Generalizations Part 2: The problem with Name Calling

Name calling is a generalization.

If you're called amazing, then you are all kinds of amazing.  You are an amazing person, through and through.  And you shine because of hearing it.

Its a generalization, but that's okay.  You can nice- generalize just as much as you want.  As Amie said once, it doesn't hurt to imagine your lama as absolutely perfect, we spend too much time focusing on something being wrong.  It was just an example so that I can segue now into the all or nothing of negative name calling.

There is a big problem with real name calling, it really hurts.  You suck, you're stupid, you're annoying, or what I got two days ago - 'you're nasty'. 

It was horrible.  The generalization seeped into my skin and all of a sudden, that's what I was.  It was all or nothing.  I was all bad - a nasty person.  There weren't parts of me that weren't nasty.  It was so up in my face that it was all I could see.

I was so hurt and angry from being called this, and I kept saying that I don't deserve that.  I didn't.  I absolutely did not ever deserve such a name called on me, a generalization that forgot everything else and labeled me as all bad.  I said aloud to me grandmother, ''You had no right to call me nasty, I didn't deserve that'.  'Well, you were acting nasty', she said. 

Which is when I got it a little more clearly.  I was acting nasty.  I was also tired and fed up from continually being yelled at and not responded to, and it was at 5:45 AM when I was woken from my bed.  Being told, 'You were acting nasty' - that was something I could at least listen to without putting up an angry embittered defensive wall.  It was still hurtful, of course, as it was meant to be.  Nasty is just an ugly word to say.  But 'you were acting nasty' is at least more truthful because its specific, its not a generalization.

I had gotten into a pretty bad fight with my grandmother - raised voices and high tension.  We probably both deserved it.  We each have misunderstood each other.  I've been hating my attitude, too.

I'm largely okay with the argument though, between either the argument happening or it just getting held in.  I was extremely fed up, and the argument made me realize it because I really lashed out and seriously was a call to action.  As a result, my grandmother's roommate took on more responsibility to give me the night off, instead of me martyring trying to do it all day.  It told me 'Marissa, you are experiencing so much anger directed at you because you are angry that you've been working too much, and your needs got left behind'.

I wasn't meeting my needs - I didn't go for a run for three weeks because I didn't have two hours that I was able to leave for, during the entire day.  So, my body wasn't getting exercised and I really wanted to, but was just putting it off for the job.  I also wasn't able to go out and do some social stuff at night.  I was wanting to go do a doctor for a physical, just to talk to someone else, and I couldn't again because I didn't have the time to leave.  Leaving for two hours out of a weeks time should not be a lot to ask for.

And things just kept getting worse because I didn't speak out for myself for my needs to be met.  The further my attitude worsened, and we progressed with ill will, the worse it got.  I lost the ability to say that something was wrong, thinking that a) there wasn't something that could change, because my dad works full time and can't take care of her and b) it was all my fault anyways, I should just be able to do this job since its not hard.  Together these lead to very obvious mental distress ( I was just so up in my head with discursive thoughts aimed at myself mainly all day), and bad consequences (we are going to have to hire somebody else since she's not okay with my attitude). 

It wasn't until I brought it up that I got to hear Iris's suggestion that we should hire a second person to help out, to give me time off.  I was very focused on earning money and this didn't occur to me that I could do my job, but earn a little less, but still have the chance to work and earn money.  I could not have thought of it myself at the time since that's not where my perspective was at.  I needed to reach out and get another perspective.  It might turn out that I get a job anyways, and won't have to worry financially.   I won't have to do this job at all, since I'll be earning a lot in the future.  Maybe.  Cross your fingers.  So, why all the suffering?  For $100 a day, it wasn't worth it.