let me do the talking.

I'm looking at 10+ days of being sick, and I'm ready for it to be over. Oh well.

We had an intriguing discussion/activity in my philosophy/first-year writing class yesterday (Wednesday). (for the record, taking a first-year writing class is requisite in the psych major, regardless of whether or not you tested out of the course using AP English credit from high school.) It was about walls and barriers in our lives, and how they speak for us much of the time. Essentially my teacher boiled down the walls in our lives to experiences from our past - finding out we're not the center of the universe when we first go to preschool, realizing we're not incredibly brilliant when we get our first low mark on a test, discovering we're not ultra-talented when we get cut from the team by a coach, etc. When we have experiences like that, we react to them, and begin to form a web of belief that defines how we see the world - those other kids in preschool just aren't cool enough to hang out with me, school sucks and my teacher is stupid and I don't need her to learn, and coach just doesn't see my latent talent and potential, etc. As we formulate those opinions and beliefs, often they get in the way of our communication with others - soon it's our walls speaking, and not us. Somehow who we are gets confused and lost in the cacophony of preconceived notions and skewed perspectives we wrap around ourselves.

It all rang very true for me. I think I escaped a lot of the wall-making, because I tend to take things in stride (of course, my view of myself is likely also skewed by my walls of perception and previous notions of my 'self'), but some walls are definitely there. Walls of belief, coping- and safety-mechanisms, psychological abnormalities, etc. filter what I take in and make me see everything the way I want to see it. At the same time, it defines a lot of what I allow people to perceive me as. Though I am a goody-two-shoes at heart (and possibly because of that), I want people to see me that way - part of my perception of myself that I like to project to others is that I'm in some way morally superior to them. I will go to great lengths to perpetuate this perception, and sometimes when I notice I'm doing it (unconsciously, usually) I get quite irate with myself, because honestly...who am I to determine the moral high ground? My walls of shyness, introversion, and insecurity masked by bravado tend to shine out before the real 'me' inside can get more than five words in - I think a lot of people perceive me as aloof, uncaring, or untouchable because of the way I present myself.

So how do we break down our own personal barriers to let the real 'us' shine? Unfortunately I think that journey's unique for everyone, but for me I'm starting with identifying what my barriers are, and then I'm going to figure out what I personally need to do to counteract them. If I can roll with the punches and adapt as well as I think I can, it should be an exciting exercise.

What does anyone else think about the concept, especially of one's walls doing the talking for them? It seems like those of us who deal with SSA tend to be especially adept at creating walls around ourselves to determine what we say and do, especially in social situations and interactions with other people. I guess another question in our case is whether or not we want to bring those barriers down, because honestly we are safer in Mormon society when we've got some of our barriers up. Is safe enough? I'm guessing the depends uniquely on each individual as well. It's a lot to think about.

~drex