I have a terrible time making decisions. It’s because my mother has a habit of questioning her decisions, no matter what they are. More to the point, she won’t accept an answer to her question without bringing it to at least two other people. Ian wondered why she asked me questions when she immediately went to my brother to get his opinion as well. At the time, I said it was because she wanted a second opinion. She always wanted a second opinion and usually went with the second opinion.
Ian commented that he thought it was because she put more weight on what my brother said. I pooh-poohed that, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he wasn’t necessarily wrong. My brother and I both know that our parents treat us differently based on our gender. It’s been that way since we were kids. Very Taiwanese–putting boys over girls. My mom’s mother was very bad at this. She clearly preferred the boy grandchildren to the girl grandchildren, and she droned on and on about her husbands family at every family reunion.
Anyway. My mother is the champion of indecision. Any time she makes a decision, she immediately thinks of all the reasons she should have made a different choice. K and I used to talk about our family of origins and how they made decisions. In my family, any decision you made is a mistake and you should have made any other decision but the one you did. You can never be right. If you buy something on sale and save $50, you should have found a way to save a hundred. In K’s family, you can’t make a wrong decision and you’ll be fine no matter what you decide to do.
We talked about the good and bad of each method. In my case, the bad is obviously feeling like you can never make the right decision. The good is that you think about each decision you make from every angle so there’s less room for unpleasant surprise (not no room, of course, as you can’t think of everything). On K’s side, the good part is that there’s less pressure to do the ‘right’ thing because there is no one right thing. The bad part is that a bad decision can be brushed aside and not dealt with in an appropriate amount of time.
Because of my upbringing, I’ve chewed over every aspect of my personality/identity until it was a pulpy mush. No, that doesn’t sound appetizing, but you know what I mean. I am wary to make declarative statements about myself without considering every angle. Too wary, sometimes, I think. I hate labels, but it’s not as if they are static. It doesn’t have to be a case of declaring myself, say, bi and then being done with it. Labels are heuristic, short-hands, and not meant to be everything in and of themselves. The problem is that people tend to think of them as discrete when they are more fluid than that. I hate being misunderstood or put in a box so that’s one of the reasons I dislike labels.
Side note: I hate multiple choice tests for a similar reason. Each choice is so limited and I can often think of situations where several of the answers would work. In my Intro to Psych class, my professor gave us multiple choice quizzes and graded on a strict curve. I would argue the answers I chose. My professor would agree with me, but still refused to give me credit. It drove me crazy because if I was right, I deserved credit. If I didn’t get the credit, it should be because I was wrong.
I much prefer essay questions because I can explain my way of thinking and why I wrote what I wrote. I’m a good writer so I can sway a professor that way, er, prove that I’m right. I once got 100% on a test strictly because of my ability to bullshit my way through it (I did NOT deserve the perfect grade), and I have no remorse because I know how to accentuate my strengths. If my profs were fooled by my words, that’s on them.
Speaking of words, that’s one thing I know I’m good at. Writing words, I mean. Also influencing people, but I try to keep that on a short leash. I’ve seen it used for evil and that’s not who I want to be. However, using it for good or at least to my benefit without hurting other people? That’s something I wished I had allowed myself to do at a younger age. Now that I’m thinking about doing video, it’s something I have to let shine through.
Side Note II: A few years ago, my brother surprised the hell out of me by saying I’d be a good psychologist. Not that he’s wrong, but that he noticed. It’s not his wheelhouse (emotions and perception), so I was surprised that he would notice it. He’s also been encouraging me to use it for doing videos. My brother has really come through for me in the past year or so. Not just because he did all the hard work when I was in the hospital, but because he really sees me for me. He’s the one who noted that I would prefer people just use my name to using a pronoun for me. I think it’s because he’s not trapped by societal conventions that he’s able to see the essence more easily. He’s not always able to correctly identify what that essence is, but he recognizes that it’s there.
I think the fact that I’ve spent so much time on introspection is one reason I get mad when people try to tell me something about myself. I know myself as well as a person can know themselves and I don’t need someone else to make assumptions. Even when they are good assumptions! I was talking to a classmate about not wanting to be a mother in part because I’d be a terrible mother. It’s not cool to scream at your kids, “Get the fuck away for me! I need to be alone for three days!” and it’s guaranteed to send them straight to therapy. My classmate replied that he thought I’d be a great mother, but couldn’t really give me any concrete reason why he thought that. I believe he believed it, but more because he’s a good guy and sees the best in everyone than because of anything specific to me. Also, because I am good with people in general (in very limited doses), which does not translate to being a good mother. In addition, I think he thought I was admitting a flaw and wanted to make me feel better–which I definitely was not. Admitting a flaw, I mean. I was being truthful, but I did not consider it a flaw by a long stretch.
It’s the same when I say that I’m fat. People rush to say, “Oh, no, you’re not fat!” as if it’s a bad thing. Being fat, I mean. I know why that is. I ‘m not naive about how fat is seen in our society. It’s one of the worst things to be according to many people. There has always been a sizeable chunk of the population who would rather be dead than fat. I used to be one of them and I have the anorexia/bulimia memories to prove it. Then, sometime in my early thirties, I declared that I didn’t care. I swung the other way and gained tons of weight to…something something profit? To be honest, I gained the weight as protection. And because I tend towards fat, anyway.
By the time I was in my early forties, I was comfortable saying I was fat in a matter-of-fact way, but I still didn’t like the way I looked. As I have written lately, that changed drastically because of my medical trauma. After I survived that, I suddenly realized that I was cute as fuck! No, seriously, I did. I have no idea why except perhaps in part because I had no privacy in the hospital and had my body treated with dignity, respect, and care. None of the nurses cringed as they touched me or made faces. I realize it’s their job and they’re professionals, but they all made me feel safe, respected, and I was afforded my sense of dignity. Even with my fat body that had elicited so much disgust in the past.
So where am I now? I’m still fat, but I got nothing but love for my body after all it’s seen me through. For real, I dropped walking pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and a stroke on it. It shook it off like it was nothing and kept on doing its damn thing. I am stronger now, almost six months later, than I was before I ended up in the hospital. My body can do more now than it could then. I have decided I’m cute as fuck (look at my funky glasses!) and I’m sticking with it.
As for gender/sexual identity, I’m going with queer and genderqueer for now. This is not set in stone, but it’s what feels the realest to me at the moment. I would be ok with androgynous if it simply meant a blending of gender vibes, but that’s not what it means in the colloquial sense. When people use the word androgynous, they usually mean someone who doesn’t ping as either male or female, not someone who pings as both or anywhere else on the gender spectrum.
But I’m ok with genderqueer for now. I’m fine with queer for now as well (instead of bi). What I’m realizing, especially after my medical trauma, is that the label doesn’t matter as much as me just being who I am. I know who I am on the inside; it doesn’t matter what others think.