Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: confidence

Patting myself on the back, part three

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When I look back on the person I was in my twenties, I want to give that person a hug. That person was so emotionally fragile that a single negative word could crush that person into a (not-so-fine) dust. To be fair to that person, the home life was very rough. I don’t like thinking about it because it still hurts. I think about how lost and utterly miserable I was. I felt like an alien, like I didn’t belong in this world–and what’s more, the world would be better without me. Oh, here’s my post from yesterday.

When I was in my early twenties, I had a break from reality. I was very lucky to make my way back without any mental health support, but I never came all the way back. Someone once said that you when you broke something, yes, you could put it back together, but it would never be as good as new again. They were using the metaphor as a way to explain how difficult it was to deal with mental health issues, and I had never felt more seen.

Yes, I have spent decades trying to fix the cracks and breaks in me. I’ve gotten good at plastering over them, but I have yet to truly fix them. And while I am much easier on myself than I was back then, I still have lingering thoughts of self-hatred that flair up now and again. While I can talk myself down most of the times, once in a while, it just runs all the way through me. And if it reaches that point, I have a hard time getting out of that dark place.

All my life, I’ve been fighting (or not) the feeling of ‘why bother?’. Why should I try when life is, in the end, worthless? Eh. That’s not the right word for it. It’s nothing like pointless or meaningless. I guess it’s more that the world is so grim, I do not know what to with it. Every time I check the news, this president is doing something else that is so terribly bad. Just awful. It was bad during his last terms, and yet, he managed to make things even worst.

Wait. Why the hell am I going down that path?

Oh, I know why. Because I have a hard time thinking that anything matters. Or more specifically that I don’t matter. And again, I don’t mean that in a negative way (this time). I really don’t matter as a person.  Believe me that this is a better mentality than thinking I was the absolute worst as a person (that I made the world a worser place just by existing). I still cringe at things I say and do on the daily, but I can get over it more easily.

I give much thanks to Taiji (and now Bagua) for helping me become mentally stronger. I once told my teacher that while I  wasrn’t expecting to get into a fight nor did I want to, I did want to be able to use Taiji to help with relationships on an emotional level.

Since I’m terrible with boundaries, that was what I was mostly hoping for–that Taiji would help me set them. Has it? Yeah. I’m still prone to being a people-pleaser and am pretty easy to push, but when it matters, I can stiffen my spine and not give in.


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I’m finally at home

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If I could have given my younger self some advice, it would be fuck the police. Er, fuck everyone olse. I can’t emphasize to her how little everyone eles’s opinion matter. Sure, you want to be kind and thoughtful. And, yes, you want to have good friends and connect with individuals, but those assholes who want to tell you what to do? Nope. don’t give them a second thought.

I would tell her, this includes your parents. Especially. This is somethin I really wished I had known much earlier in my life. My parents should not have had kids, and it’s not on me. It’s not because I was a bad kid that they treated me the way they did. You see, as a kid, I had cause and effect backwards. This is true of most kids who experience a less-than-great childhood. It’s human nature to assume there’s something wrong with you if your parents don’t love you.

And, yes, my parents don’t love me. I realized that when I was in my thirties or so. Before that, I thought it was just that they didn’t know how to show it. I didn’t fully acknowledge it until after my medical crisis because I didn’t realize it until then. I mean, I knew in the back of my brain that they had issues and did not show their love in a way that was meaningful to me. I danced around it because who wanted to admit that their parents didn’t love them? But with my medical crisis, I had to admit it because it was costing me to pretend it wasn’t true.

I’ve talked about it before, but what made me realize it was when I came home from the hospital. It was the second day home and my mother wanted me to show my father a stretch that helped me with my back. On the sceond day as I said. From dying twice. Well, to be more accurate, a week and two days after that. She wouldn’t listen to me when I said I was too tired to show him the stretch. That showed me that he was more important to her than I was, which I had known–but I hadn’t fully embraced.

I would tell Little Me that it’s not her fault that they did not like anything about her. My mother wanted a daughter to be her clone.  Or rather, to be the perfect little girl my mother wanted her to be. She made it known to me as an adult that she had had issues with her mother so part of her solution was to have a great relationship with her own daughter–which in theory was me.

The problem was that she didn’t allow for the possibility that her daughter would not be like her or like what she believes a girl should be. In other words, me. She had no idea that someone like me could even exist. Everything about me is offensive to her, apparently, and she takes it as a personal affront. She once said to me in exasperation that something being traditional didn’t mean it was wrong. I retorted that just because it was traditional, it didn’t mean it was right. That really pissed her off, but I didn’t care.


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Simply the best

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I am and have always been a hot mess. I am painfully aware of most of my flaws. I can’t say all of them because we all have that one or two (or ten) things about ourselves that we can’t see. But. Let me rattle them off right quick.

I’m lazy; I am sarcastic and cynical; I’m petty and snarky (not necessarily outwardly, but definitely on the inside; I’m critical and nitpicky. I focus on things excessively; I get cranky when I feel trapped; I’m overly sensitive; I don’t give a shit about the status quo or most of popular culture. I constantly question authority and I have no respect for tradition.

Of course, I can flip many of these on their heads and say, I go with the flow; I don’t take things for granted; I push things that need to be pushed; I stand up for the underdog and I see things from a unique perspective. I bring up the things that people don’t want to deal with, and I make sure that all voices are heard. I’m empathetic and validating, and I am passionate about the things and people I care about.

Back to my flaws, I get in a rut. I do the same thing all the time. I’m fearful of trying new things. I am quick to get upset/impatient. I don’t like being questioned. I put off doing chores that I’d rather not do. I don’t understand societal norms even when I follow them.

On the flip side, I can fit into almost any situation because I can read people really quickly and give them what they want/need/expect (not sure that’s a good thing, actually). I am charismatic and approachable. I have a trustworthy face, apparently, except when I’m consciously shutting people out. Even then, peolpe are drawn to me. I’m very good at setting people at ease and making them want to talk to me. Too good!

I’m creative and inventive, and I’m ahead of my time. Writing-wise, I’m always told I can’t do things and then they become popular a few years later. It’s irritating, actually. I’m very good at dialogue and making people seem real. I’m terrible at description. You’re lucky if you get a ‘the leaves were green’ out of me. It’s because I can see the iages in my head so clearly that I don’t feel the need to describe them.

Here’s the thing. Before my medical crisis, I hated all my flaws. I mean, it makes sense because they are flaws. Why would I like them? But, here’s the other thing. Everyone has flaws. No one is perfect. It’s fine to say that you’re going to work on improving yourself, but at some point, you have to accept that certain flaws are here to stay. The trick is to realize which is which.

For example. I question everything. This is not going to change. It’s my natural instinct. When I hear about something, I tend to look at the other side of things. I can see three or four aspects of any one issue, even if I only agree with one. I try to keep it to myself much of the time because no one likes that person, but I can’t help letting it come out from time to time.

In the past, I would have said that my body was a flaw. Yes, all of it. I hated it so much, and it was mostly because of my mother’s unrelenting negativity about fat on a woman’s body. And it was specifically a woman’s body, by the way. My brother was chubby, too, but I did not hear her nag him about it the way she did me. My brother has admitted that he was treated differently because he was a boy, which was validating. It’s hard to know if what you feel/think/experience is real without external confirmation.

I think when looking at ones flaws or things one does not like about oneself, it’s important to rank them as it were. To say whether it’s a big deal or not. Me being a night owl is not a big deal beacuse Iwork for myself/my brother and at home. I can get the things done that I need to do in the time that things are open and not care about being up at a certain time.


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Worthwhile of life

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For many years, I classified myself as a pacifist. If someone tried to kill me, I would let them. It was how I was raised–to believe that my life was not as important as other people’s. Somehow, I twisted that into believing that my life was toxic and it would be better for the world if I were dead. I felt as if I woke up each day with a negative balance, and I had to work hard all day just to get back to zero (in terms of my effect on the world).

needless to say, I was very depressed, and  this mentality was an indication of that depression. I was also wreathed in anxiety, which meant that I was a hot mess all the time. I woke up each morning, my heart sinking to the soles of my feet. It was a Sisyphean effort that I could never stop. No matter how much I did in a day, it was never enough. It didn’t help that I moved the goalposts on myself all the time, which just made everything more difficult.

This was directly related to my mother. She’s very much a product of her culture, wihch said that girls were worthless except for what they could do for others. Their biggest worth was in their baby-making abilities–nothing else mattered. That was why my mother harassed me for fifteen years to have children. She literally said that it did not matter whether I wanted them or not (I didn’t! At all! Ever! The horror!) because it was my duty as a woman to procreate.

Why yes that’s one of the reasons I currently identify as agender–why do you ask?

I’ve written about how my mother has ragged on me mercilessly for not being a good woman. The fact that I’m fat, not married, bisexual, no children, areligious, tattooed, practice Taiji, got two cats (she doesn’t like animals)–all of it upsets her. When I came out as bi, she said: What next, animals? When I told her I got a tattoo: She told me not to tell my father because he would freak out. When I told her I was going to study Taiji: She said that I was inviting the Devil in to dance on my spine. Which, you know, actually sounds kinda rad.

I can’t remember a time when I told her something about my life and she reacted positively. K and I used to joke about how any decision she made, her mother said it was going to be OK whereas any decision I made, my mother said it was going to fail. This happened when K was driving me to the airport and I was telling her what I had packed. It included a roll of quarters and stamps, which blew her mind. My mother believed in being prepared for anything to happen, but that’s impossible.

When I considered moving to the Bay Area to get my MA, I told my then-therapist all the things that could go wrong. I went on and on for fifteen minutes before she stopped me and said, “Minna, half the things you think are going to happen won’t, and you can’t imagine half of the other things that will happen.” I know that sounds trite, but it really hit me. Her basic point was thatt life happens, and there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it.


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Getting shit done

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At Ask A Manager today, she has an interview with a ‘decision coach’. She invented the term and the job, even though there are other people who do similar things. It was an interesting read because I am he ruler of not making a decision. Ever. I hate making decisions. I dawdle endlessly until I simply cannot drag it out any longer.

It’s funny because someone in the comments said haughtily that why would you pay someone money to help you make decisions when a simple list of pros and cons would do? Yeah! Why would you pay someone money to help you with your emotional problems when you have friends you can talk to? Why would you someone to fix your leaky sink when a good wrench will do the trick?

I’m being very sarcastic, obviously, but you could say the same about so many jobs. Also, as people pointed out, you can make that list and still not be able to make a decision or follow through on your decision. I can relate to that so hard. I can do all the research and ruminate over the pros and cons until the cows come home. That doesn’t mean I’ll actually follow through on the decision I make.

The best and easiest decision I made (to not have kids) was a passive one. I didn’t have to DO anything other than defend myself to others, which wasn’t fun, but it didn’t mean changing my life significantly. Nell participated in the comments and said that most of her clients were people who didn’t typically have difficulty making decisions, but were tripped up over what was currently bothering them.

It’s funny because in the interview, she mentioned that if someone wanted to use a session to figure out whether to break up with someone or not, the answer was usually break up with them. DTMA, as the case may be. It makes sense. By the the time you’re paying someone money to discuss the decision, you’re 90% there to breaking up with them already.

I will say that she charges $197 an hour, which I think is reasonable, but it means she’s targeting a very specific audience. And she’s an American with that point of view as well. She does international calls, but most of her clients are in the States. In the comment section, there were several people concerned about her telling people what to do because it’s such a direct contrast to what a therapist does. She does not market herself as a therapist, but I can see the concern at having an ‘expert’ tell people what to do with their lives.


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Doing it my way

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My brother is great at starting a project. If he wants to do something, he just  jumps in and does it. He may not finish it. He may put it in the reject pile at some point. But he will move on with ease to the next project and not think twice about it.

Me, I agonize about starting any kind of project. I will put more time into planning it than actually doing it. If I start a project, there is a high probability that I will see it to completion. I will bitch about it. There will blood, sweat, and tears–but I’ll get it done. And it will be done well because of my perfectionist tendencies.

I much prefer my brother’s way of being. He stresses way less than I do and gets way more done. It might not be as high a standard as what I do, but most of the time, that doesn’t matter. We’re not talking about bad versus great. We’re talking about great versus really fucking great. The latter just isn’t needed most of the time.

This is where my anxiety rears its ugly head. It’s where the voices in my head whisper, “You’re not good enough.” “You can’t do that,” and other nefarious thoughts. It’s my mother’s voice as she has told me how wrong I am since I was a small child. I shouldn’t laugh so loudly, climb trees, run around, sit with my legs open, eat that dessert, read so many books, or talk. Add my father to that: I should not be better than a boy in anything, think I know anything of use, or contradict what a man tells me. I should get straight As because I’m so smart, but never show a boy how smart I am. Go to college and grad school and have a stellar career. get married and have children, putting them purportedly first. Go to church and put God first. Date, but do NOT have sex before marriage. Bisexual? That’s against God, and what next? Sex with animals? Taiji? You’re allowing the devil to dance on your spine. Writing stories that have any kind of swearing is bad! Don’t eat so much.

Be less was the constant message I got and still get. I want too much. I ask for too much. I AM too much.

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Free to be me

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I am different than most people, and I’m fine with it. I don’t like what other people like for the most part, and I do not participate in discussions about those things because there really is no purpose to it. It’s interesting. There’s a letter at Ask A Manager from a person who is an enthusiastic animal rescue person and wants to move off her team because on of her coworkers bought a dog from a breeder. I will say that I am firmly a rescue first person, but I also know there are many reasons why this may not be possible. In this case, I think the LW (Letter Writer) probably doesn’t want to die on this hill.

It’s interesting ,though, all the people espousing the wonders of being around people with differing opinions. “Bing in a vacuum is no good!”, they bleat. “You don’t want to simply go along with the hive mind!” Which, yes, it’s true that it’s good to consider other opinions.

Side note: I’m looking for a video to include with this post. One thing that drives me absolutely batty are power songs that talk about accepting yourself as is, warts and all, but the women singing them (yes, women) are picture-perfect. I know it’s pop culture and media and whatnot, but that ‘I love myself the way I am’ message gets lost when you look like a bog-standard American beauty.

Coifed to perfection. Makeup flawless. Skinny or at best normal-sized. Like, I can’t take you seriously about how broken/flawed/a misfit you are when you look like exactly what society dictates to be beautiful. “I wear baggy jeans!” Well, when you’re a size four, that’s not the big rebellion you think it is, especially when you’re wearing a full face of makeup.

To me, that’s just faux modesty. I know you did not roll out of bed that way and singing about how this is the flawed you, yeah, no. Again, I realize they’re videos. They are meant for thoughtless consumption, but it’s just annoying to me.


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The lessons I’ve learned

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In the RKG Discord someone asked what people did to get past their lowest time. I wrote out this whole answer that included my life-threatening medical trauma–then I deleted it because it’s not really helpful. “Go almost die and then you’re life will be changed.” Not only isn’t it replicable, it’s not even true for everyone.

I discovered this was really true because someone mentioned my post (must have read it before I deleted it) and said it  hadn’t been that way for them. I owned up to it being my post and rewrote what I wrote. I had also mentioned Taiji, therapy, and friends, so it wasn’t just ‘die and come back to life’, but that’s really the crux of my new lease on life.

I also didn’t say that I had literally died twice and came back because I’m not comfortable delving into that too deeply yet. Not because it’s a bad thing or even because it’s too personal, but that it’s just difficult to say in a pithy way that doesn’t completely derail the conversation. But, on the other hand, life-threatening doesn’t really capture the scope of it. I literally died. Twice. I still grapple with that. If a series of events hadn’t fallen exactly in place, I would not be here. I am conscious of that every day. Some days, it’s in the background and it’s not something I am focused on. Other days, I’m in tears as to how beautiful life is (which is where I am right now).

The world is shitty and the situation in America sucks. I am deeply afraid of where this country is going, but I have never felt better about myself in my life. I’m 51, should not be alive, and I’m loving myself–warts and all.

I was thinking about a song that encapsulated what I felt, but I couldn’t think of the name. It went “Have you ever…” and then something, something, something. I thought the group was called Bossa Nova or something similar. There was a part that went, “That’s the _____ I get.” I couldn’t put the pieces together until it suddenly hit me. “That’s the impression that I get.” Which is by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. I found the video on YouTube and have been playing it on repeat.


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Letting it all go

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For the first fifty years of my life (everything other than this year, in other words), I was an anxious person. Taiji helped mitigate it somewhat, but it was still always there.

I come by it honestly. My mom is a highly-anxious person, and when I try to address it with her, she has a million reasons why it’s a reasonable reaction to what’s going on. Eventually, I give up and she thinks she’s won the conversation/discussion/debate. In reality, I just lose steam and can’t be bothered to keep going. Not when I know it won’t make a difference in the end.

I once read about how ruminating/griping doesn’t help because you aren’t doing anything practical about the problem, but you feel as if you are. That really made sense in terms of my mother. She spends a half hour rattling on about a problem (most often having to do with my father), but doesn’t come to any conclusion. And does it again. And again. Then thanks me for listening. As if I have a choice.

It drives me mad that she says she shouldn’t talk to me about my father, then does it, anyway. The last time she was here, I flat-out told her not to say she shouldn’t talk about it because we both knew she would. At one point recently, she had the gall to say that it was my duty as her kid to listen to her bitch about her marriage. And she’s a psychologist!

She shut up about that quickly when I pointed out that this was back-ass-wards from what should actually happen. The parents were supposed to be the ones who take care of the kids, worrying about them and making sure they’re OK, not vice-versa. It’s tricky because I imagine in a healthy family, of course you’re going to worry about your parents as they age.

But that’s because you worry about someone you love. If you don’t love that person, it’s much harder to worry about them except in the general sense. Like, I mean, I wish everyone well and don’t wish anyone harm in the global sense.

But, you cannot make someone love, care, or respect someone if they don’t. My mother wrote a wrought email to my brother and me (while they were last here) about how in Taiwanese culture, you’re supposed to respect your elders. Therefore, we should love and respect our father more. I told her you can’t make someone love or respect some more than they already do. I could grit my teeth and fake it, yes, but that’s just an illusion.

It doesn’t matter, though. It’s all for show. She wants my father to feel as if he’s love and respected–it doesn’t matter if it’s real. For example, when they and my brother’s family went on a cruise, she had my brother buy the tickets and tell my father he had paid for them–even though she gave my brother the money. My brother told me that she later told my father she had paid for them, which defeated the purpose.

She claims she can’t lie to him because he can always tell. Then why even try? Many times, her problems are of her own making, and then she just compounds them.


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IDGAF…not one bit

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I have had a terribly low self-esteem all my life. I come by it honestly as I’m from a culture that eschews saying anything positive about yourself or loved ones. It’s partly to ward off bad spirits, but it’s mostly just being assholes. That’s not true or fair, but it’s how I felt at the time. I already hated myself and then to hear nothing but negatives didn’t help my self-esteem at all. I was a weirdo in so many ways. My parents were immigrants who preferred to be in the old country. They had no use for American life and they stuck to everything Taiwanese.

As a result, I was a stranger in a strange land. They knew very little about American culture, so I was left to struggle on my own. I was fat, awkward, intelligent, and looked markedly different than everyone else. I was miserable and as soon as I realized I was going to die one day, I could not wait until it happened. I was seven, and for two decades, I spent every day wanting to die. Except I was too chicken to actually ever kill myself, so I begrudgingly got up every day and dragged myself through life.

I was deeply depressed. At times, almost catatonically so. The first year K and I were friends, I never reached out to her because, well, I’m not sure exactly why. In part it was because I didn’t reach out to  anyone, but it was mostly because I could not believe someone as cool as her would want to be friends with a hot mess like me. About a year after we became friends, she asked me if I actually wanted her to call me. She said she didn’t mind, but she didn’t want to bother me if I didn’t want to be friends.

I was flabbergasted. It never occurred to me that she would feel insecure about me. She was and is the coolest woman I know. She’s the yang to my yin, and she’s the joy-bringer in my life. She’s the type who will say yes to everything that sounds remotely interesting, which has led us to many fine adventures. She supports me in everything I do, and she brings me back to reality when I start spinning out.

The fact that she felt unsure about me was an eye-opener. I called myself Guam (because I was an island), and she reminded me that I wasn’t. I told her that I wanted her to call me and that I loved having her in my life. Once we got that straightened out, things went swimmingly. We can talk every day or every other month, and we pick up as if no time has passed. We can be honest with each other in a way I we can’t be with anyone else.


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