October 6, 2012

  • Responding with silence has become a norm within the past year; it's not one I like very much. Part of it is simply the inevitable result of living with disability. Much like, by my Senior year of college, showering on the weekdays all but ceased. As I said – to basically similar effect – somewhere else on this Xanga, it's not pretty but I'm functional. I have that much.

    It's that reason that is the operative at play in cases like Margaret and Allan. In instances like with my dad and mom, it's far (far) more my complicated history with authority.

    I have little doubt that the root of it goes back to the fact that I grew up in a controlling household. If my incessant attention to irrelevant details, that are greater in value at their whole, is any clue, it was the constant denial of making little choices as to what to wear or what I could keep in my room (or even how I wanted to order and organize my room) that, if not the basis of this issue, have some part in it. Sure, part of the issue at stake in those previously listed denials is also the refutation of my choice in an identity (something that always seemed, to me, to have been developed at a young age) but it's also that basic fact that "refutation" and "denial" are used in these sentences.

    I was refused choice; in a sense (metaphorically), I could not freely move. Double this with my depression (the casual choice of the abled to climb the stairs is far more greatly complicated for those resigned to a wheelchair) and you may see a pattern.

    I remember being strikingly affected when, while visiting a museum, one of the guards interrupted my thoughts as I was observing a painting: "Excuse me, sir? I don't mean to interrupt you, but we ask that patrons don't get to close to the artwork or point near them to avoid getting oil on the works." I feel – if my memory is of any reliability – like my issue with people interrupting me because they felt that I hadn't noticed something (walking out in front of something, being in someone's way, etc.) is a trait which formed far more frequently, if not in entirety, after this event though my reaction at the time seems to suggest to me otherwise. Regardless, my (internal) reaction wasn't annoyance and it wasn't indifference.

    It was a sort of elation. I immediately told the guard that of course I would do this and thanked him for alerting me. I wanted to help this man.

    The crucial point was that he had asked me. Rather than trying to exert control over me, he had offered the control to me.

    Now, of course, there has to be limits. You cannot just do as you please in life with others respecting your control and authority. You have to mutually respect everyone else's control and authority. While I may deal with the "Why" of this rule later in this post (or certainly in another post, at the very least, since the functionality of this rule needs to be addressed to make it a valid rule), what I proposed in the previous sentence works when you follow the rule of allowing every person to do entirely as ze wishes up until the point that ze harms someone else. Hence, I would have accepted the guard to have said, "Please do be careful not to touch the artwork. Thank you." I may not have had such a positive reaction but there would have been absolutely no complaint from me. I'm visiting the museum; the artwork is the museum's; they have every right to tell me how to behave around it.

    But the reason that I tell this story is that it was this moment that started to make me realize the explanation that can justify – I'll even hazard an absolute guess here – everything about me (I forget if I've mentioned it here but the fact that I came out of an abusing household and most of the people I've known have witnessed abuse can also be used to explain and justify every action, ideology, and way of thinking that make up my identity).

    It is that I want control. Even if it's solely for the aim of implementing what I want (which, in almost all cases, is the betterment of others; I mention this because this is often not what we think of when it comes to desiring control. I like power; power is control. That it garners respect is certainly a perk but, at the end of the day, it always comes back to what I want to build and make. And 90% of that deals with the bettering of others).

    I've been thinking about mentioning here for a while now that I think the reason that stupidity so vastly and flatly terrifies me is that, when someone is stupid (or is stupid about something), there really is no way to reach zem. Because you can't rationally proceed about the world when basic logical connections break down. While I very rarely am a fan of forced control, I am all for control by helping someone understand a line of reasoning. We often don't think of this as control (e.g. we don't think of it as control for us to accept that gravity is real and choosing not to deny gravity. Yet it is; I can't control someone in a way that can avoid zem making choices that will harm others if zir basic logical processes cannot comprehend gravity).

     

    Which brings me back to my central point. Sometimes it's not fair. Allan or Margaret don't deserve to be put off. That's the disability working, reducing our expectations below the logical standard.

    But with my parents, I have only ever asked them for one thing, really. Sure, I borrowed the car to go see friends (come college; I'm pretty sure my standard of getting out of the house in high school was far below average for others my age at the time). But that's really about it. I bend very easily; I'm pretty sure I've said it here before but I often don't actually fight back until backed into a corner (notice that the notion of control has been here all this time, even before this post?). So I've made concessions. My mother's controlling. So I let her make me apply to 13 colleges. Not necessarily what I would do; not really a bad thing, either, so I was more willing to do with that proposed idea. However, when it came to applying to Havard, I firmly said, "No." I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to go.

    Ever since I ran away, my mother got nicer about certain things. It's interesting to see where her and I actually do have similarity (and the differences in that similarity). It's the play I would have made. I give up some, you give up some. It's the idea behind me bending, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph; I often play the long game: I'd much rather accumulate points to use later than fight out each battle full-on each time (depression partially necessitates this). As I've told my father, I choose my battles. My mother's been particularly lenient about some of her inanities lately; I overheard her a few hours ago telling my dad he should stop being so negative in the way he talks to me (of course, seeing as this is actual foul play rather than something that could truly be seen as a favor (you don't stop stealing from someone as a favor, for anything), this is problematic).

    Yet when I said that I didn't think that it was a good idea for me to go to graduate school (something I should probably do a full post on some later time), I was resoundly told that wasn't an acceptable answer (it was said more leniently than that but, like I said, another post).

    So when I desire silence from my parents, this is partially to see if I get the choice of being left alone. When I continue silence despite their protests, this is to see if they earn my trust to break that silence (word of advice: incessantly talking and refusing to accept that choice of silence are not ways to reassure that I have control).

    Because, I would strongly argue, the only thing I have ever truly asked of them is to be left alone – and, by a lesser extension, the ability to make my own choices and time to formulate my own thoughts (clearly I don't make rushed decisions; I need to think). Interestingly, this is the one thing they have refused to give me.