I Fix Problems and People React
Aug. 13th, 2023 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutWhile I did the catch-up posts from the trip, those are really daily activities posts. Some things happened over the course of the trip that I did not necessarily specifically write about, but which have gotten me thinking. This is what happens when you have over 2 weeks of time in closer than normal proximity to your immediate family and limited socializing options that do not also include that family. Learning things!
I have all kinds of trauma background, and it has distorted who I am in a bunch of ways and also intensified who I am in some very specific and extremely functional ways. Specifically, I think I was always going to be the sort of person who surveyed their surroundings, identified and prioritized what about those surroundings needed to be fixed or could be improved and then set about creating plans and implementing on those plans to effect those changes.
I fix problems. It is not just what I do. To a probably unhealthy — in some sense — it is who I am. I narrowly escaped workaholism and identifying with a career by being AFAB in a conservative social environment, so I basically putter.
It is absolutely unnecessary to present arguments to me about how there are alternative ways to pass one’s time, live one’s life, etc. I am painfully aware, in detail! To quote a recent Nathan Pyle comment about people who won’t use a decimal measuring system: “Oh, they definitely know.”
With all that in mind, I have recently been sorting through in my mind how people _respond_ to Me Being Me, which is to say, Me Identifying, Prioritizing, Planning and Implementing on Plans to Correct Problems.
I would characterize one of the largest groups of people, and one that I simultaneously resent and admire, as responding roughly with: Took You Long Enough. As a general rule, the resentment derives from perennially unrequited wishes that Someone Would Just Explain It To Me and Perhaps Provide Assistance, and the admiration derives from, If Only I had Fixed This Sooner.
The next group of people, which includes my daughter, responds with: This Is Great, How Did You. That feels good, in that it is validating, and creates a feeling of shared or at least aligned values, and also it it exhausting, but now I have to explain myself which is not always possible and even when possible requires effort. I feel some chagrin also, because I know I am often in this group.
Following that group of people is my son, and oh, so, many other people in my life: Why Did You Change That, Why Did You Not Change That Sooner OK Now We Have to Always Do That the Same Way in All Circumstances What Do You Mean No It Is More Complicated Than That. This group of people is exhausting and enraging. I think the rage comes from recognizing myself, or at least my younger self (hopefully only my younger self) in that group. The exhaustion is self-evident, I mean, look at the sequence. But finally, this group of people also inspires a certain nefarious glee in me: if I can just get them to understand, they will take all that energy and brutally subject lots of other people to the same change and as long as I program them correctly, they will fix a lot of stuff so I don’t have to. Nefarious means “wicked or criminal”. I do fully understand that this is a Bad Thing to Think or Feel. The Collins dictionary suggests that glee is often felt at someone else’s misfortune. It says everything about English that we have single syllable word that means Schadenfreude, and then we spend all our time pretending that we don’t have a word that means Schadenfreude, and as if that were not horrifying enough, we also use that word to refer to group a capella singing. I mean.
My life is decades of ferociously paying attention to reality, and then maneuvering to financially benefit from where reality is headed while also having a sense of humor and internal narrative that is essentially non-stop FAAFO.
The next group of people I will carefully not identify members of. I do not see myself in this group, but perhaps that is a failure of self-insight. They respond to me being me by asserting that there is no problem. I think a lot about this group of people, because just straight up fingers in ear, la la la la la never stops astonishing me.
According to thesaurus.com: “Astonish is more neutral [than amaze]—it is commonly used in both positive contexts (He astonished them with his insight) and negative ones (His lack of awareness astonished her). Astonish suggests your surprise or sense of wonder is so intense that you’re bewildered by it.”
I will give some persistent examples of reality-denial. When I was planning this recent trip to Europe and expressing concern about our short time in Dublin after getting off a red-eye. I didn’t want to miss out on everything while I adjusted, so I started — weeks in advance — adjusting my getting-out-of-bed time earlier and my going-to-bed time later, and more connected to the sun, in hopes that would help (it did). I also booked our hotel room including our travel night, so we would be able to nap on arrival. I know that is a no-no in some theories of circadian rhythm adaptation, but I’ve done the stay-up-continuously thing repeatedly over the years and it is only getting worse and more dangerous in terms of being accident prone and coming down with a cold. Transatlantic flights are too short to get enough sleep, and the earlier awakening is just too much to adapt to in one go. But before I could even _explain_ the plan I had to deal with the red-eye and time shift, I was immediately interrupted with, “oh but you will adapt in a day”.
*blink*
When I was younger, I would get cranky and become accident prone if I missed a meal or it was delayed too long. I was told by nearly everyone I knew back then that this was a Me Problem. I eventually decided to fix it unilaterally — I quit coordinating meals with people who created delay, I socialized in non-meal contexts, I brought snacks. After I had been doing that for a while, I realized that the people who were telling me that was a Me Problem _also were cranky and accident prone_, but me talking about it made it harder to deny the reality.
Hunh.
My son worked quite hard to have a work shift yesterday, the day after we returned from our trip. I had tried to talk him out of it. He wasn’t scheduled — he _asked_ to be scheduled. I told him very clearly to be very cautious driving because accidents were more likely when sleep deprived or when sleep rhythms were disrupted. That’s part of why we didn’t rent a car in Dublin (also, you do not need it in Dublin, and our visit was short enough that we did not really have time to leave the city). I just did not feel like arguing with him, so I was like, sure, fine, whatever.
He got into a fender bender.
*blink*
I felt like a terrible parent. I _knew_ that this was a risk! I did not bother to explain it to him! Why! I am a parent! He is still not an adult!
Step one: no more driving that day. I had two accidents in rapid succession (both minor) when I was around his age, the first was due to inattention and the second due to the emotional impact of the first. No _way_ was I going to subject him to the risk of that happening to him. Easy to avoid. Give it a day or two. That did mean I had to drive him to work and then back home, later than I wanted to be up. See above! Should have talked him out of that shift!
And then, on the way home from that shift, I explained to him in some detail that hunger and jetlag affect everybody, in predictable and dangerous ways. They make emotional regulation harder. They impair decision making. If someone says, when they haven’t eaten in longer than their usual time between meals, that they are not hungry or it does not matter, they are fine, they might lack self-insight or they might be lying, but either way, they are denying the reality, _and I know that_. If someone says, they are recovered from a multi-hour time shift in a single day, they might lack self-insight or they might be lying, but either way, _they are wrong_.
At first, he thought I meant him, personally. I was like, absolutely not! This is _everyone_. It took me a long time to learn this. There are no exceptions. We are human. We work in a certain way. If you think this does not apply to you, you are denying the reality of your humanity. It took a while (see above paragraph about exhausting) but he did get it. And that is _always_ true of my son. That’s why he is in the the group _before_ reality deniers, not in the reality denying group. They are not the same.
The reality deniers actually have at least two major subgroups. There are the people who deny entirely the existence of a thing like jetlag, or a thing like hunger impacting emotional regulation and/or physical performance or whatever. Then there are the people who agree that jetlag and hunger affect some people, just not them. I don’t really care, just like I only occasionally care (and never for very long) whether the shit coming out of people’s mouths is a lack of self-insight or lie. The distinction matters. When someone denies jetlag as a Thing, you can Science in response, and if they argue with that, they have sorted themselves into the Don’t Get Into the Mud with a Pig category and your next task is clear: walk the fuck away, and if people ask later, show the Science, and lather rinse repeat. I suppose you could find yourself in a situation where you cannot walk away but there is no point in talking to these people, so at that point, you are signing up for violence so think hard, and try to figure out a clever way to walk away instead.
But when someone acknowledges that jetleg is a Thing, but it does not affect them — or, worse, asserts it will not affect you so do not do anything to mitigate the Thing! Which is what happened to me in that recent conversation pre-trip. Don’t worry! I implemented on my plan, and I have been thinking carefully about that interaction ever since — it is harder to Science them. They are accepting the Science, and asserting that there is a range of impact, and the impact on them — or you, or whoever — is negligible. This is much, much harder to deal with.
Figuring out how to think clearly about this category of people is rapidly rising to the top of my Problem List.
I have all kinds of trauma background, and it has distorted who I am in a bunch of ways and also intensified who I am in some very specific and extremely functional ways. Specifically, I think I was always going to be the sort of person who surveyed their surroundings, identified and prioritized what about those surroundings needed to be fixed or could be improved and then set about creating plans and implementing on those plans to effect those changes.
I fix problems. It is not just what I do. To a probably unhealthy — in some sense — it is who I am. I narrowly escaped workaholism and identifying with a career by being AFAB in a conservative social environment, so I basically putter.
It is absolutely unnecessary to present arguments to me about how there are alternative ways to pass one’s time, live one’s life, etc. I am painfully aware, in detail! To quote a recent Nathan Pyle comment about people who won’t use a decimal measuring system: “Oh, they definitely know.”
With all that in mind, I have recently been sorting through in my mind how people _respond_ to Me Being Me, which is to say, Me Identifying, Prioritizing, Planning and Implementing on Plans to Correct Problems.
I would characterize one of the largest groups of people, and one that I simultaneously resent and admire, as responding roughly with: Took You Long Enough. As a general rule, the resentment derives from perennially unrequited wishes that Someone Would Just Explain It To Me and Perhaps Provide Assistance, and the admiration derives from, If Only I had Fixed This Sooner.
The next group of people, which includes my daughter, responds with: This Is Great, How Did You. That feels good, in that it is validating, and creates a feeling of shared or at least aligned values, and also it it exhausting, but now I have to explain myself which is not always possible and even when possible requires effort. I feel some chagrin also, because I know I am often in this group.
Following that group of people is my son, and oh, so, many other people in my life: Why Did You Change That, Why Did You Not Change That Sooner OK Now We Have to Always Do That the Same Way in All Circumstances What Do You Mean No It Is More Complicated Than That. This group of people is exhausting and enraging. I think the rage comes from recognizing myself, or at least my younger self (hopefully only my younger self) in that group. The exhaustion is self-evident, I mean, look at the sequence. But finally, this group of people also inspires a certain nefarious glee in me: if I can just get them to understand, they will take all that energy and brutally subject lots of other people to the same change and as long as I program them correctly, they will fix a lot of stuff so I don’t have to. Nefarious means “wicked or criminal”. I do fully understand that this is a Bad Thing to Think or Feel. The Collins dictionary suggests that glee is often felt at someone else’s misfortune. It says everything about English that we have single syllable word that means Schadenfreude, and then we spend all our time pretending that we don’t have a word that means Schadenfreude, and as if that were not horrifying enough, we also use that word to refer to group a capella singing. I mean.
My life is decades of ferociously paying attention to reality, and then maneuvering to financially benefit from where reality is headed while also having a sense of humor and internal narrative that is essentially non-stop FAAFO.
The next group of people I will carefully not identify members of. I do not see myself in this group, but perhaps that is a failure of self-insight. They respond to me being me by asserting that there is no problem. I think a lot about this group of people, because just straight up fingers in ear, la la la la la never stops astonishing me.
According to thesaurus.com: “Astonish is more neutral [than amaze]—it is commonly used in both positive contexts (He astonished them with his insight) and negative ones (His lack of awareness astonished her). Astonish suggests your surprise or sense of wonder is so intense that you’re bewildered by it.”
I will give some persistent examples of reality-denial. When I was planning this recent trip to Europe and expressing concern about our short time in Dublin after getting off a red-eye. I didn’t want to miss out on everything while I adjusted, so I started — weeks in advance — adjusting my getting-out-of-bed time earlier and my going-to-bed time later, and more connected to the sun, in hopes that would help (it did). I also booked our hotel room including our travel night, so we would be able to nap on arrival. I know that is a no-no in some theories of circadian rhythm adaptation, but I’ve done the stay-up-continuously thing repeatedly over the years and it is only getting worse and more dangerous in terms of being accident prone and coming down with a cold. Transatlantic flights are too short to get enough sleep, and the earlier awakening is just too much to adapt to in one go. But before I could even _explain_ the plan I had to deal with the red-eye and time shift, I was immediately interrupted with, “oh but you will adapt in a day”.
*blink*
When I was younger, I would get cranky and become accident prone if I missed a meal or it was delayed too long. I was told by nearly everyone I knew back then that this was a Me Problem. I eventually decided to fix it unilaterally — I quit coordinating meals with people who created delay, I socialized in non-meal contexts, I brought snacks. After I had been doing that for a while, I realized that the people who were telling me that was a Me Problem _also were cranky and accident prone_, but me talking about it made it harder to deny the reality.
Hunh.
My son worked quite hard to have a work shift yesterday, the day after we returned from our trip. I had tried to talk him out of it. He wasn’t scheduled — he _asked_ to be scheduled. I told him very clearly to be very cautious driving because accidents were more likely when sleep deprived or when sleep rhythms were disrupted. That’s part of why we didn’t rent a car in Dublin (also, you do not need it in Dublin, and our visit was short enough that we did not really have time to leave the city). I just did not feel like arguing with him, so I was like, sure, fine, whatever.
He got into a fender bender.
*blink*
I felt like a terrible parent. I _knew_ that this was a risk! I did not bother to explain it to him! Why! I am a parent! He is still not an adult!
Step one: no more driving that day. I had two accidents in rapid succession (both minor) when I was around his age, the first was due to inattention and the second due to the emotional impact of the first. No _way_ was I going to subject him to the risk of that happening to him. Easy to avoid. Give it a day or two. That did mean I had to drive him to work and then back home, later than I wanted to be up. See above! Should have talked him out of that shift!
And then, on the way home from that shift, I explained to him in some detail that hunger and jetlag affect everybody, in predictable and dangerous ways. They make emotional regulation harder. They impair decision making. If someone says, when they haven’t eaten in longer than their usual time between meals, that they are not hungry or it does not matter, they are fine, they might lack self-insight or they might be lying, but either way, they are denying the reality, _and I know that_. If someone says, they are recovered from a multi-hour time shift in a single day, they might lack self-insight or they might be lying, but either way, _they are wrong_.
At first, he thought I meant him, personally. I was like, absolutely not! This is _everyone_. It took me a long time to learn this. There are no exceptions. We are human. We work in a certain way. If you think this does not apply to you, you are denying the reality of your humanity. It took a while (see above paragraph about exhausting) but he did get it. And that is _always_ true of my son. That’s why he is in the the group _before_ reality deniers, not in the reality denying group. They are not the same.
The reality deniers actually have at least two major subgroups. There are the people who deny entirely the existence of a thing like jetlag, or a thing like hunger impacting emotional regulation and/or physical performance or whatever. Then there are the people who agree that jetlag and hunger affect some people, just not them. I don’t really care, just like I only occasionally care (and never for very long) whether the shit coming out of people’s mouths is a lack of self-insight or lie. The distinction matters. When someone denies jetlag as a Thing, you can Science in response, and if they argue with that, they have sorted themselves into the Don’t Get Into the Mud with a Pig category and your next task is clear: walk the fuck away, and if people ask later, show the Science, and lather rinse repeat. I suppose you could find yourself in a situation where you cannot walk away but there is no point in talking to these people, so at that point, you are signing up for violence so think hard, and try to figure out a clever way to walk away instead.
But when someone acknowledges that jetleg is a Thing, but it does not affect them — or, worse, asserts it will not affect you so do not do anything to mitigate the Thing! Which is what happened to me in that recent conversation pre-trip. Don’t worry! I implemented on my plan, and I have been thinking carefully about that interaction ever since — it is harder to Science them. They are accepting the Science, and asserting that there is a range of impact, and the impact on them — or you, or whoever — is negligible. This is much, much harder to deal with.
Figuring out how to think clearly about this category of people is rapidly rising to the top of my Problem List.