Attention Who-Me: The Rules I Still Keep (Part Two)
“Rules and regulations to command and obey” (Fuzzbox, “Rules and Regulations”). No uninvited guests is a lifelong rule that I still keep. Growing up, my dad was a recovering junkie on methadone. Not only was I not supposed to talk about that openly (as I addressed in part one), I was highly discouraged from having friends over without my dad's prior knowledge and approval. This might make sense as a little kid, but that remained true until I moved out in my twenties.
My dad was incredibly paranoid about the methadone, that he had a controlled supply of at home until the day he moved out. When I was a child, it was just enough to get him through the weekend because the methadone clinic wasn't open. As I got older, my dad earned the privilege, due to following the treatment rules, to take a longer range of supplies home, which made him incredibly anxious. He was concerned about people knowing it was there for theft reasons and he was worried about it being spilled.
By extension, I was also worried about those things and my dad wasn't exactly the most flexible person if you didn't do things his way. Today, I wonder if my childhood friends would have been allowed to come over if their parents knew there was a highly controlled substance on the premises. Most of the time my friends and I would be playing video games in my room or doing something outside, so it was generally a non issue. I don't ever remember being tempted to show my friends because I was afraid to do anything of the sort and didn't want to get my dad in trouble with the clinic. There was no one I was more loyal to than my father.
That loyalty made it pretty easy for me to keep the “don't talk about that” rule. For instance, my dad had a gun in the house that nobody knew was there (except maybe me) for almost thirty years. It would take me many years to understand that, similar to how I follow a lot of rules I was conditioned to follow, so did others. We didn't talk about my dad's hippie days or rock-'n'-roll around Grandma because it was upsetting to her. It took me a while to understand that because I thought it was cool that my dad had been a peace and love hippie, turned born again Christian. For Grandma there was still a wound there. As a parent, this makes a lot more sense to me. I wouldn't want my kids to go off and join some drugged out counterculture movement. For what it's worth, I'll be equally disappointed if they become Evangelical Christians some day because I fought so hard to get out of that.
The “don't talk about that” rule was bigger than just discomfort. It was creating a narrative that avoided negative attention. I experienced some trauma in early adolescence that I was explicitly told not to tell anyone. I didn't from age ten to twenty two. Then I went through a phase where I had no boundaries around the story. But, for twelve years, I didn't talk about that to anybody. Six people knew what happened (that includes me). This is probably the area where “don't talk about that” created the most fear and shame for me. However, it extended beyond singular events.
Secrecy is a mindset that a lot of addicts and alcoholics depend on to keep their addictions from exposure. My dad may have been in addiction treatment for most of my life, but he was still very much an addict, and what might have been an overly open discussion at home, was forbidden to the ears of the outside world. The main reason I still follow the “don't talk about that” rule is because it's ingrained in me that the truth is shameful or painful. This has been reinforced by people's reactions to certain truths. When I had to tell hospital doctors that my dad was on methadone, the entire tone of discussion would shift from treating a patient to he's a drug addict. By the time my mom overdosed in my twenties, I knew to avoid stating the cause like the plague. When my mom died, I was an Evangelical Christian at an Evangelical Christian University. I knew exactly what kind of reactions I'd get if many of them had heard my mom overdosed to her death.
I didn't need to hear things like, “Oh dear, I'll pray that Jesus will save her.” I didn't need to be asked if she was a Christian or not. She was for my entire life, until the day she died. It didn't save her life or keep her from spiraling into addiction. I was a Christian for many decades. They can be some of the most judgemental people I've ever met. It's where I learned how to judge people for their sins. I also learned a fair amount of shame and judgement while being bullied for my CP. In the contexts that I've spent most of my life, the “don't talk about that” rule felt like safety, even when it was creating its own wounds.
“Do you believe in yourself or are you living for everyone else?” (Tim Kellogg, “Attention Who-Me,” 2011). I'm sure some people who knew me back in my twenties are very curious to know that I have a “don't cuss in the wrong context” rule. I've tasted a bar of soap for using four-letter-words because saying “shit” was a sin. It's not, but whatever. Also, I learned the word “fuck” around age four from my dad, so I find it mildly interesting that the same person I learned it from made me taste soap for it. He wasn't the only adult in my life who made me taste soap as a consequence for cussing. Bad news guys, the soap didn't wash the fuck out of my mouth. It just taught me an early lesson in the importance of context.
I learned I'm not supposed to cuss at school, church, or Grandma's house. I followed this rule of context pretty well for a long time. I was free and loose with my words at home, I just used the “don't talk about that” rule. My friends at school thought I didn't cuss until I was met with peer pressure about it in middle school. I didn't need to be scolded by my grandma for swearing around her so I didn't do it, minus the occasional slip that I'd immediately regret. Church was an easy no cussing zone because it's pretty ingrained that cussing is sinful behavior and good Christians don't do that. All my favorite ones do, but that's besides the point.
I called the song quoted above “Attention Who-Me” to avoid using the word whore, which I openly point to within the song because it was about my girlfriend calling me an “attention whore.” The funny thing to me is that I'm still pretty contextual about cussing and it's not because I believe it's a sin. In my twenties I wouldn't cuss in my songs very often because I didn't want the inevitable criticism from my Evangelical Christian community. Then in other settings, I'd do it on purpose to piss people off. I don't swear casually in front of my kids. Unfortunately they learned a few cuss words from me when I was mad because I have a shorter fuse than most people realize in my daily settings. I don't like that because I don't want my kids to think about me the way I think about my dad.
I can give a speech or a meeting presentation without ever saying a cuss word. When I tell these stories in writing or in person, the four-letter-words flow because I let them. Then there are times where I inexplicably censor my swear words. At this point, I don't swear to antagonize people anymore. It's just part of my dialogue and playing on words. The words I use are intentional most of the time.
Finally, don't do things without permission. This rule is not one I'm thrilled to still be following. There's nothing wrong with asking permission. My issue with this rule is that it's a form of powerlessness for me. It's a need for approval to function in life. It started because my father expected it and growing up Evangelical, obedience was a big deal. I'm over forty years old, it's taken me a long time to do things because I want to, instead of asking if what I want to do is going to inconvenience someone. I still follow this rule out of a sense of obligation to others.
Always having to ask permission is a huge hurdle in becoming a leader. I still don't want to upset people with my decisions. I know that probably seems in conflict with the cussing rule above because I've done that to upset people. That's an interesting thing about trauma responses, they don't always follow logical progressions. It's not that I care to ask permission so much as it is that I feel like I need to. Permission equals safety in my brain. Why I worry about having permission in one setting and not the next has everything to do with fear.
I wasn't afraid to swear around my Evangelical peers and make them mad because I didn't feel like they had authority over me and I had enough faith in God (at the time) that I didn't really think God cared all that much about my cussing versus my kindness. In contrast, I was afraid to cuss around my grandma even as an adult because it wasn't permissible (there were a few blowouts that were an exception to this). If you look at all of the aforementioned rules, they were driven by permission or the lack of it. I didn't have permission to have uninvited guests over, I didn't have permission to talk about things openly (something I think about every time I share my stories), and I didn't have permission to cuss in most settings.
The power of permission is so strong for me that it ended a lot of nights with friends in high school, it ended at least one friendship, it kept significant parts of my life shrouded in secrecy for decades, it has censored my creativity, and it's created the illusion of safety at times. I'm sharing these stories without anyone's permission but my own, which is why I don't say a lot about the living. Not having permission scares the shit out of me.
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