Love languages

Have you heard of The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman? I recommend this book to people on the hunt for self-awareness. Its insights can help us understand relationships in our lives that work and do not work, including the relationship we have with our inner voice.

(Click here to check out the website and to discover your love language.)

Each of us has grown up in a family dynamic that sets up our adulthood expectations. These familial relationships tend to be the heaviest influences on our attachment styles,† though of course other influences are present. Whether or not we realize these attachment styles following us, they do follow us. Sometimes we pokerface our way through certain phases of relationships, but these expectations sneak around our unconscious like mice in the attic. For example, the love languages I appreciate most are words of affirmation and quality time.

Let's go through each love language one by one briefly and connect with them together. Knowing how you relate to each of these love languages is helpful for knowing yourself. It's also helpful to keep in mind when reflecting on current or past relationships. Sometimes we express love in one language, and the person on the other end completely misses it because that's not their love language.

1. Words of affirmation
   To affirm in this context means to encourage or support. One example of words of affirmation is "You make me so happy." If you love expressing your appreciation for people through verbal praise and recognition, this might be your love language.
2. Acts of service
   Service simply means doing something for somebody. For instance, one friend of mine loves cooking for house guests. If you like to do special things for people you love, you might love through acts of service.
3. Gifts
   This is pretty simple. You show your loved ones you appreciate them by giving gifts. My dad loves gift giving, big and small. If you like giving people gifts, this love language could be yours.
4. Quality time
   Maybe you enjoy simply being with people you love. If you enjoy spending time with loved ones regardless of the activity, your love language could be quality time.
5. Physical touch
   Think hugs, holding hands, PDA, and lap dogs. When you love someone, you show it by being in physical contact with them. If you love touching, poking, and hugging people you're close to, this might be your love language.

The love languages I identify with most, again, are words of affirmation and quality time. These are the languages I appreciate when directed toward me. This may or may not align exactly with the languages I'm most comfortable directing toward loved ones. Regarding family and friends, I'd say I mostly engage in words of affirmation and gifts. I don't enjoy hugging or quality time too much because family matters have always been difficult (as I revealed in a previous post, my attachment style tends to be insecure avoidant). Ain't that just somethin'?

When it comes to romantic encounters, upon reflection I have to say it varies. I don't fall in love easily because, again, I don't attach and stay attached easily. If I already know the person before we start dating, I'm more likely to trust them and more likely to engage in quality time and acts of service. While I love words and giving gifts, I'd say that stage two includes my service and my time. Stage three is physical touch. It's a tough barrier to break. Childhood attachment styles interact with other theoretical frameworks, like love languages.

As we learn to quantify how much we identify with each of these languages, we get a better look at ourselves. We can identify strongly with a couple of them. (We're basically bilingual!) We can also identify with a few of languages when "speaking" to those we love, but we might only be able to "hear" one or two. This does not mean any relationship is in peril if the languages between people are not the same. It's just a good bit of information to know for building and maintaining those relationships. That being said, it's super helpful to reflect on past or existing relationships to try to understand where certain things fell flat or why certain encounters felt magical. Once we practice these analyses enough, we can look at potential relationships to figure out how to approach the new people in our lives.

Also, what is our language like with our inner self? Quality time is a given, right? But sometimes we avoid quality time by chasing highs, avoiding alone time and the dialogue that circulates inside ourselves.

• What comprises your inner dialogue? (words of affirmation)
  Who in our early childhood contributed to the tone of that inner voice?
• Do you find relief with retail therapy? (gifts)
  When you give yourself gifts, do you feel satisfied?
• Do you take good care of yourself? (acts of service)
  How do you serve yourself outside of the basic functions like eating and sleeping?
• Is alone time relaxing, boring, or scary? (quality time)
  How do you feel about solitude?
• At what times do you make physical contact with yourself? (physical touch)
  What's your body language like when you're by yourself? With others? Etc.

Each of these languages is so dynamic. We can look at expressions of appreciation between ourselves and others, and we can look at how we show appreciation for ourselves. Learning how to speak each other's languages may help us connect in ways we didn't know how to connect before.

If you're looking to connect with a stranger, maybe bat some ideas around, please feel free to use the contact box on the right hand side of this page. It's there because I want you to know somebody is here to listen. Always here. :)

Take care, friends! Until next time.

I'm not too sensitive, you're just a jerk.

"YoU'rE sO sEnSiTiVe."

No, you're rude. I hate hearing variations of this message. It does a couple of things. First, it denies the speaker of responsibility. If I say something mean or rude to you, I expect to get an equal, opposite reaction from you. Not everybody is going to react the same way, but a reaction is almost inevitable. For instance, if you insult me, I'm going to try to hide the sting because I really don't want you to know you hurt me. I'm going to pokerface my way out of the situation and probably talk myself through the pain in private. Others might be rude back. Equal and opposite. Others are rock fucking solid and really won't take what you say personally.

Good for them.

Just because something isn't hurtful to you doesn't mean it isn't hurtful to someone else. Just because one person reacted one way doesn't mean that another person is going to react the same way. We might even step in soft places we didn't know were there, but we actually have the power to digest new information and move forward with greater intelligence. Take responsibility for your words and actions. It's actually pretty easy to be nice.

Second, this message denies the target her feelings. Barking at somebody's sensitivity is, in a way, how the dinkhole channels his own sensitivity. You're not fooling me, Mr. Sir! If you don't want to upset me, why say something upsetting? You're not exactly giving anyone thicker skin by blaming them for reacting in a way you are uncomfortable with.

😒 "Stop being so sensitive."

😂 "Golly, what an idea! Problem fucking solved!"

The APA defines sensitive as

1. adj. responsive to stimuli, changes in the environment, feelings, or other phenomena; that is, having sensitivity
2. adj. having well-developed or intense affective sensibility

Let's think of this word in another context. Mark has sensitive skin. When his skin reacts to a certain temperature or chemical, does he really think telling it to toughen up is going to solve the problem? No, his skin's still going to break out. Why? Because it's fucking sensitive.

Kyle could (a) ignore his skin's reaction, frustrating himself because his skin won't chill tf out, or (b) learn new ways to treat his skin, working with instead of against its natural reaction.

"Skin gets so offended these days! This fucking PC weather/face wash!"

Sensitivity is actually a great indicator of emotional intelligence. As we can see in the APA's definition above, sensitive people sense stuff. You know when Spiderman says whatever about his spidey senses? Nobody's telling fucking Spiderman that he's being too sensitive. It's one of his super powers!

When we're good at sensing stuff, it's more likely we're able to produce moving works of art or music or poetry that reflect how we feel--or maybe how others feel. When we're sensitive, we not only feel bad things deeply but we feel great things intensely. Even though at one point we may have sunk to the bottom of the ocean, we also know what it feels like to rise in flight to another galaxy. Being sensitive can suck sometimes, but it can also be pretty incredible.

I have a couple more definitions to bring into this discussion before I sign off. The Cambridge English Dictionary supplies the following definitions:

• Insensitive adj. not feeling or showing sympathy for other people's feelings, or refusing to give importance to something

• Desensitize v. to cause someone to experience something, usually an emotion or a pain, less strongly than before

These two definitions kind of paint a picture of rude people, don't they? Rude people may have been desensitized, denied their own feelings at one point or another. Maybe they're insensitive. It's possible a critical figure early on was insensitive to their natural emotions. Input *bloop* output. It's hard to give X if we don't know what X looks or feels like. In a way, these types of people missing something.

Something beautiful.

While I do believe in looking for new ways to strengthen myself, I also believe in looking at things that weigh me down. Some things are consequences of my own behaviors, but some things are not. People have told me that my feelings are my responsibility, but successful relationships are seldom one-way interactions. I do have the biggest role in my mental circus, but it's not always easy to dodge or work through hurtful things. And that's okay. I don't want to lose my sensitivity. It colors my life so beautifully. And, honestly, the last thing the world needs is another grayscale merpface knocking people down and blaming them when they hit the ground.

The ground loves you, babe! Keep falling. The more times we fall, the more times we stand up (I hope), and the wiser we become in helping others do the same. :)

If you're looking for an outlet, or if you want to vent about a Dinkhole Merpface in your life, please take advantage of the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. You don't need to feel alone. I'm not a doctor (yet!) but I'll try to help you the best I can.

Stay well, you beautiful weirdos!

Inheriting family trauma

It's probably common knowledge that we inherit genetic traits from our parents. It might be lesser known that the effects of trauma are likely to flow down the proverbial bloodline as well. In his book It Didn't Start With You, Mark Wolynn introduces terms like "family mind" and "family consciousness" to help readers understand how a relative's past experiences can affect a child who hasn't necessarily endured the same things.

(The following points are iterations from Wolynn's work.)

The Family Mind

"The parents eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" Ezekiel 18:2.

Chances are, if there's some sort of trauma or emotional deficit in your bloodline that hasn't been acknowledged, addressed, or repaired, it's trickled down to you.

Both of my parents experienced abandonment during childhood. While neither of them abandoned me, I likely have inherited a certain kind of emptiness due to what they lost early in their lives.

The Family Consciousness

"Traumatic events...can exert a powerful influence over us, leaving an imprint on our entire family system for generations. These imprints then become the family blueprint as family members unconsciously repeat the sufferings of the past" (p. 44). 

"Unresolved traumas from our family history spill into successive generations, blending into our emotions, reactions, and choices in ways we never think to question. We assume these experiences originate with us" (p. 58).

“The greater truth would be that the love you longed for was not available for your mother to give” (p. 68).

“Until we uncover the actual triggering event in our family history, we can relive fears and feelings that don’t belong to us—unconscious fragments of a trauma—and we will think they’re ours” (p. 77).

Because of things that have happened to your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, you might have an inner dialogue or interpersonal expectations based on events that didn't necessarily take place in your life. Gaps don't fill themselves, you know? And people normally can't give what they never received. I can't teach you Russian grammar because I've never learned Russian grammar. Input; output. Because of what your predecessors were missing, those things might be missing from you too. When we do notice that something is missing, the emptiness may be hard to identify. Maybe we feel like something's wrong with us because there's a hole we aren't equipped to understand. One way to help fill this hole is through obtaining knowledge of our family history. I may not be able to teach you Russian grammar at the moment, but I'm positive I could. I just have to equip myself first. One mode of equipment in terms of balancing emotional deficit is therapy. It can be helpful when a properly equipped, objective third party gives us a knowledge-based mirror to show us what we have essentially been blind to.

My mother and my mother's mother were significantly undermothered. Because of this, my own relationship with my mom was void of emotional connection. The only time she vocalized "seeing" me was when she was disappointed. She didn't have much to be disappointed in to be honest because I was a good kid, but boy did she magnify anything she could find. She loved to put words and doubts in my mouth, insisting that anything I wanted to do was stupid and outside of my ability. That attitude had an origin. Her mother had a destructive you-can't attitude as well. I don't know how long that's been in the family or where it came from, but I do know that it sucks when your mother doesn't believe in you.

I've felt this dissonance between myself and my mother since I was very young. That relationship has brought me more pain than warmth, and a few years ago I put a calculated distance between us. (Recall my post about attachment styles, mine being insecure avoidant.) With distance, I've been able to read about and reflect on the relationship we had. With the information I'm learning, I'm able to draw from the past and identify which pieces of a healthy mother-daughter relationship were missing.
(More on this in a later post. I want to stay on track here.)

Four Unconscious Themes that interrupt the flow of life:

1. We have merged with the feelings of a parent.
2. We have judged, blamed, rejected or cut off from a parent.
3. We have experienced a break in the early bond with our mother.
4. We have identified with an excluded member of our family system.

There's so much content on YouTube and other media that features Wolynn himself talking about his writing, his experiences, and what he hopes the world will gain from his work. My posts are normally overflowing with my reflections and elaborations, but I think collecting a few of his words verbatim is the most effective way to share this information with you. If you're interested in more of what Wolynn has to say, I encourage you to dive straight in to the abundance of sources available on the internet.

If you'd like an unprofessional but friendly outsider to talk to, the contact box on the right is for you. :) Sometimes we feel like nobody is rooting for us, but I want to try to help you however I can.

Enjoy this lovely spring evening, friends! Stay well.

Serotonin rocks!

I was looking for YouTube videos about depression, and found that many of the friendly-looking videos out there have the same information. Depression can lead to weight loss, weight gain, lack of sleep, too much sleep, loss of interest in things you used to love, blahblahblah.

I'm not trying to discount this information at all, but if you're a seasoned sufferer like me, you already know all that. Those videos seem to be for people who don't know about depression or don't know they have depression. AsapSCIENCE is one of the coolest YouTube channels. It's basically a pioneer of the whiteboard-style realm. If you follow the link to this video's YouTube page, you'll be able to find the sources that make up the information in this video.

Here's the I-can't-watch-this-video-because-I'm-at-work version:

Serotonin - brain chemical

• For a long time, depression was linked with a shortage of serotonin in the brain.
• Patients with depression were often prescribed drugs like SSRIs, which typically increase serotonin levels.
• One study found that the longer patients took their serotonin-based drugs, the smaller the hippocampus (responsible for memory and emotion) became.
• The drug did, however, "promote the release of other chemicals [which] stimulate neurogenesis, or the growth of new neurons."
• However, more recent research found that there's more to depression than that. 

S allele - serotonin transporter gene

• Each of us is equipped with two copies of the serotonin transporter gene, the S allele.
• One comes from each biological parent.
• This gene can either be long or short.
• Individuals with two short S alleles were likely to have depressive behaviors.
• Individuals with one short and one long S allele were also somewhat likely to have depressive behaviors.
• Individuals with two long S alleles were not likely to have depressive behaviors.

While the whole nature-versus-nurture debate still swirls around the psychological field, biological evidence is still useful in seeing how depression and the physical body interact. One of the last messages viewers take away from this video is: Despite someone saying we should "get over" our depression, nobody else deserves a say in our mental health.

The more research that pours into the mental health field, the more treatment options will be available. I was on SSRIs for years, and I felt indestructible.† If you aren't sure whether you have clinical depression, please talk to your doctor. I held off on that conversation for a long time, but I finally started to see improvements once I let myself talk about it. We deserve peace of mind! No case of depression is too small to talk about. I used to repeat to myself that other people have it worse. Looking back, I understand that mindset, but I want you to know that you don't need to feel like you're forever suspended off the side of the fucking Eiffel Tower. You deserve relief too!

If you need somebody to talk to or have any questions, please take advantage of the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. I don't want you to feel alone.

Take care of yourselves, friends! I'll talk to you next time.

Identity vs. Impression

YOU DON'T KNOW ME

Isn't is weird when you hear things that people say about you? "Pat in sales said X about you." Mind your fucking business, Pat. But... don't we all draw conclusions about people based on what we know? (If you say you're 100% non-judgmental:
l o l o k.)

We all draw conclusions based on data we've gathered so we can decide how to proceed with something. These data are not always correct, but we literally all do this. Some people want to draw the line between making a judgement and being judgmental, but I don't have time for that. It's a legit survival mechanism. Let's just accept that what we do with our judgments falls on a scale: Some people are overtly judgmental and others are more covert.

Identity:
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines identity as

[A]n individual’s sense of self defined by (a) a set of physical, psychological, and interpersonal characteristics that is not wholly shared with any other person and (b) a range of affiliations (e.g., ethnicity) and social roles

Commentary on the sense of self:
One of the theories about self I remember from undergrad was Edward Tory Higgins' (1987) self-discrepancy theory. Higgins' theory suggests that we have three selves:

• the actual self
• the ideal self
• the ought self

The actual self is who we believe we are, the ideal self is who we want to be, and the ought self is who we feel we need to be. Self-discrepancy is the perceived disconnect between our actual self and our ideal self or ought self. (I'm not going to bring in other people's influence on this triad just yet.)

Drawing from self-discrepancy theory, inconsistencies between one's actual self and ideal self may inspire feelings of sadness or low self-esteem. Inconsistencies between one's actual self and ought self might inspire agitation or guilt.

(Image found on ResearchGate)

Incongruence between these selves causes a lot of mental static. Some would say that depression stems from an actual/ideal discrepancy. Who I really am isn't who I want to be. Where do these standards come from? Where do the expectations that feed the ideal self originate? Let's add a dump truck full of (often unwarranted) external influences to this identity crisis. After all, what would life be if it weren't riddled with obstacles?

On affiliations and social roles:
Part of our identity is indeed contrived from the world around us. Would we be able to form an identity without other people? Think about it. As social creatures, we find purpose in noticing how we relate to others. How do we contribute to the whole, and how does the whole receive us? Where is my place on this social hierarchy? For example, teachers in the United States are pretty poorly received. Society takes advantage of and lacks adequate respect for the work educators do. In Korea, however, teachers are highly esteemed. As a teacher in Korea, I do feel like I'm contributing something valuable and that my work is appreciated.

Messages about our value may also vary according to socioeconomic dis/advantages. Because of my race or cultural background, I might be seen differently and treated differently than somebody of another group. If people deny my basic human rights on a regular basis, what does that to my identity? Doesn't that send a really toxic message, and for literally no reason? Some messages stem from a long line of prejudice, and the effects outstand time. What kind of external messages have I internalized regarding my ethnicity?

On sharing:
I don't think many people share eeeeeverything about themselves. Identity includes things nobody else knows about. Sharing is opening the gate occasionally, while and many things stay inside. Unfortunately, keeping certain things private can welcome inaccurate assumptions by people who think they know more than they do. I'm absolutely not saying we shouldn't keep things private (I'm a pretty private person myself). I'm just saying that, again, judgments are the attempt to make the unknown known.

Impression management:
Impression management according to the APA involves

behaviors intended to control how others perceive oneself, especially by guiding them to attribute desirable traits to oneself

I visualize a Venn diagram when I think about the differences between identity and impression, one circle being identity and the other being impression. There's a theory called impression management that I consider to be the little sideways eyeball thing where the two circles overlap. That's where we try to take control of how people view us, often unconsciously.

But we can't really do that, can we? Public platforms can help us. However, as we learned from the whole West vs. Swift thing, our attempts at impression management aren't always successful.

Impression:
The APA defines impression formation as

[T]he process in which an individual develops a schema of some object, person, or group

So let's back up for a moment.

1. Identity is generated inside oneself. It's influenced by outside factors, but my identity is mine.
2. Impressions, on the other hand, are generated outside oneself. They're influenced by my actions and appearance, but people's impressions of me is not mine.

While the purpose of impression management is to marry these two visions, it's super helpful to understand that the way people perceive us has little to do with us.

Impression formation is based on an outsider's story. Let's talk about Pat from sales again.
Pat's ex-husband cheated on her with a woman who has blue eyes. (I'm isolating this variable for illustration.) Depending on the length and depth or her marriage to that douchebag, Pat might develop unconscious reservations about women with blue eyes. Now, let's pretend I have blue eyes. Again, depending on how much pain this affair brought on Pat, my blue eyes might remind her of that pain. She's not necessarily trying to make that connection, but that part of her story informs her impression of me. That connection has very little to do with me, but it leads our potential relationship to weird places.

"Why does Pat have a problem with me? I've never done anything to her."

You just never fucking know. *shrug* Her impression of me is based off an event in her life, an event that is hers. If she's really hurting, she might even snap at me for little things or tell me that my eyes "don't really go with my skin tone" or whatever. Pat might not even know why she doesn't like me; maybe she does. Many times, the "blue eyes" in the equation is a personality trait or another intangible piece of yourself that is way more difficult to detect. The takeaway I want you to understand is that people's impressions of you may have very little to do with anything you've said or done. Of course, if you have said or done something in poor taste, that's an entirely different conversation.

When I find myself taking things personally, I try to remind myself of this misconception. Some things people say about me are mere projections of their own stories. I can't do much to change those projections because people's own histories are colorful and rich in emotion. The most we can do is try to ask ourselves whether or not this person's impression of us is based on actual events. We can try to manage that impression, but the most effective way to combat this kind of discrepancy is to build an identity so solid that inaccurate impressions fall away.

I know it isn't easy. If we're unsure of our character or if we have low self-esteem, we may internalize things that aren't accurate. If Pat was this rude to 14-year-old me for no reason, I'd be really upset and absorb her implications that I'm a terrible person. :( I still have my bad days, you know. I'm pretty sensitive.† But we deserve to believe in ourselves despite other people's judgments. Once again, everyone has a story, so everyone has an opinion, so everyone makes judgments.

If you're looking for someone to talk to, please note that the contact form on the right-hand side of this page is for you. We can talk about the Pat in your life or anything else that's on your mind. I'm here for you, girl. :)

And as always, friends, please take care of yourselves. Until next time! ✌