Newt (not the Nefarious one) wants you to fail, too.

Over the weekend, I got together with a colleague to drink nuclear-strength coffee and grouse about our writing-intensive summer plans:  deadlines, uncertainty, anxiety.  He mentioned the chapter “Shitty First Drafts” from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird:  Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

When I got home, I dug out my copy,which I’ve returned to multiple times over the last dozen years, and read through that chapter again.  It’s short, and I recommend you read the whole book (brisk and warm, like a good mentor), but the next chapter, “Perfectionism,” is what always punches me in the face:

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people.  It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.  I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive believe that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die.  The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.

Obviously, she’s talking specifically about writing, and I “know” (but cannot seem to learn) that perfectionism and writing are chalk and cheese.   But I’ve repeatedly read that  paragraph over again, and I think it’s one of those things that warrants tattooing on the underside of my eyelids, with an amendation that makes it even more useful to me (pace Ms. Lamott):

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.  It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a freely chosen life.

Of course, most women have real, material oppressors (people, lack of resources or education, health challenges, etc.) that one can’t just choose away, but for most of our readership, I would guess that perfectionism, “the voice of the oppressor”–or what I’ve elsewhere called “the Patriarch in Your Head”–does its own number on us.  The pressure to be the perfect mother, student, professional, partner, example of womanity, is enough to make one insane.  A lot of that pressure originates from the outside, but (in my case at least) a lot of it is something that I’ve digested and ultimately decided upon:  this is how it’s done.  This is only how it is done.

So, as I launch into a big project and come face to face with that voice that spits venom and assures me I’m capable of accomplishing nothing but crap, I’m going to try to remember that the voice is not “The Truth Teller”  (my tendency), but The Oppressor.  The Patriarch.  Maybe Rush Limbaugh, or Dick Cheney, or some other loathsome old misogynist shitweasel, telling  me that I will FAIL, with the sole intent of causing me to fail.

Writing is my battlefield, and it’s easy to think, sitting alone at my desk, that my academic, not-explicitly-feminist writing is not part of my feminism.  Wrongo-dongo.  I really believe that everything I do is part of my feminism, and learning to write, and to keep writing, and to kick in the metaphorical teeth those who want me to tremble and quail is, too.

My doc–a PCP/internist, not a gyno–is pretty good.  She’s very business-like, swift without being brusque, and lets me know what each step is coming and why.  HOWEVER.   She also repeatedly uses the phrase “when you get pregnant,” even though 1) I’ve told her that is Not Happening, and 2) she’s the Dude’s PCP too and referred him for a vasectomy a little over a year ago.  I’ve stopped correcting her.  But that’s just an annoyance.  As was her smiley, approving comment about the weight I’ve lost in the last year, although a) I wasn’t “overweight” to begin with, b) I’m still in the same BMI* range and c) it’s due to a medication I was taking for a recently-diagnosed case of Seasonal Affective Disorder, not any healthy choices on my part.

Anyway, the “nervous” thing. I’ve got some genetic  tendency towards blood clots, which is a big reason I went off the Pill and the Dude got the snip. As I mentioned in the thread to Becky’s I Heart BCP post, I have been on oral contraceptives almost continuously since the age of 19, after my one and only pregnancy scare.  There might have been a month off here or there, since I moved around a lot and couldn’t always get to a clinic right away, but then I was right back on it.  And it was good to me.  No babies, of course, and before I took it, my cycle was never regular:  21 days, 33 days…who knew?  On the Pill?  clockwork.  Literally:  4th Wednesday, around 4pm.

Until January of 2009.  I went off.  And everything went off.  I went kinda wackadoo.  Mood swings, pimples like a 14 year old boy’s, and maaaaaaaad libido, followed by a profound, raging depression that was no doubt exacerbated by the Seasonal thing.  Bad times.   A lot of lost time.

So I went back on it, for nearly a year, until we figured out wtf was going on.  And the answer is:  SAD?  Peri-menopause (keeeeerist, at 34)?  Uh…fleas?  Not sure.  But I leveled out with the combination of BCP and the drug what tweaks my dopamine levels (SSRIs decidedly DID NOT work), we went with it.

Until now.  I’ve run out my Rx for BCP, and agreed with my doc to play the waiting game to see what happens to my “unregulated” body and brain.  And I’m nervous.

I’ve read more than a handful of posts in the fem-o-sphere about the risks of taking hormonal contraception, and plenty of horror stories about bad experiences on this pill or that, but frankly, I’m worried about what’s going to happen not taking them.  To me, personally, because last year sucked giant mega monster dongs.  But also, more generally, from a feminist perspective.  No one can deny that chemistry matters, or that body and brain are intricately intertwined, so what if my lady-hormones naturally fluctuate so much–or are just so out of whack–that I become utterly unreasonable, emotionally whippy, a giant walking bag of  gushy fluids and angst?  A hideous stereotype of the excessive, out-of-control woman, incapacitated by that which makes her (biologically, anyway) female?  In other words: everything I reject and debunk?

I know I’m not representative of all womanity, but srsly, cue the Painful Irony.

Anyway, I guess where I’m headed with this is to admit something I deeply, deeply don’t want to admit:  I don’t trust my own body.  After my experience last year, I’m afraid of it.  I’m worried about what might happen to my body, but more worried about what might happen to my brain.

This is already overlong, and I’m just touching the intersection of feminism and disability/ableism (absolutely not my strong point), and pondering the idea of sex AS disability, so I’m throwing this out there, though I don’t know what to ask for or expect. Weigh in, theorize, refer (I can’t find any good info on this issue that isn’t about fertility, which I don’t give a crap about), yawn, bleach the overshare-y details from your brain, whatever.  It’s where I am, and I could use some perspective.

*I think of it as Bogus Medical Idea, or the Bite Me Index,  but she has  her little chart on the wall and uses it to decide people’s…health?  worth?

What was the most surprising thing you learned or experienced during the past year?

BeckySharper: I have to say, I wrote one post that led to something transformative but utterly unexpected. In October wrote a post about how my father called me a slut and how hurt and angry I was–not expecting that he would read it (he knew about the blog but had never seemed particularly interested in it). He was absolutely furious and deeply wounded, both by what I’d written and by how harsh some of the comments were. This led to a very emotional showdown that, frankly, had been a couple decades in the making. As painful as it was for both of us, it was cathartic and I think our relationship was made stronger and more understanding because of it.

(Don’t look for the post now, though. While I absolutely stand by what I wrote, it was a real thorn in my father’s side, so out of consideration for his feelings, I deleted it.)

PhDork: It’s weird, though, how being a feminist on the internet has made me more of a feminist–or at least a louder feminist, whatever–in life. Writing and reading with you and our readers have honed my spidey-senses, and I’m much less tolerant of sexist bullshit. Of course, it’s also meant that I can’t enjoy certain things like I used to.

BeckySharper: I completely agree about how being a feminist on the internet affects IRL sensibilities and interactions. I am definitely more outspoken on feminist issues and much quicker to call out sexist behavior. The downside is that things which I might have shrugged off in the past now get under my skin more. But I can live with that.

sarah.of.a.lesser.god: I’ve learned never to expect a certain volume of reactions on a given post, and that the posts you might least expect to touch a nerve are the ones that generate a huge amount of discussion.

BeckySharper: So true.

PhDork: Well, some things are fairly safe bets, like porn, but you’re right.  It’s been a good experience for me about learning to let go of fears of “how will this land?”  Who knows?  Throw it out there.

SarahMC: I am pleasantly surprised that my boyfriend is interested in, and keeps up with, the blog. It’s comforting to know I have his support in this endeavor.

PhDork: Do you think his reading it has had effects on him IRL, or in your relationship?

SarahMC: It’s lead to him asking me, “You bloggin’ it again?” when I’m paying too much attention to the computer and not enough to him, heh.

PhDork: Promising!

SarahMC: I am surprised we have not had an influx of trolls like most other feminist blogs do.

PhDork: Does that mean we’re doing something right, or something wrong?

BeckySharper: I dunno. Maybe they fear our harpy talons? I guess this is the rare exception to the usual blogosphere rule that all attention is good attention; I’m totally fine with not getting troll-ish attention. I feel like we get a lot of on-line love from like-minded bloggers, and I feel great about that.