Unsupportive

laughing faces

My environment wasn’t supporting me so I had to support myself. I had to create my own ‘supportive environment’! This was a full time job in itself but I figured I had no other choice, things being what they were. It seemed to work well enough at first. If I made a point for example then I’d follow up on this point and I’d say to myself yes good point Nick, I see where you’re coming from with that. If I said anything at all then I’d immediately affirm the validity of what I’d just said, I’d nod sagely to myself (in my imagination that is, obviously not openly so everyone could see me) saying yes indeed Nick that was a valid thing to say there. And if I thought something then the same thing applied – I’d straightaway affirm the validity of what I’d just thought, I’d straightaway agree with myself that the thought had certainly been worth thinking, no matter what sort of a crappy thought it was. If I did something (any kind of action, no matter how trivial, no matter how petty) then I’d say to myself Nick you did the right thing there to do that –  that was really worth doing…

 

I said this no matter what the consequences were. If the consequences of what I had done were disastrous then I’d  say well you weren’t to know it was going to end this way Nick that was an honest mistake you made the best decision you could have made with the information you had available at the time… Or I might blame it on someone else if there was someone else handy and say, well that was their fault, they made me do it. Or if there was no one handy to blame then I’d blame the world in general and say well the universe made me do it. These were all ways I had of supporting my own existence, you see. Sometimes I’d come right out with it and support my existence quite openly and I’d say “yes yes  you do exist Nick. You really are here and you have a very valid existence, no question of it”. I took to doing this from time to time, at sporadic intervals – ‘Yup Nick, you exist alright’ I’d say. It was a bit like giving myself a little pat on the shoulder to reassure myself. It was just a little bit of ontological support, that’s all. Who doesn’t need that? Who doesn’t need a little bit of ontological support?

 

This was fine at first as I say but quickly enough it started to grate on my nerves – all of it, not just my periodical interjections telling myself reassuringly that I really did exist. I was starting to get downright annoyed by this way that I had of agreeing with myself the whole time. This whole business of hearing my own voice constantly validating me and validating me and validating me was – I found after a while – very irritating. I’d say something and no sooner than I’d had it said then I’d hear myself agreeing with whatever it was I’d just said and telling myself that I had a very valid point there. Or I’d think of something and straightaway I’d hear myself commentating on the thought saying yes, yes, yes, that’s a very good though you had there Nick. And this wasn’t the half of it. The damn process kept escalating and escalating the whole time so that before very long I’d hear myself commenting on my own comments saying stuff like yes, yes, yes that’s’ right nick that’s a good comment you just made there, you were right to validate yourself as you did just there…

 

Well at this stage I was starting to see in a very clear way that this business of supporting myself the whole time (because my environment wouldn’t) was in grave danger of turning very nasty indeed. Very very nasty. I could see where this was all going and I didn’t like it. As you might imagine I was not feeling good about this at all. Just to say that what was happening was ‘getting on my nerves’ was very wide of the mark. Very wide of the mark indeed. It had been getting on my nerves to start with alright but this was turning into a whole different ballgame. This was going off down the road, at a frighteningly brisk pace, to a very bad place indeed…

 

This was not good. Everything I did or said or thought immediately set up a barrage of the most unpleasant type of echoes – I was haunting myself with incredible persistence, in the most diabolical fashion imaginable! I couldn’t do a thing without bringing down this devils’ chorus onto my head. Anything I did it was like yes, yes, yes that’s good that you did that Nick. Anything that I said it was like you’re right, you’re right, you’re right and anything I thought it was the same thing, it was validation, validation, validation. Validation till the cows come home. It was validation all the way, and then it was validation of the validation. It went on and on. It fed on itself and grew extra heads. It laughed and it played skits with itself. It roared in my ear one moment and then whispered the next. The tone of the voice changed too – going abruptly from being softly comforting to being unmistakably mocking, and then going back to comforting again…

 

And when I stayed completely quiet in myself, not doing anything, not saying anything, not even thinking anything anymore (which was the only way I could escape the devils’ chorus) then there would be the interjections, coming at differing intervals, coming when I didn’t expect them, catching me unawares, saying “Yes, yes, yes, Nick you definitely exist, no doubt about that”, or “Yup, you exist Nick, no worries there…” The interjections were the worst of all – they put me in a really strange place. They messed with my head. I couldn’t handle the interjections at all. I found them totally undermining.

 

I couldn’t believe what this was doing to me. I couldn’t get my head around it. This wasn’t supporting me at all – on the contrary, it was taking me to pieces! It was systematically eroding the very ground from under my feet. I couldn’t imagine a less supportive environment. I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me… This was really taking the piss…

 

 

 

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