Friday, May 27, 2005

This post, sadly, must be preceeded by a disclaimer. I wish I didn't have to, but thanks to LJ, the concept of weblogging has been horribly tainted. What I, and many others, like about blogging is that it's like standing on a soapbox. It's not the same as an internal journal or diary, in which you are only ranting or releasing to yourself(which, for me, never worked, because I was just writing down what was going on in my head, which just made me more frustrated). When you blog you release your rant to the world. I find the thought that someone in Oregan might stumble upon this blog and say 'I can understand what this girl is saying'. To me, that is the release of blogging. It is not, as livejournal has promoted, for my friends to read and come back to me with things. Now, to keep my blog public and to honor the concept of equality, I must accept that my friends may see my blog. I honestly don't care if they do, but often times rants or perceived rants are seen as passive aggressive attacks agaisnt a person - ie, that instead of approaching someone with a problem you have, you rant about it in your journal, thus releasing your problems, knowing that the friend who may or may not have slighted you is reading it, but unable to respond. You are able to release tension without dealing with the consequences. I must admit that at times I have dirtied my blog with such things. However, I would like to think of myself as a little older and a little wiser than I was then. It's been a year since I've posted on this thing, other than the last post, and thankfully, most of my friends have abandoned it. Now, if any of you stumble upon it again, you, like the rest of the world, are welcome to read it. I have no issues with any person accessing my journal. However, no rants are to be considered passive aggressive attempts to slight you. Every post in this journal will be posted as one of two things:

1.) Inner musing which I would like to have documented for me to go back and read.
2.) Soapbox rants in which everyone in the world is equally welcome to hear and process my anger or outrage.

This means that names may be mentioned, events may be referenced. If I didn't bring it up with you, I didn't consider it worth mentioning. IE, I didn't think it was worth fighting over. If it is referenced in here, it is done so because I would like to go back in five years and remember the event. I am sorry that your name may be brought up in a public forum for this purpose. If it disturbs you, I will change your name to something that only I will understand, but I won't take it down. If I did I wouldn't be able to read of the event like I want to.

On the same subject, if a name is not mentioned, I am not editting for your sake. I am, in fact, not editting. Sometimes not everything is about you. Sometimes I'm not thinking about you. You may have to deal with the fact that sometimes subjects discussed are merely musings and have no direct reference. This is one of those.

And now that that excessively long and silly thing is out of the way(curse you LJ)....

There is a bizarre pathology I have noticed all my life. That, in and of itself, is strange. Most behaviors occur mainly within an age group - ie, a childhood behavior is not considered normal in adulthood, and adolescence is a set of behaviors all to itself. To have something branch itself over children, teenagers, adults, and even mature members of society is a true oddity.

For lack of knowledge of any professional term, I will call these pathology the pathology of the socialite, as it is in members of such a group I have witnessed it the most. These people have a need to feel important. That, of course, is not at all unusual - all healthy members of society have a need to feel important. In fact, if you don't have a need to feel important, you would be considered mentally unhealthy. All humans need to feel special. No, what sets these strange individuals apart is that their need to feel important or special is not limited to their social groups(ie, they need to feel important in the eyes of strangers) and the fact that they are willing to sacrifice personal happiness in order to look good(in other words, they may do something that will make them feel bad, hurt themselves, or experience anxiety in order to come off as looking too-good-to-be-true).

My own brother-in-law is part of this strange group of individuals. He is, however, a very, very extreme case. In his case he is willing to sacrifice his life, the lives of his children, the life of his wife, and the happiness of all individuals in his life in order to look good. Most "socialites" are not this extreme. Most of them have moral lines they will not cross. Now, they will cross -some- moral lines(breaking promises, dressing in a manner they feel uncomfortable in, participate in an activity they might find offense), and as I've experienced it, this seems to be a third part of the pathology, however, most of them will stop before large boundaries. Scott Peterson is a very very famous example of this type of thinking(disturbingly enough, my brother-in-law's behavior mirror's Mr. Peterson's behavior almost exactly, up til the murder of his wife. Yum.). Boundaries will be crossed, happiness sacrificed, and unpleasant memories made, all for the sake of looking good to people who honestly don't matter.

I've seen this pathology in many stages. I've seen it fairly low - someone needing to look extraordinarily good to their friends. This isn't strange. I have, in fact, participated in such behaviors. However, I have never sacrificed personal happiness in order to achieve it, whereas the individuals I have witnessed have been. An example of this is looking busy when you are, in fact, not.

Before I go any further, let me state that I went to a high school that was more likely to contain these individuals than most. I love my high school dearly, but we did have some very strange people going there. These people had an obsessive need to get straight As(not unusual unless you consider that the majority of my grade fell under this description) be in every club, do charity, become a public figure. One might ask me why this is bad - in and of itself it isn't. However, most 15 year olds also need time to do things they just genuinely want to do - watch TV, hang out with friends, or even just take time to themselves. The people I am talking about literally allowed their lives, at a young age, to be consumed by public engagements that could not have always guarenteed their happiness(in other words, you cannot go to school til 3, work the SGA, go to a sporting event, go volunteer somewhere, come home do your homework, go to bed, and be considered a normal, healthy teenager - you derive pleasure not from your activities, but from how your activities are perceived).

These individuals may leave parties, vacations, luncheons or dinners in order to look busy. They may be having a genuinely good time going out with friends and doing nothing other than enjoying themselves, and then have to leave(before any other member of the group has even considered leaving) because they have to 'meet up with someone else', or because their parents need them to help(you'll notice with these types of people that they never have to go home because of a curfew or some parental rule, but because their parents need help moving the furniture, or are taking them out to some kind of celebritory dinner, or they're lonely and would like them to be around). Now, you might say - how do you know that they don't genuinely have to do said things? Many times I have spoken to people who saw or were with the individual after they left my presense, and they weren't doing what they claimed they had to. I have even found individuals at home by themselves, doing nothing at all, when they said they had to go out. This would be nothing if it occurred once or twice, but these things happen often, and only with these certain types of individuals. It is a behavior that occurs most often with them.

This behavior is odd because the individual is willing to cease enjoying themselves in order to do something that is not necessary - in other words, they don't honestly -need- to leave, they're just doing it so that they can look like they're important and everyone wants to be around them. What's truly odd is that the individual may make excuses or claims that are blatently untrue and will be detected by close friends - which leads me to another point. These individuals tend to not make close friends. Close friends require time and effort put forth to form, and the individual cannot devote said time and attention while maintaining their 'busy' schedule. If they do form close friendships, the friends will notice lies and discrepencies - which is what then causes the individual to begin lying. The lying begins innocent - covering up their real behaviors in order to say that they're doing something better or more important. As an example I will again use my brother in law, who started the lying trend when he was in his teens. He would wear the clothes his mother wanted him to out of the house, then would change into the clothes that were considered 'cool' at the time, and change back for going back home. This behavior is not odd in a teenager - however, what is odd is when the behavior doesn't break. Teenagers lie and twist to do what they want to, getting around their parents - however, for a normal or 'healthy' adolescent, it becomes too difficult to lie, they get caught in the lie, or they just get sick of it - this is where the child begins rebelling, fighting, or acting out. The individuals of the 'I am important' mentality will not do this. They will not rebel. Rebelling is seen as childish or immature - a perception they are desperate to avoid. To keep from being perceived as such, they will invent very intense fabrications and will effectively develop two lives - one in which they are the perfect person, wonderful in every way, and one in which they are able to enjoy themselves. Unfortunately, as time progresses, the former life becomes more and more demanding. The lies build and become more difficult to uphold, and the demands on them from the outside world become heavier and bigger. This means that the 'relief' life must compensate by giving greater and greater means of brief release. In the case of my brother-in-law, this led to hookers, adultery and pornography. Not all individuals of this mindset progress as far as he did(as I hit this point in the musing, I think I remember the professional name for this pathology - narcissistic, I believe - I don't know if that is the exact diagnostic term for this set of behaviors or not, though). Some individual may not even have a 'relief' life. They may only have the 'perfect' persona - however, after years of maintaining such a thing without any release eventually causes nervous breakdowns or intense phobias.

There are certain places or events these individuals seem to gravitate to. Ivy League schools are a big one - they are schools not attended for their education but for their name. Don't tell me that you can receive a better education at Harvard than anywhere else - that's simply not true. There are incredibly intellectually challenaging schools in this country that aren't Ivy League. In fact, there are many schools in America that are considered to have greater educational values than Harvard or Princeton. You don't go to Harvard for the education - you go for the name. This need for a good name on your diploma is just one aspect of the 'I must be important' pathology. The army or navy is another one. You cannot name for me a figure that we, as Americans, think of as greater or more 'perfect' than the pristene, straight backed soldier. They are trained and polished, they are considered people who are willing to sacrifice themselves(thusly, charitable), and in good physical condition. They are what we, as Americans, see as the truly perfect citizens(this is, of course, not true - there are fewer groups of people more likely to express unreasonable and violent rage upon innocents than soldiers; incidents of sever beatings, rapes, malicious language, and generally dehumanizing behavior are common occurances within the training experience of soldiers).

I have indeed had and have friends who fit this mindset. None, as far as I know, are as badly gone as my brother-in-law - then again, I considered him to be perfect husband until all this came out. Of course, that is because it was the image he wanted me to perceive. Perhaps it is just because I only know developing narcisists, who haven't yet perfected their craft. The thought that some of my friends may end up in the place that my brother-in-law is, well, that is fairly frightening.

Hmm. Well, that's it, really. It's 5:30AM and I was just sorta thinking about this, so I felt like typing it up. Again, it's really more of a general musing on the behaviors and pathology of such individuals than it is about a specific individual(my brother-in-law is just a very convenient example to reference). So....end, I suppose.
4:51 AM -- cry to the devil