Other People Don't Exist
Welcome to Biddy Sounds Off. A place for episodic writing and music I love. I'm Biddy. You know your Biddy loves a mantra. Keeping things simple and clean.
Biddy:Overthinking gets the gears working, the machinery of my anxiety. And once that momentum gets going, some of the softer things like emotions or stray thoughts can get snagged or even chewed up. When the gears start pumping, the pressure builds up. And so if I can avoid this, I will try. Mantras help.
Biddy:One of them is this: Other people don't exist. Social anxiety is something we are most familiar with, especially the more insular our lives become through technology, through convenience. There was a time when I could barely function. The season was headed into winter 2020. Mom had just died and I was entering one of the most severe depressive episodes I'd ever had.
Biddy:When that happens, it comes on gradually, and I can feel like I'm circling the drain. Gravity and momentum pull me ever downward until paralysis sets in. Asking for help can be impossible. Once the paralysis takes over. I lose language and the black holes in my brain are gaping like Swiss cheese.
Biddy:And if I try to open my mouth, my voice is sucked back inside me. As if I'm trapped beneath leaden glass, tap tap tapping on the glass is futile. There is no sound, no oxygen. But the sweet pets need food, and my coffee supply is dwindling. And so I force myself out in public.
Biddy:There, the energy is rushed and demanding and hateful. Of course, 2020 gave us masks along with COVID and I start to feel comfortable wearing these in public and was one of those who vowed to continue wearing them, outlasting the need. And then I ran out. And I couldn't be bothered to go out in public again. Kidding.
Biddy:No, it isn't down to social anxiety in that example. I also happen to be quite lazy. One thing I like about masks is the amount of pressure it takes off me to smile. I was constantly smiling. I'm still a big smiler.
Biddy:I can't help it. I try not to smile every chance I get. Showing assault and domestic violence, I would begin every voyage out in public with the foundational understanding that these people want something from me. The demands on me and my personal and professional life were way out of control. And as a compulsive people pleaser, I only wanted to fulfill my role and move on to the next demand.
Biddy:That was the dynamic I was living. And so this was the submissive stance I brought into every interaction whether it be professional or out in public and as a teacher. Behaving submissively also kept me out of trouble at home. In public, the mask allowed me to rest my ever loving jaw, stop sucking the fillings out of my cavities while standing in line, trying not to attract attention, apologizing for existing when noticed, and tripping over myself to stay out of everyone's hurried and hateful way. I parted my lips and teeth and allowed my tongue enough room to spill out over my teeth, slack jawed and giving no fucks, doing deep breathing behind a neat and tidy mask.
Biddy:Their opinions and perceived demands felt removed. The pressure in my body lessened and my ego immediately followed the release of self judgment, new level attained. The absence of pressure creates new room for me to exist, to luxuriate really. More comfortable in my skin means more space in there. Wearing my skin now like its jaguar.
Biddy:Let's take a break. 1st we heard Lower Leg by and she's so lovely by the Butchies. Now back to the narrative. The loneliest truth about being with narcissists is learning that when it ends, they were never there for you to begin with. This is one of those oddly comforting truths because they have never been there to begin with and you've actually been managing alone for quite some time now.
Biddy:The loneliest feeling transformed into the realization that it has never been about me at all. The power and sway they held over me wasn't really about me at all. I wasn't even a person to them. I was a medium. It had felt like being a muse but it was more like being an inanimate nothing.
Biddy:Unknowable, I thought, due to some fatal and pathetic flaw. Not unknowable, surprised me. The lies I had been fed weren't even about me. They were just a recycled story line featuring a rotating cast of actors. I was now in the starring lead in the story he'd used to hook in other well meaning abuse victims who'd been looking for an externalized source of self esteem.
Biddy:Mom did something similar. Once I'd managed to break free of old patterns, those 2 years before she died. I moved in with her for COVID and braced myself for the usual criticisms. But I've had 2 years of living on my own by now under my belt. So had she.
Biddy:And so when she launched into the expected bullshit storm of complaints, I realized I no longer had a starring role. The diatribe still featured the perceived failings of those around her. The topics I knew by heart. But to be absented from the daily list of failings and causes for her acute suffering was relieving. My perceived shortcomings, the unruly demands I could never manage, my personal failings had just been a fill in the blank mad lib.
Biddy:Taking it personally is just like easy money for a narcissist. I thought their lies were real and I thought their love was too. The pain of realizing they hadn't loved me at all, freed me from the lies I believed about myself. Knowing I am alone has allowed me to realize, I am at my strongest on my own. We just heard Object 2 Ident by Pussycat Trash Other people don't exist.
Biddy:OPDE. Not exactly as catchy as Naughty by Nature's OPP. This mantra allowed me to cope with the stress and anxiety perpetuated by leaving the house, that winter 20 20 and into the spring too. In public, triggers leapt out from everywhere and so it was incredibly useful to have a coping tool within my control. Finding my way out of that depression required some serious guideposts, trail markers along the way so that I could make progress towards the light.
Biddy:For me, that was forward. All I was capable of recognizing then was light and darkness. The pits of depression are deep and oily so that even if forward momentum is achieved, it can be difficult to sustain to find secure footing. Lost in the pits and descending ever lower, I used a system of simple mantras to find my way back. By tuning out other people, their perceived needs or demands which I'd been focused entirely too much on, I tuned into myself alone.
Biddy:The loneliest truth about being with narcissists is also surprisingly empowering. No one cares. This is an oversimplification, of course, but this is also one of those fundamentally obvious and devastating truths. The idea I'm putting forward is that people generally aren't overly concerned with others outside of themselves. We're so far up in our shit that we can barely spare care for a friend, let alone someone in passing.
Biddy:Most can't even be bothered to look up from their phones while crossing a street between actual cars. No one cares. The pain of that is ego, I suspect. The idea that I am not captivating every passer by or conversational partner I engage. If teaching has taught me anything, it's that our attention spans last seconds at best.
Biddy:And in general, we take center stage in our own internal dramas. We know it can feel like other people don't exist and that can be devastating or empowering. It allows me to ignore my perceptions at least based on my lived experience, the implied demands of people, their hateful energy, the taking, the endless consumption. Of course, it can be easy to tune back in when invited or when I so choose. But as a coping tool, it frees me up, allows me to focus on the pressure in my body as it lessens, release the self judgment.
Biddy:Clearing space up just for myself to exist, more room for deeper breaths, more room to let my tongue flop over my teeth and my jaw to loosen. Other people don't exist. Their harried, rushed and hateful energy isn't my fault and it isn't my problem to fix. I'm not hurting anyone. And easing the pain in my body by releasing self judgment allows me to stop hurting myself.
Biddy:Our last track comes from dry cleaning, the song Swampy. This has been Biddy Sounds Off. Thanks for listening.
