Types, and my formative years

I think most of us around here are about my age, in our fifties, a few of us a bit younger, a few a bit older. So we spent our early, formative years in the pre-feminist era. Feminist ideas were hovering around, waiting for the match to spark the flames, but really, feminism, or at least the second wave of feminism*, didn't get started until the seventies when I was halfway through grade school and able to at least partially understand what the issues were.

So we're a funny hybrid. I can't imagine that anyone who reads here would argue against the basic ideas of feminism: outside some minor limitations of upper body strength, women can do whatever jobs men can do, if they are so inclined. Women should not be defined by their reproductive capabilities or lack thereof. Women are not here to be support staff for the important work that men are doing. We should be equally supportive of all human beings, regardless of race/gender/orientation/religion/whatever.

And yet we were raised back in the early 60s, in a world where the old ideas were still strong. Women could maybe have other interests on their own time, but really their primary job was either to be supportive of, or ornamental to, the "real" world of men. We weren't valuable on our own (which is why it was so supposedly awful to be unmarried), but only to the extent that we were helpful or pleasing to the men in our lives. And we raised children.

I was not raised to think that I could be of value just exactly as I was--a sometimes moody, sometimes dreamy, definitely shy, bookish, nerdy girl. How could that possibly be of value to the people around me? I believed that I needed to be cheerful, friendly, uncomplaining, and attractive (thin), to be of worth. I'd never even heard of being an introvert. It wasn't an option.

Whether or not that was what the people around me intended, that was what I picked up, and that was how I modeled myself. I developed a perky, enthusiastic social persona that sometimes worked, and often didn't, and that got me through my first twenty-two years of life. (Nowadays, I can tell when I'm feeling really stressed about a social situation, because I'll find myself pulling that persona out again. If you ever see me being perky, pull me aside and tell me to calm down.)

But putting on that cute, friendly act exhausted me. I still remember the night when it broke beyond repair. I don't remember the exact date, but in late August 1983, after I graduated from college, I was starting grad school for a master's in English, and I went to a meet-and-greet for the new grad students. There might even have been ice-breaker activities.

In other words, it was what I now think of as my worst nightmare. But I didn't know that then. I thought I was supposed to enjoy getting to know my fellow students. About an hour or so into it, I found myself uncontrollably on the verge of breaking into tears. I couldn't stand it for one more minute. I left early, drove myself back to my brand new apartment and cried for hours.

It was weeks, maybe months, before I could begin to understand why I was crying. But now I know: I had reached the end of being able to pull it off, the illusion that I was this eternally cheerful, outgoing person. That minor breakdown started a couple of years of deep confusion for me, culminating in my mid-twenties with the deepest depression I've ever experienced.

I ended up dropping out of grad school, and it wasn't until a couple of years later when I had a job and several months of therapy under my belt (yay for work benefits that include therapy) that I started to feel like I was putting myself back together. Or maybe putting myself together for the first time.

And it wasn't until a year after that that I learned about being an introvert.  It was like suddenly someone handed me a Get Out of Jail Free card-- I was flooded with relief. OH! THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME! I'M JUST AN INTROVERT.

And to this day, that is what I love about personality types. For me, the primary value is validation. Here you are, and you're just fine exactly the way you are. And 30+ years later, the Enneagram did the same thing for me in a different way, and that is why I am so fascinated by it at the moment.

I listened to a guy, an Enneagram "expert," on a podcast yesterday who said that the danger in using the Enneagram for validation is that it becomes an exercise in narcissism, and I thought: you only think that because you're a man. You've never needed validation. It was a judge-y and catty (and probably unfair) thing to think, but that's the first thing that popped into my head.

(It probably has less to do with gender than whether or not you're already comfortable with who you are.)

Well, this time I didn't get anywhere close to where I wanted to go. In fact, I'm even further away than I was at the end of the last post. But this is plenty long enough. Have a great day.

* the feminism that swept the country in the seventies is called "second wave" feminism. The first wave was the suffragettes back in the early twentieth century. And the third wave is where we are now, with a plurality of different ways to be empowered human beings.