Loathing examined

I was re-reading this post and thinking it's this kind of negative attitude that makes it hard to fit in at the various support lists and communities.

I remember I was once on a Lyme Disease list. Some good info on there, some bad, and people at all stages of dealing with the acute illness or its sometimes long lasting effects. There were many of the latter, I think because they would be most likely to be looking for explanations and answers and advocacy tools - thus they'd be likely to find such lists and groups.

I did not fit in. I did not sign my emails with e-hugs and angel kisses. I didn't offer prayers or express my belief in a higher power. I did connect with some people though, usually over the difficulty of dealing with the healthy people around you who don't understand what this disease can do and how long it can do it for. In one such an exchange, my sarcastic humor so angered one of the angel-fluffybunny-ehuggers that she flamed the shit out of me both off and on list. Definitely an authority issue at heart, but played out in the arena of my "negativity".

I was just trying to make some other poor guy smile and nothing I had suggested was that off color. Just, er, some light comic aggressive steam blowing.

Then there's the issue of my family history. I was thinking that probably this blog is not readily identified as a survivor's blog, I mean not if you aren't into reading and such. (oh hell, more fucking negativity). But I don't have buttons and banners and sexual and physical abuse survivor blogrolls, links to Tory Amos pictures, inspirational finger paintings by abused children, sometimes cryptic water color images of hearts, teddy bears, angels, and hands. This is the type of thing I've seen which immediately mark a blog as being in the hinterlands of survivorhood*.

But I do freely disclose this aspect of my history. Sometimes it's important for someone I'm close to or becoming close to to know about. Sometimes it's political. Sometimes I've just had it with someone's ignorant idiot rambling on the subjects and I need to weigh in with some expertise behind the words to give it that extra punch I want. Ah, more negativity. Sometimes I truly think "Aha, a chance to inform and educate" although that one has fallen a bit into disuse after I realized it can be traumatic for me to open my experiences up to someone who is uninformed. They don't usually mean anything bad, but they do sometimes not understand that when, where, and how I talk about things (as well as which things) is entirely and necessarily at my discretion. E.g., my friend who continued a conversation about a topic involving my mom into a stairwell at school. It had started quietly in a room, just him, me, and another close friend. Then we went to get lunch. I recall trying to put it off when we were in the hall. Once we had gotten into the stair well though, he yelled some very detailed comment, not lacking a bit of judgment, which bounced and echoed off the bare concrete.

So what is my problem? What's with all the loathing? I guess I'd wonder more specifically what's with all the stigma against it? And what is with it coming from the survivors themselves even? My sister had some experience with that in a group.

On the general topic of stigma about survivor anger, I think it's fair to say what happened in my family is FUCKED up. And I think that a normal reaction to something that fucked up is to have negative feelings about it. I'm not a perpetrator, my attitudes and outbursts are not of that nature at all. When I do pick fights with people, it's usually someone I think is picking on someone else (or me) or has violated some kind of very important trust. Often a person in a position of some authority and who is using it either maliciously or so selfishly and for such limited ego gratification goals that they are exploiting others or putting them at risk of emotional harm or even more overt, socially acceptable damage.

Ibid on the health stuff. I do wonder if that will fade somewhat in time. I think some of it has already, although it's difficult in the context of academia, where pain and fatigue are practices to be engaged in for social and sometimes professional reward, always done and interpreted with the implicit understanding that the level of energy is more or less renewable. It isn't for me. It can mean I will not be able to get up the next day. It can mean a fever for weeks, a leg that hurts so much I can't sleep (adding to the exhaustion).

I'm watching another student who was diagnosed with a growth on his pituitary gland a few years back go through this shit too. He was sick. He's still not well, but he's better than he was. His dad had endocrine problems too which resulted in a line of troubling related health issues which this kid grew up watching. Being diagnosed with something like what Dad had was scary. And now this kid is being told he's progressing too slowly. The worst part about it is that the telling is usually not direct, and so he attributes his feelings of guilt, low self efficacy, and low self worth to himself. "It's not like anyone is saying it" he told me a week ago. I told him that in my experience, that sinking feeling that you're going to be judged as insufficient due to medical problems is not all "in your head" and is based on some signals you are picking up from the people around you.

Again, more of my negativity. Spreading the loathing, it would seem. If you're a fluffybunny-ehugger at least.



* There's a request not to copy or link to a site I found recently for incest survivors, so I can't give you a full description of the steps that particular site gave for the survivor recovery process. I found them bothersome in a way which touches on some of what I've mentioned above. If you're curious and you look up incest + survivors you'll probably find some of what I'm talking about. You'll also find some which isn't pro-anger denial, I did. But I've learned my lesson to stay away from any support communities or group since I know my "negativity" can always be waved about as a reason to invalidate what I feel, think, or say. And I could do without that.