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Thread: Feeling Controlled

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    meme hotline Chae's Avatar
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    Question Feeling Controlled

    In which particular sphere of life do you feel controlled by society's expectations? Which expectations cause you to experience intense negative emotions, powerlessness? How do you try to cope or compensate?

     
    My concern of feeling powerless involves gender norms. People policing how a woman or man should look (especially that) and act like give me the creeps. I feel pretty much caged in by the assigned pigeonholes. Also, repercussions of not wanting to marry or have kids, of not wanting to be submissive and financially dependent or dependent in a broader sense. I am always panicking, what if I express myself in the wrong way. What if I can't express myself at all - I ended up pursuing a safe-seeming career path because of that fear, afraid to do what I really wanted, being an artist. What if I am attacked for my take on being a woman. I experience VERY intense negative emotions when another person is ridiculed for not adhering to whatever the gendered expectation is. For instance, girls who don't want to perform femininity (aka expensive masochistic self-mutilation and guilt-induced estrangement from one's natural state), men who are very upfront with their emotions (watching someone bottle everything up makes me want to cry), transgender people, people who don't want to be feminine or masculine alike, people who are agender or asexual.
    I am very unsure about my outer appearance and behavior in general. I want to look attractive but are afraid to actually attract, that's quite a dilemma and one of my main concerns in life. I want to be openly sexual but know/fear I will get rebuked. I want to tap into every taboo, but I can't. I fear that it will be detrimental to my image and success. In fact, I am absolutely paranoid about how others perceive me, so I am not brave enough to show my true colors. Not once in my life have I felt that I could be entirely myself, say and do what I want. I ask myself, is it me or is it them. I focus so much on all of that because I feel that society is vigilant and out to punish me. I don't want to be punished, I just want to do what I want - and that is living freely without needing to fit into a box. So far, I have always encountered backlash for being different. It flatters and scares me equally. My security and identity is challenged and dissolved by it. What makes it worse, I know that my own internalized shame and weakness is at fault. I bought into these roles in the first place. I feel powerless because I want to be strong enough so bad, smash all the stereotypes, challenge all beliefs. But at the end of the day, I end up conforming to some degree and even more ashamed. I want to accept myself without correcting every flaw I perceive in myself and every step I take, but every disapproving word shatters all of that. Compensating works only through making myself either invisible (through isolation) or extremely threatening, "I appear like I will harm you in order not to be harmed myself." Coping with my problem by both conforming and not being true to myself, I am part of the general issue.

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    None really. Im too lethargic to do anything I cant motivate myself to do.
    Projection is ordinary. Person A projects at person B, hoping tovalidate something about person A by the response of person B. However, person B, not wanting to be an obejct of someone elses ego and guarding against existential terror constructs a personality which protects his ego and maintain a certain sense of a robust and real self that is different and separate from person A. Sadly, this robust and real self, cut off by defenses of character from the rest of the world, is quite vulnerable and fragile given that it is imaginary and propped up through external feed back. Person B is dimly aware of this and defends against it all the more, even desperately projecting his anxieties back onto person A, with the hope of shoring up his ego with salubrious validation. All of this happens without A or B acknowledging it, of course. Because to face up to it consciously is shocking, in that this is all anybody is doing or can do and it seems absurd when you realize how pathetic it is.

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    Modern society is a delayed return society, aka master slave society, hence enstrangement from being a human sets in. Marx could probably talk hours and hours on this subject.

    Economics treats us as robots, with utility and maximum output stuff.

    Coping with this... just minding your own business, act as if you follow the rules, but only as far as you need, to get away with it. And get a bit depressed along the way.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chae View Post
    In which particular sphere of life do you feel controlled by society's expectations?
    Wearing clothes, not shaving my head, not telling people I think they're ugly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chae View Post
    Which expectations cause you to experience intense negative emotions, powerlessness?
    Intense negative emotions? Nothing that I can think of. Powerlessness? The inability to teleport, for one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chae View Post
    How do you try to cope or compensate?
    I ignore a lot of other expectations, like: not wearing silly hats in public, not sitting on the floor, and not talking about religion and politics with strangers.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ritella View Post
    Over here, we'll put up with (almost) all of your crap. You just have to use the secret phrase: "I don't value it. It's related to <insert random element here>, which is not in my quadra."
    Quote Originally Posted by Aquagraph View Post
    Abbie is so boring and rigid it's awesome instead of boring and rigid. She seems so practical and down-to-the-ground.

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    I think when people who can't take care of themselves end up in the care of someone who treats them like crap whether it be a care taker or a hospital, nursing home, etc. Like people who treat people in the dementia and alzheimer's ward poorly because they assume they won't remember. Or loss of life because someone wasn't paying attention to the people who needed help. Like suicide inside a facility. Or the person with schizophrenia wandering around town all day getting treated like crap and neglected at home, which is why they are wandering around town all day in the first place. Social injustices like that. Things like people making fun of someone who put on weight because they can't move because they're in a wheel chair. I'm normally super chill but stuff like that sends me in to a frenzy.

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    Humanity literally wants to kill me off like a virus.


    If I elaborated, you'd probably want to kill me too.

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    Enneagram directional theory. Power seeking types; e2, e8, e5. Many people dislike enneagram but I think that's a useful nugget for these situations/topics. You have triads and this one is cyclical. e5 integrates to e8 and e8 to e2. e5 is thinking, e8 is instinct, e2 is feeling. Head, heart, gut. Here you have a fluid system concerning one's mind, instincts, and emotions within and outside of the self concerning the issue of power.

    Being weighty in e5 in the thinking realm I relate to many power issues as well. Instinctively I'm also more of an 8w9 versus 9w1 or 1w9. So my gut impulses usually fall in line with that when I'm actually not observing or thinking.

    Feeling though I'm not to e2, I don't really try to dominate or be possessive like the "host" or "seductress". Much more e4 lol, as I get older I'm building some e3 presence on the stack.

    I guess that fits because primarily power issues are usually coming from instinct and thought versus feeling/heart/emotion. Really most of its instinct. I feel like an e8 who froze over because they started to analyze too much. Basically that describes the core of my power issues, feeling used for not being present and observing too much. Being too analytical and perfectionistic in an avaricious e5 way. The irony is that inaction can be just as bad as an imperfect action.

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    Well I already talked about this many times before I think but it feels good to keep doing it anyway. <3 @Chae

    I felt immense pressure growing up in a working class blue collar small town because the gender roles were really strict. A man was expected to be very logical , keep all his feelings to himself and enjoy sports/hunting/fishing/guns and I never liked any of that stuff. Of course that stuff wasn't really 'me.' I remember this friend I had went to school in drag once for halloween and everybody was telling him how "brave" that was.... not sure if I ever wanted to drag, but it would be nicer if I was accepted more for being kind of feminine and on the passive side. Of course *now* I am, and I was able to find true friends that like me for who I am but growing up it caused a lot of insecurities that I hate. To be fair I never really accepted them either, and it was just an awkward clash on both sides. I still feel really weird sometimes around truck driving str8 males like that- as it's like oil and water. And of course other gay men don't help, they often just bully me because I am not masculine enough myself. These other gay men are actually pretty good in sports, and say hateful things like 'if I wanted you to be girly I'd just date a girl.' I get what they mean but feminity in males is pretty sexy to me, I mean in moderation. Though I hate most other gay men because it's like most of them are misogyinstic and if you are the tiniest bit girly they are so nasty and hateful to you about it. And this just gets under my skin because I cannot help or change liking to play with barbies and things like that, it's just who I am... I've always been that way.

    But with all that said, I don't think it's very helpful at all to be too SJW about this stuff or to make those cringe worthy 'gender fluid' posts on tumblr since it just makes you an even more target for bullies. This hatred-for-girly stuff I think will only change if confronted in real life. I mean although I silently disapproved of the men hunting & fishing I didn't brutally bully them about it- and that's all I ask for in return. Because if I just had boobies and a vagina and was a girl I wouldn't get so much shit for it. But I'm not going to become ****** like gigi did just for that lol. I like being a guy on the outside, girl on the inside.

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    meme hotline Chae's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bullets View Post
    Well I already talked about this many times before I think but it feels good to keep doing it anyway. <3 @Chae

    I felt immense pressure growing up in a working class blue collar small town because the gender roles were really strict. A man was expected to be very logical , keep all his feelings to himself and enjoy sports/hunting/fishing/guns and I never liked any of that stuff. Of course that stuff wasn't really 'me.' I remember this friend I had went to school in drag once for halloween and everybody was telling him how "brave" that was.... not sure if I ever wanted to drag, but it would be nicer if I was accepted more for being kind of feminine and on the passive side. Of course *now* I am, and I was able to find true friends that like me for who I am but growing up it caused a lot of insecurities that I hate. To be fair I never really accepted them either, and it was just an awkward clash on both sides. I still feel really weird sometimes around truck driving str8 males like that- as it's like oil and water. And of course other gay men don't help, they often just bully me because I am not masculine enough myself. These other gay men are actually pretty good in sports, and say hateful things like 'if I wanted you to be girly I'd just date a girl.' I get what they mean but feminity in males is pretty sexy to me, I mean in moderation. Though I hate most other gay men because it's like most of them are misogyinstic and if you are the tiniest bit girly they are so nasty and hateful to you about it. And this just gets under my skin because I cannot help or change liking to play with barbies and things like that, it's just who I am... I've always been that way.

    But with all that said, I don't think it's very helpful at all to be too SJW about this stuff or to make those cringe worthy 'gender fluid' posts on tumblr since it just makes you an even more target for bullies. This hatred-for-girly stuff I think will only change if confronted in real life. I mean although I silently disapproved of the men hunting & fishing I didn't brutally bully them about it- and that's all I ask for in return. Because if I just had boobies and a vagina and was a girl I wouldn't get so much shit for it. But I'm not going to become ****** like gigi did just for that lol. I like being a guy on the outside, girl on the inside.
    What you've written was very relatable, I feel you. I share a lot of viewpoints coming from the reverse perspective, since I'm bi/pan I experience similar discrimination in the lesbian community. Not feminine enough yada yada, all heterosexual problems mirrored into the queer realm I thought was save for me in terms of expression. Gender fluidity and ambivalence is also troubling until you reach the conclusion that you elaborated, one can be multigender! And people who discriminate that are clearly not in touch with their own multigender sides. The same principle applies to the truck peeps and masculine daddies that are like oil and water to you, those have not manifested/accepted/tapped into their feminine side, that's why they are misogynistic. Also those who regard drag as brave, they implicitly see threatening gender norms as attackable and punishable. Let me guess, that gender police consists of mostly cis-hetero males. "You hate and fear what you don't know" :/
    I always sound defensive when confronted with these types of people, as if I have to legitimize something, but this is their responsibility not to bully anyone and be tolerant. I stay away from them as good as I can, even if that puts them into power in some way once again Transgender politics are on another level when it comes to gender identity right there, drag is pretty much the first step. Your struggle with not feeling accepted is inherently linked to sexism: as long as feminine = inferior/weak/etc, femininity in men = inferior/weak/etc. The task of people like us is to prove that notion wrong and indeed be brave. I behave as male as I want to, you as female as you want to. I believe that me, as a woman, being masculine in one way or another is fantastic. I can razor down my hair, talk with a low voice and sit with spread legs (it's comfortable for me). I think that vice versa, feminine men, are fantastic too. Barbies, make-up, heels, dresses, long hair, everything of that and a man combined, fantastic. We deserve to be visible and worthy. <3 I think that only through self-confidence, you can conquer hateful people and mostly, yourself. That's the spirit.

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    “My typology is . . . not in any sense to stick labels on people at first sight. It is not a physiognomy and not an anthropological system, but a critical psychology dealing with the organization and delimitation of psychic processes that can be shown to be typical.”​ —C.G. Jung
     
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    @Aylen I like this way of seeing it

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    I don't feel controlled. I feel like I'm in a battle of my desires vs. "society's" but I'd dare to say that so far, I'm winning. Life isn't fun without challenges, so I don't mind personally, but obviously a lot of other people are suffering and I can't entirely distance myself from that :/

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    Life isn't fun without challenges, so I don't mind personally, but obviously a lot of other people are suffering and I can't entirely distance myself from that :/
    Well the greater the opposition, the more thrilling it is if you do win. That inspires me somewhat.

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    meme hotline Chae's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Verbrannte View Post
    I don't feel controlled. I feel like I'm in a battle of my desires vs. "society's" but I'd dare to say that so far, I'm winning. Life isn't fun without challenges, so I don't mind personally, but obviously a lot of other people are suffering and I can't entirely distance myself from that :/
    Agreeing with Bullets, very inspiring. The suffering of others in that context is interesting and equally challenging to look at because they are in the same divide of their desires and society's, it's just that they may (or may not) have less privilege to win by default

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    Enlightened Hedonist
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    I think the aliens are generally good at giving us the illusion of free will, it is just that we are at a period in history where we are often overwhelmed by the range of choice and increased doubts relating to our perceived mortality.

    I am probably too fearful about the risk of failure, and not being able to be all the things I wish to be. In reality, people are able to reinvent themselves numerous times.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Subteigh View Post
    I think the aliens are generally good at giving us the illusion of free will, it is just that we are at a period in history where we are often overwhelmed by the range of choice and increased doubts relating to our perceived mortality.

    I am probably too fearful about the risk of failure, and not being able to be all the things I wish to be. In reality, people are able to reinvent themselves numerous times.

    I feel the same way; like I see other people reinvent themselves but it feels like it's impossible for me to do. For some inexplicable reason.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pookie View Post
    None really. Im too lethargic to do anything I cant motivate myself to do.
    Same. I don't necessary feel controlled by anything... except when I need to use the bathroom
    “You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.”
    - Epictetus


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    Hot Message FDG's Avatar
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    I donīt like how you are supposed to dress in a specific way for many jobs that require interaction with customers. At least in Europe. Whatever, I still do it, but itīs an enormous waste of time, energy and money.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG View Post
    I donīt like how you are supposed to dress in a specific way for many jobs that require interaction with customers. At least in Europe. Whatever, I still do it, but itīs an enormous waste of time, energy and money.
    yes being as fake as you can is highly valued at some workplaces.

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG View Post
    I donīt like how you are supposed to dress in a specific way for many jobs that require interaction with customers. At least in Europe. Whatever, I still do it, but itīs an enormous waste of time, energy and money.
    You are thinking about this wrong. Wearing a business suit is not a way for your company to control you. Business suits are a Capitalist Tool: they are a tool you can use to influence and control your customers.

    If you want to express your identity, you can dress a bit better than expected, or with a bit of flair, to indicate that you are not your typical business guy. A jacket made with a better cloth, a hand-tailored shirt, anything to make your customer understand that you are successful and good at your job. Your boss will start to notice this, too, and will be more likely to see you as a person occupying the next rung up in the ladder. And even if getting a raise is not your ambition, setting yourself apart will get you noticed by your customers, who can help you get established when you go off on your own.

    P.S. If you are selling something, don’t wear anything gold. Your customer will think that you don’t need his business. Silver is better in these cases. Not wearing a watch is even better, because only wage slaves need to know what time it is. When you are talking with a customer, as is the case with a friend, time doesn’t matter.

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    Hot Message FDG's Avatar
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    Adam, itīs just not my natural style, I canīt change my own being on a whim like you say. Thatīs why itīs controlling for me. Itīs something about my personality that I need to actively suppress in order to work in a certain setting.

    If I buy a nicer and stylish business suit, I just think itīs a waste of money and time, because I donīt care at all about all that looking good thing you are talking about. I still do it, but it doesnīt give me any pleasure.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    meme hotline Chae's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG View Post
    I donīt like how you are supposed to dress in a specific way for many jobs that require interaction with customers. At least in Europe. Whatever, I still do it, but itīs an enormous waste of time, energy and money.
    I agree, it's a way of imposing reputation and rank which is essentially a classist move. As Adam says, that's an element of capitalism. Ironically, capitalism has the premise of efficiency (=exploitation), but then again they function on redundant elements like these Hypocrisy and double standards are the most sure-fire way of detecting an oppressive system - what you are wearing is indeed something that should make you feel controlled.

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    I'm usually pretty good at ignoring society's expectations, too good in fact. When I was younger I often felt powerless when it came to a lot of the stupidity of the school system (being forced to do mindless busy work etc.), but I don't have to deal with that now really, thank God. I guess the main one I have had to deal with more recently is software development fads like test-driven development. It's snake oil IMO.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chae View Post
    Hypocrisy and double standards are the most sure-fire way of detecting an oppressive system...
    I can't help it to notice that Chae, Raver (during chatting) and BnD all are very aware of oppressive systems. And they are all IEE if I am correct. Maybe it's a common IEE thing?
    Also I am glad you guys notice these things, so many people just go along without even noticing it...

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