On Arguments
25 February 2010 19:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amulI don't think I've ever "won" an argument in my entire life.
An argument usually happens when two (or more) people feel like their needs are being ignored or devalued. In other words, I want something, and you want something, and I feel like whatever you want has been overshadowing what I want, and you probably feel the same. When I was in high school, I was usually too busy trying to be everything the other person wanted to ever really consider my own needs. As a result, those who wanted to give back to me could only try to infer what I wanted, and inevitably misunderstood. Yet, I would gratefully take what they offered, all the while resenting their inability to fulfill my unexpressed needs while continuing to fervently hope that if I just gave enough they might finally feel supported enough to give me whatever the hell it was that I wanted, and guilty for having the gall to want more when they've given me so much.
Arguments end with apologies and atonement. In my twenties, the one thing my partner and I would never give each other was an apology. Our fights would end with both of us feeble and inarticulate with spent rage, glaring at each other across the battlefield, thinking as hard as we could, "I'm willing to say I'm sorry, so long as you say it first!"
Atonement is most often accomplished through acts of validation, acknowledgment of the other person's feelings and viewpoints, and a commitment to respecting the newly-understood boundary. When I'd get into fights with my parents, while they might be apologetic for the pain they'd caused me, they rarely tried to understand why I was upset. To my mother, in particular, the primary thing was that Other People wouldn't know I'd ever been upset.
My father didn't believe in showing his children that he could be hurt, needing us to believe him infallible, and so I never fought with him. Nor would he ever raise his voice at us, but only grow quieter and more furious, until his anger so overwhelmed him that his was little more than a shadow drifting through the house, unwilling to speak with anyone.
I grew to hate the phrase, "I'm sorry," only ever having seen it used as a feint, a tactic to provide time to regroup and resupply. "I'm sorry" only meant she was out of ammo, but expected the battlefield to be littered with fresh supplies. Or, in many ways so much worse, apologies that only meant "I want this conflict to end and no longer want to understand you." Like the cat who never sits on cold stovetops, I hated the phrase for the way it had been abused.
By the time I moved to Chicago in my late 20s, the only thing I really knew about arguments was that the way I did them was fruitless. I've spent the last six years learning to express myself, to listen, to accept that my needs have value. Yet, in that process, I've also discovered that my biggest flaw is a penchant towards narcissism, that I am quick to resent when my unspoken needs for attention are not met.
This seeming paradox often becomes suffocating for me. When I'm upset or needy, I feel like I need to Really Examine My Feelings to make sure I'm not being destructively needy. The end result is that my needs are taking just as long to express, for completely different reasons. Now I know what I want from my friends, lovers, or family....I'm just not willing to express it, for fear of being overly self-centered.
Unsurprisingly, this causes conflict, and now I have all this baggage piled up on top of feeling unappreciated because I never expressed myself in the first place.
What should an apology be? An expression of sorrow? A promise to make amends, to atone? I only know that it should mean more than a temporary truce, a ceasefire for the holidays, and yet I cannot seem to hear the words as anything but a threat of future violence and violation.
Knowing these things about myself is, I'm often told, "the first step." But even knowing that I do these things does not seem to help in the moment. It doesn't matter how often I intellectualize, how frequently I contemplate, when I'm angry, I'm blind to my ethics, my higher ideals. In those overwhelming moments when I'm sputtering and fuming with emotion, my higher ideals are lost to me.
I feel like I took that First Step years ago, and still don't know where the Second Step is.
For a long time, I believed that if I lived my daily life by those ideals, eventually they would become so integrated into my sense of self that they would become intrinsic to who I am even when not in my right mind. That I could train into myself the same instinctual hesitation I have about, say, raising my fist in anger, only for newer ideals, like "saying always or never" (as I've done pretty often in this journal entry).
I question that daydreams viability now.
All these years, and I still spend days regretting an angry outburst, still don't know how to gracefully accept an apology or offer atonement. Still don't know how to end a fight without demanding the other bend to my will, while struggling to not believe I have already bent as far as they should dare ask me to. I don't know how to end negotiate peace without palming a holdout pistol.
No. I have never won an argument. I have only managed to avoid them once in a while.
An argument usually happens when two (or more) people feel like their needs are being ignored or devalued. In other words, I want something, and you want something, and I feel like whatever you want has been overshadowing what I want, and you probably feel the same. When I was in high school, I was usually too busy trying to be everything the other person wanted to ever really consider my own needs. As a result, those who wanted to give back to me could only try to infer what I wanted, and inevitably misunderstood. Yet, I would gratefully take what they offered, all the while resenting their inability to fulfill my unexpressed needs while continuing to fervently hope that if I just gave enough they might finally feel supported enough to give me whatever the hell it was that I wanted, and guilty for having the gall to want more when they've given me so much.
Arguments end with apologies and atonement. In my twenties, the one thing my partner and I would never give each other was an apology. Our fights would end with both of us feeble and inarticulate with spent rage, glaring at each other across the battlefield, thinking as hard as we could, "I'm willing to say I'm sorry, so long as you say it first!"
Atonement is most often accomplished through acts of validation, acknowledgment of the other person's feelings and viewpoints, and a commitment to respecting the newly-understood boundary. When I'd get into fights with my parents, while they might be apologetic for the pain they'd caused me, they rarely tried to understand why I was upset. To my mother, in particular, the primary thing was that Other People wouldn't know I'd ever been upset.
My father didn't believe in showing his children that he could be hurt, needing us to believe him infallible, and so I never fought with him. Nor would he ever raise his voice at us, but only grow quieter and more furious, until his anger so overwhelmed him that his was little more than a shadow drifting through the house, unwilling to speak with anyone.
I grew to hate the phrase, "I'm sorry," only ever having seen it used as a feint, a tactic to provide time to regroup and resupply. "I'm sorry" only meant she was out of ammo, but expected the battlefield to be littered with fresh supplies. Or, in many ways so much worse, apologies that only meant "I want this conflict to end and no longer want to understand you." Like the cat who never sits on cold stovetops, I hated the phrase for the way it had been abused.
By the time I moved to Chicago in my late 20s, the only thing I really knew about arguments was that the way I did them was fruitless. I've spent the last six years learning to express myself, to listen, to accept that my needs have value. Yet, in that process, I've also discovered that my biggest flaw is a penchant towards narcissism, that I am quick to resent when my unspoken needs for attention are not met.
This seeming paradox often becomes suffocating for me. When I'm upset or needy, I feel like I need to Really Examine My Feelings to make sure I'm not being destructively needy. The end result is that my needs are taking just as long to express, for completely different reasons. Now I know what I want from my friends, lovers, or family....I'm just not willing to express it, for fear of being overly self-centered.
Unsurprisingly, this causes conflict, and now I have all this baggage piled up on top of feeling unappreciated because I never expressed myself in the first place.
What should an apology be? An expression of sorrow? A promise to make amends, to atone? I only know that it should mean more than a temporary truce, a ceasefire for the holidays, and yet I cannot seem to hear the words as anything but a threat of future violence and violation.
Knowing these things about myself is, I'm often told, "the first step." But even knowing that I do these things does not seem to help in the moment. It doesn't matter how often I intellectualize, how frequently I contemplate, when I'm angry, I'm blind to my ethics, my higher ideals. In those overwhelming moments when I'm sputtering and fuming with emotion, my higher ideals are lost to me.
I feel like I took that First Step years ago, and still don't know where the Second Step is.
For a long time, I believed that if I lived my daily life by those ideals, eventually they would become so integrated into my sense of self that they would become intrinsic to who I am even when not in my right mind. That I could train into myself the same instinctual hesitation I have about, say, raising my fist in anger, only for newer ideals, like "saying always or never" (as I've done pretty often in this journal entry).
I question that daydreams viability now.
All these years, and I still spend days regretting an angry outburst, still don't know how to gracefully accept an apology or offer atonement. Still don't know how to end a fight without demanding the other bend to my will, while struggling to not believe I have already bent as far as they should dare ask me to. I don't know how to end negotiate peace without palming a holdout pistol.
No. I have never won an argument. I have only managed to avoid them once in a while.
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no subject
Date: 26 Feb 2010 03:24 (UTC)Wanna hear something facile, but really is the next step?
Communication. Dedicate yourself to it. Be totally explicit about it, even to talking about your fears. "I want to ask for this, but I'm afraid of sounding too needy. Am I being self-centered? Or do you believe this is a reasonable request? If it's not reasonable, could we compromise?"
It's difficult to actually do, I know. I've had to learn to express myself when I'm feeling upset or angry or uncomfortable, because letting it sit there and seethe and fester unexpressed just made the feelings worse, exacerbating the problems I perceived. However, my hesitation has also been useful in helping me choose my words carefully, so that I'm telling people what I want and need, yet still attempting to consider how they may feel about it. (Unless I really don't give a shit, and then it comes out without varnish or softening.)
Anyway: yes, you may run into problems potentially getting worse in telling folks what you want. However, they'll get worse anyway if you don't. Best to go with the winning option, no?
no subject
Date: 26 Feb 2010 18:06 (UTC)