Sometimes It Really is A Big Deal

In March 2023, I wrote a blog called Avoid Appearances. Gabe felt like it was controversial, so I never published it, but after rereading it recently, I'm going to. (I did.) I think it's a problem that it feels controversial, which is—ironically—the entire point of the post.

The tl;dr of the post is "I was taught it was inappropriate and/or sinful to reveal the bad side of authority figures." This was brought to my attention by my therapist when I spent a long time circling the idea of someone in my life being unhealthy or problematic instead of just SAYING so.

My therapist and I unpacked that can of worms for a while, but today I realized there might be more to why I couch criticism in euphemisms or hints.

I have a passionate, extreme personality and I process externally. That means that "someone cut me off in traffic" could easily manifest as "some asshole ruined my day" when I begin telling someone about it, but after getting through the initial rage, the story turns into, "No, not really, they just cut me off, but honestly they might not have seen me; that's kind of a blind turn."

Because I know this about myself, I often soften what I say to people. I don't want to shock them, especially if I'm going to land on something less extreme in the end. I don't want people to think I'm too crazy/judgmental/hot-headed/critical to be taken seriously. I recognize that a 7 out of 10 on my scale could register as a catastrophic 11 on some people's. Thus, I temper my words.

But the thing is...sometimes it really is a big deal. Sometimes the person really was abusive, the pain really was intense—and I don't know how to recognize that. I automatically censor and dismiss myself because I believe my perspective is extreme to the point of being inaccurate. When I beat around the bush telling the truth about authority figures, it is sometimes because I don't feel I have permission to label them the way I see them. Maybe I'm just being sensitive. Maybe it's my fault for being so much.

For someone who cares about truth and justice, this is a difficult place to be in. How can I assure that I'm being accurate without being melodramatic?

Fortunately, I married someone who both takes me very seriously and sees the world very differently. I think that's probably the best solution for now: building my perspective in collaboration with a trusted source. That's probably what all of us should do, because even non-extremists have blind spots. As Christians, we should be lovingly checking each other anyway.

Of course, you're always welcome to ask for my uncensored thoughts and reactions, but consider this your warning that it might be A Lot 😂

~Stephanie

Avoiding Appearances

March 11, 2023

If you've grown up in Christian culture, you've probably heard the phrase that we are to "avoid the appearance of evil." This is why I wasn't allowed to take walks with a boy alone in high school or wear black nail polish, and why it was wrong for opposite genders to be roommates or for male church leaders to give girls rides home from youth group by themselves.

I think it's also why I wasn't allowed to confide in anyone about issues I had with authority figures in my life. Not to avoid the appearance of being "evil" myself, but to protect those in authority from having their "evil" (i.e., often simply "imperfect" or "human") behavior exposed.

I don't mean I was asked to keep silent about problems like sexual harassment or discrimination. I'm talking about not being allowed to vent to my friends—or even other adults in my life—about relationship conflicts I went through if they involved adult leadership. There is profound isolation in having your communication privileges taken away or your conversations eavesdropped on so that an authority figure can be protected from your "talking bad about them."

Will teenagers "talk bad" about adults in their lives? Absolutely. Will all of that talk be fair, accurate, or constructive? Absolutely not. Should teenagers still be allowed to have outlets for their frustrations? I believe so.

I'm a big believer in the truth coming out. If adults are truly acting unjustly, people will find out; no amount of damage control can prevent that. If adults are being mischaracterized by a petty teenager, that'll come out too.

The worst thing that can happen is raising an adult who thinks that discussing emotional damage inflicted by adults is sinful.

I recently started therapy. In the first or second session, my therapist asked me to clarify what I meant about someone. It took me five minutes to convey the impression I needed to, because I wandered alllllllllllll around the perimeter using euphemisms, "maybes," and "I don't know, but I guesses."

When I was finished, my therapist still wasn't completely clear on what I meant, but she said, "You said a lot, but it's like you were apologizing the whole time, or trying to qualify what you said. Why do you think you do that?"

I had to think about it for a second, but then I told her what I'm telling you now: I guess I'd internalized that speaking unflatteringly about authority figures is sinful, petty, and inappropriate.

"That's not true," she said, looking me right in the eyes.

"Oh," I said.

People have told me for years that everyone should go to therapy—maybe not long-term, but at least to check in with how they think and feel. We all have cognitive distortions: thought patterns or beliefs that aren't the healthiest. If we don't go to therapy, we might never know that our minds and lives could be better. I'm finally at a place where I can see if "people" have been right about therapy. Turns out they were.

I guess the message of this blog post is two-fold:

1) Isolating angry teenagers for the sake of your own reputation is gross.
2) Go to therapy.

~Stephanie

Facing Demons: Feel the Feelings

Gabe and I don't believe in distracting Elle from her feelings.

There's definitely a place for redirection ("We're not gonna play in the trash can, but you can pull things out of the recycling"; "We're all done with chalk for now, but we can read a book when we go inside"), but if Elle is crying/scared/throwing a fit, we think it's important that she feel those feelings and process them, rather than cheer up at any cost.

To me, this goes along with the "meltdowns are not teachable moments" idea I touched on in The Riskiest Post to Date. When Elle is in the middle of big feelings, I try to hold her (if she's open to that) and say absolutely nothing, at first. I want her to know that her big feelings don't scare me, I can handle her even when she's difficult, and I'll be on the other side when she gets there too, but talking to her does nothing but contribute to overstimulation; she can't actually hear me in the moment.

After she's felt her feelings and begins to calm down, we'll either talk about what went wrong—like if she fell out of a chair, I show her why she fell and what she can do differently next time—or move on to something happier. We don't want Elle to be an adult who can't stand to be in her feelings long enough to come to peace with them and move on healthily.

Well.

Sunday night, Gabe and I got into a stupid fight after Elle went down. Afterwards, he stayed in the living room and I went upstairs to tidy up Elle's room. I walked up the steps, seething, and pulled out my phone to get a podcast going to take my mind off things.

Oh.

In the middle of Elle's room, I realized I was doing the exact thing we don't want Elle to do. Instead of sitting with my feelings and sorting through what they were trying to tell me, I wanted to drown them out with the story of someone getting murdered.

I put my phone down and sat with a sigh.

"Fine," I muttered. "What am I feeling?" I was mad, frustrated, discouraged, a little sheepish. The fight was stupid, but I could see how it had happened. I knew a podcast wasn't going to make me feel better, nor was the TV I planned to watch after cleaning Elle's room.

I picked up my phone again and texted Gabe: "Well that was a terrible way to end the weekend."

He responded with three texts in a row, honoring my side of things, owning his own, and offering to talk it through if I wanted to come down and talk. I did, so we did. None of that would have happened if I hadn't forced myself to face my feelings instead of distracting myself.

People talk about the importance of "feeling your feelings" instead of "thinking your feelings," and I'm not good at that. I don't quite understand what it means. I don't know if what I did Sunday night was feeling my feelings or thinking them, but either way, I know it was a step in a right direction. Too often I try to ignore my feelings because they're inconvenient/annoying/confusing/inevitable. I don't want Elle to do that, but if I'm going to teach her a better way, I'm gonna have to start some trial and error.

~Stephanie

How a Can of Tuna Changed My Life

When I was nineteen, I broke up with a guy over a can of tuna.

I'd been dating this guy for about a year, and we had a history that went back even farther. I loved him an unfortunate amount, but for a few months I'd been wrestling with the sense that I needed to end things. There was a maturity gap, a values gap, and a lying cavern that were all widening rather than closing up.

One day I was home from college at my parents' house hanging out with my boyfriend. I guess it was lunchtime or something and I wanted to eat but he didn't, so I just decided to have a can of tuna. I drained it over the sink, looking out into the living room where my boyfriend lay on the couch. Suddenly he sat up, glaring.

"Are you having tuna?" he asked, looking for all the world like I was preparing glass smeared with gonorrhea*.

I frowned. "Yeah? Why?"

"That's disgusting," he said. "I have to smell that. Why would you do that?"

I don't remember the specifics of what happened after that, but I remember the feeling of a puzzle piece sliding into place in my brain. It wasn't about the tuna—he's not wrong, tuna is a really strong smell and if you hate it, ew—but I suddenly saw a stark portrait of someone too selfish to be gentle, too crass to be kind. I think I probably called him out for being rude, but it didn't become a fight. The rest of the visit was unremarkable.

But later that afternoon, after he'd gone home, I was crying in the kitchen and talking to my mom and Sarah. Again, I don't remember the specifics, but I felt a certainty so unshakeable it became urgent. I needed to break up with him right then. I'd been thinking about it for months, but the tuna incident had set the decision in motion and it was gaining speed like a boulder down a mountain. I have a vague recollection of my mom...not trying to dissuade me, but wanting to make sure I was sure, because from the outside it had come on so quickly. I lived kind of far away from the guy but I knew I wanted to do this in person, so it was a not insignificant time commitment.

But I was sure.

I wrote him a letter, met him at a Starbucks, and he read the letter sitting in the passenger seat of my silver Kia Soul.

After he read it, he nodded, folded it up, and got out of the car.

We were broken up.

Technically.

It would be another nine months before it stuck. The official relationship was like most teen romances: intense, a little immature, but overall pretty healthy. However, the April through December after the breakup was a toxic cesspool of manipulation, guilt, emotional abuse, tears, ultimatums that didn't stick, false hopes, secret meetings, text fights, stomachaches, and bad decisions. One of the very last conversations we ever had was over text, and included this little gem, recreated by ChatGPT from one of my word-for-word journaling sessions.

I never spoke much about this relationship, mostly because no one ever asked me. They asked other people about it, but no one asked me what had happened or how I was. Privacy is nice, but...it does make escape from abuse kind of tricky.

I honestly don't know why I'm talking about this now, or what the point of the post is. It was inspired by a TikTok of a girl being like, "Here's an example of abuse that doesn't sound like abuse" and it reminded me of the tuna story (which I would NOT consider abuse; the TikTok just brought it to mind). I certainly don't want to cast bad juju on my ex-boyfriend. I haven't seen him in years, but I guess I hope he's happy. We both had a LOT of growing up to do and I hope he found people to support him through it like I did.

I guess the point of this post is
1) Listen to your gut when it comes to red flags. If someone berates you for eating tuna, they may also try to convince you that your beliefs are "f*cking incorrect" if inconvenient for them.

2) Remember that you never really know what someone else is going through.

~ Stephanie

*Thanks Ali Hazelwood for this metaphor that lives rent-free in my head.

Face Your Demons, or They'll Raise Your Children

A few weeks ago, Elle wouldn't stop putting food in her hair at lunch.

I asked her to stop, but she's a baby and every time she hears the word "hair"—even if it's in the sentence "Please stop touching your hair"—she touches her hair.

That's kinda on me, but I was still annoyed, so when it came time to clean her up, I wasn't particularly slow and patient as I wiped down her hair, head, and face.

After I finished, I turned my attention to her dishes but saw her hitting herself in the head out of the corner of my eye.

"Oh, baby!" I cried, instantly sad. "Be gentle to your head!"

And it hit me like a ton of bricks: she was doing to herself what she felt like I'd been doing. While I was not even close to "hitting" her in the head, that's what it felt like to her. She was copying me.

If I want her to be gentle to her head, I have to be gentle to her head.

Elle copies everything. She notices when a sock is hanging over the side of the hamper and flips it all the way into the basket, like I do. She mimics our facial expressions when we're talking at dinner. If I want her to take a drink of water, all I have to do is take a sip myself. I killed a spider with a shoe the other day, and the next thing I know she's whacking a shoe against the floor.

I saw a chilling meme the other day that said, "Face your demons, or they'll raise your children." That's the weirdest part of parenting so far. I've believed that concept for years, but it's manifesting in more (and more tangible) ways than I expected. I knew I needed to transform myself in terms of frustration intolerance, anger management, and body image, but...now I'm seeing that I need to transform myself in everything. If I don't want Elle to think/do/say/tolerate something, I can't do it either. Kids don't do what you SAY; they do what you DO. I can't just believe the talk, I have to walk the walk.

And it's like dang, faking it for her is hard enough. Now I have to change for REAL?

Fortunately, I'm sort of a self-improvement junkie. That's what this blog is all about.

Unfortunately, I am real messed up 😂 I feel a "Facing My Demons" series or something coming soon.

*raises a glass of creatine mixed with strawberry lemonade* Let's do this.

~Stephanie