I have to admit….sometimes I feel a little embarrassed when people ask me that much dreaded “What do you do for fun?” question. Well, the simple answer to this is always: “Um I love to write.” Granted it’s not a very sexy or glamorous answer….but it’s what floats my boat. These days any free time I have, writing is all I want to do. Of course then comes the even more dreaded, genuinely interested, follow up question “Oh what are you writing?” Indeed enlighten us, what great masterpiece are you working on Gayle? Your own magazine column? A play? A book!
Umm no, none of the above. So let’s see what do I write about? Well, I started keeping a journal when I was 13 years old, so to date, I have 12 A4 sized handwritten diaries and 8 years of typed diaries. So essentially that would mean I have roughly plus /minus 700000 words written … about me. For the record: I would like to state that in my not so far away younger days … I partied with the best of them……so I had a very detailed life to write about. Of course, it was 98% drama, turmoil, and angst …plus a shit load of ranting… but yep it’s all 100% documented.
(I could put Bridget Jones to shame:-)
I think my need to write has in the past been driven by necessity more than anything. Frankly, writing has kept all the many varied voices in my head reasonably sane. It used to feel like my experiences weren’t actually real until I got them down on paper. But these last few years since I have moved back home … there’s been a bit of a shift. These days I very rarely write to myself (…Indeed the schizophrenia seems to have subsided somewhat and I have subsequently started writing to real people- that actually exist.) Happy days! I have found the whole experience mildly therapeutic … writing is so much more meaningful when you know someone else actually wants to read it. Plus I have a rather eclectic group of inspiring pen-pals … all met randomly at various intervals of my life, making it that much more interesting.
Obviously, I love the idea of blogging regularly…..those 19 ardent fans that followed my blog for 6 months in 2010…can testify to the fact that I can actually do it. But regrettably… at times it’s not always that easy. I currently have a folder on my desktop with various, unfinished blog entries that I have worked on these last two years. I guess anybody that has a genuine passion in their life will understand this……sometimes working on a piece is like a drug….when I’m in the full flow and completely absorbed in that exhilarating energy …..there is absolutely nothing like it. It literally feels like the words are just pouring out of me. I’m honest and I feel 100% authentically me. And then after a while – I hit that wall. That much-dreaded fear creeps in and I literally start being “me” all over again. I over analyse, I judge, I question whether I want to be that emotionally honest about that particular thing? I start doubting whether I know enough about topic XYZ to even make that comment? “You aren’t seriously going to say THAT, are you???” The voices in my head become manically all consuming…and eventually I’m ashamed to admit, they usually win. And so I drop it. Another blog entry relegated to the ‘unfinished’ heap. I then go back to writing to my awesome friends. They accept me. They love me. Hallelujah for friends.
Of course, writing to above-mentioned friends could ideally be the perfect outlet if only I didn’t feel like such an absolute coward most of the time. What am I still so afraid of?
(Rhetorical question of course…I absolutely know the answer to that one.)
Quite simply: Other people’s opinions. There I said it. Honestly can the person whoever made up that stupid nursery rhyme ‘sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me’….please be tarred, feathered and shot. Because whoever they were, they obviously did not grow up as an ‘overly – sensitive person.’ Sometimes I feel like a living oxymoron. I’m opinionated, strong-willed, fiercely independent and determined all wrapped up in a skin as thin as rice paper. I can’t count how many times in my 20’s ( uhm and 30’s) I have tried to stand up for myself at work and then just literally crumbled under the fallback comments. Huge giant emotional drama like tears….always very professional. “You need to stop caring about what other people think Gayle! What other people think of you is none of your business.”
Yes, yes, yes……..both mantras I have had repeated to me an infinite amount of times by very well-meaning people. Those words are so ingrained in my psyche it feels like I have them downloaded as an automatic update option in my brain …Check: What other people think of me is none of my bloody business” Got it? Yes!!!!!! ……um no! Such incredibly wise words to live by….but so freak’en hard to follow at times.
About 2 years ago I came across a blog called “After psychology” written by a psychologist, Jo Burgo. These days, I am utterly fascinated by anything connected to psychology. I absolutely love listening to other people’s stories. When someone is brave enough to share a piece of themselves, making themselves ever so slightly vulnerable, I feel touched and little less lonely in this world. I most especially love what Jo had to say. Here was someone who openly admitted to his insecurities and sensitivities. I especially admired the fact that he is willing to put the mistakes that he has made as a therapist out there. Quite frankly, despite what many people think it’s not an easy profession … and as anyone who has been to a bad therapist knows … finding a good one is like absolute gold.
Reading Jo’s blog has significantly impacted my life. It always amazes me how someone can be emotionally honest enough to go online and admit “I messed up, but hey look what I learnt!” There is nothing I admire more in a person than honesty and authenticity. But what astounds me, even more, is how another person can then, in the sanctuary of their anonymity criticise that person… um for messing up?? Really? Isn’t that what he just admitted too? He said “all that” and the only thing you got from it was that he messed up? Or similarly, after talking about his sensitivity and how he has learnt to manage it over the years……there will always be one bright spark that will log on and feel the need to tell him he mustn’t be so sensitive or that he over analyses things. Duh? (Tell us something we don’t know) But yes…funny how some people just love telling you what you must or mustn’t feel.
Aaarrrg!! So I have had many a silent rant to myself on Jo’s behalf. But very slowly an interesting thing started to happen. After a few months of reading and silently fuming on the sidelines, I started to feel this urge to write my own comments …to ultimately defend the honour of us ” emotionally honest-heart-on-our-sleeves junkies” Do we not have the right to share our own experiences without the backlash of deleterious comments? Do we not have the right to be understood dammit? I was angry. Disproportionately angry, if I am honest. I was tired of feeling like I didn’t have the right to voice my own thoughts. But more so I was tired of being a victim of my own fears, yet again.
So I started to take action. My first response was after another therapist had adamantly disagreed with Jo’s approach to therapy. She had her own ideas about how it should be done. Hence he must be doing it wrong. (Of course.) In a world full of billions of people, billions of opinions, billions of personalities … there has to be one way of doing things. Ummm no, absolutely undeniably, (from my point of view), NO! It wasn’t the fact that she had a different viewpoint…it was the fact that she was judging him for his. Indeed I very soon decided that I was 100% intolerant of intolerant people. So I defended him. It wasn’t an angry or personal attack on poor therapist mind you. I simply shared a story that I felt beautifully illustrated the validity of what Jo was saying. From the moment that I clicked send, it was like I was Chicken Licken waiting for the sky to fall down. I was petrified. What angry backlash would there be? And low and behold. What came back? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Mmmm interesting. The sky didn’t fall down…I was still alive…this was kinda fun. So I started reading even more blogs…. and for a while, I became Gayle Super Defender of all that was wrong in cyber world!! Defending the misunderstood or inappropriately judged. Fighting evil cyber bullies one at a time. Down with judgmental angry people that are intent on forcing their opinions on others, I say! (Done from the sanctuary of my anonymity – it was absolutely liberating I tell you;-) Oh my God, I have an opinion….and I can voice it in a calm rational way. How irrefutably awesome.
And then a reasonably short while after that something else inside of me started to shift. I actually started to feel less angry or irritated when wading through other people’s comments. I started to really appreciate the good ones and found myself not being affected (‘that much’) by the scathing or inflammatory ones. I began to understand that many of them were angry, frustrated people who simply wanted to be heard and understood. Almost like naughty school children, continually behaving badly just to get some attention. How sad and how so completely irrelevant to me and my life? Staring at these trolls face to face I found myself starting to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. These aren’t tiny little mythical figures that live behind our PC screens…..these are real people at our work, in our schools or in our families that we sometimes invite or simply allow into our lives. I should know I have been giving my power away to these types of people for years and years. It’s been truly exhausting.
It made me think about an encounter I had once with a particularly malevolent troll when I was 29. (Let’s call her Amy) I had been teaching in London for 5 years. Amy was a colleague and someone that I considered a close, personal friend. We were both, during that time, struggling to deal with highly challenging autistic children in our respective classes. On one particular day when tensions were running high, we had a fight over us
both needing the same teaching assistant at the same time to help with our respective autistic children. It was a ridiculous fight really, in hindsight we were both just frazzled and I very quickly came to my senses and went to apologise to her after school. She wasn’t interested in my apology. Instead, she gave me a dressing down as I had never received before. She said some awful things to me. She also carefully worded it so as to make sure I knew, that this wasn’t just her opinion of me … this was what everyone in the whole school thought this of me. I had no words to respond to her attack and I very promptly burst into tears.
Unfortunately, the tears were like adding petrol to fire. “I feel nothing for your tears Gayle……they are pathetic. You are pathetic! Get out of my classroom.” I was completely and utterly heartbroken. After an entire weekend of crying my eyes out, I once again tried to go and apologise, I assumed (or hoped?) that she just needed some time to cool off – after all we had been good friends for over 2 years so surely she hadn’t meant all those horrible things? Big mistake. I was told in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing more to do with me, ever again. True to her word she maintained that for 6 months. Going to school during that time was absolute and utter hell. From that point on she refused to speak to me or even be in the same room as me if she could help it. Every morning I was in tears…I hated going to school…I hated being in the middle of all this hostility. I hated feeling so powerless. It was an incredibly miserable period in my life.
My lovely boyfriend at that time was at his wit’s end…he could just not understand why I was so affected by her. No doubt, in his eyes he could see she was poison….but at that point in my life, I could not. All I could hear were her words and her judgment of me and while in hindsight I can appreciate that some of them were true, I took them all as my ultimate truth. I felt embarrassed and ashamed around all my other colleagues…assuming they too thought all those things about me (As she had told me they did.) As a result, I found myself withdrawing from them, which ultimately meant they withdrew from me. I found myself continuously veering between trying to make amends, being shot down and then trying to beat her at her own game and just not to care. Some days I was stronger than others….but emotionally it took its toll. I remember one morning arriving at school and going to do some photocopying. She was busy at the machine. I greeted her. She promptly stormed into the headmaster’s office screaming and yelling at him that she did not want me speaking to her at all. She demanded that he speak to me about this. (Mmm right.) He too was at a complete loss as to how to deal with her and simply asked me to try and stay out of her way. I felt like everything was all my fault. Now I look back it’s almost laughable how much power I, in fact, had over her…..man did she spend a lot and time and energy hating my guts. She must have been exhausted.
But all that being said…as hard as that period in my life was I am so incredibly grateful for it and for her. Having been fortunate enough never to have experienced any bullying first hand during my school years, this whole situation heightened my sensitivities to what children who are bullied actually feel like. It truly and utterly sux. It not only affects how you see yourself….but ultimately influences all your other relationships. As a teacher, I don’t take any form of bullying lightly and I definitely understand the need for compassion and understanding for both parties. At the end of the day, anyone that is spending so much time inflicting any kind of pain on another person is quite simply acting out on their own inner pain. Amy indisputably forced me to take those first steps onto that path of self-awareness. Up until that point in time, I had thought I was a pretty ok person….and everything that was wrong with my life…was quite frankly someone else’s fault. I saw little or no correlation between how my words or actions were creating my own reality. I was, until that point, not the slightest bit aware of how my emotions and moods affected other people. Because of Amy, I started to redefine the qualities that I now look for in friends or the types of people I wanted to surround myself with. As a result, I think I have successfully built up some wonderful supportive friendships over the years. It dawned on me afterwards that Amy and I had spent most of our time bitching about the other teachers. I am ashamed to admit, it was pure and utter jealousy. I didn’t feel confident in my own abilities – so pulling others down, made me feel better. How so completely misguided was I? In hindsight, was it any wonder she bitched about me behind my back too? I had invited the maliciousness into my life with open arms. Amy was the catalyst that forced me to start really looking at my life and where I was going….she made me want to learn how to not be so sensitive. I never ever wanted to be in a situation like that again where I felt so powerless, where I was unable to stand up for myself. Needless to say, there have been a few more Amy Trolls over the years since then, but none have ever had that same debilitating effect on me as she did. That in itself makes me so incredibly proud. No doubt I am a better, stronger, healthier person because of this particular troll.
And to end off, (and to get to the final point of this whole post) – here is some random information: Nine years ago my first ever Facebook account lasted exactly 2 whole days before I deleted it. I was completely and utterly overwhelmed by the thought of having to update my status. (I kid you not.) I couldn’t for the life of me ever imagine ever posting anything about myself online. These days I barely think twice before updating my status…..in fact now more often than not my initial thought is – “Gayle when are you going to shut up?” and my resounding answer is always: “Never”
I have consequently come to a decision about my life. If I can update a freak’n status…I can write a blog. So my challenge is this….over the next 6 months, I am going to finish all those unfinished blogs that are lying in my blog graveyard. I’m going to face my fears and write. If I can handle real-life bullies then I can most definitely deal with those cyber trolls that may, or may not wander into my domain. Because at the end of the day I am strong enough. But most importantly I’m going to change how I see these trolls and start being grateful for them…if life has taught me anything, it’s that all those nefarious little trolls that push our buttons and drive us crazy have ultimately been sent to help us expand and be better and stronger people.
Let’s face it, a life without them trolls would be pretty boring and mundane. And quite frankly boring and mundane is not what I signed up for.
Bless you, trolls. Bring it on!!!!
I have come to believe that Creativity and Fear are in fact conjoined twins; they share all the same major organs, and they cannot be separated without killing them both. And you don’t want to murder Creativity just to destroy Fear! You must accept that Creativity cannot walk even one step forward except by marching side-by-side with its attached sibling of Fear.
–Elizabeth Gilbert
Images in order found at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
courtesy of jesadaphorn, Stuart Miles and Marin