Confessional meme revisited

[danaeris]

Woah.

So, although the confessional meme can be used by everyone as they please, it was meant so that people can confess their own problems, not praise or bash me or give me constructive criticism. The focus was meant to be on YOU not on me.

For instance, when jodymeme did it, one of the first confessions was from a kleptomaniac, who was dealing with a lot of angst for stealing from friends and loved ones, and was convinced they all must know and hate hir, etc.

Anyway. A lot of people have said some interesting things. Some have made me hurt. Some have puzzled me. Some have made me thoughtful. Some have made me shake my head and some have made me want to argue.

*shrug* Interestingly, I can't really make any decisions as to whether any of the constructive criticism is valid because I don't have context. For instance, those who believe that I'm self-centered... if they've interacted with me extensively in person or over IM, then that is accurate. If they've gathered that I'm self-centered by reading my journal, well yes. My journal is for my purposes. I mostly spend it to vent about my issues and to work them out and to process them. I occasionally use it to update people on my life, make plans, or network. But mostly, my journal is here for me to process MY issues. So if you've never or rarely had a real interaction with me in person, you might think I'm really self-centered.

Anyway, I'll stop there. I may try to respond to more of the posts.

Comments

[emmett-the-sane.livejournal.com]

Ahh, your intent makes more sense. I saw your post and thought "Wow! She's a lot braver than *I* am!" :)

For the record, I haven't posted any comments in there. Mainly because I couldn't think of any that didn't involve doughnuts and cheese fondue (eaten seperately), and those would have been a dead givaway.

[divineseduction.livejournal.com]

Huh. On that tangent, kind of.. you don't often make it clear (just like I don't) what you want, or what you're getting at (because, in your head, you know what you're talking about, and forget to further detail). Like, here, you're clarifying what you wanted in the previous post. _You_ knew what you were talking about and what you wanted out of it, but didn't make it textually clear enough for the rest of us to get, and reply to.
Similar to the herbal treatments for mental foo. Both you posting, and my commenting.
People _are_ doing what you asked. You said something like, if there's anything you ever wanted to tell me, here's your chance.
Some ppl took it.
*shrug*

*makes you some hot chocolate* :)
Mmm. The thought of hot chocolate/chai/something in SF sounds really, really good right now.

(and I don't think I was as clear as I wanted to be, with this, but.. I tried. And I'm at work. And fuzzy)

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right. It's something I've noticed about me when I'm journalling. I have a tendency to think I'm being clear. Then when I go back and read it five minutes later (or somtimes days later) I see that it was very confusing. I don't blame the direction this took on the people responding. I just wanted to clarify my intention, especially since everyone seems to think I'm so self-centered. ;p

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna let you in on a secret: everyone is self-centered. As Rabbi Hillel once said, "If I am not for myself who will be for me?" That doesn't mean you don't actively care and support others (the follow-up quote is "If I am only for myself what am I?"); it means that you should do so from a position of wholeness within yourself, which is far more useful for everyone.

Also, I'm guessing a bunch of these people who call you self-centered are a bit older than you. You seem to be in that "finding, defining, and creating self" period of your life (I'm sure there's some fancy psych word for it that I'm forgetting) and they've probably finished with that. They might be failing to put themselves in your shoes and remember what that part of their life was like and how it seemed from the outside. I'll note that this is just a theory; I've been completely and utterly wrong before ;P.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Disclaimer: this response is thinking out loud in response to what you said, which WAS helpful and helped me understand things better.

I don't think I'm finding myself so much as learning to accept myself and getting over all of the issues left over from childhood.

And I'm not sure that it is a matter of the respondents being older. Some people NEVER realize their issues and work through them. Others do it as a slow process, taking years, but achieving more balance in their life. I'm unbalanced. I like to get things over with. So I'm trying to work through all my issues in a short period of time. It's very intense and could be confusing to a slow, take your time kind of person. Like, I decided to leave my ex husband in a very short period of time counting in days. But if you consider that I thought of little else during that time, it actually translates into a lot more time the way most people would handle such a problem.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

And I'm not sure that it is a matter of the respondents being older. Some people NEVER realize their issues and work through them.

True, but I think a lot of people do go through a period in their life when a lot of their self-discovery gets done, and then settle into a more stable "self" once they're through that period. And then, of course, forget what it was like to be less than sure of themselves.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

yup, and I'm definitely going through that.

[auros]

A lot of people even manage to go through it on very similar schedules, which may explain the phenomenon of the "Saturn Return". I know I fit the profile for it -- 26 now, starting to really see both who I am who I want to be, but still only just beginning to deal with the really deep issues that stand between those two things. Guess I've got two years. :-P

Anyways, Q~, I actually agree with the commenters discussing self-confidence -- a need for constant validation, even if it is about maintaining one's ability to support others, is going to come off looking self-centered. I'm prone to that variety of self-centeredness from time to time myself.

Not so sure about some of the other things that have been said. I know I've found, even when you emphatically disagreed with me, you've still seemed fundamentally to mean well / be supportive. (Not that this means you changed my mind. *g*) Maybe it's easier to do that (or to be perceived as doing it) with some personalities than others. *shrug*

[jodymeme.livejournal.com]

When I opened up the Confessional on my journal, I was well aware of the risk that it could be a personal toast or roast to me. Fortunately, that didn't happen (for the most part), and I think it is because some of the earliest entries were personal confessionals from people. It sort of set the stage, and everybody posting followed suit. Which is an interesting aspect of this experiment: although I said "anything goes," people adhered to a strict format based on the precedent set by the earliest posters. I didn't ever suggest a format to follow, in terms of content or style, other than the vague terms I outlined.

So, reading the replies to your open confessional, it strikes me that people just followed the lead of the first couple of posters and made the thread about you, as opposed to themselves.

I would urge you to check out the post that inspired me to open my own journal up to this, as it is perhaps the most successful and fascinating version of this concept I have ever seen. It took place a year ago, it was quite fresh and novel, and I'm sure most people were unaware of any precedents so just expressed themselves freely.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/vaysha/214001.html

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

In your confessional meme, you said:
"I'm going to turn off IP logging and allow anonymous posting in my journal so that you can all respond to this post. Basically, this is your chance to anonymously confess something, or to tell me something you've always wanted to tell me, or to say something you've always wanted to say but were scared to announce or admit. Anonymously."

...emphasis mine. The "tell me something you've always wanted to tell me" part may have been where folks got confused about the intent of the exercise.

And since I don't feel the need for anonymity, I will say this: regardless of whether any of those comments are valid or not, the fact that you are confused about these wildly differing views of you might be a clue to what's going on.

If you can't put yourself into someone else's head enough to see how they could (in their own, possibly invalid way) be seeing you differently from yourself, then maybe there is some validity to some of the criticism.

I personally don't think you're as sensitive to the feelings of others as you could be, and that this would be a good thing for you to learn, both as personal growth, and if you ever want to be a fiction writer. You've got to be able to get into other people's heads and *feel* how they wear their skins if you're going to write great characters.

If you don't understand how people could see you that way, then work on understanding it. I'm not saying that their views are 'right' and yours are wrong or that anybody's perceptions are more valid. But if you don't properly understand them....

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

As noted above in the comments section, I realize that I phrased my initial meme post unclearly and that any confusion is largely my fault. Therefore, no need to harp on it further.

I'm actually very good at getting into other people's heads and seeing where there coming from, but I sometimes have trouble overcoming the emotional hurdles that make me not WANT to do that when it is regarding me. They are rather different things. *shrug* some people may define that as self-centered but it is not the definition I would usually use. English is, after all, really imprecise and in all this discussion, that is probably the third definition of self-centered that has been discussed or alluded to.

I also don't think I said anywhere that I didn't understand how people could think these things about me, although if I did, I apologize. I disagree with some of them. But if you go to the thread, there's only one person whose comment appears to me to be completely out of left field and on crack. The rest of them held a lot of truth and insight once I figured out how they were using their language.

And quite frankly, in my world view, I have ALWAYS been good at getting into people's heads, getting into different perspectives, and I have ALWAYS been sensitive to other people's feelings. Too sensitive, and caring too much. People went to me for advice as early as 9th grade because I could explain to them why their SO was doing the seemingly dumbass shit they were doing.

Maybe I'm bad at knowing what will upset someone if I post it in my lj, which is why lately I've tried to err on the side of caution. But in person, as far as I can tell, I'm pretty good at telling when someone is upset. *shrug* and if I weren't, I wouldn't know.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

You said (third paragraph, original post) "some of these puzzled me". There are also come comment/responses you made on the meme iteslf which I'm too lazy to source that imply that you didn't understand.

Again, I quote you:
"And quite frankly, in my world view, I have ALWAYS been good at getting into people's heads, getting into different perspectives, and I have ALWAYS been sensitive to other people's feelings."

If you're that damn sure you understand people, then you don't understand people.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Just because I think I'm good at getting into people's heads does NOT mean that I'm sure that I understand people.

The following is... emotionally loaded. I use the words "I feel" in it a lot because these are my perceptions, and I'm not saying that they are true but rather that this is what I'm seeing.

I feel like you have decided that I have certain problems, and that no matter what I say or do, you will continue in those beliefs. I feel like you are trying to get me to admit that I am bad and terrible at something (in this case, understanding people), and I feel like that was also the case last time... as though you have some deep desire to ground me down into the dirt, to show me how out of touch with myself and Being A Good Person I am. Yet, I don't believe that your opinion is correct. In fact, I feel that when you are trying to prove these things to me, you are being illogical and leaping to conclusions. I feel that you repeatedly take things I say which could if taken one way imply what you are trying to prove, and jump on them and say "see? see?" when in fact I meant them very differently than what you are taking them for. If so, part of that is my fault for not communicating clearly, as I've noted I have a bad habit of doing when journalling.

Maybe you're trying to play devil's advocate for me, but its not working, or the way you're doing it isn't working for me. It just gets me defensive and hurts me. My possibly biased point of view is that no matter what I do, you always try to find something to criticize in it, something about it that shows that I'm young and inexperienced and underdeveloped and don't know what I'm doing. And I'm perfectly willing to believe that some of that is paranoia, but I also have friends who have read your comments and told me they thought they were extraordinarily patronizing and confrontational.

I don't know if that's actually how you view me -- as a young, inexperienced, not very self-aware, underdeveloped child floundering around. But a lot of people would be pissed off if someone five years older than them seemed to have that view and seemed to treat them as though they were all those things. And of course, that view does not gibe at all with my view of myself. The things you criticize me about are usually, based on my own self-perception and careful consideration, way off the mark. And yes, I do sit and consider what you're saying. Really.

I don't want to fight anymore. I'd thought that you and I were maybe coming back to peaceful co-existence, at least. I'm really grateful for everything you've done for unseelie and also for nytemuse. But I feel like nothing has changed, based on this interaction -- you still seem to have opinions about me that are way out of whack with my own self-perception, and don't seem to me to be supported by any logic worth speaking of, but rather a lot of jumping to conclusions (like jumping from me saying I'm good at getting into other people's heads to saying that I'm so damn sure I understand people, which are two very different statements).

I don't mean this as an attack. I mean this to show you how this all appears from my eyes. YMMV.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Up there, you said "I don't understand how people could have taken what I said to mean this", more or less. I attempted to point out how people might see *this* from what you said, and invariably, I get smacked for it.

If you don't get that, oh, what the hell.

If you're seeing that as patronizing and confrontational, so be it.

I do hope your professional writing style is a lot clearer (and I suspect it must be; gods know even the best writers babble and typo in their journals. But if you're fundamentally not getting what I'm saying or doing, then I don't know).

This hasn't got squat to do with age. If you'd consider for a minute, you know I am on decent terms with plenty of other people younger, and older, for that matter, including the aforementioned nytemuse.

Yes, I believe you've got a somewhat off perception on some things. As one obvious and easy example which is admittedly biased but pretty fucking inarguable -- I don't view you the way you seem to think I do. I believe many of your views of how people function, feel, and react are similarly off. And I state that this leads to unintentionally hurtful behavior.

I also think you're projecting a fuckton of your own age and inexperience issues on to my words. I've stopped treating you with padded gloves and extra kindness because I chose to do so, largely because that tactic failed my purpose. And it should be obvious that my change of behavior isn't because of your age, or any perceived maturity level of yours.

Christ, listen to yourself! "My possibly biased point of view is that no matter what I do, you always try to find something to criticize in it, something about it that shows that I'm young and inexperienced and underdeveloped and don't know what I'm doing. And I'm perfectly willing to believe that some of that is paranoia, but I also have friends who have read your comments and told me they thought they were extraordinarily patronizing and confrontational."

Is all criticism "patronizing and confrontational" to you? No wonder you can't pitch a story without taking it much too personally! Do you still think you handle criticism well? Or only when it's nice sugar-coated criticism?

Do you, just this once, see the flaws in your thought processes?

...somehow I suspect that you will instead just claim that my view is equally or more flawed, and determine that I hate you and mean harm to you. (Assuming that isn't alredy cemented in your mind.)

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Obviously, people have been heaping constructive criticism on me throughout this entire anonymous meme thing, and I haven't reacted to ANY of them the way I react to your criticism. I have always reacted poorly to criticism from you, and I don't know why. But I do view this as a me and you thing. It takes two to tango and I'm perfectly willing to believe that I'm equally responsible for whatever it is that makes us interact poorly. It's easy for you to decide that I'm just not willing to listen to harshly given criticism and that I'm just being irrational. It's also easy for me to decide that you're not even remotely in touch with who I am and that you don't know how to offer criticism in a way that is even remotely palatable to me and maybe even to most people. And the truth probably lies somewhere in between those things.

But the fact is that I don't have these problems with other people. I have OTHER problems with them, but THIS is not a me in general problem. It is something that keeps on happening WITH YOU. And I imagine that you don't run into interactions like this with most or even any other people. It is something that keeps on happening WITH ME.

Maybe someday one of us will 'figure it out.' Or we'll both have changed enough that this interaction won't happen. I don't know. But in the mean time there's really no point in you trying to offer me constructive criticism, because it clearly doesn't work and just leads to us arguing. And deep down inside, in spite of all this, I LIKE you, and had a really high opinion of you, which is why this has been so damned difficult. I wanted to be friends. I still want to be friends but I don't see how that's possible, so I'd be happy to settle for acquaintances at this point.