When applied to a family, the gaslight treatment is a special form of dysfunction. It happens when you, a child, receive messages or encounter experiences within the family which are deeply contradictory. Messages which are opposing and conflicting; experiences which can’t both be true. When you can’t make sense of something, it’s natural to apply the only possible answer:
“Something is wrong with me.”
Today, scores of children are growing up under a gaslight of their own. And scores of adults are living their lives baffled by what went on in their families, having grown up thinking that they, not their families, are crazy.
I have seen gaslighting cause personality disorders, depression, anxiety, and a host of other lifelong struggles. Receiving contradictory messages that don’t make sense can shake the very ground that a child walks on.
The Four Types of Child Gaslighting:
1. The Double-Bind Parent: This type was first identified by Gregory Bateson in 1956. The double-bind mother has been linked by research to the development of schizophrenia and Borderline Personality Disorder. This type of parent goes back and forth unpredictably between enveloping (perhaps smothering) the child with love and coldly rejecting him.
The Message: You are nothing. You are everything. Nothing is real. You are not real.
The Gaslight Effect: As an adult, you don’t trust yourself, your validity as a human being, your feelings, or your perceptions. Nothing seems real. You stand on shaky ground. You have great difficulty trusting that anyone means what they say. It’s extremely hard to rely on yourself or anyone else.
2. The Unpredictable, Contradictory Parent: Here, your parent might react to the same situation drastically differently at different times or on different days, based on factors that are not visible to you. For example a parent who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs one day and not the next; a parent who is manic at times, and depressed other times, or a parent who is extremely emotionally unstable. Whatever the reason for the parent’s opposing behaviors, you, the innocent child, know only that your parent flies into a rage one moment and is calm and seems normal the next.
The Message: You are on shaky ground. Anything can happen at any time. No one makes sense.
The Gaslight Effect: You don’t trust your own ability to read or understand people; you have difficulty managing and understanding your own emotions, and those of others. You struggle to trust anyone, including yourself.
3. The Appearance-Conscious Family: In these families, style always trumps substance. All must look good, or maybe even perfect, especially when it’s not. There’s little room for the mistakes, pain, or natural human shortcomings of the family members. The emphasis is on presenting the image of the ideal family. Here, you experience a family which appears perfect from the outside, but which is quite imperfect, or even severely dysfunctional, on the inside. This can stem from Achievement / Perfection focused parents (as described in Running on Empty), or from narcissistic parents.
The Message: You must be perfect. Natural human flaws, mistakes, and weaknesses must be hidden and ignored. You are not allowed to be a regular human being.
The Gaslight Effect: You feel deeply ashamed of yourself and your basic humanness. You ignore your own feelings and your own pain because you don’t believe it’s real, or that it matters. You tend to see and focus on only the positive things in your life, which fit into a particular template. You are extremely hard on yourself for making mistakes, or you put them out of your mind and simply pretend they didn’t happen. You may be missing out on the most important parts of life which make it worthwhile: the messy, real world of intimacy, relationships and emotion.
4. The Emotionally Neglectful Family (CEN): In this family, your physical needs may be met just fine. But your emotional needs are ignored. No one notices what the children are feeling. The language of emotion is not used in the home. “Don’t cry,” “Suck it up,” “Don’t be so sensitive,” are frequently uttered by the CEN parent. The most basic, primary part of what makes you you (your emotional self) is treated as a burden or non-existent.
The Message: Your feelings and needs are bad and a burden to others. Keep them hidden. Don’t rely on others, and don’t need anything. You don’t matter.
The Gaslight Effect: You have been trained to deny the most deeply personal, biological part of who you are, your emotions, and you have dutifully pushed them out of sight and out of mind. Now, you live your life with a deeply ingrained feeling that you are missing something that other people have. You feel empty or numb at times. You don’t trust yourself or your judgments because you lack your emotions to guide you. Your connections to others are one-way or lack emotional depth. Even if you are surrounded by people, deep down you feel alone. None of it makes any sense to you.
Were you born under the gaslight? If so, you are not alone. You are not invalid or crazy or wrong. it’s vital to realize that you have been, by definition, deeply invalidated. But “invalidated” and “invalid” are not the same. “Invalidated” is an action, and “invalid” is a state of mind. You can’t change what your parents did and didn’t do, but you can change your state of mind.
I’m very glad this post is going around. I didn’t think it would get this many notes, since I usually just love posting articles I can relate to. But anyway I’ve been reading the comments people have been leaving on it and I’m glad that I’m not alone in this. I’m also reading how some people are just figuring things out in regards to it, or still actively experiencing gaslighting. Reading all the different experiences people have has been interesting and it’s also shocking at the same time how so many suffer or have suffered at the hands of their parents. I think it’s very important for those to be aware of how powerful gaslighting can affect a person negatively and/or that it exists and is a very real thing that can leave a detrimental effect.
Clean your room – or at least your desk/bed/floor. It will help your head to feel clear too.
Open your curtains & windows – fresh air and natural light can do wonders in my experience. Plus, it helps regulate your sleep, appetite, and mood.
Take a shower or have a bath – especially important if you haven’t had one in a while. This will help you feel refreshed.
Put on clean clothes – and put the clothes you were wearing in the wash.
If you tend to spend all your time in your room, get out of it for a bit – do something in the kitchen or lounge, or go for a walk (even if it’s just around the block)
Stretch – there are plenty of stretching and yoga videos on you tube. Look some up and give them a go.
Drink a glass of water – and keep one near you too. I’m sure you already know this, but staying hydrated is important.
Get the hard/important tasks out of the way while you have the energy – when we have mental illness, running out of energy early in the day is very normal. Try to get all the most important things done first.
Have some comfort food, but make sure you eat healthy too – it’s alright to eat something you like, but have some fruit and vegetables too. If you don’t like plain fruit, consider making a smoothie instead.
Set some goals – it doesn’t matter how small or big they are (eg. have 3 meals today, go for a walk in the afternoon), whether they are daily or weekly, but achieving goals can make you feel as though you have accomplished something.
And finally, remember that it is okay to have bad days – bad days don’t mean you’ve lost all progress in your recovery, and they don’t make you worthless or a bad person. Don’t give up just because you’ve had a bad day/week/etc. It’s okay to have days that don’t go so great. Stay strong xx
I never leave the house without my collection of magic items:
KEYS—allow walking through walls at predefined locations.
GLASSES— remove one disability.
WALLET—can be converted into practically anything, up to a finite total monetary value.
PANTS—vastly decrease risk of getting arrested.
SHOES–allow walking over surfaces which are too hot or rough.
BOOK-allows temporary travel to alternate reality
PURSE–increases the number of items that can be carried at once.
COAT-allow survival at below freezing temperatures.
PHONE-allows at-will instant communication with pre-selected willing sentient beings, as well as many other advanced functions at higher levels.
NOTEBOOK-stores finite number of memory spells (eg Invocation of Grocery Shopping) and the like and allows swift recording of quest discoveries. Must be used with PEN.
HAIR TIES–provides bonuses to Disguise and Perception. Can be combined with BOBBY PINS for additional bonuses.
MAKE UP – provides the possibility to become someone else.
LIGHTER – low-level fire magic item with a large number of charges.
TISSUES – remove status effects, improve stealth.
DOG – companion animal. provides protection and +charisma
It’s ridiculous for me now to look back at the time when I couldn’t say no to people. I couldn’t say no to friends or even acquaintances I didn’t particularly like when they ask me favors because I would feel so bad about it. I couldn’t be the first person to hang up the phone, but would let the other person ramble on, even if I was bored out of my mind. I couldn’t tell friends to leave my apartment out of politeness, even though I had 10 important tasks I had to finish. I wanted to be polite, to be nice, to not cause any conflict – but that only worked on the surface. Inside, I was building up resentment. Why didn’t these people recognize my needs and realize that I couldn’t accommodate them all the time? Why couldn’t they just not ask me?
Guess what? People will always ask favors (you will too at some point). It’s your job to learn how to say no with no strings attached; meaning, you’re clear and firm with your needs, you don’t feel guilty saying no, and you save yourself from the headache of ending up with things you don’t want to do.
Here are my tips on saying no:
1. Determine your bottom line. Figure out what your needs are and what you’re comfortable with. Do you have other obligations? Is it outside your expertise? How much are you willing to help? Maybe you don’t mind spell checking a friend’s essay, but you wouldn’t want to rewrite it for them. Maybe you don’t want to help at all, simply because you don’t feel like it, and that’s fine. We all have the rights to our time, and we are free to choose to have a lazy day rather than to help an acquaintance move. If you don’t have this figured out, you’ll be easily swayed (by pleading and emotional manipulation).
2. Be firm when asserting your needs. Tell them your reasons straightforwardly and politely. Be concise and clear. You don’t need to elaborate. You don’t own them an explanation. This is your choice.
“I can’t do that favor for you because I have to finish this project and it’s my priority.”
“I’m really not interested in doing that. I’m going to have to decline.”
“I’m glad that you think of me when you need help, but this is a very easy task and I’m sure you can do it without my help.”
“I won’t be going to that party. I really need a night in.”
3. Don’t make up excuses. Excuses are for the weak. And come on, don’t you think people already associate “I’m sick” or “my family member is sick” with lame excuses by now? Don’t say “maybe” or “I’ll think about it” if you already know you don’t want to do it. Delaying your answer doesn’t help and only makes you a flaky person.
4. Recognize emotional manipulation. Some people will try to guilt trip you (whether they’re conscious of it or not). They will call you selfish, that you don’t care about them, that you can’t do something so small for them. Do not fall for these immature attempts. These people only care about themselves and getting what they want the easy way. People who truly care about you would value your time and respect your decision. If you’re faced with an emotional manipulation, repeat #2 and cut the conversation short.
5. Suggest alternatives. If you don’t have time to fix you friend’s computer, send them a website with a solution, or suggest someone else who would be better suited for the job, or tell them you can help after you finish what you need to do.
That’s it, guys!
Note: I’m talking about when people ask you to go out of your way to do things for them. It’s a different story if it’s an obligation or a promise you already made.
Instead of telling yourself, “I should get up,” or “I should do this,”
Ask yourself, “When will I get up?” or “When will I be ready to do this?”
Instead of trying to order yourself to feel the signal to do something, which your brain is manifestly bad at, listen to yourself with compassionate curiosity and be ready to receive the signal to move when it comes.
Things I did not actually realize was an option
What’s amazing is what happens when you do this with children. I hit on it when working at the foster home, where nearly all our kids were on the autism spectrum, and they weren’t “defiant” around me because I said things like, “How long do you need to stand here before we can move?” and “Come into the kitchen when you’re ready” instead of saying, “Stop staring out the window, let’s go,” or “Come eat dinner,” and interpreting hesitation as refusal to obey.
I have also definitely found that doing the “okay when I finish counting down from twenty is getting up time” has been useful.
Yup, that’s way better for toddlers and younger kids. It helps when they don’t have the self-awareness, attention span, or concept of the passage of time to estimate when they’ll be ready by themselves.
Oh I meant for me. XD Saying it to myself.
WELL OKAY WHOOPS XD I should not have been overspecific, I was just thinking about teaching this stuff to the parents at my job and your reblog made me immediately think of you with Banana and the kidlets.
Another hack: when you want to get up but are stalled by your brain and frustrated – stop. Breathe. Think about what you want to do once you’re up, without thinking about getting up. Treat it like a fantasy, no pressure, just thinking about something you’d like to do in the future. Instead of thinking “I should get up” over and over, think about having a bagel for breakfast, or getting dressed in your soft green sweater. Imagine yourself doing the thing.
I find that exercise often side-steps the block and the next thing I know I’m out of bed and on my way to doing the other thing I thought about.
Works for other things too, if you’re stuck on one step and having a hard time doing it, think about the step after that. Need to do laundry and you can’t get yourself to gather up your dirty clothes in the hamper? Think instead about carrying the hamper full of dirty clothes to the laundry room. And when you get to that next step, if you get stuck again, think about the step after it – you have a hamper of dirty clothes that needs to be put in the wash, let your subconscious handle the “carry hamper to laundry room” step while you’re thinking about the “putting them in the wash” part.
YMMV of course, and this doesn’t even always work for me (particularly not when I need to do a collection of tasks in no particular order, like packing for a trip… “pack socks, pack underwear, pack toothbrush, pack pants, pack shirts” is the kind of non-linear task list where this trick doesn’t help at all), but it’s something I’ve found helpful often enough.
This is one of the most beautiful threads I’ve seen on Tumblr simply because it deals so compassionately with an issue so many of us have and can barely even articulate to ourselves, let alone to anyone else. ❤
I think I get overwhelmed from the thought of all of the consequent steps, so maybe I’ll do the reverse of the advice above and try to focus on the first one.
@the-rain-monster i was just about to say something similar. that can work too sometimes. instead of going “ugh i need to eat something” for four hours, i try to focus on each step in turn.
and i mean each TINY step. just getting out of my chair has this many steps:
pause music
remove headphones
hang headphones on laptop screen
pick up laptop
leg-bend recliner footrest shut
set laptop aside
stand
and i reckon that’s why i get stuck on it; because i’m trying to treat it as one thing, while executive dysfunction is treating it as seven things, and choking on trying to skip to step seven.
concurrent with this is a method i call ‘junebugging’. which is where i go to the location of the thing i want to do, and just sort of bump around the region like a big stupid beetle until the thing somehow accidentally magically gets done. this is an attempt to leverage ADHD into an advantage; i may not have the executive function to make myself a sandwich on purpose, but if i fidget in the kitchen long enough, some kind of food is going to end up in my mouth eventually. and hell, even if i fail on that front, i will probably have achieved something, even if it’s only pouring all my loose leaf tea into decorative jars.*
@star-anise please may i give you an internet hug *hug!* because god how i wish anyone had known to do that for me when i was a kid. my childhood was one big overload, and like 99% of the huge dramatic meltdowns that made me the scapegoat/laughingstock/target of my entire elementary school were simply due to people not giving me time to process the next step, and interpreting a bluescreen as defiance/insult.
*this happened when i was trying to do dishes actually but the principle is sound
yeah i absolutely echo what j’s saying about the steps, it’s a lot like that for me too. i get overwhelmed at the prospect of something that should be simple, and have to slow down and sort out how many steps it’s actually going to take, and what a complicated endeavor it actually is, even if no one else thinks so.
also, i thought i should put in: try to honestly figure out what you’re averse to, that makes things so tough. making a whole bunch of decisions really fast? the potential of things to make a horrible noise? the shame of failure? having to put down what you’re doing now? having to clean up whatever it is you might go do when you’re done?
for instance, for me, the difficulty rating on anything goes waaaay up when a step of a task is ‘go somewhere people will look at you,’ which is for me about the unpleasantness equivalent of ‘jump into a very cold swimming pool right now’. you know you’ll be fine and even have fun once you’ve settled into it, but it still takes a lot of shuffling around and bracing yourself first to go for it. and some days you just don’t fucking want to go swimming.
i discounted this factor for years because i wouldn’t admit that i was so daunted by something so silly as as people looking at me. but, now i know what i’m so aversive about, i can factor it in to plans, and work around it, and be kind to myself. for instance, i was never able to get fit since highschool PE, because i couldn’t make myself go to a gym, or even out jogging. once i figured out the big problem wasn’t avoidance pain or difficulty, it was avoidance of doing a New Thing that i was Bad At in front of Unknown Quantities Of Strangers, which is like a triple threat of stressors, i started working out quietly and safely in my room at night, and i’ve been doing really good on it!
1. They don’t hide their anxiety, they hide their symptoms.
To have concealed anxiety isn’t to deny having it – only to do
everything in your power to ensure other people don’t see you struggle.
2. They have the most anxiety about having anxiety.
Because they are not comfortable letting people see them in the throes
of an irrational panic, the most anxiety-inducing idea is… whether or
not they’ll have anxiety at any given moment in time.
3. They come across as a paradoxical mix of outgoing but introverted, very social but rarely out.
It is not that they are anti-social, just that they can only take being
around others incrementally (which is mostly normal). Yet, on the
surface, this may come across as confusing.
4. They make situations worse by trying to suppress their feelings about them. They
are extremely uncomfortable with other people seeing them in pain, and
they don’t want to feel pitied or as though they are compromising
anyone’s time. Yet, they make things worse for themselves by
suppressing, as it actually funnels a ton of energy into making the
problem larger and more present than it already was.
5. They are often hyper-aware and highly intuitive. Anxiousness
is an evolutionary function that essentially keeps us alive by making
us aware of our surroundings and other people’s motives. It’s only
uncomfortable when we don’t know how to manage it effectively – the
positive side is that it makes you hyper-conscious of what’s going on
around you.
6. Their deepest triggers are usually social situations. It’s
not that they feel anxious in an airplane, it’s that they feel anxious
in an airplane and are stuck around 50 other people. It’s not that they
will fail a test, but that they will fail a test and everyone in school
will find out and think they are incompetent and their parents will be
disappointed. It’s not that they will lose love, but that they will lose
love and nobody will ever love them again.
7. It is not always just a “panicked feeling” they have to hide.
It can also be a tendency to worry, catastrophizing, etc. The battle is
often (always?) between competing thoughts in their minds.
8. They are deep thinkers, and great problem-solvers.
One of the benefits of anxiety is that it leads you to considering
every worst case scenario, and then subsequently, how to handle or
respond to each.
9. They are almost always “self-regulating” their thoughts.
They’re talking themselves in, out, around, up or down from something
or another very often, and increasingly so in public places.
10. They don’t trust easily, but they will convince you that they do. They want to make the people around them feel loved and accepted as it eases their anxiety in a way.
11. They tend to desire control in other areas of their lives.
They’re over-workers or are manically particular about how they dress
or can’t really seem to let go of relationships if it wasn’t their idea
to end them.
12. They have all-or-nothing personalities, which is what creates the anxiety.
Despite being so extreme, they are highly indecisive. They try to
“figure out” whether or not something is right before they actually try
to do it.
13. They assume they are disliked. While this is often stressful, it often keeps them humble and grounded at the same time.
14. They are very driven (they care about the outcome of things).
They are in equal proportions as in control of their lives as they feel
out of control of their lives – this is because they so frequently try
to compensate for fear of the unknown.
15. They are very smart, but doubt it. A high intelligence is linked to increased anxiety (and being doubtful of one’s mental capacity are linked to both).
“It ran away.”
No. That’s not fair.
It’s dead. It’s not coming back. Don’t do that to a child. Death is really important to understand.
YES they might be heartbroken over it but you need explain the truth to them as best you can depending on their age. It will help them understand loss.
I learned about death from an early age watching lions rip apart buffalo on animal planet. That bitch is DEAD. lol.
When my cheap ass fish would die, they where dead. They went up to “fishy heaven”. When one of my cats died, it was dead. It went to “kitty heaven”. My mom used to read me a book about how things that die go to heaven. I was sad but my tiny, imaginative child brain could grasp the concept of my animals going to a “happier” place because they were sick.
I just don’t see why or how lying is better other than to protect their little feelings. No one wants to see their child sad but like I said before, I think it’s important to understand loss. Kids get hurt, it happens, it prepares them for adult life.
I’m no parenting expert and I know there are plenty of reasons I wouldn’t understand as to why people think lying would be better. This is all just a pet peeve of mine.
Okay so I’m a mortician-in-training and, right now, I’m taking the required thanatology class which is all about death, dying and bereavement. Our most recent readings were all about children and how to help them make sense of the loss and separation of a loved one. Apparently, most adults seem to think children don’t grieve but they do. Children essentially have seven stages of grief: shock, alarm, disbelief, yearning, searching, disorganization, and resolution. Their grief is harder to understand and assess because they have neither the vocabulary nor life experience to easily express their feelings and needs. A child’s belief structure and how they respond to death is determined by their age/developmental level, the manner of the death, and their relationship with the deceased.
Birth – 2 yrs: only non-specific distress reactions
2-5 yrs: don’t understand the permanence of death; concerned about physical well-being of deceased; not capable of cognitive reciprocity; may want to see and touch deceased’ repeatedly asks same questions about deceased; may act as if death never happened or in a regressive manner; may experience guilt (like, if they once said something like “I wish so-and-so would go away forever, they might think they caused the death)
6-9 yrs: more complex understanding; realize death is irreversible and that its universal; find it difficult to believe that death will happen to them (believe it happens only to older people); death can be personified and this allows them to run and hide from it; tendency to engage in “magical thinking” (don’t let them do this, its as bad as you lying to them; keep them grounded in the reality of the death), have strong feelings of loss but have extreme difficulty expressing it; often need permission to grieve
9-12 yrs: have cognitive understand to comprehend death is a final event; can understand and accept a mature, realistic explanation of death; short attention spans (they could be sad and grieving one moment and laughing joyfully the next, and someone could see that and negatively comment on it. Like, “how can so-and-so be acting like that?” This can intensify their already fluctuating emotions and present feelings of guilt and low self-worth); their vocabulary is advanced enough to express their feelings but they may not want to talk about what’s bothering them (they’ll let it build up and manifest in behavioral problems); interest in the physical aspect of death and what happens after; may imitate decreased’s mannerisms
13-18 yrs: understand the meaning of death; realize its irreversible and happens to everyone; normal puberty will intensify grief by adding to already conflicting emotions; often put in position of being the protector, comforter, caregiver (feel they must comfort others t their wen emotions are suppressed; they’ll look find on the outside but be falling apart inside); experience conflicting feelings about death (try to overcome fears by confirming control of their mortality; risk taking behavior); males are more likely to express grief in aggressive behaviors while females need comfort, to be held and reassured
There’s basically 10 rules:
Tell them ASAP: its important to start with what they know about death and then expand on that; be gentle and trustful; tell them in a comfortable, safe and familiar place and make sure its in language they’ll understand; never assume they understand the way you do
Be truthful: kids can sense dishonesty ok?! So don’t create lies to protect them; don’t make up stories that’ll have to be changed later on cause that only confuses them and promotes emotional instability; don’t withhold information either (within reason, see #3), place emphasis on the facts, and avoid euphemisms (i.e., “passed away”, “departed”, “went away”, “got sick” (they’ll associate illness and death go hand-in-hand and may think a common cold will kill them), etc)
Share only details they’re ready to hear: truthfulness should be balanced with their readiness for details (like, tell them someone died in a horrible auto accident but maybe not say they were decapitated and their head flew off down the highway in the process); children with actualize a crisis like an adult; its not uncommon for them to ask about a death later in life and that provides the opportunity to deliver info that wasn’t previously shared (i.e., the decapitation)
Encourage expression of feelings: a child will experience stages of grief very similar to those of adults (adults typically follow the Kubler-Ross 5 stages while kids have 7, seen above) and they rely on adults for permission to “feel” loss; best way is for them to learn is to hear and watch adults because they get their understanding of grief through their senses; its not unusual for them to go up to people and just make a statement like “My dad died” cause they want to see how that person will react and give them a clue as to how they should react, so its important for adults to “feel” their grief in the presence of the child; explain why you’re sad and reassure them that its okay for them to feel sad and cry and that its okay if they aren’t
Take child to the funeral: seeing is believing; they should be given the option to view the body but don’t force them; a funeral can be a positive experience but their level of involvement in the funeral process should be their individual decision; give them the choice as to the extent of their involvement
Take child to the cemetery: it can be comforting to them to know where the body is buried and how it got there; it can also help them direct their grief at an appropriate object (this lessens emotional disorganization), and it lessens the child’s chances of denying or avoiding the death
Let them tell others about death: adults “talking over” kids creates anxiety; when the child can explain it to another person, in their own words, they feel more in control and have a greater understanding; let them speak!
Encourage talk of the loss: this allows feelings to be expressed and incorrect ideas about any aspect of the loss to be corrected
Be available to answer questions: you need to answer each question as sincerely and accurately as possible; understand that some can’t be answered but simply being available is important; and be patient cause they will ask the same question repeatedly
Never tell them how they should or shouldn’t feel: you don’t like it when people do it to you, so don’t do it to kids; they should be encouraged to express any feeling and they should feel accepted for it; being told “not to feel” a certain way leads to emotionally “playing dead” and that’ll create repression, which creates interpersonal conflicts in later life due to inability to communicate emotions
Oh hey look, something that ISN’T TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT 😀
… Step 1. Realize that you should exercise. Step 2 ? Step 3. HEALTH!
When you’re depressed, that question mark can be a barely navigable labyrinth of garbage fires fueled by physical and mental exhaustion, self-loathing, defeat, and frustration. The last time I found myself trying to hack through that mess during a particularly dark period, I started to come up with my own list of bare-bones, practical tips to help me face the idea of moving again. Now I’m sharing them, in case they might help someone else in a similar position. I stress the word “might.” If you’re depressed, the last thing you need is another a-hole telling you what you should do. But if you’re looking for somewhere to start, I’ve been there too.
First heading? “You don’t have to exercise.” I love this entire piece. It’s going on facebook, that’s how much I love it. A+
“The perfect body is a breathing one. Anything that serves those ends is worth considering. Everything else is noise.”
I’m not putting this under a cut, though it’s a long post, because if you read my blog you’ll want to read this.
Yesterday, after I had taken two friends of mine to the gym to train together–they beginners, myself with several years of experience lifting–one of the gym trainers approached me.
“It looked like you were training them,” he said.
“They weren’t paying me or anything,” I said.
There followed some harrumphing on his part about the risk of injury and the comment, “It looked like you didn’t get much of your own workout in. You should find someone of your own level to be your workout buddy. Your friends can do group classes.”
This conversation took place against an interesting background: a man training with his clearly inexperienced girlfriend.
At the time I didn’t argue–the gym is my second home and I don’t want to upset the equilibrium there. But I was angry.
When I grew up, I definitely had the idea that women did not lift weights. My father harrumphed at women who ‘looked like bodybuilders.’ My mother was active–in fact groundbreakingly so–and did judo as a teenager in the ‘70s and ran marathons before they were in vogue. But she didn’t lift weights. She didn’t train for strength. I recall only that she would do calf raises off the lowest step of the stairs in our house in order to grow her calves and ‘balance out her big butt.’
That was what women did, to me: delicately inflected, squeamishly undertaken exercises for aesthetic effect, as purposefully disinterested and languid in their execution as Kate Moss’s heroin chic. Women did not try too hard. Women did not strain.
My young self rebelled against the idea of being seen as beautiful–or desirable, which is not the same thing, though the two are so often elided–just because my body had developed breasts and hips. I wanted a kind of beauty that was hard-fought and deserved.
So I became anorexic.
It fit the aesthetic of the time–Kate Moss and all that–but of course fell prey to the essential hypocrisy of that image. Be strong–by wasting your muscles. “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Nothing?
Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. Well. For one thing, let’s examine the dichotomy set up in that famous little feel-bad soundbite (a dainty one, barely a mouthful–such a small bite one swallows it without tasting its arsenic bitterness).
Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. Life’s great pleasure’s are at war. Taste something good, or feel good. One or the other. Never both.
I believed this to be true for most of my life.
It’s not.
You don’t have to choose between food and feeling good, feeling light in your body. Feeling–what is ‘thin’?
Thin is not a feeling.
Or if it is, it is not a pleasurable one. Scraped thin, like–like what, like Bilbo Baggins after his contact with the One Ring, who described himself as ‘like butter scraped over too much bread’?
‘Not too full, having eaten an amount of food that is energizing but not ennervating’? Sure. Good feeling.
I like feeling light, I like feeling like I carry my body with ease. I like being able to leap up stairs getting out of the subway and do pullups on scaffoldings in the street.
I like feeling desired and beautiful. I like it when people admire my body.
None of those feelings is ‘thin.’
Feelings–
What about the rusty tang of iron hefted overhead? The intoxicating ichor of effort on a sports field or in the gym?
What about feeling strong?
The race to lose weight is a race to the bottom. I felt ‘fat’ as an anorexic not because it was such a devious mental illnes, tut-tut those hysterical delusional women. No! I felt ‘fat’–I felt ‘heavy’–because my muscles weren’t strong nough to support me. My starved brain added to my sense of low energy and torpor. And having come to believe that feeling effervescently light and energetic was part and parcel of being ‘thin’, of course I still felt like I was ‘fat.’ I had no muscle. And my skinniness was never effortless enough to satisfy.
There’s nothing wrong with trying hard. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be proud of your body because you built it. That part of my motivation wasn’t bad.
That’s why I lift weights. That’s why I want more people of all genders to lift weights.
That’s why I get so very, very angry when men gatekeep fitness. I get so angry that fitness is still substantially gendered: women do cardio. Men do weights. Men bring their inexperienced buddies in to train with them and the trainers don’t care: there’s a long tradition of male-to-male gym initiation, and most men never get trainers. But bring women (or nonbinary people) in to the gym and suddenly you threaten the gym trainer’s core market. Because God forbid women educate themselves about lifting.
By the way, I get it, I do: women don’t need to be shamed any more about what they ‘should’ do. And men are not immune to body image issues, some of them driven to unhealthy extremes to gain muscle AND to lose body fat, just like women. And ‘strong is the new skinny’ is bullshit if what you really mean by ‘strong’ is ‘absurdly lean.’ But even government health guidelines indicate that all people should do BOTH strength training AND cardio. Even differently abled people can and do engage in a wide variety of exercise. (Several people at my pool are paraplegic, for instance). I’m not saying here is One Thing you need to do–you can get stronger without a barbell and without a gym. I am saying educate yourselves. Get stronger. Push yourselves to do more. Get strong enough that you don’t need to ask men to help you move furniture. That’s a good feeling.
Here are some resources on lifting. Go forth and conquer.
T-nation (despite the testosterone-inflected name-and of course women have testosterone too– GREAT guide to basic strength training)
And as always ask me fitness questions anytime, with the caveat that I am not a professional and clear it with your doctor before beginning a fitness routine.
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