People Pleaser

Man holding a fake happy face in front of his genuine sad face

Recently my friend Carmen posted a YouTube short – a clip from one of her livestream videos – where the topics was about people-pleasing, a subject with which yours truly is intimately acquainted.

So, small story time.

Having been born the oldest of a handful of siblings, it fell to me to ensure my family was safe from an angry forever-drunken father. Or at least, that’s what my 7 year old mind determined was the case.

It wasn’t true, obviously. But what do you do when you see Armageddon peering down at you on a weekly basis; when a roaring 350 pound shirtless beast is pounding the shit out of your mother?

Often, I just sat in fear, down in the basement, while hearing the horrific noises, screams and shouts coming from the floor just above us. I honestly just tried to stay out of the way, knowing full well a scrawny little guy wasn’t going to be of much use to anyone and would likely get slaughtered if he tried.

In the truly desperate moments though, I did what I could. I called the cops on him, twice. Once, I think, when I was 7, and the second when I was a few years older.

I remember the second time most vividly. The sky was overcast and some snowflakes were just starting to come down, the ground not yet covered. Dad was roaring yet again, his black greasy hair all askew on his drunken head, and his shirt once again off, revealing a horror of a torso covered in sweat. His eyes were bulging so I knew he was about ready to do some damage.

He was in the kitchen with mom and as that’s where the rotary phone was, I couldn’t use it to call the police. So I ran out the door to the neighbour’s house. The panic was so bad I fought down the pending embarrassment awaiting, knowing they would shortly become aware of our shameful situation. I pounded on their door and they graciously let me in.

I walked back to our house, entirely rattled and afraid, and waited outside till the police arrived. I hoped they would take my dad away from us so we could have peace. But, that was not to be. The cop arrived and spoke with my parents, and I watched as dad calmed right down. Honestly, it didn’t seem possible, he was so out of control all the time. But yeah. He did.

Mom taught us how to not set him off – not realizing that he didn’t need a trigger anyway. He was going to get drunk and he was damned well going to find a reason to be angry. It always happened that way.

I learned to recognize the signals though, eventually being able to read him like a book. I walked on eggshells around him.

This carried on through my teen years, with other people. I knew how to read them, and more importantly, knew how to mitigate their anger or upset. The words that would soothe them came easy to me. So much so I become somewhat of an empath around them.

One night four of us gathered at our friend Henry’s house, and we called in for pizza. It was late at night and we were all having a blast watching something on TV. One of the guys – Jim – seemed a little subdued. When he and I were alone I said “You’re thinking you’re not sure you belong here and you don’t really know why. Well you DO belong and I’m glad you’re here.”

Jim’s eyes bugged out. “How…how did you know that? That’s exactly what I was thinking.” He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t seem that odd to me. It was just a matter of fact, like the sky is blue.

This penchant for reading people translated into adulthood and work. I could always see all sides of a situation or argument and find common ground between the parties. My boss once gave me a verbal job evaluation, where he said “Wolf, I was starting to think you weren’t really engaging with the group, until I saw you sitting quietly during one of our heated team discussions. At first I wondered why you didn’t say anything, but then you spoke up and provided a clear picture for everyone on what had to be done.”

Unfortunately this penchant for reading people translated over into knowing how to please people, and then doing just that. It not only affected work but my relationships too. People for years felt they could rely on me to accommodate them because they could and because I would. It became counter-productive.

I learned to suppress who I was, and in the process, completely forgot my personality. I was never my own person; I was whoever everyone else needed me to be. To be blunt, I was an honest phony, never speaking my mind on anything. Looking back, I think if I was someone else back then and met me, I’d feel utterly bored.

It wasn’t until many years into adulthood (and after a lot of therapy) that I found my footing and turned it around, gaining a sense of self, and with it, genuine singular opinions that didn’t rely on others’ approvals. I stopped being a doormat for people, and at first many resented it.

My first “no” happened when my drug-addicted brother-in-law broke into our home to steal pills. No one was at home at the time other than the cats. They were ok but the place was a mess with broken glass everywhere. We quickly determined who had broken in by sharing Hank’s picture with the neighbours. This was in broad daylight of course, and he wasn’t quite as sneaky about it as he’d hoped, so they recognized him right away.

We told all this to the police, who later charged him.

One of my kids shared how they were afraid of him, and had a nightmare about him. So when one of Hank’s relatives phoned, asking me to drop the charges, the knee-jerk reaction she expected wasn’t there. I told her no, I was going to make sure he faced the charges in court.

“How can you sleep with yourself?” she complained. I was angry. “I’ll sleep just fine.”

It felt good saying “no” to her. Cathartic.

They say the first “no” is usually the worst, because you’re worried about how people will view you. You’re not making peace with anyone when you say it, and that can be alarming. For once this wasn’t the case. I did not want him scaring or harming my family.

He was sentenced to prison, for this and a few other drug-related crimes. Afterward, he apologized, so that was good. Not to say I trusted him, of course. But he never bothered us again.

Someone once said that people-pleasing is the other side of the coin to sociopathic behaviour, which sounds unfair. But I believe it to be true. Both the sociopath and the people-pleaser are doing the same thing: they’re reading people, with the intent of manipulating them. In the case of the people-pleaser the goal is to just be safe. The sociopath is a different story.

I would suggest that anyone who sees themself in this post should consider getting therapy. There’s a reason someone becomes a people-pleaser and often help is needed to figure out why that is.

But the bottom line is that it’s just not healthy to be that way. And worse: you’re not actually living life for yourself when you do; you’re living it for everyone except yourself.

The things we think matter don’t

Gotta tell you, kids, I’m feeling my age a lot more recently.

It’s not that I’m feeling feeble or particularly ancient or anything.

It’s that I’ve seen way too much of it all. When you see something often enough, you start to see patterns.

I see young women and men, trying to impress each other. The dance of existence continues, despite everything.

Despite wars, despite worries about the future, despite the lack of housing or decent wages. Despite the wars on abortion. Despite race relations taking a hit.

Despite it all, life looks to find a way. So girls primp, and guys look to romance them.

In between time, the young look for ways to survive. They take jobs where they can get them, and they hope to make money so they can buy a car and a small place to impress their friends and romantic interests.

Many despair about being able to do any of it. They wonder if they’re alone, there on the sidelines.

Those who got jobs work at not being found to be frauds. The ancient among us (raises hand) will tell you that it’s a well-known condition identified as “imposter syndrome”. We will tell you that far more people feel this way, than don’t. What our betters and peers never told us is that no one has all the knowledge; we accumulate it along the way.

And so we work, we make money, we buy things, we buy bigger things. Some of us can’t seem to stop buying, and we have Amazon bookmarked just to make it easier to consume consume consume.

And none of it – NONE OF IT – matters in the slightest. We know that intellectually – that we won’t care about our cars or how much money is in the bank when we’re on our deathbed.

I’m here to tell you that realization happens far sooner than the deathbed. As in now.

I look at young adults doing their dance, and I can’t help but smile. At the end of the day the media doesn’t play the tune to which they’re dancing. Life itself plays that song. Despite the media. Despite the disparity in incomes. Despite the unfairness of it all.

People still need to live. Want to live. WILL live, despite it all.

We are not doomed. Not by a long shot. No matter how crazy things look right now – they’ve actually been worse in the past. So this world stage we’re looking at is not new. Not in the slightest.

And this world isn’t the start and end of all things either. There’s more than the naked eye can see. We’re just limited by these bodies we’re in.

And that’s another thing: we are not human bodies stumbling around this earth. We are spiritual beings housed in these bodies temporarily. Someday these bodies will stop. Who knows what happens to us after that.

Things you learn while on the mat

When I’m doing my yogic meditation I sometimes get some insights. Guess that’s what happens when you stop concentrating on yesterday’s history, or tomorrow’s fears. Although something tells me it’s far more than just sitting in the present that does it. But that’s a debate for later.

Have you noticed how many people are completely losing their shit lately? Maybe it’s the media playing all of them up, but it sure seems there’s a lot more than there used to be. More noticeable is that all forms of media, including mainstream and social, are uniformly angry, negative and divisive.

It came as a surprise to me to learn I’ve been a very negative person. If someone has something they want to share, I’ve shared the flip side of whatever they’re saying. I’ve seen the hiccups and failures. Way too many of them.

Only lately have I noticed that some people, after hearing my negativity, have shut up and stopped sharing. That was a brutal surprise. But welcome. It seemed a good idea to figure out how to reverse that.

This all came to a head earlier today. Noticing that the building’s office was open and the light on, I decided to pay the superintendent a visit, just to say “hi” because we’re friends. There was another tenant in the office with him, but they were just joking around, so I felt free to jump in.

The other tenant mentioned he doesn’t talk about people behind their back. He said he noticed that a lot of people do. He added “Average people talk about things and people; intelligent people talk about ideas.”

I’m not sure I agree with that, but as the topic was germane, I didn’t argue. Instead, I offered something learned this morning from Reddit:

A woman mentioned a habit she now does regularly: if there’s something positive she’s heard about someone, she makes a point of telling that person what was said. She said it makes them feel so good to know.

That story pinged for me so I plan to do the same. Instead of looking for the “gotchas” about anything good, I’ll just look for the good that I can share. I told the guys this, and my superintendent said “Sounds good.” Then, looking at the other tenant, he laughed and added “I still think you’re an asshole.”

I added “But everyone I know says you’re a lovely one though.” : )

Cloud Atlas – A Second Look

Neo-Seoul – a view from above, from “Cloud Atlas”

Do you ever go to write something – a post or a comment – and realize you’re being verbose? And then do you delete it, certain no one would want to read your one-page novel?

Or does that only happen to me? I wonder, sometimes.

I’ve just finished watching the movie “Cloud Atlas.” It seems the author of the book on which the movie was based – David Mitchell – perhaps suffers from the same conundrum: how to get some ideas across without boring his audience to death.

Some ideas are like that. They take time to explain. It’s not that you want to spoon-feed your readers; you want to be clear about what you mean and just as importantly, what you don’t. And you want to convey nuance and intent, not just the action.

Cloud Atlas is a series of stories about a handful of souls, as they live different lives, in different eras, from ancient times to a far distant future. Each of those souls go through incarnations in which their personalities vary from evil to sublime. And each of the stories are unique and thrilling.

The screenwriters – the Wachowski sisters, and Tom Tykwer – have done an amazing work, piecing the stories together in a provocative way. Though it’s a long film (2 hours and 52 minutes), you really don’t get a sense of time passing. Like it or not, you become invested.

Tom Hanks plays a truly base and selfish man in one story, a distrustful but faithful protector in another, and grows to become a grandfather on a distant planet, telling his joyful grandchildren stories of the earth.

This movie also features Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess, Bae Doona (oh dear lord did she do an amazing job as a disposable fabricant named Somni-451 – born in a tank rather than a womb – who becomes a central figure in a rebellion), Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant, and Hugo Weaving.

All of the actors must have had a blast playing such wildly different characters.

The thing that struck me throughout, was the weaving of these souls throughout history, as they often displayed their tendencies from their earlier incarnations. The central theme appears to be the truth that Somni-451 broadcasts to the world “Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past, and present. And by each crime, and every kindness, we birth our future.”

I watched this movie eleven years ago when it first came out. There was so much dialogue in it that I forgot most of it (apart from one very startling Tom Hanks scene when he was playing a dull-witted angry and brutish book author at a fancy party where he encountered his harshest critic), and so this time I watched it with the subtitles turned on.

I find I agree with Somni-451. Perhaps we’ll talk more about that later.

If I had to rate this movie out of 5, I’d give it at least a 6.

Little Bear

A couple of years ago, I suffered my first panic attack.

Had no idea what it was at the time. I thought I was having a heart attack. I couldn’t breathe properly and there was pain in my chest. I walked into the ER with very high blood pressure and my heart rate was through the roof.

After spending some hours there, the doctor finally saw me, did all the tests, and concluded I suffered from anxiety, so she gave me some pills to calm me so I could go home and sleep.

I ended up taking a month off of work and became agoraphobic. Every time I wanted to leave the apartment, my stomach would tense up and get hot, and I had to sit myself right back down. I became a prisoner of my place.

I knew I was in a dark place, so I made a conscious decision not to even go out on my balcony as I didn’t trust myself not to jump from it.

My doctor got me on some anti-anxiety meds and between those and my new yogic meditation practices I was able to come out of it, and for a few years I was anxiety-free and panic-free. I eventually even got off the drugs and all was well.

Until a few months ago and again I suffered chest pains so bad, the tele-health nurse decided to send an ambulance to my home. And so again, I went to the ER for no good reason and again they diagnosed a panic attack.

From there, I struggled daily to keep anxiety at bay, though I knew it was there in the background, getting ready to pounce.

On July 23, I got a haircut. The guy cutting my hair told me he’d seen a bunch of kittens for sale at a nearby pet store.

I was only mildly interested, as I’d been to many pet stores and saw a number of cats and kittens, but none really caught my eye. I even went to the local Humane Society and checked all the kitties there. The only ones that seemed interested at all were already being held for adopters.

So there really wasn’t a lot of hope that the ones my hairstylist saw would interest me, or be interested in me.

That sunny day, I left the hair salon and wandered over to the store. As soon as I walked in, I saw their cage to the left of the door, and I swear to God my voice went up about a half-octave as I started talking with the three kittens that were left. “How are YOU, little ones?”

They were all grey haired on the top, with white bellies and paws. One of them was on his back and when I spoke he looked right at me. And kept looking as I continued talking to him.

The clerk was smiling the whole time, and when I asked about adopting him, he told me I’d have to complete an application first. I took it home, completed it and brought it back the next day, thinking I’d drop off the application, which they would look at and, if approved, I could take him home that day.

I was wrong. The application had to go back to the animal services organization in the next town over and they would let the pet shop know if I was approved to adopt him. He told me there were several others interested in adopting them, so in my mind, the chances I’d get the one I’d picked out were slim. That was on a Sunday.

I still hadn’t heard from the pet shop by Wednesday, so I called the organization who sent out the kittens to the shop and asked how soon they would have an answer. The guy who answered wasn’t the person who’d make the decision so he said I’d hear back from the other guy that afternoon.

Mid-afternoon my phone rang. I looked at the display. It wasn’t the animal services place; it was the pet shop. They told me my application was approved and I could come pick him up.

Heart pounding, I informed my boss I had to leave work early, and that I would make up the two hours later.

After going out and buying a bunch of pet supplies and getting them ready at home, I made my way over to the pet shop and picked him up.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mishka.

Mishka, Russian name meaning “little bear” or “gift from God”; in Hindi it means “gift of love”; in Arabic it means “niche for light,”

He’s been with me now for a few weeks. He has brightened my life considerably, and of course the lurking anxiety has gone away. I truly feel there’s something – someone – to live for. Truly live for, and not merely exist anymore. The little guy follows me everywhere and anticipates bed time. He hops up on the bed and waits for me to settle before he begins his routine.

It has become a ritual now. He plays on the bed for a little bit, gives himself a bath, and then snuggles up next to me, purring. I’ll pet him until he falls asleep and then it’s my turn to sleep.

Mornings are the same too. I’ll wake up and as soon as I stir, he wakes up. So he begins purring as I pet him for a while.

He loves to play fight with me, and chases stuff around the apartment. He gets the zoomies too. For those unfamiliar with the term, it means he gets bursts of energy that have him zooming around the apartment chasing ghosts. He’s done it in the tub too, back and forth.

I don’t think I’ve smiled or laughed so much in a long time.

The naming was interesting. You’ll see the definitions of “Mishka” up there beneath his photograph. It took me a while. I kept trying out different names, knowing they weren’t right, until I landed on “Mishka”. The name just felt right when I said it, and I only discovered its meaning afterward.

“Gift from God” sounds about right, as that’s exactly how I see him now. And I am so grateful he exists and that we’re together now. I could not be more happy.