I had an epiphany about my life this morning and I owe a lot of it to the people around me. I had initiated a few talks about insecurities with some close friends through the last couple of weeks and it really led me to open a door… and I finally truly understand what my greatest insecurity is.
M initiated a conversation that really made me think about the way I behave following breakups; I had a habit of self-therapizing by doing things that would make strangers happy. M was once that stranger in my life – I had met him once, and I just bought him a bunch of gifts and sent it to him in the mail from abroad. That gesture alone made me happy, and I didn’t have any need or expectation for him to reciprocate. M really prodded me to think… Why do I behave in this manner? Why do I have a desperate need to make people happy?
During this talk, I started to sob. I started to think of all the ways I dealt with trauma when I was a kid… I just remember feeling really bad…
In my mind, I had thoughts about my deepest fear: upsetting people.
It all started with T, who I had recently become close with. She understood me well and I think I understood her as well. Our friendship was pressure-free, open, and sincere. We got along and I tried to figure out why we worked so well together.
I started from the opposite end and thought back to all the friendships that broke… How did that happen? I’m an extremely agreeable person, I don’t upset easily, and I’m extremely easy-going. (Not to mention I scored the 1st percentile in the Jordan Peterson personality test) Perhaps it’s them? I started to realize that all those people I had to end relationships with were quite similar in that they were all extremely insecure people. They were constantly on their toes because they thought people were out to get them, they were really concerned with the image they projected, etc.
I’m likely autistic and I realize that’s a bad thing for insecure people. I often fail in using intonation and providing feedback to what people are saying, I have reduced affect display, poor eye-contact when I’m thinking or stressed, etc. When insecure people lack all the things that they are used to receive from neurotypical people, they project their insecurities and emotions on me. One guy screamed at me more than once because he thought I was angry at him when I wasn’t. Another girl thought I went around saying she was after money and status when I never did such a thing. (The thought didn’t even enter my mind… what the fuck?)
But that couldn’t just be it, could it?
I thought about T and I thought about M. Like all people, I knew they had insecurities. I wanted to make sure, so I asked them both a question: “Do you think you’re an insecure person?” T was extremely forthright with me. She said, “Yeah, sure I am” but she explained to me that her insecurities were not something she expressed externally. She internalized them. She understood well that her insecurities would not get resolved by projecting them externally. M had a very similar attitude about his own insecurities. The kind of person I can become close friends with started to become clearer.
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One week later, I was in Toronto. I met up with two of my closest friends Sn and Se. I asked each of them whether they were insecure and what their insecurities were about. Sn took a little more time. At first, she thought she perhaps didn’t have any but eventually Se prompted some thoughts and she shared that she did indeed have insecurities about her boyfriend. I asked Se to answer the question and I was taken aback as to how quickly he named them. He didn’t even take a second the think about it; he just listed them one after another without pause. I thought to myself: He must have been thinking about it for a long time. Well, that makes sense – he is older.
Se looked at me and asked me if I wanted to know my own insecurity. Of course I do – tell me. Se told me that I was really afraid of letting people down. I was shocked. I might as well have been naked in front of him. I hadn’t spent that much time with Se. How did he see that? How did he know that? Maybe that’s why I grew such a quick kinship with him… he understood me.
Se left that thought in my head for several days. I contemplated messaging him about it, but I decided against it. He had a lot on his plate, and it wasn’t his responsibility to extrapolate my problems.
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I spoke to D. This was a day before the autism assessment. I told him that Se was right. I hate turning people down. I’m a pushover; I always want to do what other people want to do. Is it really that obvious? D thought it was – that’s me as a person and what I project to people. He told me to really think why I did this. I told him wasn’t sure. He assured me it was very dark and very difficult, but he encouraged me to keep searching.
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Assessment day comes and it’s an overwhelming experience. I cried a couple of time – not from feeling sad, but just overwhelmed with emotion. The psychiatrist asked me a very memorable question: “What are your fears?” I knew instantly – I told her my biggest fear is when people are upset. I told her I was especially afraid of upsetting people myself. She didn’t give me feedback; she was doing her job so she just continued writing.
When I was a kid, I dealt with trauma by myself. I didn’t have friends and my parents, like many Asian parents, were not emotionally present. I was often beat and yelled at for doing something wrong and I cried to myself in my room. Nobody consoled me as a young girl. I don’t think anyone wanted to console me – I was a weird and problematic child who needed to behave myself.
All throughout childhood, I felt like I was being punished for things I didn’t know I was wrong. It was a process of trial-and-error and I only realized that I was “misbehaving” when I was beat or sitting in the principal’s office, on the verge of getting expelled. I always tried to do what I was told – by the teachers, the other kids, my parents – sometimes I got rewarded and other times I got in trouble. It was truly scary and confusing to me as a kid.
I remember receiving an e-mail asking me to forward it and if I didn’t something bad would happen. After forwarding the e-mail, I remember being angrily confronted by a parent at school. That felt really bad.I remember writing a petition to get the French teacher fired because the other kids joked about it. I didn’t realize that they were joking and I took it seriously. I almost got expelled for that and that felt really bad too. I always went home trying to understand what I had done wrong, alone.
There is one particularly traumatizing memory: I was in grade 3. Once during class, I really needed to go to the washroom, but the teacher wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t know why I wasn’t allowed to go but stayed quiet and held it in. I was starting to hurt so I asked her again and she let me go this time. I headed down the hall and into the washroom but when I got there, it was too late… I peed myself. I remember the warm urine pouring down my leg and soaking my black corduroy pants. I remember those pants so vividly because they had such an interesting, ribbed texture. I didn’t know what to do so I went back to class and sat back down. I remember feeling wet, cold, uncomfortable and being sensitive to the smell of urine. I didn’t say anything, and no one said anything to me, even while sitting Indian style on the floor with the rest of the class. I just remember going home with urine-soaked corduroy pants.