Category — psychology

Fear.

What do you picture and feel when you see that word? Scenes from horror films? That creepy spot in your basement where the light never quite reaches? That cold feeling in the pit of your belly when you’re almost asleep, and awaken to hear something – or someone – moving in your kitchen?

I’m discovering that fear is very powerful and that there are many types. I have the usual complement of fears – growing old alone, not being loved, centipedes, poorly lit staircases, and car crashes – but I’ve discovered there are far more insidious fears, fears that paralyze you inside and stop you from doing the things you long to do.

I’ve wanted to write a book since I was a kid – a dream that was not much encouraged by anyone around me – and now that I’ve got the chance to do it, I am terrified of doing it wrong and being a disappointment. I fear failure.

I shouldn’t fear it – I’m no stranger to failure: math class, grade nine science, various romantic relationships, being a barista, PHP classes at UBC, baking cookies….the list goes on. I’ve failed at many things and managed to keep going. Those failures taught me some of my limitations as a person – and it took a long time to learn that it was OK to suck at something. No one is good at everything right?

Yet, the first draft of this book is going painfully slowly because I have been so determined that every page I write be polished. I have been determined to prove that the faith people seem to have in my abilities as a writer are warranted because I’ve done it right the first time. I’ve been making myself mental with this stupid view of things. I’ve been so obsessed with perfection and word count that I haven’t been having as much fun as I suspect I ought to be having. And, the bits that weren’t fun to write are the bits I do the most correction on because they are the least fun to read.

Coincidence? I think not.

I know logically that screwing up is part of learning, and that even if I were an absolute genius, I’d still need to revise and edit a first draft (and probably the next several drafts too). I know this, and yet there are days when I feel like I’m getting into a tank full of venomous spiders and snakes – one false move and I’m done for. I have sometimes been so paralyzed by the idea of throwing caution to the wind that  it’s a wonder I got any work done at all.

To combat that inner perfectionist, I’ve taken some excellent advice from my writing group and am just writing. No editing (no matter how badly the idea of leaving half-arsed prose uncorrected bothers me) – no going back over yesterday’s work, no fixing, tinkering, correcting, or improving of any kind. The first day of this – just before I got the horrible cold that put me out of commission for well over a week – I wrote 2000 words in a sitting and just typed until I was ready to stop. 2000 words of unedited, uncorrected writing in all its awfulness.

I took incredible pains with my first scene of the book. I re-wrote it so many times it was ridiculous, I fixed every niggling little error just like I thought I should – especially as I knew it would be going to a group of peers for criticism! I was sure that “just writing” would turn out badly and that Joe would come home to find me hyperventilating into a paper bag while correcting typos. But, strangely enough, I was actually happier writing the 2000 unedited words where I just bashed at the keyboard until I felt tired. I tried it again the last two days too – and I only felt stressed when I tried to write it right the first time. Otherwise I just kept going according to the outline – more or less anyway – and was happy as a clam.

Does it need work?

Oh, hell yes. From the quick glance I gave it, I can see spelling errors galore, grammar issues, a startling lack of proper detail and it reads  – to me anyway – like badly done fanfic of my own writing, but I was happy. I felt very satisfied and thought, “I can fix all the crappy bits later – no big deal.” My inner perfectionist just about had kittens at that thought, but I didn’t go back. I still haven’t read the stuff I wrote either. It’ll still be there later, holding the outline of my ideas until I can clean them up and present them properly.

How do you conquer those deep-rooted paralyzing fears? How do you keep moving forward in the face of self-imposed criticism and perfectionism? I’d love to hear I’m not the only one being a teeny bit neurotic!

I am writing a novel.

Just looking at those words makes me feel giddy, ridiculous and nervous, but I’m doing it – I’m putting down words that are creating a story, and one day I hope to see it published.

In order to make sure that I don’t publish some horrific piece of rubbish, I’ve banded together with two other writers – Nicole and Laura – so we can encourage each other and critique each others writing.  I find the encouragement to be really, really helpful, it’s nice to be cheered on and to cheer on others. I genuinely wish for their success because they are working hard for it and, perhaps selfishly, because I feel that if they are successful, then maybe I could be too.

Besides, meeting up with a couple of cool people to guzzle caffeine and eat slightly dried out scones is always a good time.

We met last night and among our other discussions, we talked about critiquing our own work and giving it out to others to critique.

I actually like having my work critiqued, I’m not so stupid as to think that whatever I write is brilliant the first time I set it down on paper. I would much rather have Nicole and Laura rip it to pieces -  where only the three of us can see the wreckage  – than, say, self-publish it and pull the literary equivalent of walking around with the back of my dress tucked into my pantyhose.  I like seeing comments that let me know when I’ve created a bump in the text that jolted my reader: typos, grammatical errors, tense issues, word-choice, plot holes, pacing, tension…all the things that when done right, should draw the reader in and give them an enjoyable escape from reality.

I think it’s a sign of professionalism to take criticism well – especially when it is offered constructively and not just a statement like, “I dunno, it just sucked.”

So, I’m OK with that part of critiquing. I’m not afraid to get rid of the sucky or boring bits in my writing either – if the majority of feedback says, “Ugh, awful!” then I kill it with a gleeful press of the Delete key. What bothers me most is my lack of self-assurance in sending it out in the first place. Let me explain.

Remember your first day of high school? I do.

I got up, I got dressed in what I hoped was an outfit that looked half-decent (it looked ridiculous actually, but such was fashion in the early 1990′s) and I felt very nervous and a little excited. What if I got lost? What if I wandered into the wrong class and got laughed at? What if I couldn’t find my locker, or worse, I did find it but couldn’t remember the combination? What if I tripped and fell in the cafeteria? What if I fell asleep in class and drooled on myself? What if I fell asleep in class and farted? Dear god, the horror!

I knew the what-ifs were going to bog down my whole day, so I focused on what I knew I could do. I made sure I wore deodorant and brushed my teeth thoroughly. I made a checklist of stuff I knew I’d need and then made sure I had it all. I tucked a couple of Tylenol into my pocket just in case. I reminded myself to not talk too much, and to watch and listen.

I got on the bus and made it to my new school without incident. But as I walked through the halls, searching for my homeroom, I was seized by the sudden and dreadful knowledge that I had forgotten to put on pants.

My first instinct was to grab at my own butt to find out, but I couldn’t do that because a) grabbing your own ass – clothed or not – on the first day of high school in a busy hallway would be social suicide and b) I was afraid to discover that I would only find underwear – and even more afraid to discover that I’d forgotten that too. But it felt breezy somehow, I was sure I felt a draft on my bare skin and therefore I was sure that I hadn’t remembered pants.

It would only be a matter of moments now before some kid, probably a popular one, noticed and pointed it out to everyone else. The next four years rolled out before me, a long four years of torture and misery. I would get nicknamed “Pants”, certain cretinous morons would assume I was easy, my yearbook write-ups would be so horrifying I would have to burn down the school just to rid the Year Book office of the evidence. I would have to hire a hit-man to take out everyone currently in the hallway. I would die old and alone and unloved by anyone. They would write, “Here lies ‘Pants’ McTavish – she died of shame” on my tombstone.

I wanted to look down and check, but I felt that I was being watched; they were waiting for me to discover my pantless state and then the teasing would begin. So I kept walking, I found my homeroom and slid into an unoccupied desk at the side of the room and quickly peeked downwards (under the guise of fussing a little with my backpack). And when I looked down, there they were, in all their cotton, slightly-baggy, army-green glory: pants.

That same, suddenly naked feeling happens to me now when I send out some writing for a good critiquing.I’m afraid that I’ve sent myself out without any pants. That my writing is missing something really, really crucial and that without it, my fellow writers will roll their eyes and write, ” D+ Needs work, see me after class.” on it, (mostly because there is not enough space on the page for all the derision and scorn they need to heap on it) – and it will be awful.

It never happens like that of course, the feedback I get is immensely helpful and honest (hurrah!) but still nice somehow, and Nicole and Laura are making me a better writer for offering it (and they offer it freely too! No sense of begrudging duty here!).

But when I hit the send button and know that my latest revised piece is heading through the InterTubes – I always have a little moment of panic and  think, “Did I remember pants today?

I was just reading a blog post, The real life drama of the tween, by my cousin Carri on her website Solas. Her blog post is in response to a Facebook posting by one of her friends that read as follows:

“What the hell am I supposed to do about my skinny 10 year old begging me to let her go on a diet? I have told her again and again that she’s not fat that she is skinny but she’s not believing me. Any suggestions?”

Is this really the state of things now? Ten year old girls who feel so crappy about their bodies that they beg to go on diets?

But, then I think back to being ten, about the little clique of mean girls in my class who made fun of my clothes, my hair, my lack of fashion and verve and chic. These little girls had the super cool jelly shoes, their cute pink runners were covered in friendship pins, their arms were festooned with the jelly bracelets that were so popular. Me? Not so much. Even my sturdy and serviceable school supplies were fodder for these girls! They had Tweety Bird Trapper-Keepers and pencil cases covered in the coolest cartoon characters. I had normal pencils and plain plastic binders.

I remember feeling so angry that my mother refused to spend the extra cash on the cooler stuff – I didn’t care if it broke or lasted or not, I just wanted to be like everyone else.

I wanted to be prettier, more fashionable, I wanted boys to think I was pretty and smart (but not too smart, not smarter than him anyway).  I was always skinny as a kid, and later that became an issue too. All my friends started getting boobs and I remained flat-chested. They started to have curves, and I had the shape of a ruler. Even being skinny didn’t make me happy.

Maybe it isn’t so far-fetched after all that ten year old girls feel pressured to look a certain way – we pressure each other into unrealistic behaviour and expectations all the time.

I’ve sometimes wished I could travel back in time and tell my ten year old self (and some of my older selves too) a few things:

1. The people making fun of you are not happy with themselves either. They are making fun of you so you won’t have the chance to make fun of them first.
2. Being smart is awesome (I think it’s cooler now to be smart anyway, but I could be wrong).
3. While others spend their lives chasing trends and purchasing the latest gadgets to look cool, you will actually be cool by not wasting your time and money.  This stuff becomes obsolete and passé faster than you can pay it off, so if you don’t actually need it, re-think buying it.
4. If you have a passion for something, pursue it – and don’t let anyone, not even your parents, discourage you.
5. Being a jerk to other people will not make you feel better about yourself. The little high you get from spreading your misery doesn’t last.
6. Don’t bother with magazines that tell you how to look or act to please someone else. Read a science magazine or a good book instead.
7. Starving yourself will make you tired, mean and unhappy. Don’t do it.
8. You only get the one set of eyes, so if you need glasses, wear them. You don’t look dorky.
9. Wear whatever you feel happiest in and remember, all those other girls in the skinny jeans and tight tops are horribly uncomfortable and self-conscious.
10. It’s OK to listen to music you actually like and to listen to lots of different kinds of music. It’s good to have broader tastes than the just the top 40.
11. The people you see on TV and in magazines don’t look like that in real life. They look perfect because they have a team of make-up artists, professional photographers, special lighting and an army of Photoshop experts working on them. It’s not real and it’s not worth striving for.
12. It’s OK to stop being friends with people who are never there for you, or have no interest in your life or you as a person. Be polite, but save your friendship for people who really care about you, and for whom you really care in return.

I would also tell my younger self that once you get to university, things begin to change for the better. The little cliques and self-important assholes you went to school with either move away (hurrah!) or go to the same school, but are suddenly a lot less important.

In university, you’re still going to meet a lot of jackasses, but their hoity-toity, holier-than-thou crap will be largely academic snobbery – and that is always amusing to laugh at. Later, in the work force, you’ll meet more people who never really left elementary school or high school in terms of how they think. They will still be bullies, still never listen to anyone but themselves and their little crowd of butt-kissers and they will still be miserable.

You won’t be able to change any of them, but you can choose to not become one of them.

So, ten year old (and current) self, be happy. Don’t worry about trying to please people you don’t actually like – you will never win that battle. Wear what you want, follow your passions, eat cheese fries sometimes and let the mean people of this world just pass you by.