If people knew who you really were

There's this phrase, this sort of hidden command, that I have been conscious about lately. Maybe because I'm in a social setting where I am fairly new, but where people respond well to me, and now I'm waiting for that moment when I say something without thinking that reveals my awful personality to everybody…

which is strange, because I don't think I am particularly disgusting – at least not today, or for many years, though there are things that I'm ashamed of in the past – but I still feel and act as if I had someone in there with me saying: "If people knew who you really were, they would turn against you and hurt you and it would be your fault."

More or less consciously, I have been telling myself that since I was a child. I had problems with my temper as a child, and well into my teens. I got frustrated with social situations, and I couldn't keep it inside at all. Hardly a day went by without some incident where I would yell and shout and rage, sometimes over imagined slights, sometimes over real ones. The adults around me tried to explain that some people enjoyed getting a rise out of others, and the best thing I could do was to control my temper, then it wouldn't be so fun to tease me anymore. And I tried to hold it in, but I had no idea how to do it. I had no strategies for self-control, other than to keep my outbursts at bay with pure effort, and inevitably, that wouldn't be enough. My resistance wore down, as I spent more and more effort, and in a day or two I was at it again. Yelling, screaming, shouting.

From my failure to deal with anger, I taught myself in a general way that my efforts weren't enough, that I just didn't have the ability to accomplish... anything really. I taught myself to be weary of people, and even more sensitive to slights. I taught myself that even moderate expressions of emotion were unacceptable. They were shameful and meant I deserved to be punished. And I taught myself that when I came to a new place, I had the chance to present myself in a better light. If I could only to keep my temper, they wouldn't find out how fun I could be to tease. And then, the first time I lost my temper, I'd say to myself: "This is it. Now they know. Now they will turn against me and hurt me and it will be my fault."

So I'm not quite sure any longer exactly what it is I have to hide, only that it must be something awful or disgusting, or else I wouldn't need to spend so much effort on it.

Some socially demanding days
A few weeks back, I had some socially demanding days. First I was at a social gathering, had a bit to drink – enjoyed myself, but was also very conscious, about how I presented myself, about how well I did in conversation with others. Then I came home, ready for bed, and a conversation on Twitter from earlier in the day blew up. I have a bit too many stories that begins with something on Twitter blowing up. So I spent that night awake, arguing with others that were awake that night, trying to keep my mind clear, defending myself but suspecting that I was actually in the wrong.

The next morning, I went to another online place, and there was an upsetting argument going on there as well.  I manage to stay out of that one, but only barely – four or five times I began to type a reply, only to stop myself, delete everything, because I remembered I wasn’t up for this now. As the day went on, I saw that my instincts had been right. The things I wanted to say, in that particular context, would have come across as just a little bit disgusting. Just like the night before, in fact – my poor context-judging skills was the reason for that one blowing up as well.

From where I am now, I see the restraint I kept that day as a small, but encouraging accomplishment. It means an increase in my ability to control my social impulses, so that I get into fewer pointless arguments, for one thing, and for another, I'll be better able to deal with the changing circumstances that go with intimacy, now that I'm beginning to seek more intimacy.

But back then, drained from the effort of restraint, my thinking went more like this: 1) If I had said this thing, it would have made some people upset with me. 2) Good thing I didn't. 3) But doesn't that mean that their not being upset at me is based on false premises? 4) I have all these thoughts, all these impulses, that would earn a lot of people's disapproval, 5) so I guess that means I am deceiving them, and do in fact deserve their disapproval.

I was disgusted with myself for a while, felt there was so many people whose approval I sought, and they contradicted each other in their demands of me. One wanted me to believe one thing, another wanted me to believe the opposite, and me, I had no control over my own beliefs. My actions, words, yes, but beliefs? By the judgment of people I valued, my beliefs would be evil either way.

In other words: If people knew what I really thought, they would turn against me, and hurt me, and it would be my fault.

As I articulated that string of words, it began to feel like a firm, but illusory truth. It had the familiarity, the emotional resonance, of any firm, but illusory truth I've known. It corresponded so well to what I had learned to believe as a child. Someday I would lose control, and then they would find out what I was really like. Putting words to such a firm, but illusory truth lets me it them away as a foreign thing.

Now, at this point, my writing becomes a bit fumbling. (You don't see it, of course, because I back here some days later to clear it all up.) The fumbling almost always happens when I write. I doubt something I've said, or worry about something I haven't. Something in me wants to insert a paragraph or two where I correct and explain everything, but it doesn't seem to fit anywhere. I have given this something in me the name of the DISCLAIMER GOBLIN, and he is often essential to the evolution of the text. He points to things that are vague to me, or emotional, or both, and then he pushes me to understand those things. Sometimes I edit his comments out, sometimes I keep them in.

DISCLAIMER GOBLIN: Or to say the same with fewer words: You protect yourself from self-awareness with a huge bunch of words, Martin you coward.

Yes. Well, I know what you are going to say, but can you please hold it in for a while longer? Right now, let's just say that I know I'm not really that awful. I don't actually have any secrets that would make everybody I know despise me. It is an illusion – but a persistent one, and I'm curious about how it contributes to some other of my social issues.

So before you get to intervene, I will say some things about my discomfort with identity and social belonging, and my discomfort with intimacy and emotional openness, in light of the illusion that I have something to hide.

Identity and social belonging
I have always been careful not to give out the impression that I belong in a particular place. As a child, I would be anxious if I got near a school not my own, with school-child-identifying marks like a school bag on me. I would fill my head with explanations, excuses, in case someone from that school would accuse me of trying to pass as one of them. (If they find out who I really am…) Later manifestations of this have been my reluctance to talk about musical tastes, to wear t-shirts with print (except convention souvenir t-shirts), and to participate in activities I don’t master, like dancing.

It's probably also part of the reason I always feel the need to explain myself. Why I am present at a particular place, why I am buying that particular item, or going to see that particular person… I still fill my head with explanations, excuses, in case someone should accuse me of trying to pass.

That may be one of the reasons why I'm so vague about that event where I managed to restrain myself. Where it was, what it was about. It's not that it is some big secret, I'm just not comfortable with naming things, because just by naming them, it's as if I'm pretending to belong.

There are many reasons why I would be uncertain about fitting in. I do have difficulties with reading social situations, with learning the norms of a group, and I probably have been confronted with being in the wrong place in the past. There may also be traces of a fairly all-or-nothing view on sincerity, that gives the feeling that I am constantly being insincere. And I've recently come to understand how belonging always comes with social commitments, commitments I don’t always understand. I may go into depth on all of this in another post.

But now I take note of the fear that I will slip up, that I will lose control and show people what I am really like inside; the guardedness I feel whenever I am new somewhere.

Intimacy and emotional openness
I think I appear as if I am rather open about myself. There aren't many things I wouldn't share. But from the inside, I don't feel that way. I feel that the majority of what is me is unknown to everybody else – a pretty normal feeling, I suppose, and also true. Personal experiences can never be shared, or the personal aspect of them can't. To share, we have to transform them from personal to interpersonal, from internal and subjective to something others can observe. In that way, we are all of us alone… and many of us lonely… then add autism to that, it's even in the name: The ability to experience things outside of one's own self is even further impaired.

But the way in which I am not open is about more than this. Right there, together with to loneliness of not being able to share, I have a deep fear that people might find out anyway. That people might actually move through that impassable space between my Self and the outside world – that they might become part of me, or that parts of me might leak out into the world and dissolve.

I have had experiences that felt exactly like this, that would have been classified as delusions if I had believed that they were real. As if people were actually inside my head, paying attention to my thoughts, making editorial suggestions. It was like that I felt that night when I needed to convince myself that I was not particularly awful or disgusting.

The almost constant imaginary debates I have with certain people in my life are probably also related to this.

When I think of it, the same is even true for my compulsion to share stuff about myself… like here, in this blog… what I put down here is only slightly edited inner monologue. I make up a lot of inner monologue in order to defend myself, and then that inner monologue becomes so loud that I can't stand to be the only one that hears.

The illusion of having something to hide
Some of the things I just wrote seem to contradict themselves a little bit. Like in the last paragraph: Because I am afraid of any real intimacy, I feel compelled to share as much stuff about myself as I can. Or further up: The way I work for better self-control, and at the same time want to learn to loosen up. But are they? Contradictory? I don't really think so. I think it is a matter of different kinds of sharing, different kinds of control

– but I can't get any further with that thought, because now I do need to listen to the DISCLAIMER GOBLIN.

DISCLAIMER GOBLIN: Right. Well. There are two things that you neglected… or maybe just "neglected"… to say! 1) That there are people out there with actual, substantial secrets that they have to carry. You know, real things about themselves that could hurt them if it ever came out. And it's a bit respectless, don't you think, to go on about your own imaginary secrets, this vague sense that you might have some unsavory personality trait or other?

Yes, I know. So to people who have a real and socially stigmatized secret, well… I know. That it's not the same with me and my imaginary flaws.

DISCLAIMER GOBLIN: Yeah, there's the other thing. 2) You shouldn't dismiss the possibility that you actually have some pretty important flaws. Like blowing up in anger! That's not always okay, you know. You've hurt people in the past, with your anger. To a smaller degree, you have hurt people in the present. It's not something awful or disgusting, and it's not equal to actual social stigma: It's something that's actually your fault and your responsibility to fix. You talk and talk Martin about how you hurt yourself by hiding away, but some of the things you should actually keep to yourself.

Yes, I know this too. When you pushed me about it up there it didn't quite understand what it meant, but I think I'm getting more of the meaning now.

I have always had problems with self-control. I have felt powerless against my emotions. Expressing strong emotion, or emotion at all, has become connected with shame. And I have hurt people with my emotions, so there is a kernel of truth to that shame…

That's something I have discovered with many of my insecurities. They usually do have a kernel of truth. It may not be pleasant to identify that kernel of truth, but once I do, it almost always turns out to be something I can handle. And even if it isn't, it feels better to be worried about something real than to be worried about something vague.

If I listen to my Goblin, and try to see my own flaws in proportion, I'll have a better basis for making that decision. If I let go of the contempt I sometimes have for myself, I'll be in a better position to receive and react to both internal and external criticism.

I called it a contradiction that I wanted to be more open and have more self-control at the same time, but actually there's no contradiction at all. Control isn't about keeping everything in, it is about deciding what to keep in, and what to express, and how. Openness isn't about sharing everything all the time, it's about deciding what to share, with whom.

Now that I am beginning to seek more intimacy – intimacy is about those people you choose to share more with. As I open up and get to know more people, both as groups and individuals, they will learn more about who I really am, and then they get to choose how much openness they really want. Intimacy is what happens when two parties make that choice.