The Ultimate Truth

I’ve been trying to write a post for a few days now and have been having trouble finding words. I am still doing the Cognitive Processing Therapy and have a lot of stuff churning in my head and, as per my norm, my brain is freezing when I try to verbalize it so I am going to type slowly and see what I can get out. I deleted three paragraphs from this draft because even though I got the title right I had the truth wrong.

One of my big hangups that has kept me from progressing in therapy is the fear that getting better and learning to live my life and find joy in it won’t change anything about my life from the way it is now.

“Our childhood and adolescence is when we discover how we relate to the world and how we relate to other people. It’s where we learn what success means and how to achieve it. It’s where we form our first values and establish our identities for the first time. Obviously school is not the only influence during this period — our parents and peer-group are more influential — but it’s still a major one.”

I didn’t have a group of friends to model myself after, moving every year for the first five years of school is detrimental to forming bonds, but I guess I did have a peer group. They weren’t very supportive but even then I was forming myself to whatever was needed at the moment, and I could be defensive if someone tried to make suggestions, so the peer group wasn’t much positive help. Then, as now, it was school and then home, work and then home, no socializing outside of school/ work and no friends who were/ are despondent when I can’t join them. I was at the mercy of my mother with no one to help.

“Growing up, everything you’re told to do is for no other purpose than to earn the approval of others around you. It’s to satisfy somebody else’s standard.”

This second quote is from the same article as the first one, I’ll be tossing a few more in, too. It is an excellent post and you should read it, it explains why a lot of brilliant people, such as myself, have such a hard time being successful. I told someone once that I make a much better employee than manager, and I do. I get overwhelmed when I am left to be in charge, even in my current job. I have to stop and sit and let my brain slow down on a regular basis. It’s a coping mechanism that works for me.

“Failure helps us. It’s how we learn. Failed job applications teach us how to be better applicants. Failed relationships teach us how to be better partners. Launching products or services that bomb teach us how to make better products and services. Failure is the path to growth. Yet we get it hammered into our brains over and over that failure is always unacceptable. That being wrong is shameful. That you get one shot and if you screw it up, it’s over, you get a bad grade and that’s it.”

I read that paragraph and realized that this is why I haven’t had a boyfriend in decades, it’s why I don’t date, it’s why I made myself fat and unattractive and don’t pursue men. I’m afraid of failing again and being hurt. It might be that all of those people saying that my demographic is afraid to take a chance just might be right. It’s also why I stopped doing a lot of things that I loved to do, because I didn’t see the value in them, there was no way I was going to be a success so why bother.

“I think there’s a tendency for most of us to be scared of not having someone tell us what to do. Being told what to do can be comfortable. (snip) That doesn’t mean authority is always harmful. It doesn’t mean that authority serves no purpose. Authority will always exist and will always be necessary for a well-functioning society. (snip) Adherence to authority should never be compulsory, and it should never go unquestioned — whether they’re your preacher, your boss, your teacher or your best friend. No one knows what’s right for you as well as you do.

And not letting kids discover that fact for themselves may be the biggest failure of all.”

My formative years were all about being told what to do and if I failed at something it was because I didn’t do it like I was told to. My big breakaway, going to the party after my boyfriend expressly told me not to, resulted in my being raped. Now, I see in myself a desperate need to have approval before I do anything, anything at all. I can talk myself out of doing stuff that I’ve always wanted to do because there is a chance that someone, some random stranger, will disapprove of the way that I do it.

“The why’s of life are far more important than the what’s of life and that’s a message that is rarely communicated growing up. (snip) There needs to be a why to learning to go with the what. The problem is that everybody’s why is personal and it’s impossible to scale.”

My favorite question in all of the world is “Why?’. In the military, I drove some coworkers to frustration because everything was “Why?”. Knowing “Why” helps. Who, What, Where, When and How are all important, too, because I love facts, but Why ties it all together. I’m learning Why I am as I am, now I need to know the How on changing it. I’m thinking that “How?” is going to rank right up there with “Why?” from here on out.

Yesterday’s therapy session started with a headache that felt like someone was piercing my eyebrows with ice picks, and I had a gray wall, blank and featureless, trying to erase all thoughts from my brain. We started talking about my need for approval and my fear that nothing will change, and then it hit me.

I was applying my current need for approval to the results of the change.

For this change to be the change I need, it won’t depend on anyone else approving of it. It will be me owning my life and doing what I know will bring me fulfillment. Whether anyone outside of me approves or disapproves is entirely irrelevant. It isn’t going to be easy because I am a junkie for approval. It’s going to be every day working the program like a recovering addict. I am going to have to learn how to create healthy emotional bonds with other people and to learn how to take rejection as the dispassionate function that it is.

And just like that, the pain went away.