Monday, April 28, 2014

Infantalization: The Surest Way to Get Me to Despise You

Reading this blog, you might think I'm easily annoyed & ticked off. That's not really true. I'm actually somewhat easygoing & flexible. It's mandatory if you're going to work in the entertainment industry & especially if you're going to be a model or an actress. Background work, fashion shows, they both require being able to adapt & roll with the punches. Not to mention being a producer or in legal work. Change seems inevitable when you're dealing with trying to get financing, interview people, get important records or other information, etc.

Like most of the world, though I have no-gos in my life. Aside from liars & hypocrisy, my biggest has to be attempts to infantalize me.

What does this mean? This means giving a person no control over his/her personal schedule & autonomy. If I can't move someplace freely & get where I need to, that's a major problem. I despise & not just loathe but can't psychologically handle being confined or at everyone else's mercy to get things done.

This partly goes back to my childhood: when my father would get into his little drunken episodes, I usually had no escape from my home. I didn't drive until I was 20, didn't have access to a car & when he ripped my bedroom door out from the hinges I didn't even have a full on retreat to my bedroom to avoid things. Sometimes I had to deal with this crap by myself, largely in my early college years. My mother & sister didn't really seem to get it even though my mother would take us and flee when he started destroying property and getting violent.

I also despise being forced to carry heavy items when I go places; I'm a model, I'm an attorney. I'm NOT a moving woman or a brawn type. No one should be demanding me to be a bodybuilder when I'm already smart, a looker & have gone through far more personal strife and grief in a very short time without having to be institutionalized, getting arrested, killing anyone or doing more harmful things to self and others like developing nasty addictions to alcohol or drugs. Let's see some of these jerkoffs go through what I have & how they cope with it. I'll bet you they would be too paralyzed to do anything meaningful with their lives.

If you are a guy around me, I'm carrying my laptop or some bag other than my purse & you don't offer to help carry it then I'm not going to think well of you. I will, in fact, presume you're an asshole not worthy of my time, interest or regard for you as a person in any dimension (aside from totally lacking in chivalry). Strangers have taken pity on seeing me move heavy things & helped me out without me having to ask so if you're some guy friend and not doing that, well you can just go to Hell.

If you want me to stay someplace or feel like I'm at "home" anywhere, you won't get me to feel that way if I don't have my free range of movement & lack of limits on my comings and goings. Nothing will drive me out quicker than feeling like I'm a teenager subjected to a curfew or an invalid who has to wait on you to feel like picking me up from someplace or to give me a ride to the grocery store.

It was getting sick of waiting for everyone else to feel like getting me a ride to the grocery store that motivated me to get a driver's license & a car. I felt constrained, trapped & like a prisoner. It also made me feel like a prisoner in NC to not have a license or a car & anytime I go there now, I insist on having my own car for my own travel since I can't deal with being at everyone else's mercy for things.

Is this something wrong with me? Am I overreacting? Or do I as an adult woman have a very healthy attitude & the people who'd say I'm overreacting have that problem?

The lack of freedom in my comings & goings makes me feel like an infant. It's not a feeling I do well with. Didn't even like that feeling when I was a teenager. I also hated curfews, especially when I felt like my mother was trying to do that when I came home for summers in college.

Remember, I was living in a single dorm room for most of my college years & I was 500 miles away from home most of the year. I had my own schedule & was doing my own things without anyone monitoring or babysitting me. I think I even asked my mother why she wanted to try that on me when A) I was well over 18 years old, B) I was living on my own 500 miles away for 9 months out of the year & C) I made every effort to be quiet when I came home i.e. not disturb others. I had my own keys and didn't turn on lights in bedrooms or anything.

This is probably why I do better living alone and answering to only myself with my own means of transportation. If I do something, it only comes down to me vs. anyone else having to deal with it. I also am not big on relying upon others since they will inevitably let you down & leave you in the lurch; it's happened to me far too many times to count & then I ended up being inconvenienced or hassled or bothered in some fashion. Not something I appreciate.

It's why when I say I'll give you a ride someplace or be around to pick you up, I follow through unless I have no car to get you or an emergency comes up (rarities that are unlikely to happen in a normal day). I don't dick around, I don't slack off on it b/c I've had people do that to me & really didn't appreciate it. For me, it's like "why did you bother making the offer if you weren't going to follow through?" You won't be borrowing my car if I have a plan to get someone & on points like this, I'm firm. I won't be oversleeping & missing YOUR stuff; I'll set alarms to ensure I don't.

Of course, I don't do such favors for just anyone. You have to earn things with me & while I really don't mind helping someone out I won't do it if you treat me like I don't count or matter. Lately, I've gotten far pickier on things & if people are going to be pissy at me for not settling for BS they can just get over it. Being in my life today (just like any other time but more so now) is a privilege, not an automatic right. Keeping that privilege means you'll have to show me you care. If you don't, it's at your peril.

At least one upside is I have discovered a great place to hang out for free in NYC if you want to be in a climate controlled space, have access to bathrooms, wall plugs, comfortable seats, and so forth. I won't share this one unless asked but maybe you can guess on your own where I'm referring to.

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