Wait, so that was a cult?

I wasn't very happy when I wandered into the gift shop. I was eighteen years old, nearing the end of my school years, and suffering from the kind of identity crisis that introspective teenagers can get themselves into. I didn't like who I was but felt stuck with it; I was having trouble making decisions about my future; I was in various degrees of crisis with the people around me. Not thinking very highly of myself I had limited faith in my ability to fix any of my problems, but I knew things couldn't go on like this. Something had to change.

When I picked up the pink leaflet advertising a meditation class, I was reaching for something. I'd tried a bit of meditation from a book and it had given me some kind of peace for a few moments; being an identity-panicked teenager, the fact that alternative lifestyles were in fashion among my peers but that nobody had tried meditation was not an insignificant factor. But it wasn't the casual interest of an experience seeker or a confident woman; it was the desperate grab of a girl who needed something and couldn't think of anything else. Before I ever attended a class, I was committed.

What I didn't know at the time was that the leaflets weren't left there by some visiting advertiser. The shop and the classes were run by the same organisation - the same organisation that ran cafes, a publisher, and numerous other 'right livelhood' business with a turnover of several million pounds a year. I'd walked into a small branch of something bigger, wealthier and more powerful that I could have guessed from that cheap little flier. Since then the organisation has changed its name, and perhaps its practises as well, but in 1995 it was calling itself the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, the FWBO for short. A nicely reassuring, mainstream-sounding name. It was two years before the Guardian article came out that talked of misogyny, sexual abuse and suicide.

At the time it surfaced, I was a regular attendee. Did it make me leave the movement? It did not.

That was just one centre that went a bit wrong, I was told. The woman who told me was a nice person: she'd been kind to me, and indeed was kind to everyone, and she spoke as one who knew and trusted that things weren't like that here. The story didn't seem to match my experience; nobody had sexually abused me. And besides, she was a 'member' of the Western Buddhist Order, an insider with a Buddhist name, while I was just a 'friend', a drop-in - and the Order was pretty clear that just visiting the classes (and paying £3.50 for each), going on retreats (and paying a few hundred pounds for a week, less if it was a 'working' retreat where you repainted the shrine room or dug rocks from the ground to smooth it over for a lawn) and meditating daily (or almost daily, and feeling guilty about the missed days) didn't make you a member. She was, I wasn't. So I assumed she knew what she was talking about. It didn't stop me coming.

Neither did the other discussions I heard rumbling around over the dinner table on retreats. There was talk of how the founders saw men as spiritually superior to women - and since the retreats were single-sex, that meant us, all the women round the table. One woman - a 'mitra', a sort of half-member - said that her revelation was this: enlightenment was so worth having that even putting up with subordination was worthwhile. I wasn't sure I bought this, because it didn't seem to address the point: my discomfort was not with subordinate status (after all, it was a hierarchical place anyway), it was that I simply didn't believe that women were less than men and felt that saying they were was a grave moral failing, one that called a person's spiritual judgement into question.

But I let it go. I'd never met the founder, and in an organisation this size I probably never would. For me, it was about the people at my local centre and the people I met on retreat. These were nice people, kind, thoughtful, dedicated and not at all exploitative, and none of the men treated the women disrespectfully that I could see. It raised some doubts about the founder, but it wasn't about him, or not for me. I stayed.

When I left, it wasn't an abrupt break. It was a gradual drift, largely triggered by reasons that lay me open to charges of being a spiritual shopper, a casual consumer - but which were actually nagging doubts, little breaths of discomfort that, now I had a new life and felt better about myself, I didn't have to suppress to stay on the life raft. I went to university and the Cambridge centre was a long, dark walk away from my room, and I didn't much like the people there. One man - an Order member - asked me how many breaths I could count in a meditation before I lost track, as if we were talking about how much I could bench press. And this was an Order member? This centre didn't seem worth the walk; I liked my new friends better than him. I started writing on arts retreats run by the organisation, and found that this was my real passion - and the fact that the founder's poetry was much studied and admired by followers despite being pretty poor stuff was something I saw much more of than I saw misogyny or sexual abuse. I wanted things that the Order spoke rather sneeringly of: a family, heterosexual relationships, some experience of the world before I gave it up. 

Little things. Or big ones, perhaps, glimpsed through little moments. Doubtful values. Claims to be the exclusive source of fulfillment that didn't tally with reality. Pressure to conform with rigid lifestyle mandates. 

Writing this article, I wanted to type the words 'They didn't hurt me.' And I think the experience did me more good than harm. I grew in confidence. I deepened my sense of beauty, vitality, being present in the world. I learned I could write. I started to find a self. These are not small things. This place that had hurt other people was, for me, the soil in which a seed of joy started to grow. I'm a happy person, and it was in that cult that I started to become so.

But there were other moments. Crying fits I couldn't explain. Guilt at being unable to sustain perfect 'mindfulness' every waking second. A sense of shallowness because I was who I was: a girl who didn't want a monastic life. Even now, when I hear the word 'Buddhism', I don't feel a sense of peace: I feel constriction, uncertainty. Fear. 

And then there's the fact that I gave money to an organisation that, by all accounts, did other people some very serious damage.

Like the Westerner I am, I exercised consumer choice. I took the good and left the bad, as far as I could, on the shelf; I walked away when I found more attractive options. Eventually. 

But I know what it is to feel the pressure to choose between believing someone you trust - or want to - and having your emotional lifebelt rupture. I know how easy it is to miss the glaringly obvious when you're looking at it from below. I know what it is about cults, bad religions: the followers are much better people than the leaders. The followers I knew were idealists, aspirers, people seeking a life of morality and integrity and insight. They were lovely people ... and they were the ones I actually spent time around. Their loveliness stood between me and the dark shadow of the movement, and for a long time I couldn't see over it. 

I was young and naive, but I was also mobile: university changed my circumstances completely, in a way that often isn't available to people in doubtful movements. I was passionate about the movement, but peripheral to it: no authority figure particularly wanted me for anything, so the pressure on me came solely from the environment and not from direct personal relationships. I was lucky: I wasn't important to them. 

I'm in no position to judge anyone for staying in a dark faith. 

From the outside, it's obvious: the leader is a bad person saying bad things. Who but a bad person would follow such a teacher? But from the inside... 

People talk of the six blind men trying to learn what an elephant is: it's a rope, it's a trunk, it's a wall. It's an image often used for different understandings of the divine. But it's an image for understanding cults, too. It wasn't a cult to me. It was a rope. I held on, and it pulled me to a new place. And then I let go, and landed safely. 

I think sometimes of the people I knew back then. I hope they're all right. 

    

--Kit Whitfield

 __________________________________________________________

 

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Comments

[Deird, whose mother specialises in both]

It might be worth your while to get assessed for Asperger's. I have it (mildly) and I can identify a lot with what you wrote.

The same would apply to ADHD (like me!). But then, that has a lot of similarities to Aspergers.

[Kit Whitfield]

@kisekileia - I'm glad you find it so. Any other catchphrases you want me to have a crack at? :-)

[Froborr]

@Froborr: It might be worth your while to get assessed for Asperger's. I have it (mildly) and I can identify a lot with what you wrote.

I have been, actually. I'm not, I have Avoidant Personality Disorder. Which if I understand correctly (and forgive me if I'm badly misunderstanding the nature of autistic-spectrum disorders) is sort of the polar opposite problem: I'm so conscious of other people's social and emotional cues, and so hyper-vigilant in monitoring how they shift in response to my actions, I get overwhelmed, freeze up, and retreat.

I love talking on the Internet for that reason, it's so much easier to *think*. In RL conversations I'll sometimes just stop in the middle of a sentence, totally unable to get out the next word because there is TOO MUCH GOING ON in my head. Drives my fiancee crazy. I've tried explaining to her that pressuring me to keep talking is anti-helpful, I think she's *starting* to get that, but she clearly gets frustrated sometimes.

I am lucky in having a relatively mild case--in situations where I'm playing a pre-defined role, such as at work, or presenting a panel at a convention, I can turn off the obsessive monitoring and focus on playing the part. There doesn't even have to be a script if I understand very clearly what my role is and how it relates to the people around me. I can even carry that persona around--I can have lunch with my colleagues, for example, and not obsessively monitor because I've got my work face on. But it gets kind of exhausting to be playing a role all the time.

[kisekileia]

@Kit: YES. One of the recurring memes I noticed in conservative evangelical Christianity was, "If you've accepted Jesus as your Savior, your sins are forgiven. But if you want to be truly faithful to Him, build your relationship with God, and be completely right with God, you'll do X, Y, and Z." It was an effective manipulation tool.

[Kit Whitfield]

@Froborr - this may not be helpful, but I read of a case where a psychologist advised a man having social difficulties to keep his conversation focused on asking people about themselves. The thinking was that most people enjoy talking about themselves and their interests, so it would only take a few well-placed questions and then he could sit back and say nothing in a way that signalled 'good listener' rather than 'anti-social'. Is that something you do?

[Jarred]

@Kit: I read of a case where a psychologist advised a man having social difficulties to keep his conversation focused on asking people about themselves. The thinking was that most people enjoy talking about themselves and their interests, so it would only take a few well-placed questions and then he could sit back and say nothing in a way that signalled 'good listener' rather than 'anti-social'.

This is a handy thing to do. However, I will note that I've learned from personal experience that it's not really a healthy solution (at least not without taking other precautions) for everyone, especially those of us who tend to "lose ourselves" in other people's lives and needs.

[Laima]

@Froborr and Will, I hear you about wishing for some *useful* guidance about how to act in social situations. Like Froborr, I have also--unusefully--been told to "just act like yourself". There is never a good time or way to explain to these well-meaning people that when I "act like myself", normal people avoid me. So when I am in ambiguous social situations, I try playing a character who is much more socially adept than I am.

I'm naturally Chaotic, so it's been *really difficult* to learn Lawful social norms. I do have tons of experience making room for myself at the table, metaphorically, despite how disruptive or unwelcome my presence is to the cool kids. I know that I won't die from being unliked. And I've quite often managed to find a niche for myself as an expert in some knowledge or skills that everyone needs, so I am often respected for that. I am deliberately generous with my expertise, and always hopeful of collaboration. I frequently find one or two congenial people who become my special friends, and I presume that they try to explain me to other people. It works well enough in large groups. (It's been a disaster in tiny organizations, with abusive bosses; but likely nothing would've worked there.)

[Will Wildman]

Froborr: Your ranting is also very me, notably the parts about wearing different personas in order to get through a situation without freaking out. I hate presenting things. Around my third year in university I invented Presentation-Me, who is a passable showman because my (his?) whole universe is at the front of the room/on the stage/in the centre of attention, and the rules change.

It's like... there's that bit in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy when villains try to destroy Zaphod by throwing him in the perspective machine, the thing that shows you just how incredibly insignificant you are in the cosmos. And Zaphod comes out just fine because he's already inside an illusion that was made specifically to deceive him, so the 'universe' is really all about him, and the perspective machine tells him that he's actually very important. Same for my presentation persona - 'all eyes on me' is the natural order of things, and so I don't lock up like I might otherwise. Others who have the same problem have thanked me for stepping in and rescuing them when the presentation was beginning to stall.

---

"Assume you are acceptable to others, and insofar as it's compatible with good manners, be honest about your opinions and passions in a relaxed manner that implies that you won't take it personally if others don't agree with or share them."

See, I have trouble reconciling the above with 'just be yourself'. I've been trying to articulate exactly why, but it's tricky; I keep writing and deleting paragraphs. Possibly what it comes down to is that, since I'm often not a social creature, I have to significantly alter my behaviours when I do want to socialise (or other people find it weird and uncomfortable). I've had far more success by telling myself to be less like me - not in the sense of dishonesty about beliefs, but in constantly pinging myself to think about how I appear from the outside and being aware that doing what feels natural to me has a high chance of sending the wrong message. (I am so, so often interpreted to be saying the exact opposite of my intent.)

[Jarred]

In other news, the Vatican is crying that the UN statement against worldwide anti-gay discrimination is an attack on religious rights. It still strikes me as weird that someone can cry that they're being vilified, only to bring up the twin bogey-men of pedophilia and incest as a defense against laws that prohibit same-sex sexual relationships.

[Will Wildman]

And now I just can't stop thinking about the relationship I was getting into a few months back, in which everything seemed to be going perfectly for a few weeks and then got slapped with an indefinite suspension. I thought the socialising aspect was working out pretty well there, but I keep on running back and analysing things to try to figure out if there was something I screwed up. Still in a bit of a tangle about it. Time for a lunch break.

I will say this for the socially-challenged-fallback strategy of trying to focus the conversation on the other person: it's kind of hilarious when both people do it. (Technically, it should even out to a 'normal' conversation, but it can also be like Subject Matter Tennis.)

[Jason]

@Froborr-

I feel just like you much of time.

Off topic: Why does it seem like all of a sudden this "birther" BS is gaining more traction? It has absolutely zero basis in reality, but people still go on and on and on about it like its a legitimate opinion.

I swear if I hear one more person put forth the theory that President Obama was not born in this country or that he "is a Muslim" I think I am going to do something I will regret later.

[Ross]

It's like... there's that bit in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy when villains try to destroy Zaphod by throwing him in the perspective machine, the thing that shows you just how incredibly insignificant you are in the cosmos. And Zaphod comes out just fine because he's already inside an illusion that was made specifically to deceive him, so the 'universe' is really all about him, and the perspective machine tells him that he's actually very important.

I have always hated that retcon. In the original radio play, he's still in the real universe at that point, and he survives because Zaphod Beeblebrox's ego is bigger than the universe.

Off topic: Why does it seem like all of a sudden this "birther" BS is gaining more traction? It has absolutely zero basis in reality, but people still go on and on and on about it like its a legitimate opinion.

Because "The ONLY LEGITIMATE CHOICE" makes a good republican campaign slogan?

[Laima]

@Will, I rewrote my comments extensively too, and then you go and say it better anyway. :(

Kit's advice sounds totally plausible, but my stumbling block is always this part: "Assume you are acceptable to others". Nothing in my life prior to 1992 supported that assertion. And the very first time I got a global sense of that feeling (of being wholly acceptable) was April 11, 2002. I remember the date because it was an epiphany.

[Kit Whitfield]

See, I have trouble reconciling the above with 'just be yourself'

I think 'be' really means 'present a confident version of'.

[Akedhi]

I had the astonishing experience last night of asking someone for advice on what to do in a certain social situation and actually getting specific tips, from a basic "If you are not confident in your ability to be casual/platonic about asking this person to hang out, try starting smaller and offer to bring back a coffee from the coffeeshop you are already going to" to tricks on how to keep from flailing and feeling awkward by partially multitasking when asking, so that the question is really really casual. (The actual tip was "rummage in your purse," which will obviously not work for everyone.) And a quick explanation of whether various probable reactions would mean that I could continue to pursue friendship. That's never happened to me before!

[Kit Whitfield]

And the very first time I got a global sense of that feeling (of being wholly acceptable) was April 11, 2002. I remember the date because it was an epiphany

Glad for you. :-) Do you mind me asking what led to it?

I think in many ways, assuming you're acceptable to others is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not inevitably, because an arrogant toerag with no manners will probably not be welcomed with open arms, but assuming others will accept you is assuming they're nice people - and everyone likes to be thought nice.

[JE]

@Jarred: Oh, that kind of crap :(. Later I'm going to have to find out how one of the bigger political parties around here will back up their claim that they are the real victims when it came to light that they had covered up a series of rapes commited by one of their top people. Not looking forward to that

[Mmy]

However if there is a rule that causes me great inconvenience and I can't think of a single good reason for it, I'm going to ask why the hell that rule is in effect

I was pondering was it was that this sentence so "got to" me -- and I think I have figured why.

As a woman who had training and authority I routinely had men (even very young and untrained men) who challenged my authority/rules/expertize where they did not challenge that of my male colleagues.

After you have watched a group of students obey the instructions of a male janitor (someone who had no authority over them and no special training in the particular circumstance) and then question your own instructions (when you had the authority and training) you become aware of the very different ways in which people (in general) respond to male and female authority figures.

[Will Wildman]

I think 'be' really means 'present a confident version of'.

That sounds about right in terms of getting at the intended meaning, but I still have two issues with the modified advice.

First being that confidence is not the only issue. I can be perfectly confident in myself and still completely not mesh with other people socially because our cues don't match. For example: I can pay intense attention to someone while not looking at them or responding to them in any way. This feels totally natural, but to other people conveys disinterest with an option on contempt. Making it clear that I am listening to them means continually selecting specific cues to show my interest (while modulating them to not seem way way too interested) that are utterly unlike 'myself'. (This may also be part of why I get along with cats.)

Second being that 'confidence' can also come into direct conflict with self. I'm sceptical about practically everything, and prefer to intensely investigate before taking a stance, and be very much aware of and open to alternative interpretations and perspectives, because I figure anyone who thinks they understand anything fully is mistaken. That uncertainty, that continual investigation, is core to me, and 'acting confident' often means suppressing it. And this may be a good and valuable thing, but it still contributes to a conclusion that being socially effective always means some degree of not being me.

[Laima]

@Kit, it was during and after a counseling session. I don't remember what my counselor said, but I suddenly *felt* what she had been telling me in the core of my being. It all made sense finally.

The emotional intensity of it was a lot like that scene in "Good Will Hunting" where the psychiatrist (psychologist?) played by Robin Williams is assuring Matt Damon's character that being abused was not his fault.

[Mink]

Kit: Regarding the removal of the app: Yay! I'm glad they did the right thing. And after a bit of research, I find they had removed the odius, execrable Manhattan Declaration (of War Against QUILTBAGs) as well.

Regarding the Vatican complaining about the UN position against anti-gay activities in the world: I'd really like to know where the Vatican was when the US charged into Iraq. Or when Ghaddafi started killing his own people. Or when Murbarak started killing people. Or when the conflicts between the Federal Police of Mexico and the drug cartels turned into an outright war. Or when the ultra-rich continue to destroy whole neighborhoods, towns cities, *countries* for their greed. They've been mighty silent about everything else.

When Pope Benedict says that the Catholic Church apologizes for wrecking so many young lives by enabling a small number of pedophile priests to continue their predations, and starts making noises about how empathy and social justice are NOT bad things, then maybe I'll give a cat's huff about what the Vatican says. And then we'll address their handling of 'liberation theology.' Saying that the anti-QUILTBAG stance is a blow against religious rights is laughable when the Vatican's own stance on other global issues is irreligious, hypocritical of their own teachings, and disingenuous.

Argh. *wipes froth of rant from mouth* Sorry, in a wordy mood today. =(

[Kit Whitfield]

Personally I find that trying to define oneself is a bit of a marshlight. We have little to go on except our thoughts and feelings, and those change all the time; trying to base a self on them is building on water. Trying to define yourself through introspection is likely to leave you confused and disorientated.

And indeed, cults can play on this one of two ways: either they can encourage you to find yourself, leading you to a state of constant uncertainty, or they can tell you that because your self changes you have no self at all, leading you to dismiss your own judgement whenever you have doubts about their values.

On the whole I find that 'What shall I do?' is a better question than 'Who am I?' I think selves only exist in motion.

[Laima]

@mmy, that's an interesting twist on questioning authority, and I'm glad you brought it up. I have absolutely noticed that phenomenon occurring. I have never been a manager, or a typical authority figure, but I have certainly had the experience of men discounting something I said, but eagerly affirming it when it was repeated by a man. Not quite the same thing but similar.

[sarah]

@Mink: I'm pretty sure the Vatican condemned the war in Iraq, actually. That's not to invalidate anything else, just to address that one point.

[Mink]

sarah: Thanks for pointing that out. I did a quick Google searh for 'vatican condemns' and discovered that, actually, the Vatican condemns quite a bite of stuff, some of it silly -- Robert Edwards getting the Nobel Prize in biology for his work on IVF, a confessional app for the iPhone -- but some of it pretty scarily serious -- the murder of Chinese cardinals, the murder of a Pakistani priest, the burning of the Qurans that that looser tried to do last year. They are unfortunately silent on a number of things.

I shouldn't expect much from the Vatican, and I don't mean that sarcastically. There are a lot of things that I wish they would condemn, that it would make sense for them to condemn, but I imagine if they did then Pope Benedict would be stamping his seal on vellum all day long. I also imagine they have their own agenda when it comes to condemning things, and it's simply not my agenda. The Vatican is NYPA (but wouldn't it make for an interesting story if it WAS? =) ) so... yeah.

[Jarred]

Robert Edwards getting the Nobel Prize in biology for his work on IVF

I'm not sure I'd put that one in the list of silly condemnations. In my mind, it's another case of the Vatican taking a swipe at reproductive rights ("How dare we honor a man for helping couples conceive through advances in medicine!"), which makes it pretty serious in my mind.

[Jason]

@mmy-

I'm sorry if anything I said was triggering for you.

[syfr]

IVF often creates embryos which are not then implanted and allowed to develop. The Catholic Church's stance that a fertilized egg is a human being means that when those embryos are discarded, that is murdering a human being.

[sarah]

@Mink: I had to google NYPA, and then I snickered.

I also snickered at the confessional app. Oh, technology. What are you doing to us?

[Froborr]

I will follow orders from people I trust to give good orders, even if I do not understand the reasons behind them.

That's kind of what I mean about expertise. Listening to people who know more than you is a good thing, as long as you do your due diligence in making sure they really do know more than you, and they're sticking to topics they know about.*

I resent the implication that my willingness to follow mysterious orders from trusted people is a fault - because dammit, I am a good little worker bee. I am a really useful engine.

I apologize if I implied that.

@Kit: I do sometimes do that, but I've run into the situation Jarred talks about a little to often for it to be my default strategy. Unfortunately, I don't really *have* a default strategy; my fiancee is really the only person I have any RL social contact with at the moment. I'm working to rectify that, but... it's difficult.

@Will: I *love* your analogy with the Total Perspective Vortex! It's very slightly different for me. I think it's that, when I'm in a pre-defined role, I'm following a fairly simple set of rules for responding to cues from other people, and that means I can ignore any cues I don't have rules for. When I'm not able to play a role, I have to watch everything all the time and thoroughly parse it for every possible meaning and calculate the response least likely to generate a negative reaction and I'm getting exhausted just typing this. And by "all the time" I mean ALL THE TIME. I mean between syllables. It's not even something I'm consciously aware of doing or in control of; a totally automatic process that can easily take over my whole brain and crash it.

constantly pinging myself to think about how I appear from the outside and being aware that doing what feels natural to me has a high chance of sending the wrong message.

This is almost word-for-word the standard description of AvPD--doing this so much that it becomes disruptive rather than helpful.

*My old gastroenterologist was CONVINCED my psychological issues were entirely due to malnutrition and would evaporate after my surgery. Ha!

[Lonespark]

I just want to hold up a big sign saying "I'm crap at small talk, can we skip to the interesting bits?" until people start doing that.

I generally find the internet very useful in this respect. Look up group I want to do things with, email person involved. Type stuff I would say if I were not too shy. Repeat 3-4 times. Eventually manage to attend an event. Then I can just write a nametag and at least a few people more extroverted than I will have things to bring up and ask me about.

[Madhabmatics]

I have a buddy in Turkey who is cripplingly shy in real life, but on the Internet he acts with such bravado that he exchanges emails with Chomsky and Finkelstein. I'm the opposite, I'm charismatic as all get out in a physically location, but on the internet I'm always freaked out about posting.

[Lampdevil]

I think in many ways, assuming you're acceptable to others is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not inevitably, because an arrogant toerag with no manners will probably not be welcomed with open arms, but assuming others will accept you is assuming they're nice people - and everyone likes to be thought nice.

Holy crud, Kit, this resonates with me like you would not believe. Much of my late-teen-early-twenties social disjointedness was caused by not only a sense that I was horrible and worthless, but that the world at large wanted to cause me harm. I can't quite say which belief was strongest, but they were doing double-duty to make me miserable and keep me small and scared.

My moment of revelation was also my moment of greatest desperation. I needed a job, ANY job, to keep myself from being homeless during the Christmas season. I had just bombed a year of community college, and I was becoming more and more convinced that I was a horrible blister on the backside of humanity because not even fast food places would take me. But one of those fly-by-night toy booths hired me on. (If you want to talk about strange and cult-like things... or maybe not, but here we are orbiting vaguely around the original topic...)

Sales! OMFG sales?! How could I EVER sell ANYTHING to ANYONE?! Mall crowds were mean and scary! I was shy and too stumbly and stupid to actually convince people of anything! But it was either attempt to do this, or face the street. So I went to work. I tried. I did marker demonstrations. I set up the little toy trains-on-plastic-tracks. And it turned out that people actually treated me nicely, as a default. That I could converse with them without them trying to spit on me or laugh at me. People weren't going to hurt me. In fact, they seemed to like me very much, and I was one of the few folk that could actually move packs of those blasted markers. It was... revolutionary. Beautiful. Having received kindness, I was prepared to give it. And now, in giving kindness, kindness is often returned to me. There's abundant kindness out there, in tiny places and in tiny things.

(It took me a few more years to get a firm grasp on socializing in large groups, but these things are a process... I can totally relate to people that think "be yourself" is a crap piece of advice. My issue, upon further reflection, was never about not knowing what to say, but thinking that I had nothing worthwhile to say. I was inherently unloveable and my presence was, if not unwanted, at least unneeded. I now know this to be absolutely false, but damn it took a while to get to this point.)

[Laima]

@Froborr, if you don't mind me asking, how did you find out you have avoidant personality disorder? I've been told I probably have an anxiety disorder (besides the PTSD I already know about), but lately I've been wondering if I have agoraphobia or something similar, because even when I have things to do that would take me away from the apartment, including things that I enjoy doing that are rarely social (for instance, taking a walk outside), I can think of 1001 reasons why it's too much bother.

[Laima]

@Lampdevil: Word.

[Mink]

Jarred, syfr: You're right, in that light it's not silly so much as on the scary-serious side. I'd forgotten that about IVF. Thanks for pointing that out!

[Jarred]

My issue, upon further reflection, was never about not knowing what to say, but thinking that I had nothing worthwhile to say.

I can totally relate to this, as it's something that came up in my first therapy session.

[Mary Kaye]

I have been in a somewhat different position than Kit in that I was a leader for many years in a new religious group--a long-lived (by pagan standards) public pagan ritual circle.

That word "expertise", that's the big issue. When, as a leader, are you insisting on getting your way because of expertise and when are you insisting because of authority? When is it really necessary for newcomers to follow instructions because otherwise the group repeats the newbie mistakes over and over, and when do newbies have to be allowed to make their own mistakes? How do you detect when a leader crosses the line? And how does a group with moderately high membership turnover develop an "institutional memory"?

These were really hard questions for me. Leadership was exhausting, and after about 14 years I couldn't do it anymore and I quit.

Toward the end, some members of the group had been designing and putting on eight Sabbats a year for upwards of ten years. We had made a lot of mistakes and had, I think, learned from many of them. It was difficult to step back and let new ritual directors repeat those mistakes. For some of them, the worst mistakes, it was intolerable. (For example, we knew from experience that Samhain rituals were large--up to 80 people--and that you must not ask a crowd of 80 to wait while something is done by or to one person at a time, unless the something is remarkably interesting. You can ask them to listen to a statement by each person, just barely, if you keep the statements short. You can't ask them to wait while each person in turn silently prays at the altar. People walk out in frustration if you do, or become disruptive.)

New ritual directors would sometimes take our word on this, but sometimes not. Then there's the choice--crack down, and make the group authoritarian? Walk away and let the ritual succeed or fail based on its director's merits, and accept the harm to the group's reputation if it fails? Try to educate the director--but what if they insist on trying it for themselves? We had exactly that situation with a Samhain ritual, and I just could not bring myself to sign off on a script with *three* instances of one-person-at-a-time in it. And the ritual director felt intensely persecuted by our "over-controlling" approach.

During that time we also had three crises when someone we'd trusted in a position of group leadership turned out not to be trustworthy. In every case we realized to our horror that that individual's "in-group" status had slowed down detection of their wrongdoing (two instances of sexual harassment and one of blackmaili).

How can you both say "Trust us, we know what we're doing?" and deal with having to say "It was wrong to trust this person, one of us--s/he is an abuser"?

We gained a new member once and after six months or so she asked to bring her mother to a celebration. Her mother seemed, like many newcomers, nervous at first but warmed up as the event went on. Afterwards, the new member said to me, "You know, my mom was convinced she was being taken to meet the cult leader. But I think you convinced her otherwise." I had never seen myself as a cult leader before--it was a startling moment.

I feel as though I have some insight into how cult leaders go wrong. I have only to look at the way I dragged my feet in identifying the problems with our three problem people--even though one of the sexually aggressive ones had been aggressive *towards me*. But we needed experienced people, we never had quite enough for our ambitious Sabbat schedule, and we were always afraid that cutting back the schedule would make people lose interest and lead to a downward spiral. Realistic concern for the health of the group, but what is the health of the group worth if the group is unhealthy for the people in it?

I miss doing the big Sabbats a lot, but having been a leader, I am a bad worker bee. I don't know if I'll ever go back to it. (The group is gone as far as I know--it lasted a couple of years after I left but was clearly in decline--but I'm sure there are others somewhere around here.)

[Kit Whitfield]

And it turned out that people actually treated me nicely, as a default. That I could converse with them without them trying to spit on me or laugh at me. People weren't going to hurt me. In fact, they seemed to like me very much, and I was one of the few folk that could actually move packs of those blasted markers. It was... revolutionary. Beautiful.

What a lovely story! Thanks for sharing it. :-)

[Madhabmatics]

Lampdevil that's awesome, I appreciate your insight!

[Lampdevil]

Thanks for giving me somewhere to get the story out. :)

I really think back fondly on that job. It changed me for the better, small and silly and temporary as it was. I didn't really realize how much it all meant at the time, as I was mostly just happy to have food to eat, a roof over my head, and a little extra to visit my family.

Here I am, about 7-8 years on, gearing up to lead the Hospitality Team for an upcoming game convention. I tell people what to do! And greet them cheerfully! And I bring experience (experience!!!) and skills (skills, people!) to the table that others can't! It's such a little thing, but such a big thing at the same time.

[Jarred]

For example, we knew from experience that Samhain rituals were large--up to 80 people--and that you must not ask a crowd of 80 to wait while something is done by or to one person at a time, unless the something is remarkably interesting.

In my experience, the "one-at-a-time" thing gets impractical once your attendance rises above fifteen or twenty. I can't even begin to imagine it with a group of eighty or more people.

One of the things that "The Beltaine Lady," a wonderful woman who used to lead the public Beltaine rituals on Long Island, often commented about was that planning a ritual for a large group (and as I understand it, the attendance for her public rituals used to run in the low triple digits) was a noticeably different process than planning ritual for your small coven or other group. She also found that a lot of public ritual planners simply didn't grok that.

How can you both say "Trust us, we know what we're doing?" and deal with having to say "It was wrong to trust this person, one of us--s/he is an abuser"?

This is why trust should never be absolute. Good leaders do allow for questions and concerns from their followers, in my experience. Because good leaders occasionally make mistakes -- sometimes serious mistakes. Doesn't mean they're not good leaders, though. It just means they're human.

It sounds like your local community lost a great leader when you stepped down. I'm sure many of them miss you.

[Laima]

@Lampdevil, I learned similar things, but very slowly over many years. Your story is much more charming. :)

I do find it much easier than my spouse to not read malicious intent into annoying things that random other people do. It was quite liberating to realize that while my family of origin could be counted upon to be malicious pretty consistently, strangers usually have no interest in malice whatsoever, and in fact are often kind. I have learned a great deal of lovely behaviors from kind strangers, some of whom became friends, and others I just remember fondly.

I recoil from statements like, "we try to promote a family atmosphere here" or "we treat our employees like family members". It is through the kindness of strangers that I learned human beings could be trusted. Now that I think about it, I often prefer the company of strangers, because they cannot have any expectations of me, beyond perhaps civility. If I could just figure out the knack of more reliably making friends out of former strangers...

[Mmy]

@Jason: I'm sorry if anything I said was triggering for you.

Thanks -- but it was really triggering (in the sense people usually mean.) The example I gave was just one of hundred (?thousands) of experiences that I have had and I am sure other women have had.

examples:
We are looking for a car. Salesperson makes a claim and I make an informed response. Salesperson ignores me and talks to mmyspouse. Sometimes he winks as mmyspouse as if saying "well, let's just humour the little lady."

We are looking for a new router. Salesperson makes a claim. I bring out a counter factual and salesperson smiles at me, looks over my head and talks to mmyspouse as if I had spoken in baby language.

Someone claims their computer is broken. I wander over and point out that if they just hit the f5 key the screen would magically return. Person does not do so until a man wanders into the room and says exactly the same thing.

I am teaching a class in statistics and a student says that I "must" be wrong because it makes no sense to HIM. Fellow is a first year college student and I have multiple degrees.

Almost all the women I know have dozens and dozens of similar examples -- and one thing runs through all of them -- a man thinks that his opinion (with no qualifications at all) should be given equal or greater weight than mine (with many qualifications).

[Froborr]

@Froborr, if you don't mind me asking, how did you find out you have avoidant personality disorder?

I don't mind at all. I was diagnosed by a therapist after a few months of regular sessions.

[Mary Kaye]

The pagan community is better than many in allowing female leadership and listening to female voices, but we still struggled. For a while we had women-only New Moon rituals because women felt they needed, not a space free from aggression and misogyny (we had that in our mixed-gender rituals), but simply a space where they would not get overlooked or ignored when a man spoke up.

It was incredibly frustrating for our male leaders, because it's a very hard problem for a male leader to address! If he cuts off the man who's speaking too much--it's still a man speaking. All he can really do, in my experience, is glare a lot and occasionally put in a curt comment backing up the female leaders. And, of course, refrain from supporting the guys who are interrupting and talking too much. (Which is hard in itself, if they are newcomers you are trying to encourage.)

The experience I remember most vividly was a participant-planned Full Moon--a ritual form in which the small group sits together and plans a ritual for half an hour or so, then enacts it. We'd do this with groups of 3-15 folks, some regulars and some newcomers, each month. Each ritual had a designated facilitator to lead the planning and a designated guardian to deal with disruptions. (We learned the need for a guardian the hard way.)

One month it was around Imbolc and we were contemplating a ritual to Brigid; I was facilitator. I mentioned that I had some issues with Brigid due to a previous experience with a coven whose Brigid was the Goddess of Implacable Perfectionists (an archetype that troubles me deeply). A male newcomer spoke up to tell me that Brigid is not like that really, that he knew how to present Brigid correctly, and that I shouldn't worry. Also, that he had a particular relationship with Brigid and wanted to do the invocations and central prayer. He had strong views and was very articulate, so he ended up designing most of the ritual, while the other 5-6 people listened.

As the discussion went on, I became more and more convinced that we were headed right back for the archetype I couldn't deal with. But what to do? Our group style did allow any member to veto, but I was facilitating--it's very harmful if the facilitator does too much vetoing. And the (male) guardian didn't seem to notice that anything was wrong.

In the end, I did all the facilitation and then said, "There, that's planned now, and my role is fulfilled. I don't feel safe with this ritual, so I'm going to leave now, but I hope it goes well for you." And walked out, which I had never done before. (From what I heard afterward, it went fine other than the discomfort caused by my leaving.)

This led to some really productive discussions in the group, especially with the guardian, who was distraught. It also led to that particular newcomer, after a few more episodes, being asked not to come back. But my gosh, we spent energy on that guy! Not just listening to him all Moon-planning long, but the guardian went to talk to him about why he was banned and spent 5 hours on the conversation. It's easy for women to start to feel that men are more important, when they can soak up that much of a group's time and energy.

We did Moon facilitation in a style that was stereotypically "feminine"--relatively low-key leadership, everyone talks, all values respected, listen to each individual's concerns and limits. It was always vulnerable to individuals with a stereotypically "masculine" communication style--not always men, but people who were used to having a strong leader and following their instructions. The facilitator could try to meet them on their own ground, but that just led to *two* masculine-style leaders and a bunch of people sitting around unheard. That was part of why we split guardian from facilitator--so that the person doing the nicey-nice sharing circle work didn't have to say "You've had your say, now sit down and shut up." The two roles are both needed, but don't combine well in one person.

An interesting thing came out of that 5-hour conversation: the guardian told me afterward that the newcomer spent a significant part of the discussion trying to suss out who the leader of the group *really* was, so that he could placate that leader and get back in. He could see that the guardian wasn't the group leader, but then, which of the men was? Since our core leadership was rather female at the time, he was setting himself an impossible problem trying to spot the male "alpha wolf"--there just wasn't one, other than the guy he was talking to, who was clearly acting as a spokesman only. "The Board sent me to tell you you're not welcome back" and all that. The guardian felt that newbie never got it, not in five hours, that maybe the man in charge was...if anyone, me. That certainly, if he wanted to placate anyone, he needed to try the five Board members, four of whom were female.

[Madhabmatics]

@Mary Kaye

I'm pretty ignorant of most types of paganism so excuse me if this is a stupid question, or if it's oathbound and I Need To Stop Asking. :P

When you say...

I mentioned that I had some issues with Brigid due to a previous experience with a coven whose Brigid was the Goddess of Implacable Perfectionists (an archetype that troubles me deeply)

Is that a purposeful identification of a Goddess as an archetype or do you just mean a functional one? Like, do you identify Brigid as occupying several archetypes, and the different groups worship her as those different archetypes, or is it just a "different groups have different perceptions / styles of worship" thing?

[Lampdevil]

@Laima - My learning process took many, many years, too. A tree takes a long time to grow, eh? Some of us take longer than others. And all of us are still growing!

I know the source of my anxiety was being bullied and harassed for most of my time in school. I had it better than some, and worse than many others, and it's not worth getting into... but what I took away from it all, 18 and newly graduated and off to face the world, was that the world was full of people that hated me. I had to learn that the small world I grew up in was not indicative of the world at large, in the same way that you said you had to realize that not everyone was like your family. In your context, a "family atmosphere" would be one to avoid, at all costs.

Everyone starts off as a stranger! I think it's repeated exposure that keeps the process going along. Like erosion on a cliff! ...which is perhaps not the best analogy....

I may have given them before, but hugs! Lots of hugs! Lots and lots of curly brackets for you, for being where you are now and for being so awesome!

[MadGastronomer, who is very tired]

@Madhabmatics

Not to speak for Mary Kaye, but both mythic archetypes and functional ones are common in many forms of neopaganism. Different people and groups focus on different mythic archetypes -- say, the difference between Apollo as God of Art, of God of Science, or God of Prophecy -- and different groups worshiping the same face of the same god will worship and interpret the god very differently, based on the perceptions and style of the group members.

[Laima]

Lampdevil, thanks. I think you are pretty amazing too. Hugs back, if you want them.

[Ravanan]

"I'm so conscious of other people's social and emotional cues, and so hyper-vigilant in monitoring how they shift in response to my actions, I get overwhelmed, freeze up, and retreat. I love talking on the Internet for that reason, it's so much easier to *think*. In RL conversations I'll sometimes just stop in the middle of a sentence, totally unable to get out the next word because there is TOO MUCH GOING ON in my head."

THIS! When dealing with people I don't know very well, or at all, without the semi-dissociation granted by, say, the internet, the anxiety I feel from the fractal oblivion that is my predictive functions (I contruct models of what can happen in an event in my head; this is...problematic, as my attention always goes to the ways it could screw up horribly, which I can create a LOT of simulations for, very quickly; this same problem of thinking of every possible thing way too fast is also why I abuse parentheses horribly, and if I don't have as much text in parentheses as out, it probably means I did some serious editing) means that I freeze up even BEFORE I start talking. AFTER I start talking, I get the same response you describe of over-analyzing cues and freaking out from that. Dealing with new people in person is...stressful. Thankfully I rarely have this problem with people I am familiar with, at least until it comes to calling them out of the blue, e.g. without a very specific reason. (I have had roughly 4 friends in my entire life who I have felt comfortable calling whenever)

"Assume you are acceptable to others, and insofar as it's compatible with good manners, be honest about your opinions and passions in a relaxed manner that implies that you won't take it personally if others don't agree with or share them."

Fuck it, nine rewrites and two hours in, I'll just say this: It's hard to think of yourself as acceptable when politicians who discuss mass executions for a group to which you belong are met with only mild consternation. For obvious reasons, I'd prefer not to discuss it further.

[Froborr]

I contruct models of what can happen in an event in my head; this is...problematic, as my attention always goes to the ways it could screw up horribly, which I can create a LOT of simulations for, very quickly

Yes, this!

Dealing with new people in person is...stressful. Thankfully I rarely have this problem with people I am familiar with, at least until it comes to calling them out of the blue, e.g. without a very specific reason.

Also this.

Assume you are acceptable to others

I've been trying to find a way to respond to this that doesn't come across as whininess and/or depression, and I'm struggling to do so. Let me just say that is is not an easy thing to do for everyone, for a wide variety of reasons, and while wordier, really isn't any less glib than "be yourself."

[cyllan]

In RL conversations I'll sometimes just stop in the middle of a sentence, totally unable to get out the next word because there is TOO MUCH GOING ON in my head.

I have a similar reaction when dealing with heavily emotional conversations. I can see what the next word is in my head, but I simply can not vocalize it. Eventually my spouse learned to ask "Are you locked up?" during such times, and we could then go through a series of yes/no (headshakes/nods) questions to figure out what I needed at that moment to get the word out. I don't know if something similar would help, but I've found it a useful trick.

@Froborr: I think there's a subtle difference between "assume that you will be acceptable to others" and "feel that you are acceptable to others." Neither may be easy, but I think the first one is a little easier than the second.

Also, note that this particular definition will not make you liked by everyone. But it stands a better than average chance of finding compatible friends.

[alienbooknose]

This whole discussion is super-fascinating and relevant... I have internet hugs and love for everyone who has trouble with assume that they are acceptable to others. You *are* awesome, I said so.

For me social anxiety is ALL about phones. Phone calls to anyone besides my husband are terrifying. Even phone calls to dear friends, because I might be interrupting something important. If it's for work or something formal I have to rehearse what I need to say in my head multiple times (basically write myself a script) before I can pick up that phone. I'm fine talking to people in person, but without visual cues I just straight-up panic and freeze up without a script.

[Kristin]

I do not understand the mindset that would lead one to do this. More liberal/moderate religious communities provide you with a non-judgmental support group, a second family, and a place where you can discuss issues in your life as well as theology. This is why I will always be a member of some sort of faith community, becuase I need that in my life.

(Hmm... Okay. I'm gonna say "lite trigger warning" here. I sort of talk about religious abuse... And I definitely talk about religious dysfunction. I also mention mental illness wrt a family member.)

Okay, first thing: Sorry, I didn't disappear, just got sort of sidetracked with life.

On the mindset that would lead someone to leave a liberal religion for another, more restrictive one: So, I grew up the child of a preacher in the United Church of Christ, which is mostly distinguished by the fact that it began ordaining gays and lesbians and blessing civil unions back in the 1970's. It's not a bad denomination, but I grew up in a very dysfunctional family. My impression of the UCC is not the average impression that lay people have when they encounter nice liberal churches.

To me, it was all catty politics because that's what my Dad told me. He didn't think Houses of Worship needed huge American flags, and he'd carry the flag to the back of the building every week. And just as reliably, someone always put it back.

He was more or less on the right political side, I thought, but he's also someone who suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Diagnosed. I know because 8 years ago, I asked for his permission to meet with his psychiatrist. It was granted, and that's how I found out.). And he has very serious problems with strong women--and would always complain jokingly--but not exactly jokingly--about how put out he was by having only female children. "All these women," he would say, and it would have been easier to sell the joke, I think, if we didn't already know what a misogynist he was.

So, the stories about church politics came from him, and I don't doubt he embellished them. Nevertheless, they were my early experiences of liberal Christianity. We were always hearing about busybodies trying to get him fired. And this was a very grave concern, we learned, because we could never live on my mom's paltry salary.

Every time I got angry or spoke up or offended anyone, it became Major Church News. Once I had a argument with my younger sister, and a bunch of other kids complained to their parents who then complained to our parents... Oh, and there was big drama over the Open and Affirming thing after my family left... I don't know the details, or actually want to know them. A handful of people in the church didn't want to affirm and open themselves to QUILTBAGs, in brief.

My parents had started out as fundamentalists. They were charismatic Southern Baptists who felt themselves so "not of this world" that they had to set up their own church with a handful of similarly "radical Christians." That church faded after they left college, but my parents were fundamentalists for at least six or seven years after that. I remember being terrified when my dad prayed in tongues over me one night when I was ill. I was, oh, four years old, maybe? We read every night from a Children's Bible Storybook that had horrible imagery for a four-year old: Abraham standing over Isaac with a knife, Lot's wife turned to salt, people struck down every five minutes for worshiping idols. I was terrified by the religious training I got when I was little. I repented of my "sins" and accepted Jesus Christ as My Personal Lord and Savior when I was four.

Then we moved around. My parents just kind of fell into a liberal denomination, and my dad liberalized as a result. But I had the earlier fundamentalism to fall back on, so I was never sure what was the "truth." And not only that, but my family was extremely dysfunctional for at least a couple of decades leading up to the parents' divorce. So, I'd think, "Hmm... Is this because we're not following God anymore?"

In high school, I was a public schooled geek girl looking for a group to belong to, and some Quiverfull types sucked me in. I'd go to their homes, eat their wonderful all from-scratch cooking, and listen as they played multi-instrumental songs that they'd composed as a family. And note how genuinely they seemed to love each other. Wouldn't we be better off if we were like them?

But then I had awful experiences with that as well. QF didn't linger with me, but I tried to continue on as a lefty pseudo-evangelical Christian. For a long time, I really related to the kind of Christianity that Fred professes.

So, I tried more liberal churches and communities. I'm basically a liberal Christian too, but church bodies have never, never felt like a safe space to me. With my last church (the liberal Mennonite one), major drama broke out over one guy who interrupted an African-American guest preacher who'd delivered a politically conservative message (I wasn't there, but so I've heard). Then the pastor said the next Sunday that "I understand that 'John' didn't intend to do anything racist, but his action had racist consequences." And I agreed, but then 'John' tried to get me revved up over in his corner, to see that he was really being the Good Liberal fighting against religious intolerance. Oh, and he also needed to get the problems he was having with his wife off his chest, and tell me how I was the only one who understood him. After that, I just quit church.

Except to attend weddings and funerals, I've not been back to one in...about nine years now. I was 22 when I left. When I think about going back, I feel extremely stressed out by it. And I have strict rules about what kind of situation, if any, I'll enter into: No more overly Protestant groups. No "relationship with Jesus" talk. No laying on of hands during prayer. No charismatic influence. No appeasement of those who *aren't* open and affirming. I've settled on an Episcopalian church. The hardest thing for me for all those years was pretending that I had some kind of "personal relationship with Jesus."

My point is simply: No matter how politically awesome any religious body happens to be, religious bodies can be--and often are--unsafe for lots of people. When the conflict happened in that Mennonite church, it was exactly like what had happened with my Dad--I had to come over to his side, and I was the only one who understood (as a ten year old).

For me personally: I haven't been sucked into a cult since then, but I'm also not one to seek spiritual fulfillment in alternative faiths. I've never been entirely comfortable with the potentially-appropriative aspect of conversion. I have seen many people convert beautifully--it wouldn't work for me. I'd be freaked out about the implications of, say, me, a white girl, converting to Islam, and the implications of that in terms of cultural imperialism. So, I stick back with what I know, and I get some things out of it on my own, but I never found church bodies per se very comfortable places to be.

Ah, right, I was going somewhere with this: *If* I were one to do much spiritual seeking, I could have easily wound up in a more restrictive group than what I was coming from. When you get into something entirely new and don't know the culture or the religious-speak, you're not going to see red flags very quickly. There was a group called the "Self-Knowledge Symposium" at my school which turned out to be a New Agey cult, but which *I* thought sounded at first like a good place to have philosophical discussions. I didn't know the buzzwords or warning signs until a local independent publication published an expose of them. I'd never been involved, but I was an RA, and I'd told residents that it sounded like a cool thing to do. I won't speak for anyone else, but I would certainly be quite naive if I went out into the world seeking a spirituality. And maybe, at the end of the day, that's also another reason why I won't do it: I don't know the warnings knows. I know them in Christianity, so I'm at least better able to protect myself.

And @ Kit: Thanks, this was an excellent post.

[Kristin]

Also, Ross, I'm pretty much where you are on Libya. My first graduate degree was in international affairs, and I focused on the politics of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. I can't be against this war when Libyans support it... But... But... When Western people invade non-Western countries in order to impose regime change.... It's... It's messy, and I'm not able to state whether or not I'm for or against it.

Though I think Bahrain and Yemen both have much more compelling reasons that could justify *humanitarian intervention.* Notably, the rebels aren't armed with military training. They're spontaneous pro-democracy people. And because, damnit, the Saudis have basically invaded Bahrain, and it's about damned time to break with them. Only it would upset the Saudi and Israeli governments, and those seem to be the prominent concerns. For once, I *do* wish it could just be... Well, purely about helping people. Which is pathetically utopian at the end of the day.

[Deird, who is very weird]

I think there's a subtle difference between "assume that you will be acceptable to others" and "feel that you are acceptable to others." Neither may be easy, but I think the first one is a little easier than the second.

*nods*

I managed to get myself out of a complete and total inability to talk to anyone at my school by doing that.

(Inability being because by the time I was 15, I pretty much assumed outright that anyone talking to me was doing so as a prelude to teasing me - so someone would say "Hi, Deird!" and I'd glare at them silently until they went away.)

I decided that I
1) needed to learn how to talk to people
2) was never ever going to be able to talk to people by being myself

...so I came up with a persona.

Cheerful Bubbly Excitable Deird was born - and every day at school, I'd slip into character. (And I'm good at acting, plus CBED was totally over-the-top and exaggerated, so she was easy to act as.) My character never assumed people would tease her; she assumed, instead, that everyone clearly wanted to talk to her.

Which led to me bouncing up to people with vivacious "Hi! How are you?!"s all day, and babbling to them for a few minutes before racing off to talk to someone else.

Totally ridiculous and exhausting, but it successfully got me out of my shell enough to start making friends.

[Kristin]

Oh, sorry, the reason I mentioned my education background... I've been asked for my opinion. I mean, I'm not spectacularly important, but I know more about these matters than, well, many of the people in my life. I've just refused to write any kind of editorial piece about it all. I'd have to go all Wendy Brown and declare that "this is not an argument for or against the military attacks on Libya." And most people don't allow that, and you're interpreted as being precisely for or against...

[Kristin]

Ah, sorry, just to clarify, that last bit should've said: "I don't know the warning signs. I know them in Christianity, so I'm at least better able to protect myself."

[Froth]

Deird: I find it much easier to talk to people when we're in a field ahead of a particular LARP. Partly because LARPers are easier to talk to than other groups, because you always have a known subject in common, but partly because I know that tomorrow, I'm going to be important. Making a bad impression is much less worrying when you expect to be an angel next time you meet.

Note: If, for some reason, you find yourself needing to make small talk with a LARPer, ask them about their characters. We can talk about our characters for hours upon the slightest provocation, and love to do so.

[Deird, who will explain if anyone asks]

Note: If, for some reason, you find yourself needing to make small talk with a LARPer, ask them about their characters.

Whereas with tabletop roleplayers, you just mention "gazebos", and watch the conversation go from there...

[Kristin]

@ kisekileia: You're one of the few people I've met online or in life who talks about Christianity in a way that I can relate to. It makes sense--you were all over the place in the Christian world as well. I felt the "vital" energy of the conservative church, was impressed by the strong moral conviction... I'm not surprised that we had some similar experiences.

[Madhabmatics]

@Deird

Just don't ask them about their favorite edition of D&D or World of Darkness :P

[Froborr]

Whereas with tabletop roleplayers, you just mention "gazebos", and watch the conversation go from there...

I attack the darkness!

[Kristin]

I beg to differ. So do lots of other people who have gone to grad school. Some departments centre around charismatic figures who decide what you should and should not study, read and write about.

Yes, we do. In fact, I've described on this blog how my former graduate program triggered emotions similar to the ones triggered so many years ago in conservative Christianity. And how I ended up processing those same experiences over again--and joining ex-Quiverfull groups and working through these things... Because it had been a similar experience. Subtle cues letting you know what is and what is not permitted. Antagonistic feelings toward outsiders. Targeting and bullying when the people in charge realize you don't quite fit the mold they'd had in mind.

My first graduate school was not a cult. My last one certainly was. I used to believe in high-minded ideals like academic freedom... Eh... My most recent experience of grad school ended with me finding legal counsel to protect myself against libel and slander on leaving. And seeking reparations for disability-related discrimination.

I was even shunned. My academic advisor--who still needed to grade some of my work--told me it was a good idea if we didn't have anymore contact. And then let it slip that faculty had been told not to have any conversations with me. I remained friends with a handful of the students I knew there--they had to hide their continued association with me from the administration.

[Froborr]

My sister in law also had a very bad experience with grad school. I don't know the details, but she never got her degree (which basically meant her career was over before it began, you needed *at least* a Master's for it), and apparently it was some sort of situation where her thesis advisor needed her to fail so that he could gain some kind of political advantage within the department.

I also had a friend whose professor actually TOLD HIM that he wasn't going to be allowed to finish his PhD that year because they didn't have the money to hire a full-time IT guy, and none of the other grad students could handle it.

[Dav]

So if you're looking for a grad school, are there warning signs? Things to watch out for? People who will give the straight dope?

[Ravanan]

You forgot one other aspect of how grad school is cultic: the higher-ups treat low-level members as cash cows (grad school tuition is HOW MUCH these days?).

[hapax]

Kit, this was such a good post, and even better has been the discussion it inspired.

But...

I don't have enough expletives for how sad it has made me. So many people, hurt so badly by the people and groups that should have loved and supported and protected them. So many people, who have been convinced that they were not deserving or worthy of love and support. So many people, who feel baffled and left out of the most basic of human needs, to connect with other people.

I know I am putting this very badly. But I have never (I mean this literally) felt more privileged in my life than I have reading this thread.

I am very very grateful for the people and institutions who have been there for me, simply because that's what families and friends and teachers and churches are supposed to do. I am very very grateful for the simple neurological wiring that permits me to negotiate the eddies and rapids of social interaction with perhaps less skill than many, but sufficient that I haven't been capsized yet.

I wish I could assure everyone of you, both separately and as a group, that You Are Awesome People, and I am humbled and honored to have this much acquaintance with you.

But unfortunately, it looks horribly mawkish and stupid when I type it.

{{{{{everyone}}}}}

[Froborr]

{{hapax}}

Thank you. I don't think that was mawkish or stupid at all, for what it's worth.

[Laima]

thanks, hapax. Speaking only for myself, it does not feel "mawkish and stupid" to hear, but rather heartwarming. Thank you for saying something. So often the (only) feedback we get is relentlessly negative.

Slacktivist generally has really helped me feel perhaps I have something of value to offer the world, based on how people here react to me.

[MaryKaye]

Madhabmatics asks, if I understand correctly, whether I felt that different groups were really approaching different archetypes of Brigid or whether it was just a matter of stylistic flavor.

I don't know. Brigid is a notably many-faceted goddess, and there is a dearth (as far as I know) of solid mythology about her. Most of what's available is modern, and that certainly goes in lots of different directions. But I don't have any thealogy on whether that's because she is multiple in nature or because we perceive her like the blind men and the elephant.

Mainly I was speaking to an emotional reaction to the other group--that it presented Brigid as She Who Is Never Satisfied. For personal reasons I can't deal with that at all--that archetype is a demon to me.

My own experiences, outside that context, with Brigid have been much more positive. We did an Imbolc ritual to her some years ago, and later that week I picked up a two page bit of writing, ten years old, and thought "Hm, this could go somewhere"--and wrote a 100,000 word novel in four months, complete with ending, which I'd never been at all good at. Endings, I mean. I have a nice collection of beginnings and middles, but this one was just all of a piece. It was a wonderful experience and very much in the line of what one might pray to Brigid for. I wore a green leaf in her honor for years after that.

It was also a little obsessive, a little crazy--I can see where the more difficult images of Brigid come from, but I was a lot better prepared to meet them there, in my own work, than in someone else's practice imposed from outside.

[Kristin]

So if you're looking for a grad school, are there warning signs? Things to watch out for? People who will give the straight dope?

Yes, and it's almost embarrassing for me to admit this...

Before I was admitted, my department had been in a receivership for two years, meaning that it was governed by an outside body and not allowed to admit new graduate students. This is because the department was mired in faculty and student lawsuits involving hostile environment and sexual harassment. These were clues. I should've run immediately. But they love-bombed the hell out of me, and put together the most seductive "campus visit" I could have imagined. Plus, I was already acquainted with what I'd call normal, non-pathological levels of grad school dysfunction. I thought it couldn't be all that different. I was badly mistaken.

Another thing that I recommend to people now: Talk to people who are not connected to the school about the school. Include mentors and people you like and whose advise you take seriously. If the place is a blight on the discipline, they'll often know (So, for me, it was a bit dangerous to change fields).

Finally, pay attention to the university administration. Do not assume that you'll be isolated and protected in a tight-knit little program. Dysfunctional departments are often the product of dysfunctional administrations. Read university policies that apply to you (for example, ADA protections, non-discrimination clauses, etc.). But also do a little research to find out of the place is terribly scandal-ridden.

@ Frobarr: I've heard so many stories like this by now--it's really sad. I was a PhD student in Philosophy and Women's Studies. I'd transferred from a relatively functional PhD program in Political Science for discipline-related reasons (I did political theory. No one gets jobs in that anymore.). Anyway, I finished with the MA, not the PhD. But with humanities in such decline in the US, even community college jobs are going to PhDs. It's depressing and sad, but I'm glad that it happened within a couple of years--and before I'd invested ten years of my life in an authoritarian advisor who never approved anything I wrote (This happened to a friend.).

[Kristin]

You forgot one other aspect of how grad school is cultic: the higher-ups treat low-level members as cash cows (grad school tuition is HOW MUCH these days?).

Unless you're a PhD student. In that case, they pay you such a pitifully low stipend that you qualify for public assistance and eat beans and rice all week. You spend hours every week on your teaching duties, and end up getting paid something like $4 an hour... If you break it down. And if you end up with expensive medical conditions, well, your school insurance is designed for strapping healthy young people, so you'll have to take out astronomical loans just to take care of your health... And you do quite a lot of labor for no pay at all: mixers with visiting professors whom you're expected to charm... University talks with mandatory attendance ("We just got out of receivership! We need to look like a dynamic department!").

[MaryKaye]

Students and ex-students are the ones to talk to when evaluating a graduate school.

My graduate department has a practice of asking the graduate students to eat lunch with each job candidate, and then polling them. We have sometimes hired people against the students' advice; as far as I know we have *always* regretted it in the end.

I would also ask pointed questions about how the community *as a whole* supports individual students and their advisors. My current department has a long, gruelling, yearly meeting where we account for every single student and try to trouble-shoot their issues, including conflicts with their advisors. It needn't be done that way, but a student should never be sole property of his/her advisor.

I had good experiences in graduate school: there were some politics and I got some oblique pressure to overwork, but not from the people closest to me, and my advisor was always in my court. I had good female role models, starting with my advisor, and that really helped.

My current place has problems with wanting to be Cutting-Edge and Elite, but there are enough people really committed to the students that I think it still works. (It's the wrong place to be an unspectacular faculty member like me, though. But I made my choice many years ago and I'm not inclined to reconsider now.)

(I will just say, slightly in our defense, that while graduate tuition is sickeningly high, at public universities the people exacting that high tuition are NOT the people teaching. We do not get funding proportional to the number of students we have; in fact we take a loss on every student we accept that has to be made up with grant funds. I don't know how it works in non-science departments, but that's how it is in a biomedical science, at least.)

[Ravanan]

{{hapax}}

Thank you. I don't think that was mawkish or stupid at all, for what it's worth.

What Froborr said. =)

And I must say it was nice talking to other people who have similar problems to myself. It's one thing to know that other people have these issues, it's another to actually speak with and understand other people having these problems.

[Kristin]

ah, meant advice, not advise... I need to edit before posting.

[Laima]

@MaryKaye, could you (try to) answer why someone would *want* to honor a deity who can't be satisfied? I mean, I don't understand what the appeal is supposed to be. (Probably because Authority Figure Who Hates Everything I Do accurately sums up my experiences with my parents.)

I recently discovered Brigid, and was wondering about which archetypes she might embody. The Perfectionist thing isn't something I would've thought of.

If this request is triggering or just bothersome, just ignore it.

[Froborr]

It's not just limited to grad schools! I had a net awesome experience at my college, but there were *horrible* things going on that I learned about towards the end, to the point that when a friend's younger sister was considering going, I strongly advised her against it.

One of the few things in my life that I am unhesitantly proud of is that I played a very small part in getting the Department of Education to investigate the way the school handled crime reports, which ultimately resulted in a multi-million dollar fine against the school.

Which, of course, they immediately passed on to the students with a tuition hike. *sigh*

[Madhabmatics]

@MaryKaye Thanks for the explanation. :)

[Froborr]

*Madhabmatics: How can someone have a favorite edition of World of Darkness? That's like having a favorite way to be eaten by fire ants.

;-P

[Ravanan]

Bah don't get me started on a WoD rant. As far as I can tell though, people don't like 2nd ed so much as begrudgingly accept it's existence and the fact that 1e isnt coming back.

[Madhabmatics]

@Froborr

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha :P

[Kristin]

@ MaryKaye: Students and ex-students are helpful to a point. I got very bad impressions from unhappy graduate students at my Functional Grad School. There will always be disgruntled students, and grad students tend to be critically engaged... This is why I recommend doing your own research outside of the school, and finding out as much as you can apart from the campus visit.

And in talking to ex-students... That's also a bit complicated. I talked to the Star Student of the program, who'd finished before the department totally imploded and mostly had good impressions of the place. But when I started having problems, I contacted a few of the professors and students who'd left on bad terms with the department. Their perspectives were much more troubling--and much closer to my own experience.

So, yes, I do think it's useful to talk to them, but I also think it's crucial to talk to people outside of the university... I talked to loads of students, and I got the impression I'd gotten before: "Some are happy, some aren't. This is how the world works anyway." You need objective opinions. And while the opinions of the disgruntled/non-disgruntled are helpful, they're not objective. You need an outside mentor/advisor with no bone in the fight and no personal attachment to the program.

In terms of your work in the sciences:

I can't speak for scientists, obviously, but I will speak to my impressions about the different kinds of political cultures that I encountered in the social sciences vs. the humanities. As a political scientist, everyone was a good liberal. I was treated wonderfully, well-respected, liked. I had friends who were committed to ideals that were hostile to mine (I was the weird lefty non-heterosexual Marxist-postmodernist...). But people were treated "equally" in the program, to an extent. We weren't coerced. There was a bit of pressure to become a statistician, but mostly because they had our professional interests at heart and wanted us to find jobs.

My most recent school... I don't know... I can only describe it as a lapsed-conservative Catholic now-Heideggerian culture. Not comfortable with women. Or people of color. Or people with "uncharitable" approaches to the literature. And while feminism in my political science program had been very straightforward ("Cool! People studying women!"), you had to be a certain kind of feminist in the latter program. You couldn't challenge anything central to the department's beliefs about itself. And if you did, you better apologize immediately for your tone.

I think these observations stem partly from differences in the disciplines' respective cultures. In Continental Philosophy, you do have to display a certain level of reverence to the canon. You do get pressured to read "charitably" every time. You also wind up with people who think they're the smartest cohort in the entire university (and certainly smarter than most everyone they know). And though I know this doesn't automatically translate into the horrible environment I found myself in, I think some of the basic cultural assumptions of the community...didn't help. Challenging the literature was a *revolutionary* and scary thing in my philosophy department--we did it all the bloody time in political science. Not to mention, I never understood why I'd want to do philosophy if not to critique it.

[Madhabmatics]

@Ravanan but it is coming back, they're releasing a 400 page combined Vampire: the Masquerade megabook with all the clans, disciplines, bloodlines, etc from 1st edition to revised!

Calling it: Eve Online is the future World of Darkness, Sabbat vampires rule the Amarr, and the Jove are technocrats who decided spaceships were cooler than thought-control.

[Kristin]

It's not just limited to grad schools! I had a net awesome experience at my college, but there were *horrible* things going on that I learned about towards the end, to the point that when a friend's younger sister was considering going, I strongly advised her against it.

True... But you also know a lot less about departmental politics as an undergrad. I never had a clue what was going on, and as a result, I loved my university beyond reason. I though academia was wonderful, and I wanted to be there for the rest of my life. This may also have something to do with the fact that it was a very large research school, not a small close-knit one. So professors were very rigid about hiding the politics from the students.

I knew about bad things happening. A guy was beaten on the street for "looking like a Muslim" right after 9/11. But I knew absolutely nothing about where the dysfunction lay in the departments or administration. Or who the predators were in the administration. Not that it's impossible to find out, but in my experience, at least, they try not to get you involved.

In grad school, *all* they want to talk to you about is departmental politics. In my experience. And in all three of the grad schools I've attended.

[Deird, who needs a good superhero RPG]

How can someone have a favorite edition of World of Darkness? That's like having a favorite way to be eaten by fire ants.

Agreed.

(Games I own include Red Dwarf, Arrowflight, BtVS, Paranoia, Monsters and Other Childish Things, and Serenity. One day I will get up enough courage to run a Paranoia game...)

[Froborr]

Great, there are people talking about WoD and people talking about Continental philosophy. I can't decide which to hate on!

[Froborr]

@Deird: I had excellent results running a superhero game in FATE.

http://faterpg.com/dl/FATE2fe.pdf

[Madhabmatics]

I can't hate on WoD since a vendor once made me take a copy of the "Kevin and Kell RPG" which remains the weirdest one I have ever owned, and I own the savage worlds setting "Low Life: Rise of the Lowly."

[Raj]

{{{hapax}}}

I can't begin to tell you how "humbled and honored" I am to know you.

[Froborr]

Well, it's specifically the World of Darkness I despise, not the Storyteller system or whatever it's called. The fan-grown mad scientist-based semi-parody semi-homage to WoD actually looks like it could be pretty fun, though honestly Spirit of the Century does a better job at pretty much the same tropes.

[Raj]

{{{Kit}}}
{{{Nenya}}}
{{{Elizabby}}}

That someone as wise and strong as Kit could be drawn in - even temporarily - by such an organization really says something about the subtle power of such organizations. (True, Kit was 18 then, but I find it hard to believe she didn't have at least some of the wisdom and strength she has exhibited these past few years I have known her.)

Elizabby, I'm rooting for you to write of your experiences, although I do support your handling the issue in whatever manner is most comfortable for you.

Nenya, my friend, I <3 it when you ramble on. Your rambles enlighten me.

[Raj]

MadGastronomer: Concern trolls are frequently unintentional trolls and genuinely well-meaning, but have the effect of trolling anyway.

Wait - really? I though a concern troll was a genuine troll attempting to camouflage hir trollishness under a facade of concern about a particular point.

[Raj]

syfr: IVF often creates embryos which are not then implanted and allowed to develop.

*GASP!*

InterVarsity Fellowship does what?

[Kristin]

InterVarsity is IVCF. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

[Ravanan]

@Madhabmatics: cool. I'm okay with Vampire, but the only game in the series I really cared about was Mage: the Ascension, and I managed to find a like-new used copy at a local comic shop for 20 bucks. I wouldn't mind playing Exalted again (using 2e rules and 1e setting), but if I could choose any ST system to play in it would be 1e Mage or Scion. I'd like to try out Nobilis at some point.

Let's see, role playing systems I have copies of...GURPS 3rd and 4th, Deadlands: Hell on Earth (their post-apocalyptic variant), D&D 3/3.5e, Pathfinder (D&D 3.75, basically), d20 Modern, BESM, Tri-Stat dX, Exalted 1e and 2e, The Everquest Pen&Paper RPG (Yes I regret purchasing them), Mage; the Ascension, d20 Wheel of Time, d20 A Song of Ice and Fire (one of the best-produced books I've ever seen in a role-playing game), Traveler (best sci-fi RPG IMO), and Ars Magicka (the game Mage: the Ascension was loosely based off of, and Mage: the Awakening even more so).

@Deird, I have no experience with either, but Mutants & Masterminds and the HERO system both come highly recommended as superhero RPGs.

Clearly though, the best RPG in existence is FATAL. (I'm joking, and don't look it up, it's Westboro Baptist Church bad; Jura npphfrq bs perngvat n "qngr-encr ECT," gur perngbe erfcbaqrq gung gurfr npphfngvbaf jrer snyfr orpnhfr qngvat jnf abg zragvbarq bapr va gur ragver obbx; oh, and it's 900 friggin pages).

[MadGastronomer, who is very tired]

A handful of people in the church didn't want to affirm and open themselves to QUILTBAGs, in brief.

I'm sorry to focus on this one thing in your entire story, but . . . use of QUILTBAG as a noun really, really bothers me, just as use of most of the words comprising it as nouns bothers me. Can we stick to using it as an adjective instead? QUILTBAG people, QUILTBAG community, etc. Thanks.

Wait - really? I though a concern troll was a genuine troll attempting to camouflage hir trollishness under a facade of concern about a particular point.

I refer you to the Geek Feminism Wiki.

It's a bit like the Poe Principle: You cannot tell the difference between someone intentionally trolling with this behavior and someone who simply doesn't get it, but because the behavior is the same, it's all concern trolling.

[Lampdevil]

Oooh, oooh, WoD talk! There's WoD talk?!

...no, no, I'd better not engage in WoD talk. But I will concur that LARPers are often very awesome folk to socialize with. Ain't no party like a LARPer party cuz a LARPer party around these parts has two (going on three) coolers full of accumulated-over-time free booze to dip into! (And if booze isn't your thing, the snacks are epic. Never mind the socializing. The bacon-wrapped cheese-stuffed jalapeno peppers and the cherry-chocolate trifle are worth showing up for.)

@hapax, that wasn't mawkish or over-sentimental at all. Slacktiverse is just the right place for such sentiment. I've lost count of the number of times that I've come here, read something that resonated with me profoundly, and found myself seeing that I'm not alone. We're all strange and bright and stumbling and questioning together, and that's what makes this place/us great.

[Kristin]

use of QUILTBAG as a noun really, really bothers me, just as use of most of the words comprising it as nouns bothers me. Can we stick to using it as an adjective instead? QUILTBAG people, QUILTBAG community, etc.

Yes, and I'm glad you said something. I don't like the noun usage either, honestly, and I try not to use it that way. Only I wasn't really thinking there. I apologize. Thanks for pointing it out.