A number of questions just turned up in my ask box that dealt with anxiety. Rather than just pulling one of them, I decided to answer all of them. Because the basic question was: “I have anxiety. Have you had it and what did you do?”
I have had anxiety. I suffered a serious bout of in 2010, specifically. It hit me like a bolt out of the blue and stuck with me for a while. Why it happened isn’t clear, though it very likely relates to the medical condition that has knocked me down recently and has been (and had been—I didn’t know about it at the time) dogging me for years. Whatever the case, it came one day.
A few things about what I am about to write—this answer is going to deal with anxiety obviously, and if you have anxiety you may know that reading about anxiety usually makes more anxiety. When I had anxiety, I could not read about anxiety without getting anxiety, and yet I read about it pretty compulsively, looking for answers. I was looking for something that told me there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I am letting you know that this answer has that light. It has the whole damn sunrise. I know that matters. Trust me. Hold my hand as we go, if you want to go with me. This is the piece I wanted to read when I had it. And this is true—I had it, and it ended.
Anxiety bouts can end. They end all the time. Never give up hope that yours can and will end. I am not a mental health professional, and if you are suffering from severe anxiety I strongly, strongly suggest seeing one. You may already be doing so. Also, what I write about here is what happened to me. We are all different and mileage may vary. Anxiety has a lot of causes and pathways. There is no one way to deal with it—which is good. There are a LOT of ways. Millions—billions?—of people deal with anxiety. Almost all of us deal with one form of mental infirmity at one point or another in our lives. You’re not only not alone, you’re in the majority.
I want you to know that people can have it and do lots of stuff and actually be happy. I want you to know that exists.
I want you to know it is not all bad. I swear I am not making this up. I want you to know the bout of anxiety that I thought would crush me may have been one of the very best things that ever happened to me. It can be useful.
Now I’ll just tell you my story, and if it is of use to you, then I am happy.
So what happened was that things were going pretty well for me when the anxiety hit. Before it hit, I thought I knew what anxiety was. I thought it was that feeling I’d had before tests, or in certain situations. I thought it was just that nervous feeling. I soon learned that anxiety was a very weird beast.
It came on first as some weird sensations—pounding in the chest, things that felt like electrical shocks going down my arms. At the time, I was working a lot. I thought nothing of sitting at my desk until midnight or later, pounding away. My brain was going and going like a train, and then these shocks would come on. It really felt like I had been hit with a bolt of juice right out of a power socket. Then came the panic attacks in the night, where I would wake up with my heart racing, feeling like I couldn’t breathe. They got more and more frequent. Then I was often up at five am, pacing around. And then one day I had one of those that didn’t shut off when I woke up. My body was racing. What was most disturbing was that suddenly, I didn’t feel like I was in control of my thoughts. It was like I had always been in the driver’s seat of my brain, and then one morning it was hijacked. I was shoved to the passenger’s seat. I could see where we were going, but I couldn’t steer. It was like I was watching myself think. I was filled with dread and energy and I had no idea why. My brain was veering around all over the place.
This all happened on a beautiful summer’s day. I was supposed to meet two friends to write (they were Scott Westerfeld and Robin Wasserman, and I mention them because they were champions that day). I got myself dressed and went out. I called my mother (who is a nurse) and spoke to her. I was teary and shaking. I tried to work, but the words were moving around on the page in front of me. I told Scott and Robin what was going on, and they were very helpful. I felt like I had to walk. They walked with me for a few hours, and then Robin got in a cab with me and took me to the doctor. (The doctor had already checked me over for the symptoms I’d been having. He had concluded I had anxiety.)
I was given Ativan that night. My mother came up to stay with me—I was in that much of a state of distress. I took the pill. My system slowed down a bit for the night, and kicked up again the next day. This was the start of months of this. I won’t go through the bad stuff and all the thoughts I had, because you probably already know them if you have been through it. I did wonder a lot about how I was going to do anything, how I was going to live my life and do my job. I wondered how I was going to go to bed, and then what would happen when I woke up. This is the kind of funtimes anxiety gives you. It’s a jerk. During that summer, I was writing The Name of the Star. Writing was hard. I couldn’t focus very well. Then I got pissed and I attacked it. I attacked it with EVERYTHING I COULD FIND. I said, “I have decided this anxiety is a signal that I need to do something, so I am going to do it.”
So let me tell you what I learned and WHAT I DID ABOUT IT, because that is what matters.
First, the anxiety is not you. It’s drifting around you, but it’s not you. I like to imagine anxiety as the big red monster from Bugs Bunny. Like this:
There it is. Outside of you. Kind of ridiculous looking now that you can see it. The anxiety may be with you now, but it can just as easily go away. It is not a permanent part of you, no matter how it seems. And look! It’s scared! OF A MANICURE! That brings me to the…
Second thing: you know how depression lies? Well, anxiety is dumb. I did not just say people with anxiety are dumb. No, no. I mean that anxiety itself is stupid. If you asked anxiety what two plus two is, anxiety will think very hard and then say “triangle” or “a bag of Fritos” or “a commemorative stamp.” Because anxiety doesn’t know what anything is. It will try to convince you that things that are totally fine are worthy of dread. That summer, when it was bad, it didn’t matter what I looked at or engaged in at first, the anxiety monster was scared of it. It was scared of busy situations, accidents, spiders, sleeping, being awake, my sneakers, the wall… I caught on to the stupidity thing the day I broke down and watched the most boring nature show I could possibly find, just to slow my mind down. It was just pretty pictures of mountains and trees. An anxiety attack came on as I was watching, and I said to it, “You are totally stupid. Nothing this stupid can defeat me. You’re going down, you idiotic monster. I AM RULER HERE!”
I started to think of it as being very, very small, like a child in an oversized labcoat who was trying to order me around. “You’re adorable, kid,” I said. “Now let’s go find your parents. Or maybe put you in an orphanage.” *
With that realization, anxiety was genuinely put on notice.
Third: I looked around at my life and situation. I saw a few things clearly for the first time. For a start, I had no boundaries between work and life. I had no time limits. I would stay online until all hours and let my brain drink in the electricity. There is a lot of research (so much I can’t just link here) that indicates this is not super good for our brains. I started to put up limits. I stopped work at certain hours, no matter what. If the anxiety had made it hard to write during the day, I didn’t try again at night. I stopped.
I slowed down everything. I put myself on a more gentle mental diet and I didn’t care who knew it. If it was slow and boring and something that would be enjoyed in a nursing home, then it was for me. I adopted what I called the Grandma Lifestyle and I’ve never looked back. This idea that we have to be Doing! Things! All! The! Time! is bullshit. That’s television talking to you, or articles, or the persistent but false impression that literally everyone is out accomplishing more and doing more and loving it all ONE HUNDRED PERCENT OF THE TIME!!! Lies. People do some things using various units of time and under all kinds of conditions. This is not a competition and there is no metric.
I walked slowly. I went out and looked at whatever there was to see. A tree. A duck. Storefronts. Other people. I dialed it all back and stopped judging what I had to be reading/doing/thinking/appreciated and suddenly realized I had a lot of weird ideas about what I “had” to do. I’d been knocking myself around and making myself jump through hoops to accomplish things that had no discernible benefit. I didn’t learn this in one day. It took a few months. My thoughts began to clear and I was able to do more and more. And a major part of the way I got there was through meditation.
That’s four: meditation. And it is a BIG ONE. I know. It’s in magazines at Whole Foods and it’s everywhere and trendy but you know what? It changed my life and I do it every day. Again, plenty of science out there you can easily find online. You need to be consistent. This is the key. You don’t just do it once and then you’re changed. It is like exercise. I tell you true I know it changed my way of thinking, and has probably physically changed my brain. It is part of my life to this day and will remain so.**
Five: I got help. I went to the doctor and got a medication that I was on for about a year and a half, and I did cognitive behavioral therapy, which helped me break down my thought patterns. I also had a more serious look at WHY I was so burned out and exhausted and found the medical problem that was really at the root of all of this. Which was a good thing. I mean, it’s annoying but it’s good to know because I can do something about it.
Six: I exercised. I started going to yoga classes a lot. Which, again, seems like a cliché but does in fact work. I walked. I just moved. I also cut back on caffeine a tremendous amount. I had been drinking QUITE A LOT OF COFFEE up until that point. (I probably could do 5-8 cups a day.) I stopped entirely for about two years. Now I drink a limited amount and never in the evening. So yes, sensible diet and sensible steps that are all boring but REALLY WORK. But they work over time.
Seven: KNOW THAT IT CAN END. It will tell you that it won’t. Remember: IT DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING. Anxiety is like a four year old who thinks they are a surgeon–that’s cute that the child thinks that, but you wouldn’t actually let the four year old operate on you. THE CHILD KNOWS NOTHING. You would prevent the child from attempting any surgical procedure. Likewise, anxiety must be prevented from making your decisions. It’s so small! It’s so silly! Look how it thinks it can move you around! You can regain control. It really isn’t stronger than you.
EIGHT: I found out just how many other people had it. Seeing it was not just me really was a great eye-opener. Someone around you has anxiety right now as well. You may or may not know about it. People doing all kinds of things have anxiety. Some of the people who make the shows you like have or had it. Same with the people who write the songs you like or books you like. People doing all kinds of jobs have or had it. It is super common. It moves around. It can be lived with and shown the door. You are not alone in this.
NINE: There is nothing to be embarrassed about. So what if you are hiding in a bathroom stall because you’ve panicked about seeing a menu? SO WHAT. So what if you are talking fast? SO WHAT. So what if you wrote a long and nervous-sounding post? SO WHAT. So what if you couldn’t finish something because you had an anxiety attack while looking at a pen? SO WHAT. Doesn’t matter. I’ve been there. Ain’t no thing. Come on out when you’re ready and we’ll throw that pen out the window. Or we’ll say, “It’s okay, you’re a nice pen.” SO WHAT. Say SO WHAT right now. Because SO WHAT. Unless you just caused a major international incident, which I promise you you did not (unless you are Vladimir Putin reading this, in which case I have several misjudged my audience), you didn’t do anything awful and no one cares and SO WHAT!
I had to throw a whole bunch of stuff at it. Together, it worked. The severe, continuous bouts stopped after a few months. I remained on alert for at least a year or two, but I genuinely cannot remember if I had attacks during that time. Because part of what happened was that I stopped being afraid of it. I gave it permission to come and go. I left the door open. “You can come in,” I said, “and you can show yourself out.” Sounds stupid and new agey but it is a TRUE STATEMENT. I just decided I didn’t care any more and was going to go about my business whether it was there or not. It took effort, but I stuck with that. And the monster wandered off on its stupid way.
But I don’t hate it. Remember I said there was good stuff? There was.
I’m frankly a better person for having had it. I’m not saying I am a fantastic person—that is not for me to decide. But I felt the sting and I got a lot more compassionate. I realized that since I had this major disruption, I might as well use the time to make some changes. It’s like, “Well, the roof of my house just came off. I guess I’ll redecorate!” This is possible. You can make it do something for you, since it is there. Give that stupid monster and broom and MAKE IT CLEAN. I slowed the hell down and I like stuff more now. I give no f**ks about what people think of my slow life choices.
When I did this, I looked around at what I had and saw that life is pretty great and things can change. I saw that the people around me were very kind. Oscar, my partner, took care of me. When I was having such a severe bout that I had trouble getting on a plane by myself, he bought a ticket and went with me. This was no small thing. I realized that these kind people in my life were people to be emulated.
I thought I couldn’t do anything when I had it, and I look back and see that I did. Was I slower? Yes. Did I do it? Yes. I work more efficiently now.
I realized that when I wasn’t staring at the anxiety all the time, I was happy. I had convinced myself for a while that it was not possible to be both, but that’s a lie. You may think that is true because the anxiety is dancing around like a big dumb idiot, trying to block your view of happy. But happy can be there. It probably is there. CONTENT is there. NON-ANXIETY is definitely there.
Again, this is my story and all the stories are different. But like I said, I tell this one to give you a true story about having anxiety that ends with something good, which happens to be true. A lot of you are going to deal with it, and you can make that stupid monster dance. You can make good changes. Or you can just be okay. You can. Don’t listen to it when it tells you you can’t because remember: it is dumb and you are not. It doesn’t know a thing. It really doesn’t. Whatever dumb thing happens, SO WHAT.
Anxiety being what it is, this post may be for a lot of you. But even if it was right for ONE of you, that’s fine by me.
Good luck out there, and give no f**ks you do not want to give.
Love,
Auntie MJ
* I do not condone putting misbehaving children into orphanages, unless they are imaginary misbehaving children who live in your head. And my imaginary orphanage for imaginary children is a very nice place.
** I have taken several types of meditation classes or programs in the last few years. I really went for it. The ones I recommend most are Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (often labeled as MBSR) classes, and a very helpful online program called Headspace, which I now use daily. Both cost money but I believe they are worth it. Headspace, for example, is free to try and then about $8 a month to use everything, so you can give it a try for no risk and see how you like it. There are also free or quite cheap apps available, and loads of places offer free or very cheap classes. Have a look around your area. Many libraries will have books on meditation as well. There is no bad way to get started, and it is often worth trying a few things to see what works for you.
Ask Auntie MJ is a thing Maureen Johnson does once a week, usually between Wednesday and Friday, whether anyone wants her to or not. You can submit questions using the ask button.
“The Countess Belvane! What can I say which will bring home to you that wonderful, terrible, fascinating woman? Mastered as she was by overweening ambition, utterly unscrupulous in her methods of achieving her purpose, none the less her adorable humanity betrayed itself in a passion for diary-keeping and a devotion to the simpler forms of lyrical verse…
She had been writing poetry that morning, and she wore green. She always wore green when the Muse was upon her: a pleasing habit which, whether as a warning or an inspiration, modern poets might do well to imitate.”
- Once On A Time, A. A. Milne
Wearing a green dress covered in bees right now. This is how I want you all to think of me: wonderful, terrible, fascinating, covered in bees.
Hi there, Anon! So sorry you’ve been having a hard time. Have you seen the Gregory Brothers version of “First Kiss Today”? This has nothing to do with anxiety but everything to do with finding something to make you smile. :]
I’ve gotten so much better the six weeks, but the beginning of 2015 was a high-water mark for me in terms of my number of panic attacks. It had to do with a lot of different things, most notably an episode of “antidepressant poop-out” and consequently starting a new medication. The worst attack happened when I was traveling by myself and trying to make a short connection in the Detroit airport. The onset was immediate and apocalyptic. Picture a thirty-year-old nerd-man plopping down in the middle of the waxed terminal floor, eyes greasy, skin cold. I tried to find a nurse’s station but couldn’t. So I willed the pieces of myself together and went to get a bagel, but the Einstein’s employees were screaming at each other, and one of them got furious at a customer for something and hurled a bagel at the floor and quit their job on the spot. I went onto the plane, my vision shrinking down to a pinhole, which always reminds me of when I was a kid and would unscrew the black barrel of my air pistol and stare down it like a telescope. I told the flight attendant I had a stomach-related emergency, hustled to the bathroom, and let the metallic-tasting waves of panic crash through my system for exactly two minutes. Then I deep-breathed for two minutes. Then I went back to my seat and the rest of the day was pretty good.
Anyway, all of this to say, I can truly relate to what you’ve been experiencing. But even though depression and anxiety (mostly depression) are parts of my life, they do not form the definition of me, and they need not form the definition of you.
There are lots and lots of fantastic, free resources out there, several of which I utilized myself when I had no mental health coverage. I talk about many of them in my favorite How to Adult video, “What if Depression Followed You Online?” There’s also additional information in the video’s description.
I truly hope this helps, Anon! And if any lovely Tumblr Buddies out there have suggestions, please pass them along. Take care of yourself. You’ve got this.
a scene that really bothers me in HBP is when Ginny feeds Harry that pie thing and she is like “don’t you trust me?” and then just feeds it to him all nicely
because I honestly believe that book!Ginny would have said “don’t you trust me?” and then she would proceed to shove the pie in his face and then say “your mistake!” and just like run away laughing her head off and Harry would just be sitting there with pie stuck to his face and a small grin thinking ‘wow this girl is perfect’
Do you know how many sit downs I got at the label about that? A lot of me making this album was me going in the studio, making something I loved, and showing it to the label and getting a principle’s-office discussion. Like, “Young lady, you know you’re not going to sell as many albums if you’re not labeled as country.” I wasn’t kicking and screaming, but I was very firm about the fact that to call this album a country album would be the biggest mistake. Because when you’re trying to fool people, you insinuating that you think they’re stupid. And insinuating that people aren’t going to see through your transparent motives is the one worst mistake you can make as an artist who is supposed to respect their fans. That was my argument. I got really, really lectured about not putting my name on the title on the front of the album cover―that was fun. And then it was suggested to me that we use a different picture for the album cover because, they kept saying, “We need eyes, lips, hair on an album cover. You know no one’s going to know who that is.” And I was like, “That’s the point. We’re starting over.” Also, the reason I didn’t put my face on the album cover is because I didn’t want people to fully diagnose the emotional DNA of this album before it came out. If I’m smiling, it’s a happy record; if I’m frowning, it’s a sad record. I wanted people to be able to detect no emotion on my face. It was just taken on this ‘80s Polaroid camera that I have. I knew that I was doing something that I fully believed in when I was confronted with these people on my team, who were only going by what they knew―which is that there hasn’t been a successful country-to-pop crossover, really ever, who has sold as well as their country career did. They’d say “You’re not going to sell as much.“ and I would say, “I don’t care. This is the album I made, this is what I’m going to call it, this is how I’m going to label it.” I knew that I’d made songs that my fans would like; I was like, “You guys don’t know them like I do. You sit in an office, I’m out there at shows with them, I’m on tumblr talking to them, I know what they want from me.” Thank God it worked out. If we’d sold one album less than a million in the first week, it would have been two years of “Taylor, we told you.” So glad we sold almost 1.3 [million] in the first week.
my neighbourhood has never had an ice cream truck. in the summer, we have the knife sharpening truck. it slowly circles the block and rings its ominous bell. i have never seen someone interact with it. it may be that only those marked by death can see it
alex??? this is truly frightening ??
i never really thought about it much until today but you’re right this is honestly a messed up thing for me to be accustomed to
Honestly, Rick Rolling is the best practical joke ever. Like, there’s nothing offensive or mean spirited about it. It’s just like “Oops you thought there would be something else here but it’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.” which isn’t even a bad song. It’s fairly enjoyable to listen to. There’s no jumpscares, no screaming, no ill will. Just Rick Astley telling you he’s never going to give you up. I think that’s great. “You fell into my trap! Here, listen to this completely benign song that will have no negative effect on you.”
the deconstruction of the manic pixie dream girl trope is meant to remind moody assholes that wild whacky girls do not exist purely for their pleasure and then cease to exist/have rich inner lives & narratives when they’re outta sight
the deconstruction of the manic pixie dream girl trope is NOT meant to say “whacky girls do not exist and they are bad and if you see a girl being whacky she’s perpetuating a sexist stereotype for the sake of pleasing men”. like how wrong could y’all GET that
Kamala is a different kind of feminism. She isn’t the traditional female superhero, and is nothing like Carol Danvers. Most female superheroes embody the ‘perfect woman’, and Kamala is more the speed of the average girl.
Kamala is a complex teenage girl, coming from a Muslim family, and has to deal with being ostracized by her classmates. Though she respects her faith and family, she still questions her traditions.
She loves her family, and they’re a big part of who she is.
She’s goofy.
Kamala encompasses all that is geek teenage girl behavior. Basically, Tumblr, the girl.
She wants to be a superhero. She wants to be part of the lives of her favorite heroes , wants team ups, and wants to be great. And she’s always learning how to be better.
And so we love her, because Kamala is a different kind of superhero, trying to be someone special, but at the same time stay true to herself and her family.
First Lady Michelle Obama talked about her experience with race and the media during her commencement speech at Tuskegee University. You can watch the full address here.
I can’t believe Captain America: The Winter Soldier blatantly ripped off Pokémon The First Movie.
May 18, 2015
When I opened one of Blume’s books — “Blubber,” “Deenie,” “Forever . . . ” — I felt confident that she understood the pact: Blume had gotten there first, and she would tell us absolutely everything. Blume wrote about playground bullying and unnerving body changes and teenage sex and she wrote about parents’ failings. If her characters differed from my friends and me, it was that they could utter out loud their thoughts about subjects that were, to us, indescribably uncomfortable. Her books did not resolve with tidy, happy endings, at least not the kind I had come to expect, so that I read them with the same mixture of overheated expectation and anxiety that I felt about adolescence itself.
SUCH A GREAT PROFILE of the great Judy Blume in the New York Times. (I heard about it because my mom texted me, “Thanks for calling me a radical feminist mother in the New York Times. Such a compliment!”)
I had some oral surgery this morning and now I am in A LOT of pain and also high on painkillers so sorry in advance for typos.
I have been thinking all morning about how ridiculously lucky I am in to be in this immense pain, because the alternative is to be in a lot of pain for the rest of my life. (Because of chronic infection, my bone beneath my teeth actually grew OUT OF my gum. It’s pretty hideous. But it’s addressable–if you have access to excellent medical care.)
So anyway I started a fundraiser over at save the children for kids affected by the Syrian Civil War. STC is doing so much to get those kids access to education and health care and nutrition, and I hope you’ll join my team, “Nerdfighters opposed to human suffering including but not limited to John’s mouth.” I’ll match all of your donations up to $20,000.
He made a video that serves not only as an official coming out notice, but one that will be useful to anyone confused about how harmful leaning into the existing binary gender system really is.
I’m really new to my own understanding of all of this, and am dependent on thoughtful, eloquent, and patient people like Jack as I navigate the waters myself. For instance, we recently traveled to and from the annual thehpalliance retreat together, and even though I was (very honored to be) told by him privately months previous, even though I had rationally processed the change of pronouns and change of whole thought about who he is in relation to gender, it was the first time that enough people knew about it that we would be referring to him as “him” all weekend long. And MOST of the time, he was just Jack. We went running and I limped back inside complaining that Jack ran ahead of me on the uphill last portion because boys are stupid. I had a couple little flubs where I said “her,” but mostly, you know, I was on it. I was feeling proud. Super comfy.
And then, struggling with our stuff out of Penn station and splitting at our subway divide, we hugged and I yelled an oft-repeated salutation of mine:
**“Bye, lady!”
**
And we both slumped. But only for a moment before laughing, because he gets it. This is a process for everyone, and ingrained, automatic behaviors are hard to work out of, and if we all just try, and we all are a bit tolerant, everything will be okay.
Jack, you’re a badass. Congratulations.
I love this video a lot. If you have 12 minutes to watch any video…
I planned on watching the first few minutes of this… It’s now 2:40 am and I have now not only watched this video, but I have also educated myself on whether or not 30 some different types of food can be waffled. Good job and good luck, Jack!!
JACK LOOK AT THE CHANGE YOU ARE MAKING IN THE WORLD
This video is so great, for all the obvious reasons.
Also, I became fixated by all of the lanyards on the back wall. And now that I’ve mentioned it, YOU MAY BE TOO!
Hi Auntie MJ! I am a person who is being raised a girl (although I’m not). I’m also a person who has been raised to believe I’m not allowed to hold any opinions of my own. Typically it is my father who’s opinion must dictate my own. Occasionally it is my mother, teacher, or whoever it is who is more “senior” than myself. Needless to say, this leads to me being unable to have a productive debate/argument/discussion with multiple viewpoints. Do you have some advice for me to learn to do that?
Dear Ruinedhands,
You may not be surprised to know I stopped on the first sentence of your question. That right there is problem enough for anyone. I made it the title of this post because it is the first thing you told me. Since the second part of your question is actually pretty easy to answer, I’ll start there and then we’ll return to the top.
The parents not letting you have/not listening to your opinions is actually a pretty common complaint among teenagers. (I’m assuming you’re a teen/young adult—if you are not, I have more questions.) We have known about this throughout all of recorded history, even as far back as 1988, when Will Smith (then the Fresh Prince) released the seminal treatise on the topic: Parents Just Don’t Understand.
One of the earliest recorded works on the subject.
In all but the most extreme cases (truly extremist situations, dictatorships, etc.) parents are certainly aware that their children must have their own opinions, and that those opinions may vary from theirs. We all fundamentally know we can’t crawl into another person’s brain and nest there. We can grumble about it or try to exert influence, but most of us know that other people exist and have their own brains.
I think what happens is more that parents often do not feel that their children possess sufficient experience to form opinions and therefore try to impose their own until some future, supposed date in which their children have learned enough, whatever enough is. This usually happens for the best of reasons, namely, worry that something will happen to you if you make a mistake. This isn’t always the reason, but it’s often so.
There’s no timestamp on this. Parents can go on believing forever that their children don’t know enough. I think sometimes people fail to make the leap of imagination when it concerns other people’s knowledge and experience—if people don’t know what they know, what they have experienced, how can they know anything? Of course, the fallacy in this is that they themselves have not experienced everything. We’re all missing information. We all form our opinions based on what we’ve experienced and processed, and what we see and experience is, by the very nature of experience itself, VERY LIMITED.
I’m saying that we’re all just figuring it out.
It’s actually true that when you are young, your database may not be quite as full simply because you’re young and have just started filling it. Sometimes parents make a fair call and protect us from the really bad mistakes. BUT! Our individual capacity to take in and process information varies considerably from person to person. Also, we need to make mistakes. That’s how we learn.
I’m saying that just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t know things. You’re just going to know more as you go on. And for sure you will screw up and change your mind about things. All sorts of things will happen. This is life. There will always be pressure and influence. Most of our current consumer/political/24 hours news coverage culture is entirely based on trying to influence us to want stuff or fear stuff. Throughout it all, your mind is your own. But it does help to be able to see when and how we are being influenced.
First bit of advice: read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read. Talk to people. This is how you become informed and learn different points of view.
Now, as to how to learn how to discuss opinions once you form them AND how to see what tricks are being used to influence else—TO THE INTERNET! Obviously, never read the comments. However, you can use the internet to learn RHETORIC, the art and science of argumentation. There are loads of sites and books about this. And this is a handy chart of rhetorical fallacies to help you take a discussion or text apart and see if it stands up to reason. You can talk online, in class, with friends. Use every outlet you have. (Also, THE LIBRARY. You can get a BOOK on rhetoric. It will be your friend.)
Seriously. Rhetoric. An old-timey sounding thing, but the most critical when you’re trying to navigate the waters of influence.
HOWEVER, and this however is big, being young does not mean you are wrong about yourself. Our selves can be pretty nebulous concepts. While we change over time, some things we know from early on. You happen to know you’re not a girl.
I don’t know if you’ve talked to your parents about not being a girl. Since you started with that, I feel like maybe you are asking about how to express this to your parents? Maybe? I can’t give you specific advice on how to handle your situation, because I don’t know how safe and secure you feel. I don’t know if you have talked to your parents. Anything could be going on with your family. I will make no assumptions. But if you need outside support, The Trevor Project is always a good place to start. And there are loads of online resources I am sure you (or hope you) have seen.
Here is the important thing, though, just in case this is the real question and just in case you need to hear this from someone: Auntie MJ knows you’re not a girl because you told me so. That is all the information that is required. That you’re not a girl is not an opinion—it’s a fact. You can debate politics or whatever all day long, but this is not a debate. You don’t need to justify it to anyone.
Good luck out there.
Love,
Auntie MJ
Ask Auntie MJ is a thing Maureen Johnson does once a week, usually between Wednesday and Friday, whether anyone wants her to or not. You can submit questions using the ask button.
