From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz)
Subject: Re: Failed Mail
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 03:54:03 GMT

In article <C0psM8.4o3@twwells.com> anon-1534@twwells.com (Suzanna) writes:
>Nancy writes:
>
>[Much deleted.]
>
> >    It isn't very nice. However, as far as I can tell, it's true.
> > 
> >    I believe that "nice" actually means pretending that you don't want
> >    anything very much and letting other people have what they want.
> >    This can sort of work when you're around other people who are also
> >    "nice", though it can leave life a little drab since no one is
> >    clear about what they want for fear of not being "nice".
> > 
>Is it only "pretending"? :( Other people deserve to get what they
>want, because they know what they're doing and they don't do things
>incorrectly. 

I think it's "pretending", but I could be wrong. For a long time, I had
the only-slightly-conscious assumption that other people had stronger
desires than I did, so if mine in opposition to theirs, I should give
way because it would cost me less to lose. I now think that this was
just fear (well, maybe terror) from feeling emotionally swamped by my
mother.

For what it's worth, a friend of mine believed that _she_ should always
give in because she was tougher than other people and could better
endure not getting what she wanted. At this point, I believe that
people are of equal value and importance, and no one deserves to
be stuck with a policy of always giving in.

As for other people knowing what they're doing and not doing things
incorrectly, when I was in group therapy, one of the things we did
was have everyone tell their life stories. (This took about a half
hour each, and one person did it each week.) The thing that struch
me was that they were all stories of people fucking up. Everyone had
been making mistakes and dealing with institutions that made mistakes.

Finding this out was very liberating for me because I'd had the assumption
that there was the Real World Where Real People Got Things Right and
then there was me, the hopeless fuckup. Actually, there is no Real
World Where People (But Not You) Get Things Right--there's just this
world, where people frequently get things wrong.

> >    I believe that anyone who *tells* you to be nice is trying to get you
> >    to give up what you want in favor of what they want--and trying to make
> >    it look to you as though capitulating is the moral thing to do.
> > 
>I don't know what I want, except for a friend to talk to. If someone
>wants something, it would be wrong for me to stop them achieving that
>desire. 

If you'll excuse some advice, you should probably talk a little more
about what you're interested in--it gives people a starting point for
talking with you. 

> >    >Is that why children are noisy? They run around and yell and scream
> >    >and do all sorts of things. I never did anything like that, I wasn't
> >    >allowed, but I didn't think it would be bad not to. 
> > 
> >    It's an interesting question how much children can be easy to be around
> >    without having some adult overcontrol them. (I'm an ex-child, but not a
> >    parent.) I suspect that that people need some exuberence or expansiveness
> >    to enjoy life.
>
>Oh. That will explain something of what's wrong with me.
>
> >    >I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by "strategy you depend on a
> >    >lot". I always try to be right, but most of the time I get things
> >    >wrong and that's bad.
> > 
> >    I think of trying to be right as a strategy--I think you depend on trying
> >    to be right as a way of feeling more secure. My impression is that you
> >    don't trust your own knowledge/instincts/desires/emotions/perceptions
> >    to get you through life and you want to have an external standard for
> >    everything you do so that you can be sure not to displease people.
> >    My impression is that you're so caught up in "being right" that it
> >    hasn't occurred to you that it's a mental structure and there are
> >    other ways to live. 
>
>If I get something wrong, it's bad and I will be punished. Other
>people know more than I do, and they are the judges. I do try not to
>displease people, but I do, so I must be doing something wrong.
>
Actually, no. Most people have other interests than keeping track of
you and punishing you if you make a mistake. 

Furthermore, the world is somewhat random. Dictators who have done worse
than you ever will have died in bed and had their memories respected.

You can't please everybody, and I can't see that you have any obligation
to do so.

>If I didn't try to be right, and didn't mind being wrong, then I
>wouldn't do anything, and lose my job, and be removed from university.
>People would hate me for it, instead of just thinking I'm pathetic.
>
This is just a guess, but I think that you have other motivations 
(like wanting to enjoy your life) that would keep you going if you
gave up trying to be right.

> >    I'm not sure that this is applicable to you, but I have a vivid memory
> >    of the moment when I realized that every time I had any chance of living
> >    up to my standards, I made the standards more difficult to achieve. I
> >    was (and to a lesser extent, still am) playing a game with myself of
> >    "Oh, what a failure I am". It's a distraction from actually being alive.
>
>I don't want to fail! I just do, even though I do try! I don't want to
>be punished.

I don't like doing the wrong thing either, and I'm not sure that the 
following is the right thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyhow.

I think your parents were a couple of blithering incompetents. I don't
care if they won professional awards or were parents of the year, they
raised you to live in terror and I detest them for it.

> >    Before that moment, all I saw was that I kept failing. It was quite 
> >    something when I realized that the standards weren't objective reality,
> >    they were just something I was making up--and specifically making up
> >    to guarentee perpetual failure.
> > 
>Oh. But I succeed sometimes, don't I? I couldn't stand being wrong all
>the time, I wouldn't deserve anything then except being punished.
>
Ok, I was just talking about myself--you seem to be following a different
pattern. Thanks for pointing it out. I wouldn't be surprised if I have
more fear of success than you do. (You may not fear success at all.) 

>Suzanna
>
Nancy 
>
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery