ammunition

I saw the Neil LaBute play Fat Pig recently, and while the story about an image-conscious guy dating an overweight woman was kind of interesting, what stuck with me was just the way the characters interacted, or rather my reaction to it. I kept cringing at their directness and openness with their feelings and then being surprised that there didn’t seem to be any negative consequences.
One character, when she felt she’d been wronged by another, had no hesitation in yelling at him in public and in great detail about everything he did to upset her. The man she was yelling at was embarrassed, but it was her I felt afraid for, opening herself up like that and letting him see how much he’d affected her.
Watching the main couple progress from strangers to being a couple, I could almost see how it was done, but then every time the woman said something about how much she liked the man or asked him for reassurance, I was thinking “Are you crazy? You’re just handing him all that power over you!”
I know they’re fictional characters in a play, and their shallowness didn’t really add to their believability, but my reaction was kind of revelatory. I hadn’t realised so clearly that the/a reason I find it so hard to talk is that it feels like anything I tell someone is a piece of ammunition that can be used against me. It takes a fair amount of trust to say anything, even if it is just what I did this week. (You’re taking a photography class? You think you can do something creative? Don’t be ridiculous. Or maybe you’re trying to meet people, or fill in some time, since you have no friends to hang out with. That’s pathetic. Shouldn’t you be spending more time doing actual work, anyway?*) I can’t say anything in therapy because just being there is admitting far more than feels safe.
I often find myself thinking up excuses for doing things that might be more valid, or more resistant to negative interpretations, than my real reasons. I know enough not to offer these explanations unless someone asks, and rarely is anyone even interested, but I still feel the need to justify myself a lot.** My dad used to ask me what I was thinking fairly frequently, so when I was around him, I’d sometimes try to think of suitable answers in advance, just in case he asked. I’d just have to make something up, anyway, since all existing thoughts tend to vanish completely in the panic at being asked. The panic is probably a defence mechanism to avoid having to admit to whatever I was thinking about, and it works; I can only occasionally reconstruct my previous thoughts.
I guess I know where this came from. My mum was always very conscious of what other people thought. I remember being comforted briefly by my dad telling me “what other people think of me is none of my business”, until I offered that defence the next time my mum was telling me the latest appearance that needed keeping up and she dismissed it by saying “he would say that; he has no clue***”. My brother would use the ammunition himself, rather than just describing the damage others could do.
Revelations are all well and good, but yet again, I’m left knowing what the problem is and still not being able to do anything about it…



* Incidentally, I’m dreading the portraiture section of the photography class. I didn’t sign up for the optional session with a model (and I’m contemplating just skipping the homework) because the instructor is interested in our interactions with the subject of the portraits. Apparently the model would critique our interactions with her; I can’t imagine anything worse.

** Right now, I’m wondering if I need an excuse for being up so late, since I can hear a housemate out in the kitchen. She doesn’t need to explain why she’s up, of course.

*** My dad’s diagnosis with Asperger’s meant that his view of the importance of other people’s opinions was seen as the abnormal one. It took a long time for me to realise they were probably both equally far from the mean.