Human Behaviour
8 May 2020
After we spoke the other week, my good friend Fran sent me this article about struggling to read in these new pandemic times and the value of reading aloud. I share Sam Parker's issue that when I go to read a novel lately, I pause two or three pages in unable to tell you what I've read. Even worse is anything vaguely intellectual; I haven't been writing up research because I don't find myself able to read much research. The stress of having a clue of the gravity of a pandemic situation is bad enough, but throw in an underlying anxiety disorder and it is a truly debilitating environment.
In a broadly inquisitive way, I've been puzzling over human behaviours lately. Why are we doing what we're doing? Why do I have nagging feelings about my interactions with others and am unable to pinpoint what's bothering me? I imagine my unconscious brain is in overdrive at the perceived lack of control so is trying to set as much to rights as possible. But that is where we begin to clash with others.
A few weeks ago a tweet came up on my timeline saying something along the lines of 'my partner and I are playing a game of "why are you doing it that way?" and neither of us is winning'. I am sorry to admit this made me catch myself on because I was being this way with my partner, who deserves better. I've scaled back my articulations of such thoughts, although the thoughts, at times, keep coming. You notice incidental things more because they're amplified by the new silences in life. For instance, Himself has an aversion to seasoning food at any point during or after cooking, meaning meals he's in charge of can be bland. I feel dreadful for feeling this way because he makes lovely food and is an enthusiastic cook and we have a lovely relationship and I am so lucky and grateful for him. It's just that even many-ingredient chillies and pasta sauces taste like water because he won't season them. When I cook I do season - while being mindful of salt intake - and he raves about what a great cook I am. All I do differently is grind some salt, pepper and herbs in. It's a tiny example of several such niggles that normally go unnoticed but have now come to the fore.
I'm also sorry to admit that my anxiety increases when his children are with us. In the before-times they were always entitled, spoilt and, for various reasons, difficult to be around, and these too are now turned up to 11. I try hard to separate the behaviour from the person, to give the benefit of the doubt, and always agonise over whether or not it's me projecting my fears onto them, but my fight-or-flight is so persistent and strong around them lately that I haven't the energy to try the 'when you do/say..., it makes me feel...' approach towards a resolution. Instead I mostly stay out of the way and hide. I know it's antisocial, but it's my survival mechanism. Even when we do talk out tensions, they get reset every time they're with their mother and return to us as emotional incendiary devices who've forgotten how to use cutlery for the umpteenth time.
I've often wondered if it's silly to feel as an adult that you're being bullied by children. Whether they mean to or not, they at the very least give us a hard time. And like the most insidious of emotional or psychological abuse, they're not explicitly cruel or physically acting out or anything. It's more the presence, the ignoring of us when we speak to them, their constant lying, their unfeeling interrogations, their lack of empathy, their unspoken expectation that we lift and lay them and their sense of entitlement to everything in the house, even my things. And yet they are children and are not culpable. They are scared, but not scared enough. They are missing their friends and social groups. They are shunted between two very different households. I don't know what to do with my mixed feelings of being concerned for them while being hurt by the things they do.
And then there's the behaviours out there in the world - a place I'm largely avoiding venturing out into. I know I'm not alone in my anxiety being exacerbated by the lack of safe distancing performed by others. Once a week or so I deliver masks I've made to a local community drop-off/pick-up point then check a friend's house while they're in lockdown elsewhere. This is a round-trip of about a mile's distance on mostly residential streets and I'm appalled every time by runners, cyclists or other pedestrians coming too close either from behind me or towards me and it's a choice to be rapidly made between them not at all altering their movement or position on a narrow footpath and the oncoming traffic, because motorists also continue to feel the need to take all the space for themselves. It is shameful that so many are pushed into being more insular than necessary because of these arrogant actions.
So, I suppose, inside and outside of the house, the actions of others are making me feel squished and mangled and tired. I don't think my speech is my best attribute - I'm 35 with the voice of a 10-year-old - but at least I can put it out there, even if it's lost amongst the other noise. And I have this wee oasis which, whether anyone reads these scribbles or not, helps me get something out of my system at least.
If you enjoyed this post, please check out my support page. Thank you!
After we spoke the other week, my good friend Fran sent me this article about struggling to read in these new pandemic times and the value of reading aloud. I share Sam Parker's issue that when I go to read a novel lately, I pause two or three pages in unable to tell you what I've read. Even worse is anything vaguely intellectual; I haven't been writing up research because I don't find myself able to read much research. The stress of having a clue of the gravity of a pandemic situation is bad enough, but throw in an underlying anxiety disorder and it is a truly debilitating environment.
In a broadly inquisitive way, I've been puzzling over human behaviours lately. Why are we doing what we're doing? Why do I have nagging feelings about my interactions with others and am unable to pinpoint what's bothering me? I imagine my unconscious brain is in overdrive at the perceived lack of control so is trying to set as much to rights as possible. But that is where we begin to clash with others.
A few weeks ago a tweet came up on my timeline saying something along the lines of 'my partner and I are playing a game of "why are you doing it that way?" and neither of us is winning'. I am sorry to admit this made me catch myself on because I was being this way with my partner, who deserves better. I've scaled back my articulations of such thoughts, although the thoughts, at times, keep coming. You notice incidental things more because they're amplified by the new silences in life. For instance, Himself has an aversion to seasoning food at any point during or after cooking, meaning meals he's in charge of can be bland. I feel dreadful for feeling this way because he makes lovely food and is an enthusiastic cook and we have a lovely relationship and I am so lucky and grateful for him. It's just that even many-ingredient chillies and pasta sauces taste like water because he won't season them. When I cook I do season - while being mindful of salt intake - and he raves about what a great cook I am. All I do differently is grind some salt, pepper and herbs in. It's a tiny example of several such niggles that normally go unnoticed but have now come to the fore.
I'm also sorry to admit that my anxiety increases when his children are with us. In the before-times they were always entitled, spoilt and, for various reasons, difficult to be around, and these too are now turned up to 11. I try hard to separate the behaviour from the person, to give the benefit of the doubt, and always agonise over whether or not it's me projecting my fears onto them, but my fight-or-flight is so persistent and strong around them lately that I haven't the energy to try the 'when you do/say..., it makes me feel...' approach towards a resolution. Instead I mostly stay out of the way and hide. I know it's antisocial, but it's my survival mechanism. Even when we do talk out tensions, they get reset every time they're with their mother and return to us as emotional incendiary devices who've forgotten how to use cutlery for the umpteenth time.
I've often wondered if it's silly to feel as an adult that you're being bullied by children. Whether they mean to or not, they at the very least give us a hard time. And like the most insidious of emotional or psychological abuse, they're not explicitly cruel or physically acting out or anything. It's more the presence, the ignoring of us when we speak to them, their constant lying, their unfeeling interrogations, their lack of empathy, their unspoken expectation that we lift and lay them and their sense of entitlement to everything in the house, even my things. And yet they are children and are not culpable. They are scared, but not scared enough. They are missing their friends and social groups. They are shunted between two very different households. I don't know what to do with my mixed feelings of being concerned for them while being hurt by the things they do.
And then there's the behaviours out there in the world - a place I'm largely avoiding venturing out into. I know I'm not alone in my anxiety being exacerbated by the lack of safe distancing performed by others. Once a week or so I deliver masks I've made to a local community drop-off/pick-up point then check a friend's house while they're in lockdown elsewhere. This is a round-trip of about a mile's distance on mostly residential streets and I'm appalled every time by runners, cyclists or other pedestrians coming too close either from behind me or towards me and it's a choice to be rapidly made between them not at all altering their movement or position on a narrow footpath and the oncoming traffic, because motorists also continue to feel the need to take all the space for themselves. It is shameful that so many are pushed into being more insular than necessary because of these arrogant actions.
So, I suppose, inside and outside of the house, the actions of others are making me feel squished and mangled and tired. I don't think my speech is my best attribute - I'm 35 with the voice of a 10-year-old - but at least I can put it out there, even if it's lost amongst the other noise. And I have this wee oasis which, whether anyone reads these scribbles or not, helps me get something out of my system at least.
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| Cross-stitched bee, just because. |
If you enjoyed this post, please check out my support page. Thank you!
Cute cross-stitch!
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