Half empty or half full?

You know, I've come to the realization finally that I've spent a large portion of my life in the company of 'discouragers'. You know the type: that glass is always half empty. If you said the sky was blue, they'd say you were crazy: EVERYONE knows the sky is pink! If you allowed that maybe sometimes the sky was pink, they'd scoff and say that was just to be expected - only someone like YOU would insist on taking a perfectly blue sky and trying to convince everyone else it was all your way. I've struggled with these people and how to please them (and God only knows there is no pleasing them) all of my life, and been drug down, exhausted and discouraged. I finally found the perfect term for these individuals in some self-help book somewhere: emotional vampires.

These people are so sunken into their own mire and their own way of thinking that everything you do is automatically wrong. It doesn't matter what you choose to tell them. You could point out that they'd made the same choices. You could tell them that everyone has their own opinion and you have a right to your own. You could have all the scientific data in the world to back up your position. You could justify your choices and your life six ways to Sunday, and it's all going to come back down to one black-and-white concept: that glass is only ever going to be half full. And that glass is only half full because some damn person came along and took their glass and STOLE it from them, by God.

These people, who can't fix their own lives, will sure enough try to convince you that they can fix yours. If only they could fix yours, they might feel better. But since they can't, the next best thing is to make you feel worse, so they can feel good in comparison. You will exhaust yourself trying to please them, all the while you jump through their endless series of hoops feeling like you are betraying your own self and your values. You will feel like if only you could convince them that they were wrong, that things would be all right. But it's not possible. They will never approve.

Sometimes these people are your friends (or frenemies. How I love that word!) Sometimes they're your family (in which case you don't have much of a choice in the matter). Sometimes they're your coworkers.

Or maybe complete strangers.

In this day and age, we interact with complete strangers all the time online, the internet and its little communities both creating an artificial intimacy like a little closed room, and underscoring just how far apart we all are in the universe. These little online communities are a great thing. When they work well, the work really well. They're a place for support and information, someplace you can go and vent without having to show your face the next day to be embarrassed. ("Hey Bob - how's that ED going? And by the way - see you at the staff meeting!") But frequently, that anonymity can lead to hurtfulness. I've been on many boards where gently differing opinions have degenerated into the kind of venom that would lead to physical violence if it were happening face to face.

But then, we don't DO that face to face.

Why do we reserve our worst selves for this place? Is that how we want to be eternally memorialized in print? If the internet is forever, is that the stamp we want to give the world? ("Hi, I'm Sally, beloved mother of two, Rotary president, church secretary, den mother and the woman who just called another poster a @#$%*& *#$%$*$%$ for suggesting I use a quarter cup of sugar in my recipe rather than a half!")

Wow.

I know this is kind of a rant. And it's a conglomeration of a whole lot of events that have preceded it, not just one single thing. But I frequent a bulletin board that I've not always felt very welcome at. I've gotten a whole lot of really good and valuable information, and been privy to a whole lot of heartache, tragedy, and human support and kindness. The posters on the board for the most part are so good to one another, and so helpful. But I posted a query about a year ago, before B and I got serious about one another, looking for information about beginning a relationship with a partner with PD. I was hoping for some good suggestions and advice about how to approach this new journey, which I was so eager to begin. And I have to say I got pretty roundly criticized.

Some went so far as to say that I was crazy - that they would never have chosen to love someone if they'd known they would have PD. That I was naive and I would never be able to handle all the physical caregiving that was right around the bend. That I was just in 'puppy love', and I should essentially just 'grow up'. Of all of the avalanche of negativity, I got three notes of encouragement: one from a woman who still believed in love, no matter what. One from a patient, who was appalled at the concept that people out there would deem him 'damaged goods'. And one, thank heavens, from another woman who is further along in the same journey I've undertaken.

Now, I know that maybe that wasn't the best place to ask for advice. I've made all the little excuses in my mind for the group members that responded, thinking "Oh, well.... they've been caregivers longer. They're tired. They're burned out. They can't remember when it was good." And I just let it go. I lurked for a long time on that board, still reading, still taking in information. And I posted a couple of comments and questions over the course of the year and realized that I was essentially getting the 'virtual cold shoulder'. I asked myself 'what is wrong with me that no one wants to interact with me??' I felt hurt for a long time.

And then, earlier this month, I watched it from the outside. Another newbie to the group made a post, almost exactly like mine from a year ago. She's in love with a man with PD, looking for information, because she wants to cleave her life to his. She wants to know everything, because it's part of who he is, and she's looking to the group to tell her how she can help him.. how they can make this life work, despite the small challenges. All she was asking for was hope. I knew they would excoriate her. I knew how it would feel for her. By the time they'd all weighed in, my letter of encouragement was lost in the melee, and she'd posted a sad little postscript, as I had a year ago - the voices of discouragement succeeded in making her question her own choices.

And I've finally figured it out. It isn't me, per se, nor her. It's that we belong to that other group, as did the other three posters that responded to me. We're 'encouragers'. Our glasses are half full. You see, we're threatening to the burned out people, the negative ones. They don't want to change. It's painful to contemplate change... to reach out for hope. It's so much easier to sink into the quiet dark places of resentful acceptance, and lash out when they're challenged. They want us down there too - to see us filled with hope reminds them that they're empty. Perhaps they were on the other side once.

As for me - I refuse to give in. I logged in to the board today and found a wonderful letter on that thread, from my friend who is traversing the same road. She and her husband are fiercely waving the banner of hope, clinging to life and eating it with gusto. They haven't given in, and neither will we. We don't care what life throws at us... we're going to weather it together, because that is what love is all about. B could have thrown me away a long time ago. I'm plenty 'broken' my own self. But instead, he's brought me some glue and between us we're figuring out where all the pieces go back together. And like the china hutch, between the two sets of our hands, we're going to make something beautiful.

That glass is half full, and boy... it's been mighty tasty. When we finish this cup I think we'll pour ourselves another.

Cheers!