I am busy today so I am posting one of my old drafts. It does not correspond to today’s events factually, but it does so metaphorically very well. Even the comments I am now writing fictionalize the situation, although they do convey its gestalt.
My feelings today are not primarily anger but frustration, nervousness, and exhaustion. This is because I have been trying to get answers to two routine questions – and they are very routine – from one of my chairs for two months. I cannot get a response and I do not know how to proceed on a certain project without the information I need from this chair. Even a response such as “I do not know, but I will find out, or decide, by X date” would suffice.
As it is, I do not know what to tell my granting agency. The yearly report is due soon and it will not be good for future funding if I cannot at least put a projected completion date on certain aspects of the project. This chair, however, says that my request for answers I can give the granting agency is symptomatic of my inappropriate desire for “special status.” (WTF?!)
So, in this very awkward situation, I have called HRM to ask them to set up a meeting so that I can ask my questions. It is ridiculous and the whole thing is so irrational – and yet I am the one who is being called irrational (perhaps because I have this grant, I do not know).
Because having done this I now tremble in fear that both my chairs and our dean will take retribution because I have gone to HRM, and that I will only get myself labeled “problematic,” I have also made an appointment with my old psychologist, the one who helped me deconstruct Reeducation and then to manage my terror when I was being cyber-stalked by my X and he was being enabled in that by our dean. I am again terrified, so perhaps he can help me with that – although the only thing that would really help is if more people could behave in an adult manner at work.
I cannot really sit still, but then I also cannot really do anything. I cannot really hold a thought because my brain is pounding in terror, and if I sound lucid now it is only because I am talking about practicalities. I can do routine things in this state, but all of my emotional and intellectual energy, the energy which would normally be directed to third and fourth order thinking, is drained to thinking about how to conceptualize, package, and manage this situation – even though I am very tired of it, am tired of even thinking about it, and have far more interesting and more positive things to do. In any case, following is the original post, which coincidentally or perhaps not, strikes an interesting harmony with the words I have just written.
I spend most of every weekend I have lived in Louisiana recovering from abuse suffered during the week. When I lived in New Orleans, the city itself was so healing that recovery took no analysis or thought. I could just walk through the neighborhoods and let the axé wash over me, for New Orleans is strongly protected by ancient gods. Here in the country it is harder to find relief and abuse pursues one in recreation as well, as Death did Eurydice.
A very old friend has published a book on Homeric anger, a topic I first heard him discuss more than twenty years ago. Were he here now I would ask, do you have a personal interest in this topic which you have been considering as long as I have known you? I would ask because I have nearly fifty years’ worth of quietly contained rage seeping out of my pores. This friend has rarely seen it because it was so well contained in those days. Now it is bubbling out and wants the sun to burn it off. Yet it occurs to me that one of my prisoner friends, a psychic steeped in New Orleans mythologies, told me that in the spiritual planes I was Achilles. I need to find out more about this. The Iliad is about the anger of Achilles; anger I sing.
It is as though I were expelling anger through my skin, as though I had almost boiled myself clear, but the devilish passion still sat on my shoulders and stuck in his claws. I identify with the boys next door, smashing tennis balls again and again, as hard as they can against the wall. I should join them, or imitate them. It is as though I had awoken a sleeping parasite and it turned into a demon, twisting. I want to grab it by the collarbone and pull it out of me. My old friend is very articulate and insightful and I would be curious to hear whatever he might want to say about how he got so interested in anger.
*
The way I lost touch with this friend is recounted here. The friend I am angry with is this person. Despite being an excellent neighbor and fishing companion, and although he has excellent insights and much solidarity on questions such as how to manage family situations in general and help aging parents in particular, he drives me insane because (a) he thinks that the sort of negatively oriented commentary one hears on belligerent Christian talk radio shows and Faux news commentary is polite dinner conversation and (b) he thinks that although I refuse to have sex with him we should “trade massages” and, although I always say no, he keeps asking.
What is odd is this: given the degree to which this person disapproves of my being – and given the fact that he has said straight out and to my face, listen, I am not interested in you for “dating” but I would be for casual sex, are you up for it? – and I informed him that he was lucky I was merely speaking to him through my teeth and not hitting him in the mouth – why is he so solicitous?
He is constantly passing by to fix things on the house, bring me food, and whatnot, and he says it is just because he is a Cajun from the countryside, they do that for everyone, but the amount and degree of carpentry, for instance, that he is willing to do is very great (“don’t spend your money, I can knock that out any rainy Saturday”). I am constantly in a quandary as to whether I should be less suspicious of him than I am, or moreso. And because of the Republicanism and the requests for sex/massage, each of which may or may not come out in any interaction, I never know, if we get together to do anything, whether we will have fun or have tension.
I am always on watch trying to make sure there is more fun than tension, but that sometimes means just internalizing the tension, not addressing my discomfort. Recently I was so uncomfortable with his political discourse that I argued back at him, in a restaurant, at a dinner he was paying for and I could not have afforded. I felt terribly rude doing this. I do not know where I learned that you had to at least in appearance agree with the statements of the person who was paying for dinner – my mother never gave me instructions like that for dates – but wait, she did say it, not about dates but about my father. It truly is amazing how many of the things I learned as a child, about how to manage each parent, I universalized at the time and still do.
*
I am from coastal California, so my general attitude toward life is blissed out, and the mindset of war is not my general mode. Nonetheless I see now why some people I have known were ‘addicted’ to anger: the adrenalin rush feels energizing and empowering, and the endorphins are deeply soothing. Yet I do not like the unevenness of all of these energies at all, at all. And I know many people, especially women in this culture, who complain of not being heard when they are polite, and only being able to get anything done when they become angry, and this is not good news but at least I know I am not alone.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
This result from the Color Quiz, which isn’t a personality but a mood quiz in my opinion, is very unusual for me and it shows how upset I am:
“Your Existing Situation
Having difficulty making progress and unwilling to put forth further effort. Seeking more comfortable conditions where she can avoid anything disturbing.
Your Stress Sources
Feels that life has far more to offer and that there are still important things to be achieved–that life must be experienced to the fullest. As a result, she pursues her objectives with a fierce intensity that will not let go of things. Becomes deeply involved and runs the risk of being unable to view things with sufficient objectivity, or calmly enough; is therefore in danger of becoming agitated and of exhausting her nervous energy. Cannot leave things alone and feels she can only be at peace when she has finally reached her goal.
Your Restrained Characteristics
Believes that she is not receiving her share–that she is neither properly understood nor adequately appreciated. Feels that she is being compelled to conform, and close relationships leave her without any sense of emotional involvement. Feels rather isolated and alone, but is too reserved to allow herself to form deep attachments. Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense.Feels that things stand in her way, that circumstances are forcing her to compromise and forgo some pleasures for the time being.
Your Desired Objective
Needs a change in her circumstances or in her relationships which will permit relief from stress. Seeking a solution which will open up new and better possibilities and allow hopes to be fulfilled.
Your Actual Problem
The fear that she may be prevented from achieving the things she wants leads her into a relentless search for satisfaction in the pursuit of illusory or meaningless activities.
Thank you for using http://www.ColorQuiz.com/”
That’s not very complimentary and I do not identify with it but it is interestingly what my chairs and dean all tell me they think of me, in the lulls after the periods in which they have been misusing me and I have finally protested. The only thing they disagree with is my desired objective.
P.S. When I first became a professor and found out how awful it was, and told my mother and she was mean about it, I cried; that was the first time I cried over a job.
I was very misused in that job and I lost it; my next one was much better and so while in it I sought Reeducation to deal with the family and the results of the old job. Reeducation was very cruel but I never cried, even when I became disabled and had to leave that job and consequently, the city of New Orleans, R.I.P.
When in this job we got this chair and he began behaving as he did and my X made me feel worse about it than I already did, I burst into tears in the office of the outgoing chair. That was the second time I cried over a job, but the first and only time I ever cried at work. That was in Fall, 2004.
Today I stayed home because I don’t teach and I could, and also because I couldn’t face the office. My hands have been shaking all day and because this was the day to call HRM and get something done and because I did it, my brain is invaded with fear. And I cannot stop crying, so this is the third time I have cried over a job and the second time over this one.
I want to just cry until everything is over, until I fall asleep. I will sleep for a long time and then wake up in another universe and someone says there, there, it was only a bad dream, that place is not real. And things will be sort of like a nice kindergarten and everything will be sweet, and I will slowly come to myself again.
I am responding to things at this very old layer of self wherein I became a professor and remained one largely to please my mother and most importantly, to gain her respect, because I thought it was the only way to do it. This was accomplished some time ago but I have been too weakened by the whole to leave.
Very recently I realized that the reason my mother was never supportive of my leaving academia was that she really thought things were never any better anywhere. Yet I do not think she would really want me to be a professor if she realized how much it hurts. I like to think that if I were a child she would talk to the teacher and take me out of the school, so I would never have to go back.
It sounds like a difficult situation. Anger produces cortisols, which produce premature aging — so, not good. Yet it is good to detonate the anger away from oneself if one is very angry — otherwise it eats the inside away, which is even less healthy.
Maybe it helps to consider how to use two types of energy — one is the angry, confrontational (positivistic) approach, which seems to register most with those caught up in western robotic consciousness. The other is the Yielding energy, which does not yield in a positivistic way (that can be read off from the situation as an isolated but meaningful action). The Yielding is to allow evil to take place so that it might reveal itself better for what it is — and be destroyed. You are not responsible for other people’s obstructive behaviour — so smile, take a softly, softly approach, show perfect tranquility. At the same time, in your innocence, allow what is truly positivistic (behaviour that stands out as an independent act) to be seen. Metaphorically and emotionally wash your hands of it. Provide the perfectly neutral backdrop to reveal other people’s actions for the stark and strange disturbances that they are.
OK this state of terror has lasted all day. I am afraid that the reason they will not talk to me is that they are going to smash me with their hammer. All I can think about is running far away.
I haven’t gotten a thing done. I did go and get my nails done, and buy fancy moisturizer. It was nice. Very nice. And I bought fancy moisturizer. And I have an appointment with the psychologist. And I have something decent to cook, and while it does this I can walk.
How can I be so terrorized when this is just a simple business thing? At the main level it is nothing and I am the one in control, and I know it.
But my chairs and dean have managed to terrorize me over the past four years.
* Key: it is VERY strange to be in the position of having to beg for marginally collegial treatment, and to have to anticipate defending against accusations of unreasonableness for wanting it.
* Key: this atmosphere of chaos + discipline + requirements to perform are exactly like the atmosphere in my parents’ house.
* Key: when I see this psychologist: these panic attacks are provoked by realistic fear (based on its past behavior) of what the university will do, although they are obviously also responses to some sort of really primal patterns / early trauma.
I’m not just interested in symptoms, I know how to relax and so on. I’m also not just interested in discovering that early trauma and the ways it was compounded – I know about it, etc., and I still have PTSD about it, if we talk endlessly I can entertain the psychologist with my intelligence but I need to get something done. Namely: learn to name, deal with, and counter workplace abuse like this. Stop questioning myself and wondering what I could have done or how I could change myself to have it not happen (that’s what the abusers want) … learn to name it and stop it at the pass.
What must I do to do this? Insist on staying adult, on not getting pushed into scared child mode.
And: stop being afraid to offend people. I am for instance altogether too nice and understanding to this one chair. With the other and the dean – at least until the sexual harassment crisis showed me who he really was and demonstrated that he was not only not on my side, but not neutral – I’ve never been as kind and understanding but I certainly have engaged their game as opposed to insisting on my own.
And/but: isn’t engage the game, adjust to the world in which one finds oneself, supposed to be the rule? Isn’t insisting on my own what is considered egotistical?
Yet I find that when I don’t insist at least on basic integrity and health, I disappear entirely. Today for instance I am not functional at all.
But this is after all my primal situation: the idea that I’ll be killed if I insist on my existence or right to exist, and the evident fact that if I do not do that,
it is tantamount to suicide. The question of how I prefer to die: suicide, choosing my own poison, or painful execution on someone else’s schedule? The idea that those are the only two options unless I can manage to run fast and far away.
P.S. Jennifer – thanks. I just saw your comment – it came in as I was writing the others. I haven’t been in a meltdown like this in over 20 years. The one before that was one day in high school. And I don’t think there have been any others this bad.
You are right about the yielding energy, which is very different from submission. I have trouble distinguishing them but they are quite distinct. Metaphorically and emotionally wash hands, yes. Let evil play itself out, yes.
And stay on the ball: this is my concern, this person likes to lead on tangents and has strange countermoves.
Things to say:
BOTTOM LINE is that to function minimally the attacks on my integrity must stop and the communication issues in the main office must be addressed and resolved. Anything else which can be fixed is great but those are the sine qua non.
ALSO, be prepared for two eventualities (I’ve been trying to figure out which one is the real one, but prepare for both, even announce modi operandi for both).
1. This chair is just flaky and we just got off on the wrong foot. In this case, all we have to do is right the boat.
2. This chair is a true abuser, in which case he must be told to stop in no uncertain terms.
I think part of my error is in thinking that if #1 is the case, I’ve got to be the big, generous person, go more than halfway, accept and cover for inadequacies, and so on. But it isn’t true: in both cases I just need to wash hands, not engage, and stand ground.
*
I am in an extreme state of fear and what I fear is further pain – levels of pain I cannot withstand.
I feel like those revolutionaries with their cyanide pills. You are supposed to drop the cyanide pill before you get tortured, so you won’t say things and also so you get to choose your own time of death. But when should you drop it? When they appear to take you away, or while you’re in the van … except then you’ll already be manacled or knocked out. You have to do it soon enough, before they find it and take it away. But you don’t want to do it too soon, because it may not be necessary after all. What a quandary. (I’m sure there are training sessions on that but I have not taken them.)
One of the methods I have found to adapt to a situation which is likely to be abusive is to stop craving meaning so much from life. Abused children seem to crave meaning as if it were mother’s milk. We can read too much into things, because it is as if we want the universe to pay us attention, to make up for all the deficits of the past. However to read too much meaning into other people’s behaviour is to give them power over one. You end up attributing a measure of humanity right at the point where there isn’t any, and you project your better qualities (your intelligence and emotional sensitivity, etc) on to the other person, whose behaviour you find important — which is to say *meaningful*.
That’s interesting, the craving for meaning. And about wanting the universe to pay us attention. And about how reading meaning in is to give them power.
(That last is actually a point which the friend I was mad at when I wrote this draft makes about lots of things – it’s an insight which makes me like him.)
Projecting one’s better qualities onto people – now that’s an error I make a lot.
*
It’s interesting, I was thinking earlier today that yet another parallel between this university and my parents when I was young is the coldness covered in bonhomie. It was in response to this that somewhere in late elementary school that I made my life defining resolution – that I would never be cold, dismissive, or unresponsive to persons in pain.
I made my life defining resolution – that I would never be cold, dismissive, or unresponsive to persons in pain.
It’s a good resolution. But it is also good to be able to distinguish quite clearly what is a business transaction from what is a situation requiring compassion. I have not done this so well in the past. One wants to give in order to receive. However, it is important to be clear in one’s own mind what one intends.
This is also true. It’s difficult in academia because I at least have always before now experienced a certain degree of collegiality.
This is also true. It’s difficult in academia because I at least have always before now experienced a certain degree of collegiality.
I used to have a certain experience of belonging, ages ago. Maybe I could have one again. Things seem fine now. But before, whenever I relaxed a little, my behaviour would be not what people had expected. Nobody here has had really any idea of what Zimbabweans can be like. So they punish difference as if it were a voluntary psychological aberration. This kind of punitive approach gives the impression of a very mechanical, beligerantly robotic and ignorant culture. No doubt it doesn’t matter to people that they can be perceived in this way, although it surely isn’t the effect that those who wish to dominate by punishment are striving for.
Well, I am talking about collegiality in U.S. academia, being a T.A. in 3 cepartments and then professor jobs in four universities, at one of which I was in two departments as here, and then also here under the former chair.
Profacero –
I am just a lurker wishing you well and hoping that your time away from work is helping soothe some. Nothing wrong at all with freaking out – sometimes I think of it as a fever, or some other symptom that shows that the body is problem-solving in overtime. Best of luck with the meeting and with HRM. Down with the workplace assholes.
May 7 2:52pm is a beautiful and sad narrative about care-taking, and what it’s like to stand alone because you have to stand by yourself, not abandon yourself. It’s a terrible and tiring position to be in, and to have such insight.
This from 6:13pm: “Yet I find that when I don’t insist at least on basic integrity and health, I disappear entirely. Today for instance I am not functional at all” — very important.
Yesterday, z, you not only attended to practicalities but you wrote bravely.
Gracias K&K … this is all very stressful.
J – on the abused children wanting more attention from the world: I wonder if it is this: wanting to do extra credit projects to make up for their failings, but wanting to make sure this extra credit is recorded so they have definite protection against being abused again.
Also – I should relate all of this to my tenure posts. I wonder if it is having been on the tenure track for as long as I was which made me as abusable as I am.
I still think not. One of my tenure track jobs even made me think I had rights – this being at a university where faculty complained about not having rights! The other two were in really abusive places, and I am only beginning to understand how abusive this one was from the beginning.
J – on the abused children wanting more attention from the world: I wonder if it is this: wanting to do extra credit projects to make up for their failings, but wanting to make sure this extra credit is recorded so they have definite protection against being abused again
Could be a narrow expression of the particular dynamic. Being a good girl or boy really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be — which is why mister Nietzsche has a go at it. Neediness can have all sorts of manifestations — among them the apparency of goodness or diligence.
Yes … !
..which is why “femininity” is such a cruel bind for all concerned.
I am working on femininity as we speak.
I should blog it, indiscreet though it might be.
I want to transform sentences I might say as a woman into more businesslike sentences. These are the sentences I would have pronounced before becoming a professor, but as a professor, to survive, I was taught, one had to be more womanly. However this was an error and in the current situation what will really work are more businesslike versions of the same thing.
Well the whole femininity thing can never really be totally thrown off, since it is an institutionalised practice in our present form and context of society to treat women as if they were inherently feminine.
My response to people who will do this is:
“That is your gamut, your choice of action. I cannot be interpellated by your manner of addressing me, because that would be as stupid as falling for a clumsy feint (one I’ve encountered many times before) in sparring. So you can address me in that way — within the range of your personal gamut — and I will respond to you within the range of mine.”
“So you can address me in that way — within the range of your personal gamut — and I will respond to you within the range of mine.”
The same skills that make me good at picking up foreign languages make it hard for me to do this. When faced with an alien worldview my first instinct is to walk into it, see what it is like, and try to respond from within and in the style of that system.
When faced with an alien worldview my first instinct is to walk into it, see what it is like, and try to respond from within and in the style of that system.
My tendency is the same. It’s what I have been doing for a while now, with Marechera’s writing.
But this kind of curiosity shouldn’t be allowed to run away with one.
“But this kind of curiosity shouldn’t be allowed to run away with one.”
Right!
On men and sex, related to the problem you describe here, see Clio Bluestocking:
http://cliobluestockingtales.blogspot.com/2008/05/things-that-never-seem-to-occur-to-most.html#links