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erikaSo rydra_wong asked me how I learned to express my needs LIKE A MOTHERFUCKIN' ADULT:
I'd say there were probably some number of factors that I'm forgetting here, but here's my path:
Therapy.
In therapy I learned the basics, the kind of stuff I probably should have figured out as a kid but couldn't, for whatever reason (*cough* shitty parenting, as J would say).
Things like:
Friends!
In order to communicate like a mofo, first we need to know what has to be communicated. In general, things to be communicated include:
needs
wants
thoughts
dreams.
BUT WHAT, you say, WHAT IF I DON'T EVEN KNOW WTF THOSE ARE. I hear you, caps lock person! Therefore, here I'm going to link some posts from the board I moderate on identifying and meeting needs. They say it so much better than I can, seriously.
Buddhism has been a big help with my communication skills.
Some of my problems with communicating are that I dissociate frequently and have a lot of trouble identifyng when I have certain emotions, like anger. As you can imagine, this makes communication of needs a bitch.
However!
As Viktor Frankl said:
You don't need to be a Buddhist to benefit from mindfulness and meditation. The space mentioned in that quote grows and becomes easier to identify, and that's where I find myself realizing I'm having an emotion.
Before I started meditation, I would react to a stimulus so quickly that my brain was like "oh, she doesn't even need to know she's upset, let's just start throwing poo!" Now I find that both my emotional response and my choice lie in the space between.
This is extremely beneficial to communication because! if I'm not having a kneejerk reflex reaction, I can choose to take the time to identify and communicate my needs.
I stress the choice repetitively because it is something I have to make a conscious effort to do, nearly every time. (Evidently I have some serious trust issues, but I'm working on that too.)
(I've really just dipped my toes into Buddhism——I have all the scary titled "when things are falling apart and you're a crazy person" books but haven't been able to get myself to read them, so whenever that day comes, I look forward to further discussion of how Buddhism is the ultimate '10% Happier' solution.)
Josh. Josh has been both a mentor and a tormentor (as my therapist says) in thisfight learning experience.
(Tormentor in the sense that my therapist means: bringing up emotions that are hard to deal with.)
He learned to talk about his emotions and needs growing up thanks to his supportive father, but had a few girlfriends who literally told him that, for ex, crying wasn't manly. (Yes, wtf, but moving on.) So! During this relationship he's been growing away from that again, and back to his childhood. This means I have a good role model, but one who makes mistakes occasionally and also models how to fix them.
He still needs me to explicitly state what I need in very literal language. I think that's related to the probable fact that he has ASD. (What used to be called Aspergers and is now Autism Spectrum Disorder.) As much as I hate to go the self-diagnosis route, I also have three friends with ASD and a friend who works with kids on the spectrum, and they all agree he sounds "spectrum-y".
(Hey, look! I have friends with it so I ~*TOTALLY*~ CAN DIAGNOSE RIGHT?
(no, I know it's not, BUT. BUT. It's nearly impossible to get a dx as an adult here, and I don't view being on the spectrum as a bad thing and it's helped our communication SO much for me to think of him that way so hopefully you, potential reader, are not upset with me for assuming he's on the specccccctrum)
Obvs, this is not a problem for me, but whereas I could more reasonably expect peeps who are neurotyp and/or allistic to "get" what I left unsaid (even though they never did), I actually grok that I can't do that with him. For this reason my brain now switches tracks when it hits that roadblock, instead of refusing to explain.
Even though I still do some of that.
So here are some lessons I've learned from him:
There are a number of things I haven't mentioned—certainly keeping this journal has also been a way of learning how to communicate, navigating various interpersonal dramas in my history, etc etc.
In the end, it all came down to whether I wanted to continue having the communication skills of an angsty teenager. I had to have a reason to change, because it wasn't and likely won't ever be easy—but worth the hard work.
I know that if I want to act with integrity and live my life according to my values: being open, honest, and authentic—communication, a true communion— is the best way to do that.
rydra_wong asked me how I learned to express my needs LIKE A MOTHERFUCKIN' ADULT:I'd say there were probably some number of factors that I'm forgetting here, but here's my path:
Therapy.
In therapy I learned the basics, the kind of stuff I probably should have figured out as a kid but couldn't, for whatever reason (*cough* shitty parenting, as J would say).
Things like:
- Identifying my feelings—turns out when you [ignore/are not allowed to have] vast swathes of emotions, your ability to identify them goes down the tubes and they tend to get all murky and hard to define. Since feelings are a clue to what one needs, this is Ungood.
- Everyone has needs. (Yes, me too, evidently.)
- People will be harmed if their needs are not met. (Yes, me too. I side-eye this rather hard, because I would rather be a robot and never ever need maintenance, but that is not the world we live in sooooooooooo.)
- It is possible to get one's needs met skillfully and "harmless"ly rather than in ways that [demand more than the other person can give/manipulate the other person into giving you what you want/guilt-trip the other person/harm the other person in a way not mentioned]. (Yes, and I don't need to put up with this either, supposedly!)
- Mutual respect and appreciation for the other person in the relationship needs to be the BEDROCK of communication.
Friends!
In order to communicate like a mofo, first we need to know what has to be communicated. In general, things to be communicated include:
needs
wants
thoughts
dreams.
BUT WHAT, you say, WHAT IF I DON'T EVEN KNOW WTF THOSE ARE. I hear you, caps lock person! Therefore, here I'm going to link some posts from the board I moderate on identifying and meeting needs. They say it so much better than I can, seriously.
WINTERROSIE:
I needed to relearn that it's okay to have needs, and what might those be, anyway?
Lysergia: how to find out what your needs are - that's a hard one (seems like it should be easy but i know it's not). [...] when i was learning these things i needed someone to talk to me like i was five.
Buddhism has been a big help with my communication skills.
Some of my problems with communicating are that I dissociate frequently and have a lot of trouble identifyng when I have certain emotions, like anger. As you can imagine, this makes communication of needs a bitch.
However!
As Viktor Frankl said:
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
You don't need to be a Buddhist to benefit from mindfulness and meditation. The space mentioned in that quote grows and becomes easier to identify, and that's where I find myself realizing I'm having an emotion.
Before I started meditation, I would react to a stimulus so quickly that my brain was like "oh, she doesn't even need to know she's upset, let's just start throwing poo!" Now I find that both my emotional response and my choice lie in the space between.
This is extremely beneficial to communication because! if I'm not having a kneejerk reflex reaction, I can choose to take the time to identify and communicate my needs.
I stress the choice repetitively because it is something I have to make a conscious effort to do, nearly every time. (Evidently I have some serious trust issues, but I'm working on that too.)
(I've really just dipped my toes into Buddhism——I have all the scary titled "when things are falling apart and you're a crazy person" books but haven't been able to get myself to read them, so whenever that day comes, I look forward to further discussion of how Buddhism is the ultimate '10% Happier' solution.)
Josh. Josh has been both a mentor and a tormentor (as my therapist says) in this
(Tormentor in the sense that my therapist means: bringing up emotions that are hard to deal with.)
He learned to talk about his emotions and needs growing up thanks to his supportive father, but had a few girlfriends who literally told him that, for ex, crying wasn't manly. (Yes, wtf, but moving on.) So! During this relationship he's been growing away from that again, and back to his childhood. This means I have a good role model, but one who makes mistakes occasionally and also models how to fix them.
He still needs me to explicitly state what I need in very literal language. I think that's related to the probable fact that he has ASD. (What used to be called Aspergers and is now Autism Spectrum Disorder.) As much as I hate to go the self-diagnosis route, I also have three friends with ASD and a friend who works with kids on the spectrum, and they all agree he sounds "spectrum-y".
(Hey, look! I have friends with it so I ~*TOTALLY*~ CAN DIAGNOSE RIGHT?
(no, I know it's not, BUT. BUT. It's nearly impossible to get a dx as an adult here, and I don't view being on the spectrum as a bad thing and it's helped our communication SO much for me to think of him that way so hopefully you, potential reader, are not upset with me for assuming he's on the specccccctrum)
Obvs, this is not a problem for me, but whereas I could more reasonably expect peeps who are neurotyp and/or allistic to "get" what I left unsaid (even though they never did), I actually grok that I can't do that with him. For this reason my brain now switches tracks when it hits that roadblock, instead of refusing to explain.
Even though I still do some of that.
So here are some lessons I've learned from him:
- it's better to ask forgiveness right away if I slip back into my being-nasty habit during fights, because it shows that I noticed the slip and the words/actions don't have as much time to sink in.
- A lot of fights can be avoided if I simply state "I feel [X]" and/or "I need [this] to feel [better]" rather than expecting him to read my mind/understand it from my body language/be a selfish asshole who would never give me what I want anyway.
- People see the world differently. The person you're trying to communicate with doesn't need to have ASD to be unable to anticipate your needs—that's like walking up to a bank teller and expecting her to read your mind and know that you have to deposit a check.
- If I state my needs explicitly, I have a far better chance* of receiving whatever it is I need.
(* Josh makes a point of nearly always giving me what I ask for when it's a need, or at the least explaining the reason why he can't.) - Reflecting what the other person said is a great thing to do. Likewise, it's okay to take notes or make a recording if you feel like you're going to mess up the other person's words in your memory, 'cause I do that all the time.
There are a number of things I haven't mentioned—certainly keeping this journal has also been a way of learning how to communicate, navigating various interpersonal dramas in my history, etc etc.
In the end, it all came down to whether I wanted to continue having the communication skills of an angsty teenager. I had to have a reason to change, because it wasn't and likely won't ever be easy—but worth the hard work.
I know that if I want to act with integrity and live my life according to my values: being open, honest, and authentic—communication, a true communion— is the best way to do that.
no subject
on Friday, December 12th, 2014 05:29 pm (UTC)