just some introspection

my two greatest fears are confrontation and disapproval.



i can't get myself to confront anyone about anything. someone might have killed my helplessly defenseless grandmother with a fire ax and i couldn't confront them, no matter how much i'd want to--i'd be paralyzed with fear. or, when someone confronts me--whether i deserve it or not--i freeze up. i like this quote from russel wangersky's book burning down the house:

i'm not good at confrontation. i choose hard silence over explanation, and while that can sometimes seem like the best route, a point arrives where suddenly, dramatically, it isn't. i know that point intimately now, the point where that path suddenly ends, and i also know that, once you've reached it, there's so much stuff piled up in the back of your head that you can't expect ever to come close to digging yourself out from under it.

i think that describes me perfectly when i'm in a personal argument. all i can say is "i'm sorry" over and over and over again. it's annoying. it's not what you want me to say. half the time it's not even sincere, it's "please, get through being angry at me so i can move on and pretend this never happened." the truth is, i really can't say anything. my mind can't come up with anything to say. i can't explain my actions, i can't reason or argue. the fear in my head blares like a giant "warning" alarm that dissolves everything into paralyzing panic.

when i was little, my mother yelling at me was worse punishment than the harshest spanking i've ever gotten. she might have been trying to figure out what i was thinking at the time or why i did what i did but all she could get out of me was feeble answers like, "i don't know," "maybe" whispered in a raspy tear-choked voice. my noncomunicativeness made her even more angry and i remember her, once shouting at me in her frustration with my silence, "you're playing with the devil's hand!" and i suddenly imagined taking a hand of cards from the devil's claws and playing them against my mother's cards. i was afraid of her and by the time my older brother moved away, i realized that i had grown to rely almost completely on him for my interaction with my mother. if i had a problem, i went to him and if it was necessary he interceded to my parents on my behalf ... i knew i could trust my brother because any confrontation we had would be resolved with our bare fists and that i could understand. i was never afraid of my brother's knuckles--or anyone else's. he outweighed me by thirty or forty pounds back then and would let the fight go until he had had just enough of it, then he'd pick me up and throw me on the ground and sit on me until i gave in, or he'd kick me in the stomache or groin and that would be that. so i could handle my brother's disapproval because it came in a way that i could understand and deal with. the handful of bruises i got from my brother were easier to handle ... and there was comfort in knowing that i could fairly hit back...

my failure to learn how to deal with disapproval and confrontation has handicapped my ability to relate with my wife. when we argue or fight or discuss, i get defensive far too easily, i find myself far too sensitive and the blaring alarm in my brain goes off as all dissolves into the panicked obsession with getting the disagreement or argument or discussion finished as soon as possible, i mumble "sorry" and that makes my wife angrier and more disapproving because it's not what she wants to hear and she knows i'm being insincere! i get frustrated with myself for my inability to deal with the situation and my panicked mind races, trying to find something to say that will pacify her and bring the confrontation closer to a solution but everything i grasp turns to smoke and disappears before i can say it. i badly want to tear myself away and run screaming off the roof of our building. i fantasize about landing ker-splat in the center of the intersection outside as cars come to a honking, screeching halt all around me... all the while my wife becomes more frustrated at my silence.

the truth is, i hate it almost as much as she does. i wish i could just yell right back. i'm not sure what it is that keeps me from yelling back. i have nothing to yell. and i don't really think i could inflict the kind of pain i experience when i'm being yelled at on another person. i'd sooner beat them with a shovel. i'd rather be beaten with a shovel or stabbed to death with a serving spoon than yelled at. (good thing i never joined the army...) i just can't seem to convince myself that it wouldn't hurt her quite as much as my silence does--even though she assures me repeatedly that it wouldn't. but that's an irrelevant point, because i still have nothing to say. i just wish every dispute could be resolved in a good old fashioned fifteen round boxing match. i wouldn't even mind if i got beat senseless every single time.i think that's the reason why i wanted to be a boxer when i was little. later i was embarassed to death when my dad caught me shadow boxing in my room. when my classmates found out in grade six that i wanted to be a boxer, they laughed and said: "there's no such category as super extra lightweight." i've put on a few pounds since then and when i get stressed, i still fantasize about putting on some gloves and taking some heavy hits. i can't think under pressure and i don't handle emotional stress very well. it doesn't take much strain before i start to crack.

i can't figure out why i think that people don't like me. maybe it's because i'm desperate for their approval and if i don't get it, i assume they disapprove while in reality, they're not thinking about me at all. i keep having to tell myself that they're not thinking about me at all. and i really don't care what they think, i don't really care that they don't like me ... i just don't talk to them. which makes them think that i don't like them. in reality, i think they're awesome people, i just have a hard time believing that i deserve their approval...

too much rambling.