It's the mid-90s and my then-manager has hauled me into Human Resources with a fabricated list of infractions.
"What?!" I spluttered, "None of that is true!" He smugly eyed the HR manager as if to say, "See what I mean?"
In his Company of Men world of unfettered machismo, any display of emotion showed weakness, inconstancy, immaturity -- a shameful array of qualities which, it seemed, he had hoped to parlay into an image of my guilt, or at the very least unsuitability for the job.
"I'm getting emotional because I care!" I shot back, "Because I am being maligned!"
Years later, I thought of this episode when our ultra-cool president became criticized for being "too cool" -- that his lack of emotional display showed indifference, and again when a former colleague broke partnership with me, claiming my "unstable emotions and strong personality [were] a huge challenge" for her to manage.
When pressed about what was meant by "unstable," she was never able to offer a satisfactory example other than, "You got upset when such-and-such happened." When I'd counter, "But such-and-such was upsetting. If you step on my foot, should I not say 'ouch'? Isn't it better to get upset in the moment, deal with it, and let it go?"
No answer.
But therein lay a fundamental difference between the way I view and handle emotion, and the way she -- and alas so many others in our culture -- do (or don't).
"Emotions make life so much richer!" a new-agey friend of mine is fond of proclaiming, as though a Vulcan-like life without emotion were even possible.
"I'm like a Vulcan -- I don't get angry," my former roommate liked to declare. And indeed, he did not express anger; but his passive-aggressive behavior often made me furious -- and confused and ashamed for getting angry -- as I, too, have succumbed to our culture's dim view of emotion.
One evening, he admitted that he'd had a raging temper as a child, but when he saw how much his fury upset his mother, he decided he "wasn't doing that again!" This happened at age four.
So, he had learned to "control" his temper; yet frequently bragged about "psychologically torturing" his sister. He would, for example, smile during a serious family moment in a way that only she could see. This would infuriate her, but when she complained to the parents, he would simply shrug and say he didn't know what she was talking about.
He did not recognize that his glee betrayed not a lack of emotion, but his very emotional -- and irrational -- need to control emotions. (And the fictional Vulcans, by the way, do not lack emotion; rather they exert tremendous control over them, fearing their warlike tendencies -- as though the fear that drives the need to suppress emotion weren't itself an emotion.)
It took nearly two years for me to figure out that his very subtle behaviors, were calculated (perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not) to make me angry, so that he could experience anger vicariously without the compromising shame of losing control -- which in his world, like my former manager -- was not acceptable.
So he got a double-boon: anger gets expressed for him, and he gets to feel superior to the person expressing it: Me.
And his behavior was not overtly outrageous ... it was just out-of-sych enough to get my attention (as with his sister) and make me question myself. Wash, rinse, repeat enough times, it indeed became enough to drive me batty.
For example, he'd shuffle around loudly outside the bathroom door after I was done bathing; he wouldn't knock to actually declare he needed the toilet (that would leave him vulnerable to my refusal, and he couldn't have that), he would just make his presence known. Me, being a sympathetic, conscientious sort would finally open the door and say, "Do you need to get in here?" To which he'd reply, "Only if you're done." Regardless of my state, I would always turn the bathroom over to him. But after a while, I finally learned to shut the door in his face, or just not open it -- his kidneys be damned -- but even that was emotionally distressing for me and left me feeling nauseous and hurting. I am not good at being cold.
Other weird things: I'd come home to find him watching TV in the dark and, asking why, would be told, "Well, it's your lamp" sending me through a flutter of emotions from surprise to frustration to incomprehension and end up feeling insulted -- like, "Is something wrong with my lamp that makes you not want to use it?"
I mean... if someone puts a lamp in a living room, it means it's supposed to be used, right?
That is the assumption I made, and which I suppose many in my shoes would make; and it is these sorts of assumptions that the skilled passive-aggressive routinely violates, leaving the violated person stunned (and not even sure why he/she is feeling stunned), upset and even angry. Then the PA goes, "What's the matter with you? Are you crazy or something?"
I would find myself eagerly urging him to accept even the smallest tokens of social interaction. It was like... imagine inviting a friend to dinner, but the friend keeps refusing to eat until finally you find yourself begging him to eat, so then he can act like he is doing you a favor by eating your food!! And in the meantime, you have gotten too upset to enjoy your own meal. And he says, "What's the matter? Why aren't you eating??"
Now, sometimes these misbegotten interactions are nothing more than miscommunication, a misreading of the other's social expectations.
Like: you extend your hand, but the other does not; you smile, but the other does not; you sit down, the other remains standing. And when such interactions (or failures to interact) are innocent, the offering person has to do a bit of mental gymnastics to talk down from the expectation -- like "Hm.. why didn't he shake my hand? Perhaps he doesn't shake anyone's hand. Maybe he has Asperger's and doesn't know a handshake is expected." etc., etc. But this is exhausting -- and the skilled PA counts on this too -- because exhausting the other person is also part of controlling them.
And for the PA, it's all about control....
In a social world, reciprocation, mirroring, interaction is not only normal, it's joyful.
Think about the way children light up when they smile and you smile back at them; or they cover their eyes, you cover your eyes, and you both laugh in delight. Children express emotion naturally and enthusiastically; if they learn, however, that such expression won't be accepted, mirrored, trusted, then they learn to control... to withhold expression and even awareness of the emotion within themselves.
But emotion, for reasons I will explore in another article, is essential to being and we do great damage to ourselves and others in our attempts to control or suppress it.
And suppression does not only take the form of Vulcanesque impassivity; it can go the other direction entirely, where emotions are expressed, but not authentically. And this, I believe, is what drew me to the repeating drama with my roommate, and similar scenarios with people like my former colleague and manager, as well as a few boyfriends.
Similar to my roommate, in childhood I had come to feel ashamed and mistrustful of my authentic feelings, responses, emotions -- my authentic self, really. But as an "expressive type" the option of direct suppression was not available to me. So I have repeatedly been drawn to the complementary part of the dynamic, where my hypersensitivity to others' behavior (which, incidentally, is directly related to lacking a sense of "authentic self) has compelled me to overreact and emote my little head off. But they are not really "my" emotions, and so are "safe."
But in the end, the expression ends up being unsatisfying for both... and so it repeats and repeats and repeats.
But what is to be satisfied? I will answer that later...
Oh, by the way, I did prevail against the evil manager in the end, for whatever that is worth....
4 comments:
I had a horrible temper when I was a child due to my inability to express myself verbally so I would have temper tantrums that frighten everyone so I got the message not to do that so I "learned" to control my emotions. As a teen and young adult I would observe my girlfriends getting into trouble over boys so again I would suppress and control those emotions too. Now that I am a woman of mature years, entering into the Queen phase of my life,I yearn to find my own authentic self. How does one go about that?
I'm sorry to hear you had that experience, though you are hardly alone.
Isn't it amazing that full grown adults can be so terrified by the outbursts of beings who are only a tiny fraction of their size ... such is the power of emotion...
You should not have needed the ability to express yourself verbally; the onus was on adults around you to contain and comfort you through your distress regardless of how you were expressing it, rather then get freaked out by it.
I will address your question about how emotion lays a path to true self in the next two entries... hope to bang one out tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for reading!! :-D
Personally, I'm at the age where apathy has brought me to the point where I cannot get angry over any of the daily annoyances that come up. Don't get me wrong - I still get angry from time to time, I just try not to let my anger overwhelm me. Some people don't have that filter.
Also, I do believe some people delight in aggrivating others by not showing their own anger.
It's a funny thing about parents... they will all too often criticize their children about their behavior, but can't or won't acknowledge why their kids are the way they are. Children aren't raised in a vaccuum, after all.
LOL -- apathy is a good way to put it. I have been pretty neurotic for most of my life, but I just don't have energy for it anymore. Sometimes I still feel the impulse to get upset when I lose or break something, but mostly it peters out into, "Eh... what the hell.." :-)
As to those who aggravate others by not showing their anger... A friend noted that my roomie might actually have been a Covert Aggressive Manipulator, which is consistent with intentionally wanting to upset others.
But people who want to upset others are usually pretty upset inside, but can't express it. It's like they want resonance ... they want the outside to match their insides without expressing, much less taking responsibility, for what's happening inside them.
As to children -- they, like animals, are often quick to pick up on and imitate stuff that the adults around them are carrying. I once dated a guy whose cat was crazy -- BIG MISTAKE. He was emotionally abusive and had no ability to love. Ugh.
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