind of like saying "here, here is the thing I'm afraid you'll make fun of, and because I said it first and said it in a funny way, you can use it."
Ooooooh, that's a good point. I hid my depression for a long time, so when I finally "came out" about it (ha) I was almost aggressive -- "This is me, this is part of me, and if you are offended/scared/whatever by it, tough shit." It is, in my own small way, a Political Gesture. And, contrary to the old slogan, that means on some level it's not personal -- I mean, it's not a gesture of intimacy, exactly, in the sense that intimacy is something you offer to just a few people after you've known them a while and trust has grown up, or whatever.
There's no reason to assume when I meet someone that they're going to ask whether I'm employed, or that they'll disapprove if I'm not.
Aha, now that I get -- I automatically project my own disapproval (and it's huge) of myself (not writing, unemployed, blah blah) of myself onto other people, so I assume they're all walking around thinking about me the same way I do -- when in fact they're all most probably too wrapped up in their own warped projecting of their self-disapproval onto me and it's a wonder we don't bang into walls walking around at that rate. It's especially huge when I talk to my parents on the phone -- the slightest question, like "How's the job search?" or "Are you writing?" sets me off, because I hear so much in it. (Well, I think "Are you writing?" is a pretty horrible question to ask a writer, but most people do it out of politeness and don't understand what it stirs up, so I'll give that one a pass.)
I haven't responded to most of it just because I already think it says everything that needs to be said. You're awesome.
((BLUSH)) Well. I was obviously wrong about the best compliment! Needless to say, I think you're damned awesome as well, and would really love to see you more on LJ.
love,
Romie
right back atcha, kiddo ((blows kiss)).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-10 06:57 pm (UTC)Not quite that banal most of the time, but I hope you get the gist.
Using my show as a test group (started preliminary trials of this practice at karaoke though). Has worked suprisingly well. Have actually extended my friend base by a large percentage.
Anyway, Love you much Romie.