| On Chocolate |
[May. 19th, 2010|11:49 pm]
Alicorn
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I have never worn braces.
The idea was seriously considered, but I was against it, and that settled the issue. This was not because anyone cared whether I wanted hardware in my mouth or not, or because anyone's primary impulse was to spare me discomfort. This was because I could have chosen, if forced into a set of braces, to destroy them with food or inadequate maintenance. Therefore, if I was not on board with the braces project, there was no realistic chance of their success, and they were not (given the expense) worth a try.
This is characteristic of situations where, as a child, I got to avoid something I didn't want. I had few powers. When I had them, and could credibly threaten to wield them, I could avoid those things that I could sabotage with these powers. Occasionally my stubbornness was tried, and usually matched (I come by it honestly, after all), but I never had to wear braces.
I have been locked out of my e-mail account.
I don't even remember what I did to offend him, but my father decided to ground me from e-mail access. In order to enforce this ban, he changed my password, which he knew because he'd given me the account and I didn't at the time mistrust him enough to change it myself. I tried to circumvent the ban by logging on at school. That was how I talked to people, and though I didn't know it at the time, I'm an extrovert. Cut off a medium of communication and you might as well be stabbing me in the throat. At any rate, I couldn't log in from school, and I couldn't confront my father about the betrayal because that would inform him that I'd attempted subterfuge.
When he lifted the ban, he didn't change the password first, and so I didn't have to pretend that I didn't know he was capable of misusing my information in this way. On a later occasion, when I wanted him not to look as I typed a (new, secret) password, he protested, "I'm your father." This was only relevant in a negative direction. My father was the only person who had ever demonstrably misused a password.
I have been forced away from chocolate.
When I was in elementary school, newly under treatment both chemical and therapeutic for depression, my parents hypothesized that I'd inherited my father's bizarre allergy, which causes him to get depressed when he eats chocolate. To test this, they forbade me chocolate, which I had no power to oppose. It was instantly obvious to me that their theory was completely bogus. I'd never been more miserable. (This is supporting evidence for my hypothesis that I was never chemically depressed, just too sensitive to a world designed for dim neurotypical children to tolerate the relentless constraint and disrespect and unclarity.) My word, even about my own mood, carried no weight.
I complained to my therapist, who immediately bought me a candy bar (this is one of my happiest memories of this approximate age - the relief and the sense of being cared about was staggering - although in retrospect I don't know if she did it because she wanted me to be happy and have chocolate or because she thought a depression allergy to chocolate was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard) and, at the end of our session, talked sense into my parents. This was the beginning of my delusion that advanced degrees would earn their respect (they listened to the Ph.D. but not the elementary schooler; clearly, I needed to become a Ph.D.) It also introduced me to the idea that others thought third parties knew more about me than I did.
That's why I'm into luminosity: It turned out, after some observation, that a lot of people were really bad at knowing themselves. I wanted to become, not just good enough for my own purposes, but ostentatiously, obviously, incisively accurate. That way, people would believe me when I told them what I was thinking and feeling.
That's why I'm into honesty: Turns out, people go around telling each other falsehoods all the time. I wanted to become such a stickler, so faultlessly truthful, that anything that came out of my mouth would bear the stamp of accuracy in everyone's mind.
It doesn't work.
There is no way for people to verify my luminosity or my honesty. Even reacting badly to lies myself doesn't necessarily mean I'm honest, according to observers; it might just mean I'm a hypocrite. Lots of those to go around. Uncommon levels of luminosity aren't even a hypothesis - and when I manage to explain it, the background beliefs are so strong that it takes almost as long to overcome them as it would have anyway. I had to protest repeatedly today to someone who should know better that the phantom expressions on my face were not meaningful and should be ignored, and she still didn't quite believe me.
I am not sure if I'm ever going to be able to communicate with someone, because when someone won't believe what I say - especially about myself - they forbid me to communicate with them.
I want to be known. I want to be known by people who care that I don't want to be in pain, instead of caring that I can pour their orthodontia money down the drain if they cross me. I want to be known by people who will use information about me to help me, not to betray me in order to enforce a punishment they should not have the power to deliver. I want to be known by people who will believe me when I speak, not by people who will ignore what I say because they can't imagine anyone knowing that. |
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