What an interestingly eventful day, all things considered. And it’s only 3:30pm, too. It started with a 10am check in on campus for the weekly checkup stuff. My blood pressure is normal, where it’s usually like 144/84. Like that’s my normal ever since I was a kid, but we’re talking 120/80 normal. After that, we returned to our abodes for a 90 minute long course on DBT. I’ll be honest here — I’ve never really done DBT. So this was a newish topic. I always thought it was “group CBT,” which I learned isn’t entirely wrong, but the group has nothing to do with it really.
The DBT started out with Borderline Personality Disorders, to which I was like “I don’t have that…are we on the right channel?” But then the speaker went on to talk about how it can help eating disorders, bipolar conditions, traumas, and other things, even going on to state that it’s an excellent self help tool when you simply feel off-balance with life (imagine simply being off-balance). While I don’t have an eating disorder, I am coming to terms with the fact that I have a horrible relationship with food (also rooted in trauma), so learning to feel like it’s okay to eat when I usually feel bad for it is something that DBT might be able to help with. I’m personally in it for the trauma stuff, so look at that: twofold assistance! My whole class sprang forward from Stage 1 immediately, which was nice to see. I mean some of us think but have no intention, so immediate danger wasn’t really an issue. We spent most of our morning talking about the different stages and how to slowly deescalate the harm via mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Which, after the events of the day, I’m a little impressed at the Universe’s foreshadowing.
Since it was an introductory class, we didn’t dive too deeply into all of it, but we did practice some exercises in recognizing our thought patterns during certain stories and stimuli. You might interpret the sight of a handful of cilantro sprigs as a slightly peppery memory, or you might wince upon remembering how it tastes like soap to you. An angry person shouting on a bus might make you feel uncomfortable and maybe even want to get off, or it might make you want to yell something back. Depending on your taste in music, seeing a person with a boom box blasting might either make you cringe or bob your head. All reactions are valid. But with DBT, we get to learn which battles to pick and how to keep ourselves deescalated.
Man, I’d love to be just like Jeff Lebowski. Minus the toe, of course. I may or may not have a Brunswick Fireball to fit the persona…I already almost have the hair style…
Anyway, so throughout this, I could not get my eyes off my phone, specifically social media, where someone was extremely rude dressed in thinly-veiled concern. I do not take too kindly to these kinds of things, because I am a highly sensitive person, and I am a little bit conflict averse. At least under trauma, I am…and I’ve been living in a state of perpetual retraumatization since I was a child. Basically, the other day, I left a comment on a clip about a person’s coming to terms with their gender identity. The whole thread was supportive, cozy, and safe. Several people were sharing their lived experiences with coming out and learning to exist, so I shared mine, too:
“I came out after a friend shared his transition video. But I had to feel 100% safe first due to what I grew up with. I learned more about myself as a functioning human when I felt safe enough to express myself. This interview was so good as a reminder and example of what having safe places for self expression can do for folks. 💛”
But today — almost a week later — someone came back with this: “Maybe it would have been easier to see a psychologist? 🤔”
At first I was like “aww someone cared enough to wonder if I was seeking professional assistance for my journey since I did not explicitly state that I did…” But I’m not stupid. I decided to browse the rest of the comments, and holy fuck nuggets this one was a real dinger. They used a lot of recycled and debunked rhetoric against other folks in the comments, which made me feel heat in my neck and ears, and even openly dismissed the person in the clip’s story, and that made my eyebrow raise (and it’s been stuck like that ever since).
Taking into consideration the fact that they were basically condemning everyone who shared their story, I took three slow breaths and replied with a reflection on my observations about their behavior: “It’s clear by your replies to people on this thread that you are insecure with other people being happy. Maybe you should see a psychologist for that. 🤔”
You know…match energy. This opens the door, apparently, for the person to choose to go high aka be nice or go low aka show their true colors. Well, they were fifty shades of baby grunt green at this point. Here’s their reply:
“Where are the happy people? I only see self-deception and personality disorders. But people used to live without these trends, and they were quite happy. Now they’ve invented all sorts of nonsense and made their own lives more complicated, as well as the lives of others.”
At this point, I wondered if we were dealing with a bot or a parrot. But I was also trying to focus on the Zoom chat. I put my phone away until we closed session for the day, and when I was done, I took the time to reply:
“It’s real ironic that you keep telling people to see therapists while diagnosing them as if you were one. Being on the lgbtq spectrum is not a trend, it’s been around since the dawn of time. You not being exposed to it doesn’t mean it never existed in the past. You coming into this queer as fuck comment section to express your discomfort with it is your problem, and nobody else’s.
Honestly the only unhappy person I see in this comment thread is you. I hope you find happiness elsewhere. 💛”
My hope here was to again reflect on what they were saying, add insight, and hope the person would take the hint and stop talking to me. Of course they didn’t:
“This is exactly like the trend, and it escalated during the covid period. And it was during this period, during the period of isolation, that the people, out of idleness, invented all sorts of nonsense like non-spirituality and the like. And thank you, I’m happy, I have a personal life and a man I love) 😏”
All of this is farcical. I was already transitioning before 2010 and most of my friends were way before that. It’s just so flippant to go off about trying to call it a trend, for one, and then to blame it on Covid or any date for that matter? Hell no! Because the same bullshit was said in the 90s. “it’s because this” or “it’s because that” No, it’s because people want to be able to exist like that without other folks telling them they can’t. It’s not about a date or a time or anything, we’re here, we’re queer, and we’ve been here since humans first began walking the planet. I am tired as hell of pussyfooting around people who make it their problem when none of this has anything to do with them. Come hang out with us, have fun with us, or get the FUCK out of our personal spaces. How hard can it be? Shit.
Like, I respect families who hold hands at Wal-Mart even though it makes me sick to my stomach with all of the flashbacks and super negative memories that I have about how screwed up my family was when I was a kid. But I don’t go online and get in people’s spaces about it. If I don’t like something, I normally go on and find something I like or want to understand more about.
Anyway, we all met at the park for a group walk and talk after the DBT to talk about things that we worked on and if there was anything we could relate to, between current personal situations and what DBT might do to help out. I am so weird in that I have a LOT going on, but at the same time I have nothing of relevance to note just yet. I’m not neck deep in active trauma, I’m not juggling heavy bills or anything that makes me fight/flight/fawn/freeze. I’m in that place where I am listening, learning, just vibing and taking in the world as I learn more about who I am underneath the layers of defenses that I made, and then on this day, the third day of January, in the year of our lord twenty twenty six, I was blessed with an altercation on the internet to share with the class.
I actually made light of it, but the instructor (who is definitely one of us, i am pretty sure the whole class either is or is an ally) knew I was miffed because I was starting to see what was going on since I’d been following this person’s tracks in the comments on and off all morning, and I was realizing that they were taking MY time and they weren’t listening, they were just parroting old and largely rebutted and outdated argument points. I told him that they willfully came over to a queer-friendly space, had one motive, which was to be disruptive and potentially harm others, and I was wasting time on it. He said ‘what is your first reaction?’ I explained I wanted to be rude and nasty. But that’s not my actual style, that’s my brain being a little ass. So he suggested I write down my original thoughts on the whole thing, and do what I’d been doing the whole time — reflect on their actions and behavior, and this time, tell them I am done. He said to do that. And then don’t return to the conversation, that was my boundary and I have every right to exercise it. He then said this was a textbook example of DBT in action. I was not letting myself escalate, I was being mindful of being respectful while still calling out the person’s behavior, I was staying regulated, but I also clearly asserted my boundaries. This is what I wrote:
“Let me be very clear with you. You have placed yourself in a queer friendly environment with no motive other than to disrupt an otherwise jovial discussion of lived experiences with the intention of harming people who have done absolutely nothing to you. You do not listen. You do not try to understand or educate yourself (because everything you have brought up has been debunked to exhaustion in other places), nor do you do anything to suggest you want to be involved in a positive manner. You are a time waster, and I’m done with the conversation.”
When I got home, I got a notification that they replied again, stating “Where am I harming people…” I didn’t click through, but I knew this was coming. I think I’m a DARVO pro at this point. (I’m loving this acronym, but it’s sad it fits the behavior of so many people these days). It really drove another nail in the coffin that the whole conversation was already sealed in.
The reason that this conversation is meaningful is because I held my ground and didn’t absorb any of it. I’m normally socially fearful, not just awkward, and I didn’t let my fears stop me from speaking up. So while this might just be a random internet argument, to me, it’s a sign that I’m learning to not speak or see things through the lens of fear. That’s why I documented all of it here. Because for me, the “win” wasn’t in the argument, it was in me managing my nervous system.
I went off to a soccer match after that, and tried to get some shots, but my phone doesn’t zoom in that well. Excellent game, though. I got there at the half, and the match ended 1-0, though I don’t know which team won. The dark jersies! haha. I think we’re in preseason, and the two teams were from out of town.
Gosh what else…like I said, I’m just vibing, chilling, listening, learning, growing, being, and living lately.
I do plan on having that pimento spinach sandwich tonight, though. And I also have a drawing to draw and a quote to find. And the ABCs post I’ve been procrastinating on…
I will admit that my final boundary comment made me feel like I was going to get in trouble. But that’s the trauma talking. That’s my shadow warning me. It has nothing to be afraid of.
Let me end with something nice. Here are pics that I took yesterday and today:
(and a shot from the game)
