On Professional Perspective

Some of you may know that I'm currently in therapy for social anxiety. Nothing so serious that I needed any intervention, of course. Just inconvenient enough that when I found out that therapy was covered in my work's insurance plan, I looked into it.

I've always been a firm believer that perspective is everything. It's helped me to become the compassionate, open-minded person I am today. I've learned (through much hard work, to shift perspectives in my thought patterns. However, I know that one's perspective is always limited, even when one have a good grasp of how it works.

Now, for the first time in my life, I'm getting a professional perspective on myself, and it's proving to be extremely valuable. One particular perspective shift though, really threw me for a loop, and it's that shift that I feel compelled to share.

I was bullied and ostracized by my peers as a child, but I never really gave it much thought in my adult life. I always just dismissed it as "Kids are cruel" and didn't let it bother me. And I thought I was a better person for it. Unfortunately, I didn't just dismiss it. It seems I repressed it...REALLY repressed it.

Anyone who knows me know that I'm not one to repress my feelings. If I'm happy, or excited, or confused, or upset, everyone knows it. But when asked about my emotional memories of my childhood, I was shocked to realize that I didn't really have any. Not that I didn't have any emotions as a child; I just don't remember them at all. I repressed and avoided my childhood emotions to such an extent that I've somehow convinced myself that they didn't happen by erasing the memories, especially the painful ones.

Some things, I don't remember, but they're in my mind because my parents told me about them (like coming home from school crying and asking "Daddy, why don't I have any friends? Why doesn't anybody like me?") Some of the things that I DO remember, (like being beaten up on and called "weird" and "ugly") have memories attached to them, but they are from an odd, third-person perspective.

So what did I do? Well, my parents and teachers told me to ignore the bullies and insults, so I did. I lost myself in literature. I read to escape the hurt. I never really dealt with it. I never got any real emotional support for my sadness and loneliness because I never recognized it, soothing myself instead with fictional friends: The Bobsey Twins, Mowgli, Mary Lennox, The Pevensies, and a multitude of other lost children from my favourite stories.

After a bit of probing, my therapist made an interesting observation that he admitted surprised even him, and certainly shocked me. He said that my descriptions of what happened to me as a kid fit into the exact same formula as rape victims. I have no emotional memory and I dissociated from the event itself (ie, the third-person memories or complete lack of memory)

I never really thought of myself as needing therapy before. Now though, it makes so much sense! I was bullied to the point of trauma by my first real exposures to society, so now, I can't help but be afraid of social situations. I was trained to assume that I was not likeable, that I didn't deserve the attentions of others, and I've carried that with me (though mostly unconsciously) into adulthood.

I always just thought of myself as a inherently defective (just a little bit!), but now I know that society broke me when I was little, and I have the professional perspective that will help me to myself. And through all the suddenly-resurfacing pain, it kinda feels good.