Yippee-ki- O GOD, IT'S HITTING THE CHILDREN!!!
So I'm reading this book recommended to me by a friend. It's called "The Happiness Project" (no, I am totally not kidding). Anyhow, I came across this section on how to fight well with spouses and friends and family and...really everyone, and it occurred to me that this might be an area of my life where I kind of suck.
I was a really passive kid. I seriously think that some doormats were better at fighting back than I was. I was terrified of conflict, terrified of new people, terrified of social situations... My poor mother nearly lost her mind trying to make me stand up for myself (my mother is absolutely NOT a pushover). If kids were mean to me I wouldn't say a word. I would stand there silently, awkwardly smiling, and then burst into tears the second I got home. If not for some incredibly patient friends, I might have resorted to becoming a school-library hermit just so I never had to deal with that stuff.
Not pictured: a social life.
By the time I got to high-school-ish and college age, I was pretty sick of being taken advantage of and feeling like I could never express it when I was upset. I ended up swinging back the opposite direction...and maybe swinging a bit too far. My reflex of letting things go when they upset me would kick in until it built up into a rage and I exploded like a coke bottle full of mentos. I would unleash my anger and frustration and sarcasm on whoever had pushed me past the tipping point. Instead of doormat, I became a land mine. I'm sure that was really pleasant for all of you that got to deal with me in college.
O, you're going to go off right now? That's cool, I guess.
Anyhow, I developed this idea that expressing your emotions is healthy, so expressing them instantly and all the time must be super-healthy, right? That way they are not getting suppressed and building up into a rage, right? And don't therapists always talk about the dangers of suppressed feelings?
Turns out, that's totally wrong. Research shows that giving your anger free range without pausing to think about the real causes of the anger just trains you to erupt more often. Instead of dealing with it in a healthy way, it just makes you a more consistently angry person. The whole "don't sleep on your anger" thing is actually wrong. A lot of times, a little time and perspective can make the anger disappear and then you don't have to pick up the pieces from the explosion that you let loose.
Note: emotional devastation is more difficult to clean than this.
Because here's the thing. While it might make me feel better or vindicated or strong or whatever to unload on anyone who makes me angry, it usually has the opposite effect. Seconds later, I feel terrible and guilty about ripping into a fellow human being and they feel awful because, well, they just got caught in my out-of-balance cross hairs.
We are so used to watching tv shows and movies where the person we cheer for is the one who instantly comes up with withering one-liners and biting sarcasm to every offense. In real life, those people don't have a lot of friends. At least, not a lot of friends who aren't secretly terrified of ever offending them. And how can that kind of friendship last?
But Tyrion and I can still be buddies, right?
Maybe my real lesson here is that there is a balance between doormat and land mine. Somewhere in the middle is a healthy response. Now, I guess I am just off to find some middle ground.
And practice some one-liners. Just in case I ever meet Tyrion.
Must be prepared.
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