In danger of being cliche, glib or just plain simplistic, life is like a magazine subscription. Our lives are a series of articles bound between the front and back covers of our time here on earth. The table of contents are actually a fluid laundry list of events and experiences that continuously get added to with each passing hour. Most of the articles are mundane and never make final print. But some are worthy of a few chapters.
We all have issues. Some of those issues turn into volumes in and of themselves. And then once in awhile, there is a VERY minor issue that is more like a trial subscription to a different magazine, but it comes and goes without much thought.
I have issues. You have issues. We all have issues. The question is, can issues be worked through or just plain managed? My feeling is there is no all or nothing. Some issues CAN be worked out. Others can’t. Psychology has always fascinated me. There can never be a one size fits all solution to the same problem. For instance, if someone can’t achieve sexual intimacy because of a guilt feeling toward sex, some people can work through their history on where the train derailed, others learn to live with it and grapple with it when it arises.
Part of people’s problems as a whole is not understanding what their own issues are. This is where “self awareness” comes in. By self awareness, I mean being able to really know yourself thoroughly; to understand your shortcomings and strengths and more importantly, to have them not come charging into your everyday life creating problems in your relationships. Allow me to provide a textbook example of the psychology of an issue.
All seemed well between Hilda and I. I had lunch with her one Saturday. She said she was planning to meet me at a pub after work. Quitting time came and she called from her car saying she was asked to check out her nephew’s rash so she will meet me for dinner afterward even though she really didn’t want to go to her family’s pad. She got there and they had dinner ready, so she said she’d meet me for dessert. Plates were washed and she was too tired and was opting out.
THE PSYCHOLOGY: I interpret that as she would rather do something she did not want to do rather than see me. Then it lead to me thinking she was just not that into me anymore. Which led to the realization that I would never hear from her again. In this case, I did not transfer my psychology to being angry at her which I think most people would do. I transferred the anger to myself tearing myself down. I think much of domestic abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse of a partner comes from a person not recognizing their own dysfunction and transferring it to their counterpart. Self awareness is in very short supply.
So, how did I ever get from Point A to Point Z and fill in these huge holes in my head? It comes from THE ISSUE.
THE ISSUE: This stems from low self esteem. In my head is the voice that tells me that I am not worthy of someone’s love, to ever be a priority in someone else’s life and to always be the guy who people love to be around, but not WITH. So, where does THAT thought come from? My low self image is a part of my miswiring. And I am indeed miswired.
THE HISTORY: My low self image comes from early childhood. Between being the smallest kid in the class, even smaller than most of the girls, to never being able to compete athletically, to being picked last for every team, to never being chosen to be someone’s square dance partner, to batting .000 for three years of little league , to being used as a battering ram by my dad, to being made to ALWAYS feel out of step with humanity, it is little surprise why I developed a low self esteem. I never felt worthy of being someone’s boyfriend and rejection after rejection were experienced when I would FINALLY venture forward and go out on a limb and ask a woman out. So everything piled up into an issue, if not even a volume or two of baggage.
But now, it is too late to actually rewire myself. The electric was laid over the course of 42 years and quite frankly, I can’t restrip from scratch everything that has happened. So, I have learned to insulate the bad wiring. I am in a constant state of psychology always battling the voices in my head that is the issue. I have to recognize that it is the ISSUE that is speaking and not reality. People that don’t have this issue usually cannot understand why I just don’t pull up the bootstraps and quit my whining. They usually look at things like this as an excuse. Well, I am happy for them that they are so stable and functional. But these are the people that usually have more issues than me and don’t recognize it only to have it manifest in their own personal life, most probably in the form of unhappiness. As I wrote prior, everyone has issues, including people who don’t think they have issues.
The reality of what happened with Gilda is just what happened in reality. She went to see her nephew, she had dinner, was too tired to meet for dessert. It had absolutely nothing to do with not being into me, not putting me a priority or anything else deeper than that. And after discussing my issue with her, she is more aware of what my problems are and knows now what I deal with. I am glad she is understanding and not one of those women who just don’t want to deal with their counterparts issue and move onto the next broken and less self aware person.
