Janel Brubaker's Blog, page 18

Thinking About Toxicity

Yesterday I went out to dinner with a lovely friend of mine from grad school. We went to an awesome wine bar, had charcuterie, and played trivia. It was a joyous evening with someone who, like me, loves to write and read, is a huge sci-fi nerd, and loves cheese. Honestly, the best makings of a good time. But one thing our time together made me think about is how, since I left my ex, I have worked to cultivate friendships that aren’t, at their root, toxic. And I started thinking not only about the people who are no longer in my life and how truly toxic they are, as well as all the ways that I have allowed toxicity into my life.

My partner said something to me the other day. He pointed out that I have this massive standard set for what I think my responsibilities are as a friend, and that I have a tendency to let people take advantage of me without consequences because I care about them. And while this is an admirable thing on the surface, at its core it actually is damaging to myself and my relationship with my own mind, heart, and body. I knew the moment he said it he was 100% right and I could think of several examples where I had done just what he said, and how those choices have contributed negatively to my wellbeing ever since.

As a result, my goal for next year is to figure out how to reduce the amount of toxicity I have allowed into my life, and how I can hold myself accountable for the ways I contribute to that toxicity. And it’s easy to say that boundaries are the number one way we maintain healthy relationships with people, but purging ourselves of toxic habits goes beyond that. It has to begin with the way we see ourselves. And, as my partner said last night, the ability to forgive ourselves for allowing the toxicity into our lives in the first place. Therapy has linked to all of this as well, so hopefully what I’m about to say makes sense.

I have always and still do care far too much about what people think/say about me. I think it comes in part from being an extrovert, but I think it also comes from not being taught about self-esteem when I was younger. I even, to this day, care about what the people who have hurt me the most think/say about me. I don’t respect them as individuals since I’ve seen the ways they use up and dispose of people based on financial benefit, so why do I care about their views of me? Especially seeing firsthand how dishonest they can be, and knowing that even if I had done all the things they say I should have done, they would have found something else wrong with me and spewed that out at the world.

Why do I care? Well, the answer I can come up with off the cuff is insecurity and codependence. Leaving a marriage where I literally didn’t matter in any real way, I was desperate and chose to cling to the first place I felt I belonged and was wanted. My identity as wife was gone, so I tried filling that void with my identity as friend. And for a time, it worked. But only for a time because the real place I needed to find belonging was inside of myself. Instead, I did and said what I thought I should at the time to prove not only my love and friendship, but that I really did belong in these people’s lives. But what that did was reinforce the idea that I was somehow defined by that role and by those choices. I invested more financially than I ever should have, I ignored the things that hurt me, I ignored their inability/refusal to even acknowledge my boundaries, I pretended I was okay when I wasn’t, and when I finally decided I wasn’t going to repeat those choices, I went from being a beloved friend to being a mortal enemy overnight.

I can see and understand this trail of events, but taking that understanding and applying it to any kind of personal closure is hard. “I should have seen it earlier,” and “If I had only enforced boundaries all along,” and “The red flags were there from the very beginning,” swirl around in my mind. Forgiving myself for what I didn’t see, what I didn’t say, what I didn’t do, is a necessary first step in not only healing from that time of my life, but also moving on and building better habits. But it’s hard to do because as I moved into the dating world, I continued the exact same pattern of putting up with so much more than I deserved for the sake of feeling loved.

But feeling loved and being loved are not always the same. I felt loved by at least two men before I met my current partner, and both of them love-bombed the crap out of me, manipulated me, disrespected me, and then tossed me aside as if I was nothing. Sometimes the love we feel from people is really just a facade to hide the fact that they’re just taking what they need from you at the time. Sometimes they even have good intentions at the start, but then those intentions change. Sometimes they change in a few weeks. Sometimes they change over the course of years.

Real love, real belonging, is safety. It’s a mutual respect of boundaries, not a demand for one side to always get their way while the other is silenced, invalidated, mocked, criticized, and ignored. So the question becomes, how do I extricate the toxic behaviors I developed to try and “keep” the love and belonging I thought was real but wasn’t? Part of it is time. Part of it is acknowledging the self-destructive habits that made me choose the things I did. And part of it comes down self-forgiveness.

Yes, I made bad choices because of toxic connections to toxic people.
Yes, I knew better, even at that time.
Yes, I know better now.
Yes, I wish I made different choices, but I can’t change the choices I made, so the only choice I have now is to acknowledge what happened and why, and forgive myself.

This is the hard work of healing. It’s hard to acknowledge the ways that I have failed myself, and it’s even harder to forgive myself for those choices, but admitting the problem is the first step. If I want healthier connections in 2022, then I have to learn to let go not only of my own impulse to beat myself up, but I also have to let go of the opinions of the people who caused this damage in the first place. If they can’t acknowledge the ways they hurt me (and they don’t get to say they didn’t hurt me), then there is no point in worrying about their opinions of me.

Period.

This process is complicated and multifaceted. Because it’s not just about looking at my own lack of boundaries and the absurd standards I hold myself to in regards to how much of myself I give, shrink, and distort to fit what I think other people want from me, it’s also looking forward and seeing those habits as they unfold in new friendships and do what I can to change them. It is an ongoing process, but one that will lead to a reduction of toxicity.

Imagine the lives we could have if we didn’t allow toxicity into our lives? How much more energy would we have? How healthier would we be? Let’s make a goal to find out as we go into the new year.

The Complexities of Ownership

I have always struggled with the idea of taking “ownership” of our lives. On the surface, it’s a great concept, but without coupling it with empathy, it can cause real damage.

Lots of books have been written on the theme of ownership, and most of those books have genuinely pissed me off within the first few pages. The basic premise is that we are the owners of our lives, we are in control, and if we don’t like our lives/aspects of our lives, then it’s up to us to change it/them. And in very basic terms, there’s nothing factually wrong about this. However, it ignores and negates the very real truth that the systems in this country that allow people to change their lives are based on white supremacy, cis-hetoronormativity, and ableism.

In my own life, I’ve struggled with this concept for many reasons. Firstly and most importantly, the people who have held tightly to the belief that our lives are entirely within our control only and that no one else is responsible for us have been those most responsible for my trauma. Namely, my ex. He started reading some extreme self-help books and, while it did work to motivate him, it also made him hugely uproot his ability to hold empathy and compassion for others. It made him neglect our relationship even more since my life and my happiness in the relationship were “entirely” up to me.

But this is why we need to always couple this concept with a massive emphasis on compassion and empathy. Because yes, when my life has been at its worst and I’ve been the most unhappy, it’s been because there are things I’ve needed to do to change my circumstances. But this overlooks the very real emotional, physical, mental, financial, and personal obstacles that make changing our circumstances difficult. Mental illness, for instance. Nothing I do will ever “cure” me of depression and anxiety. The best I can work for is the ability to understand and manage my mental health, and while that is ultimately up to me, it isn’t as simple as just deciding to do it one day. Managing my mental health is a tiring process that almost always leaves me feeling drained. So yeah, I can choose to focus more on my mental health (and I have and I do), but it never comes without some kind of cost.

Or even take my marriage. I was unhappy for years, and yeah, the ability to change that was always within my power. I could have left him at any time, but financially and emotionally that did not feel like an option until the moment I decided I was going to leave him. Wanting something, and even knowing how to accomplish it, isn’t always enough. Leaving him meant needing to find somewhere to live, it meant paying my own rent, it meant giving up the benefits I had being married to him. In short, it meant a whole new kind of struggle, one I hadn’t faced yet and wasn’t sure I would survive.

This is why we need to also emphasize empathy and compassion. It maintains that connection while also recognizing that not everyone is coming from the same place as we are. Yes, thousands of women before me had left abusive relationships. Yes, I knew that I was capable of leaving and making a new life for myself. But it is always different when the time comes for us to make those choices. And sometimes the right choice, the choice that will actually be better for us in the long run, is to make these changes slowly. Not everyone can leave hurtful situations without putting themselves in other hurtful situations.

So yes, our choices and our lives are entirely our own and within our own power. But there are always circumstances which make each person’s journey unique. I recognize that there are points of privilege I have that allow me to make these changes to my life without as much struggle as others. Moreover, there’s something very disturbing in using the struggles of other people as examples for motivation. If an individual wants to tell their story because they’re proud of what they’ve accomplished, that’s one thing. But it’s something else entirely for society to use those same stories to shame others for not accomplishing as much, or for not making those same choices. Because the fact is there are always facets we can’t see that determine what people can and can’t choose for themselves.

And yet, the idea that I was always and will always be in control of my life is the primary idea that has allowed me to overcome so much. It also allows me to see the places where I’m still codependent and still need healing. I guess my point is this: ownership ideology pointed inward can be empowering and motivating. But pointed outward at others, especially without empathy, can obliterate our compassion and continue the cycle of brokenness.

So today, set those goals. Start planning them out.
But always remember to reach toward empathy.

The Idea of Grit

For Thanksgiving, my partner and I drove up to Seattle to spend the holiday with his family. On the way there, he played the first few chapters of an audio book called Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth. And while I haven’t finished the book, the several hours we spent listening to it as we drove in the Pacific Northwest November grey and rain, I found myself attaching a particular interest in its primary thesis.

I’m not going to breakdown the primary thesis here 1) because I haven’t finished the book and 2) the purpose of this post isn’t to actually talk about the book. I only mention it now because it has gotten me thinking about why it can be so hard to find the energy to accomplish even the little tasks we need to just to survive, let alone reach goals and milestones we set for ourselves.

I’m thinking, for example, of my recent goal to complete a rough draft of my novel Penelope. For the first week of NaNoWriMo, I devotedly worked on this manuscript and kept on track with my word count. Having completed NaNoWriMo twice before in 2015 and 2016, I knew I was more than capable of completing this goal. Yet, I haven’t. Tomorrow is the last day of NaNoWriMo and I haven’t touched my manuscript in weeks. There’s no way I’ll be able to finish the goal now, and while I am glad that I got anything done at all, I am disappointed that this project I was so excited about is now left incomplete.

What’s different this year from the two years when I successfully completed NaNoWriMo? Well, for one, I’m working full time when before I was a full time student, which left me more time to devote to creative writing. I’m divorced now which means I have more financial worries than I did then. I’m also much more aware of my mental illnesses which means I’m no longer pushing myself to the breaking point to mask/ignore/avoid the healing process. This is also year two of the Covid-19 pandemic, which means my entire way of life (and the ways of life for basically the world) has been altered. I’m home 90% of every day. I have less external stimulation and fewer opportunities to release negative energy. I exercise very rarely because even outside, people won’t wear masks or follow social distancing protocols, which makes me much less likely to go hiking or even for a walk around the block.

In other words, a shit ton is different now. And all of these things impact my feelings of creativity, as well as the amount of energy I have to be creative.

One point that was made in this book, though, that I also think applies to my struggles with keeping to my writing goals is that, regardless of natural talent or personal work ethic, the people who accomplish their goals and seem to get the most done are those who focus their efforts on what they most want to achieve.

I have a busy mind. I always have. As a teen, I could never even start most of my writing projects because I’d finish the outline of one, get inspired with a new idea, and move to the outline of the second before any actual headway had been made on the first. I have more discipline now in that I have finished projects before moving on to new ones (essays, short stories, poems, and now I’ve completed my first collection of poems), but I am still too busy in my creative mind to really devote myself to one thing. I get inspired watching other people be creative and it makes me think, “I can do that, too!” and then I get burnt out/discouraged when the new thing I’m trying doesn’t come naturally or easily to me.

I’ve tried crocheting; it didn’t stick.
I’ve tried knitting; it didn’t stick.
I’ve tried learning new languages; it didn’t stick.
I’ve tried cross-stitching; it sticks in cycles.
I’ve tried drawing so many times; it sticks up to a certain point when I reach the limits of my abilities and then I get angry and give it up.
I’ve considered taking up acrylics and other painting forms and have spent more time thinking about it than actually studying/starting it.

And then I’m heartbroken when I realize it’s been over a month since I’ve written any new poems.

Part of “grit,” then,” is having the discipline to remain focused on one thing, one project, one idea. And it’s not that trying new things is bad. Trying new things is good, but not every new thing is going to aid my creative writing endeavors. Many new things will inevitably detract from my creative writing endeavors, and it’s up to me to figure out which things I mostly need to accomplish to feel fulfilled in life.

This includes genres of writing.

I have always imagined myself writing, completing, and publishing a novel. And maybe one day I will. I’m not going to limit myself there, but I think one part of being a writer is recognizing when we’re not yet ready for a certain goal. Maybe part of why I had only a burst of success with my current novel is that I’m not yet ready to write it? I have been, for over a year now, obsessed with all things poetry and the bulk of my current creative writing ideas are wrapped up in the poetry genre. My reading goal for next year is to read 100 books of poetry, two books of poetry every week. My writing goal for next year is to write more poems than I have yet, both in number of individual poems written, as well as styles and forms I haven’t yet practiced.

I know that I want to be a poet more than anything else. I know that writing poetry feeds my soul and spirit more than anything else. I also know that giving up poetry right now would mean the literal end of my writing desires. I love writing fiction. I love writing nonfiction. But perhaps these two genres were meant to be my stepping stones for finding the poet inside myself?

I also know I want to be a literary scholar. I want to write scholarly papers on Austen, the Brontes, George Eliot, and other 19th Century British writers. It’s something else that is simply stirred within me to do and be.

But I also can’t write everything. I know some will disagree with that, but I stand firm in its truthfulness as regards myself. I really can’t write everything. And as much as I want to write it all, I have to decide in every individual moment of composition what I feel I most need to write at that time, and what I can put aside for the time being. In undergrad, I felt that I most needed to write prose: fiction and nonfiction. In my M.F.A., I realized early on that I most needed to write poetry, and with poetry I have remained. There’s something about the fact that, once I left my ex, poetry emerged from inside of me, first in a slow trickle, and then in a flood. There’s something there. Something below the surface. Something blown open when I finally climbed out from under the oppression of his shadow that I still don’t quite recognize.

And it’s not easy, recognizing that the ideas for the books of fiction I have might never come to fruition. Because here’s the truth: if I have to choose between writing poetry or writing prose for the rest of my life, I will absolutely choose poetry. I don’t think I will actually have to make this choice, but I do think I should know this answer now so that if the choice comes, I’m ready for it.

As Angela Duckworth says in her book, “Talent plus effort equals skill. Skill plus effort equals achievement. Effort counts twice.” What do I need to do to protect my efforts with poetry? To push and challenge those efforts? To infuse those efforts with energy and focus? These are the rhetorical questions I’ve been considering since hearing the start of Duckworth’s book. Because while I have an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, I am fairly new to the writing of poetry. I’ve studied poetry for years, but writing it, revising it, editing it, has been only about two years. It takes thousands of hours to become proficient in a skill.

What must I do to become proficient in poetry?

What must you do to become proficient in the thing you love most to do?

Sometimes Adjusting Means Making the Hard Decisions

This year has had its ups and downs, its highs and lows, its good and bad moments. And while we inch closer to the end of the year, I can’t help but look back and stare at all the things I got done, and all the things I didn’t.

I graduated with my motherfucking M.F.A. in Creative Writing. I wrote and revised and polished my very first full-length manuscript of written work. I actually sent out that manuscript for publication consideration, and all within only a few months of graduating with my M.F.A. I think sometimes the gravity of what it means to have completed a graduate degree gets lost in the idea of what creative writing is. Because yes, while the bulk of the work I did was creative, it involved an enormous amount of critical thinking, research, reading, and critical writing. It involved daily dedication to the creative process and an on-going cycle of learning how to be possessive of my time, my energy, my creativity, and my value.

It also involved the exhausting process of separating the content of my work from the work itself. When writing about trauma, it can cloud our judgment and make it difficult to see the ways in which a piece needs to be revised and polished. Some of the pieces I created in my first year of grad school didn’t get much revision, if any at all, because I couldn’t give myself the distance I needed to really pick apart the writing itself. It hurts to realize that a piece you thought was incredible is really just basic as fuck. But it can also be motivating because it forces the mind to think differently about the experiences so that we can write about them differently, too. And that really is what the writing process is supposed to be.

I also got promoted at work. I keep looking back to who I was when I started this job versus who I am now, and more has changed than just the position I’m in. I am a healthier, happier, harder worker now than when I was still married. I carry a lot less emotional weight now than I did then. I’ve outgrown the people I needed to outgrow, I’ve moved forward and carved out a path I genuinely didn’t think I could. I’ve learned. I’ve paid attention. I’ve watched the people I work with. And now I have a new position to show for it, and it’s been a really amazing transition. I love what I do.

And I’ve done a lot of the work I needed to do to heal from the traumas of my past. Or, at least, start the healing process. Because I genuinely didn’t know how to process through the traumas of my miscarriages, my marriage, and other traumas when I started on this healing journey. I didn’t know how hard it would be, and I definitely didn’t know how raw it would make me. But I also underestimated how much better I would feel about myself, how much stronger and more capable I would feel. I have a lot more healing left to do, but I can look at where I am now and nod and say that I have come an extremely long way. I am fucking proud of myself, people.

And rather than look back at what I didn’t get done and feel guilty/sorry for myself, I’m going to set new goals for the new year.

Getting myself in better financial standing is my top priority next year. This year my budgeting was not where it needed to be, and so starting now (and especially moving into the new year), I’ll be taking strides to reduce unnecessary spending. Why? Well, general lack of stress due to money, for one thing. But beyond that, my partner and I are looking to buy a house and that will require a hefty down payment, and I want to contribute to that payment as much as I can. I’m grateful for our condo, but it is too small. I doubt we’ll be able to save the full down payment in one year, but the more I can help, the shorter that process will be.

Learning to stick to even the smallest goals I set for myself is the next big goal I have for next year. Whether it’s my writing practice or my reading schedule or cooking instead of eating out, I want to be better at sticking to my daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Letting things slide every now and then is healthy, but letting them slide all of the time just compounds the stressors into each other until I’m too exhausted by stress to do anything to alleviate the stress. Part of this includes adjusting my medication. What I’m taking right now just isn’t enough to help me manage, and there’s nothing wrong with recognizing that I need more help.

I want to be a better partner next year, and that means taking responsibility for my choices, my needs, my feelings, and my day-to-day ability to manage my mental health. It’s not that I’m a bad partner right now, but when I avoid/ignore taking this responsibility, it strains my relationship. I’ve seen how toxic and dysfunctional relationships can become when people don’t take responsibility for their mental health and I cannot let this relationship go that way. My partner is the single most amazing and supportive human being I have ever known. I want to know that I’m the same for him.

None of these things will be easy to accomplish, but they will all help me build a stronger, more stable personal existence. I’m grateful for what I got done this year, and I’m grateful for the year the come so that I can grow even more.

Fast Moving Changes

Here we are, 11 days into November, and already so much is changing.

First of all, it’s NaNoWriMo and my novel “Penelope” is going well. I’m on track to get the 50,000 words done before the end of November. And even just sitting here, I just figured out a big chunk of the story. So that’s exciting. And while it is only a first draft, I’m seeing little bits and pieces of how this book could be the setup for the rest of the series. I am going to need to prioritize which stories will go into the main timeline, and which will be in the same world, but not part of the primary timeline. And that’s going to take some time, but it feels like the series is taking more definite shape than it was previously.

Second of all, I got an official promotion at work, which is so fucking exciting for me! I’m officially a Project Coordinator. I was acting in the PC role for a few different projects, but now that I’ve been fully trained in how to use the PC programs, I’ve been assigned to working with specific Project Managers rather than only working on specific projects. And this morning I set up my first project (mostly) on my own, which is exciting. Moving upward and adding more skills to my resume is really motivating. I’m still working on social media marketing too, but my primary role is as Project Coordinator.

Third of all, I was recently accepted into a second master’s program and I officially registered for my classes this week. In January, I start a Master of Arts in Literature from Mercy College in New York. The program is online, thankfully, so I don’t have to move to anything. And one of my closest friends from my M.F.A. program is doing this M.A. program too, which is even more exciting. She was the one who told me about it and when I saw the requirements, the classes offered, and the low cost of attendance, I realized it was something I very much wanted to do.

My M.F.A. program was not without its dark moments, but on the whole, it was a great experience. I’m proud of myself, the writing I did, the thesis I made, and I’m proud of how resilient I was facing not only an overlapping divorce, but also a precarious living situation and eventual personal attack on my integrity. It was a lot to handle, a lot to overcome, and a lot to process while also working and going through grad school. How I managed to get through it all, I really don’t know. I resent that I even had to, but I’m also really fucking proud of myself. And through it all, I had the incredible support of fellow students, amazing faculty, and a partner who never ceases to surprise me.

But I’ve always known that I wanted two graduate degrees. It’s been a goal in my life to take myself as far as I can go in my education. Growing up, I internalized so many damaging views about my abilities and my intelligence. It wasn’t until I got to college that I realized how much I love learning. So then I decided I wanted to see how far I could take myself, and now that includes a second master’s degree, this one in Literature.

So there have been a lot of changes, lots of movement forward in my life this month. It’s exciting, it’s thrilling, it’s leading me to ask myself what else I want in my life. I’ve written down several ideas, and we’ll see how they go once the new year starts. So here’s some motivation for your Thursday: write down something you want to see happen in your life next year, and then start thinking of ways to make that shit happen.