PREFER But Not DEMAND

I really have been feeling blicky lately. A big contributing factor is the comments section (and resulting internet kerfuffle) on my "the difficulties of coming out as a plus-sized person" post: it's one thing to know that many people in society feel a certain way about it, and it's another thing to see it in action. But of course there were many, many wonderful comments on that post too, and many wonderful emails, so obviously there is a problem here with giving too much weight (er, as it were) to the views of people demonstrating some of the difficulties.

Not that this "giving too much weight" is an original-to-me kind of problem. Why wouldn't we all just shrug and think who cares what other people think? But we just DON'T, do we? It's part of being human. I don't even think it's particularly valuable to try to "not care what other people think." I think that is, in fact, what leads to people being thoughtless, inconsiderate, and unempathetic. Still, "not caring TOO MUCH" would be a useful compromise between "being human" and "over-suffering for it."

Where was I? Oh, yes: so the reality-check of that post has been very unpleasant, but that's not the only thing that's wrong. I'd say that what's wrong is that something like that has the ability to knock me right off course for awhile. It was the same after my post about gay marriage, and it's odd because in both cases I ALREADY KNEW that people---MANY people---disagreed with me, so why in both cases was my faith in the goodness of the world undermined? I can't explain it, but it was, both times.

One of the reasons I'm taking psychiatric medicine is to help with this problem. One small (or even one LARGE) incident shouldn't be enough to do this to me. A family tragedy, sure. A national tragedy, sure. Listening to people spelling out the way they feel about the personalities/lives/problems of people who carry extra body weight? No.

I can't tell if the medication helps or not, because it's not possible to experience the exact same situation twice, once with medication and once without. Perhaps without the medication I would have a had a far worse problem with it. But suffice it to say it doesn't SOLVE the problem or we wouldn't be here right now talking about it. I have tranquilizers I'm supposed to take when there is a situation causing extra stress, but the tranquilizers just make me feel sleepy and depressed.

Instead I'm trying a book on cognitive-behavioral therapy. It's pretty good. My biggest take-away from it so far is "I can PREFER that ___, but I can't DEMAND that ___." For example, I can PREFER that people understand my point of view, but I can't DEMAND that they understand. I can PREFER that society didn't associate body size and shape with everything they do in fact associate it with, but I can't demand that reality change around me just because I wish it would / think it should.

You might think this wouldn't help, because DUH we can't force reality to change for our wishes. But there CAN be a feeling that, for example, if we could JUST EXPLAIN THINGS MORE CLEARLY the other person (the person who is WRONG) would see the light. My mother certainly feels that way about her religion, and we all probably feel that way about many of the things we feel strongly about: if ONLY people UNDERSTOOD, they WOULD agree, so it must just be that they DON'T GET IT rather than that they DISAGREE WITH OUR OBVIOUS RIGHTNESS. The prefer/demand helps me to remember that it DOES NOT MATTER whether or not that's the case, I can't force it to happen by obsessing about it and composing mental arguments about it.

Well, and is it WORKING? Sort of. Not enough, but I'm not sure anything works to completely counteract this kind of thing. My goal isn't to eliminate this problem (and/or personality trait), but only to reduce the effects of it and make things less uncomfortable.

Fling Vs. Fling

Last night I dreamed I had a little fling with an ex. Often when I have dreams like this, in the dream I'm unattached and childless, but last night I was dreaming I was in my exact position: married, children, etc. In the dream I was kind of like, "Huh. So I'm actually doing this. It's not really what I would have expected myself to do, but it also doesn't seem like much of a big deal now that I'm actually doing it rather than just thinking about it in theory."

Anyway, in the dream I was thinking that part of the reason the fling wasn't a big deal was that it was someone I had already had a fling with, and it hadn't worked out, so in this case there was (1) no fresh activity and (2) no danger of falling for the guy.

Well of course that's crap, but on the other hand there's some part to it I might believe. It DOES seem like less of a big deal to do something with an ex. Well, or does it seem WORSE, because it's going back to something that may have already been a perceived threat?

Not that it matters, since it was a dream. But I am curious to know: if you had a fling with an ex, would you consider it MORE of a crime or LESS of a crime than having a fling with someone new? And if your significant other had a fling with an ex, would that seem BETTER or WORSE than if he/she had a fling with someone new?