I grew up in a family that not only respected privacy; they imposed privacy on you. When I learned a little about psychology, and that people had inner feelings that could be important in understanding people, I started asking about feelings in my family. That got squashed right fast.
My father, especially, never wanted to talk about psychological motivators. It was wrong to even inquire about them. If someone wanted to talk, they would. I don’t know if he thought that was the polite thing to do, or what. I took it to mean he wasn’t interested in anyone else’s inner life, and he especially did not want to talk about it.
Another thing that became clear over the years was the official line about mental health. A, it was none else’s business about your inner life, even if they were an expert. B) Everyone should be able to handle all their problems on their own. C) There is no such thing as mental illness. It’s just people being lazy. D) Thank God no one in our family has bipolar disorder (as compared to folks in other branches of the family.
Only one little problem about that. It isn’t true. I have bipolar disorder. So, of course, to spare my family of origin any pain, I keep that little fact to myself.
I have no clue who my parents or my siblings think I am these days. Indeed, I don’t know what my oldest friends think of me these days. Somehow I managed to pick friends in college who shared an awful lot of my parents’ way of seeing and doing things. Since my diagnosis a few years back—I haven’t had much to do with them. During the year I was sickest, and couldn’t reach out to anyone even if I had a lion on my tail and they were standing at a cocktail party comparing hunting rifles as I ran by, they wouldn’t have wondered if I needed help. I hadn’t asked for it, after all.
Clearly my parents have no interest in knowing who I am. In fact, along with my friends, they seem to have an active interest in not knowing who I am. It’s not that I’m not allowing them to see me; it’s that they won’t allow themselves to see me. Oh well.
We won’t let their grandchildren spend any serious amount of time with them unsupervised. This happened because they were trying to shame the hell out of my son, the same as they did to me. One generation is bad enough, we felt. So the kids, who used to spend a few weeks of the year the my parents, are only there when we’re there. This has been going on for three or four years now. Not once have they asked about it or given any hint that they noticed! Unbelievable!
So, since my diagnosis, I have changed enormously. No one knows about it, and if they did, they would pretend they didn’t. Certainly, no one would even ask if I needed help. Much too shameful.
I have no idea what would happen if I were totally honest. No one ever talked about who they were, so I don’t know what anyone else would think about it. It’s better just to keep our lives private, and so, in my group of friends, there is no one who I can be honest with. They just won’t tolerate it. They actively do not want to know. To be honest, with my one friend, that’s because he does not want to have to keep a secret.
So my family is now on Fluther, for the most part. There are a couple of people here who know most of the stuff no one else knows. Fluther, of course, allows me to talk about things that no one wants to hear in real life. So no one in real life has to deal with the real me. They can deal with their own idealized fantasies of me. The jellies of Fluther, where things are all fantasy, know more about me than just about anyone else on the planet.
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Composing members:
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