Deciphering my resistance to employment.

[InquisitorM]

This has been a long time coming and one of my primary reasons for resisting is not being able to focus on something specific that I wanted help with. As of last night’s counselling session, this has changed. I would really appreciate the collective thoughts of the community as it is high time to change gears and turn this one-man-with-a-flashlight expedition into a well-equipped monster hunt into the dark recesses of my soul childhood.

 

I’m 38, I haven’t been employed for almost 12 years, and the very idea of seeking employment fills me with a terror that I have had a hard time making sense of. Before last night, I wouldn’t have been able to say it was terror – it was just a roiling fog of nothingness that would consume me like a void so vast that it could obliterate me by scale alone. Many times I had struck a nerve – usually during counselling – and burst into tears while having absolutely no idea what the emotion was that I was experiencing. I would describe it as textureless, featureless, or grey. Most likely a product of a childhood I can remember little of.

 

About a year ago, maybe two, I discovered that I was born jaundiced and spent the first two weeks of my life in an incubator. I think that goes a long way to lending context to how non-existent the communication between my parents and I has been. I cannot recall a single meaningful conversation with them. There isn’t anything that I am aware of having been taught by them – intentionally, at least – and the few narratives that I can remember pushing were all met with either total bewilderment or unyielding chains of ‘because that’s how it is’. Perhaps that lack of physical contact at my birth set the tone for where I am now, but I am under no illusion that it is the event in-between that have made it a problem. They’ve never taken an interest in hobbies,and Mum has frequently been very passive-aggressive about dismissing things that she doesn’t think are good pursuits (while sitting in front of the TV night after night, of course).

 

I have a few flashbacks that I have uncovered in my seven years of relatively sparse counselling (50 minutes a week, part-funded by charity, with anywhere from 5-10 weeks missing per annum). Just last night, I remembered that I used to wet my bed frequently, though I couldn’t tell you what age I was at the time. What I remember is that I felt less than human: broken, deficient, worthless. No-one asked how I felt. No-one asked if anything was wrong. I felt like an inconvenience. That word has been something that has cropped up over and over again.

 

I remember being singled out to be moved up a class in French at school. I hated the subject, and being put up meant that I had to do German, too. It was bad enough that no-body asked me if I wanted to be moved up, but what really rankles me now is that even then, inthe first year of secondary school, I was already devoid of any resistance to being pushed around – life wasn’t something I got to make any decisions about. Moreover, life wasn’t something that anyone was ever going to explain to me. I was just supposed to know. I’m supposed to love my extended family. I’m supposed to want to go to school. I’m supposed to want to be good. If I didn’t, I was defective, because I had no reason to assume that anyone else was having it explained to them, either.

 

I used to have those dreams of walking into class with no trousers on (for me, it was specifically no underwear, rather than just no trousers – I have no idea if that’s the norm), but over time I have pieced together an undercurrent to everything that I am: the fear of being discovered as someone who doesn’t understand, and doesn’t fit in. And clearly I wasn’t entirely oblivious to the fact that it wasn’t just me that was wrong, because I can remember having a conversation with my Dad once where I tried to reason out that ‘people didn’t have to breathe; people just want to breathe’. I’m always careful of trying to reach too far where my emotions aren’t leading, but it seems I was pretty switched on to the deficiency of consistent and logical language around me. That fact that I was told I was wrong is one of many such repetitions that left me feeling very frustrated.

 

At quite a young age I disappeared into the world of computer games and computers in general. Computers make sense. How could I not be drawn to the one thing incapable of being irrational? Sure, it wasn’t one to explain why something was the way it was, but at least I could always assume there was a good reason for it – a reason that could be learned. I can’t even begin to comprehend how many hours of my life I lost to sitting on my own with my attention glued to a screen. It was my crack, and I even ended up stealing the odd pound coin from my mother’s purse (my guess is 14- to 15-ish) to go round my local chippy and practice on the Street Fighter II machine there.

 

I also remember that my mother would mock me for getting fat, yet not once ever took an interest in why that might be or tried to do anything about it. It still knocks me sideways when I tell someone that and they’re horrified because it’s so internalised now that it’s normal. That she would do it in front of other family members

 

Being so utterly directionless, it is no surprise that I was completely lost when it came to a career. I ended up doing a BTeC National in I.T. (there really is no comparison that I can provide for those unaware of this British qualification, but trust me it’s a pile of shite) at a small facility that guaranteed employment to all of it’s participants. Though I have no interest in the electronics side of things, I was dumped into a job repairing monitors. Of course, I sucked at it because I had no motivation, no interest, and no real skills. Most importantly, I completely lacked the skill to simply state that I did not want to be there, being paid £35 a week under the guise of ‘youth training’. Yeah, was a government scheme to justify virtual slave-labour.

 

And that’s it. Boom. I’m stuck. No aspirations. No joy. For five years life was just something to be endured in the vain hope that things might change. I jumped at the first chance to change job that came along, but things just went from bad to worse as I was just desperately flailing for short-term fixes that were burying the real issues even further. Eventually I got bumped off a driving job because while we all did overtime as standard I wanted mine taken and time in lieu rather than overtime pay – something explicitly provided for in the contract. After that, I finally caved in and didn’t even bother trying to support myself. Death was something to be hoped for, not feared.

 

I moved back in with my parents, oblivious to how harmful this was, while doctors wheeled out the usual parade of useless anti-depressants. That only cemented me into the role of the ‘broken person’, treated as if the reasons for my lack of desire to live were a complete mystery. And I didn’t. The worst part of my day was waking up, because the feeling of having a whole day that I somehow had to claw my way through hour by agonising hour. Just simple fact of being alive was torture.

 

It was another five years before I finally got even a drop of actual help. The NHS provided nothing more than a ‘pull your socks up’ attitude after no less than three evaluations by so-called psychiatrists. The first thing I managed to dredge up when I started was that I didn’t feel like Scott: I felt like a failed shadow of the son my mother wanted – or perhaps expected.

 

Funny thing: I’ve never believed in any kind of deity for so much as a single second in my entire life, but the thing that really turned me around was Dawkins’ The God Delusion, because it showed me not just that the world could be wrong about something so profound, but that it demonstrably was. I think I’m in the right crowd to not have to waste time explaining how enlightening that realisation was. Some two years later, I stumbled upon a video by Stefan Molyneux.

 

I already knew that taxation was crooked, but I never had the words for it. I knew that society was an illusory construct, but it was too much for me to really handle. I’d spent a lot of time getting into the anti-theism media that was abuzz at the time as a new chance to actually listen to people who actually made sense, but not until I discovered anarchism did anything truly make sense on the most fundamental level – and realise just how wrecked my emotional core was.

 

I’ve worked very hard to put myself back together and straighten myself out. I take a great deal of pride in that. I could be dead, but I never gave up. One little part of me refused to capitulate to the idea that I was the one that was wrong, and now I know just how deep the wellspring of rage runs. I have never doubted that that rage is my most unwavering ally, but the time has come to renegotiate the terms of co-existence and I lack the words to do that negotiation. This is where I need help.

 

For the first time I have been able to label both sides of the perpetual war: the bottomless, soul-shattering terror of being a child trapped (I am in floods of tears even writing that) in a world that has no regard for me and that I cannot negotiate with, and a howling vortex of rage that struggles unceasingly to force that terror out of my conscious experience. And for the first time I can actually feel my day-to-day experience of life as numb, rather than simply empty.

 

It’s excruciatingly hard for me to have an opinion that isn’t validated by someone else. I am terrified that my wants and desires and needs will inconvenience others and turn them against me. It’s hard for me to do anything that isn’t perfect, because the looming dread is that I will be revealed as a fraud and a worthless piece of shit. I have literally both burst into tearful hysterics and lost minutes to total paralysis just by picking up a phone to enquire about the shittiest, lowest-of-the-low cleaning jobs (I can’t even think about a more difficult job).

 

I collapse inwards as soon as I feel the weight of self-imposed expectation, and yet I will bite someone’s head off the moment I get misrepresented, misquoted, or they attempt to diminish me in any way. I daydream about receiving praise for things that I have done (I cried the first time Stef ‘liked’ a comment that I’d made on a Facebook post), and yet after I said that I would give Erik_T some feedback on a story, I utterly froze up after he clearly said just how useful and insightful my commentary was. I haven’t touched it in a week and it still brings me to tears to even think about it.

 

Any hint of worth and success and I seem to shut down, as if the very idea is anathema to me. The very idea of wanting has become intertwined with the the terror of my childhood. I can’t even find the perspective to decide whether I’m doing well at overcoming some valid issues or just finding excuses for being lazy.

 

But I do want more, and I do respect that it is strength, not weakness, to ask for help. More importantly, I have a secondary drive that gives me impetus to push harder than ever before: one of my best friend’s daughters embraced me in her life as the one person she can truly be honest with. She told me that she was relieved to have someone in her life that she could talk to about a whole bunch of things she never thought she’d talk to anyone about. She’s had a pretty torrid childhood, too, and the openness with which she just wants to love and be loved is a shock to the synapses that makes me want to be a better role-model for her. I’m still seriously overweight, but I’m gradually doing more daily exercise and been phasing out more and more overtly bad food as time has pressed on (though I can’t pretend there’s much in the way of genuinely good food yet). I am unemployed, but I am here looking to tear down the next set of walls that stand between my fears and my goals.

 

I need help to push in that direction and I’m no longer sure of what questions to even ask. I’m not even sure how much of this makes sense, but if I don’t post it despite the relative inefficiently of editing through bleary, tear-strained eyes, maybe I never will.

 

Maybe it’s an awful reason to keep going, but right now, I’ll take any train headed to my destination.

 

Maybe it’s just a bunch of whiney crap, but at least it’ll be honest.

 

Scott ‘Inquisitor’ Mence.

 

[DaVinci]

First of all I'm very sorry to hear about how trapped and ignored you have felt all of your life. Based on what you have said, and based on similar experiences I can draw on in my life I would say it sounds like you are resisting finding a job because you see it as an extension of your childhood. You see it as continuing the feeling that you are invisible. Your entire post seems to focus on this idea of you feeling invisible to those who you want love and acceptance from. You talk about how success frightens you and makes you freeze up, and I think that might be because it is not a reaction you are used to, or that it is one that goes against this feeling that you should be invisible. You have this reinforcing mechanism that kicks on to keep you invisible when someone praises you or you have the opportunity to respond to someone acknowledging you. So what do you think about what I've said?

[giancoli]

Thanks for sharing ur ideas and feelings. I have a deep fear of employment my self....I would really prefer being my own boss...I hate being ordered around by some asshole.

I could also relate to the fear of rationalizing my laziness, this comes (to what extent I don't know) from my dad, who always told me that finding causes where excuses for my own limitations.

Did your parents do the same to you? That is if you had some problem or weakness and tried to find it's psychological origin, they interpreted it as harmful blaming with the only motivation of pushing away responsibility and your own weaknesses. I'm not trying to make this about me, just sharing my point of view and asking if you had similar experiences. Inquiry into causes == excuses for lack of action (my dads point of view)

I'm somewhat worried about your need for approval from others that you have to work on, it's important for your path towards freedom and independence. Hey at least your honest about it. If you openly state your weakness, that puts it on the table, you're aware of it...then if people take advantage of it, they have to do so on that basis, which is more risky (most people are self serving cost-benefit-machines). Just a thought.

Would be interesting to hear what stef has to say about that nightmare of yours, of realizing in class you have no trousers. Social ridicule is the fear, that much seems pretty clear to me. But why exactly in that way? There are so many ways of making a fool of your self. Must be some sexual component to this don't you think?( there's nothing wrong with that off course, sex is pretty fundamental to our psychology)

 

Isn't it enraging when you finally pull your self out off a depression solely by your own strength and look back of the dark years...and the complete lack off care by those around you...off course not explicit lack off care, that would harm their reputation for being a "good person"...but besides the acting..underneath...complete lack of care...or even worse...a secret sadistic pleasure...with a fake sympathetic mask on top of it....this is particularity true for me with the females in my family....the pretense of sympathy...with a few words here and there... with a exaggerated mild light voice...but no action..nothing that actuality takes some effort and cost them something. I compare it to a nice dress... the sympathy shirt, look how nice this shirt is....it makes me look so good....that's why I put it on, it has an effect on peoples impression of me....complete self serving deception. After I became aware of the sympathy shirt, when I see it I can see how their mind is completely involved with how they portray themselves in the moment. Men can and do wear the sympathy shirt as well by the way, it's a human thing, but particularly common among "the fair sex".

 

 

By the way, I'm aware that my comments here often are very self involved and perhaps lacking in sympathy, I'm just sharing my point of view. I'm aware that I am perhaps lacking in the ability to put my self in others shoes....that's why I seldom say I'm so sorry for what you went through...cause I feel manipulative...I feel I'm wearing the sympathy shirt....

That being said now that I have pointed it out.... I do feel sorry for the path behind you.....but YOU ARE STILL HERE!!

[Slavik]

Hi Scott, thank you for sharing.  Im sorry to hear about your childhood, the fact that you basically had to invent yourself, in my opinion is very difficult and damning on your caregivers.  They had some idea of what its like to be an adult, all they had to do was to at least guide you in the direction of what not to do, and a little bit of how to be.  But from what it seems, they did none of it, they left you to make all unnecessary mistakes on your own, no light, no star to guide you through the murky path.  For that I deeply sympathize.

 

One thing I want to add, a suggestion.  When you are going to work for people, you are going to provide value for them, what i mean by that, is that YOU have value.  Stafan mentioned this in his podcast :"Every job a person does, one way or another brings extra profit to the company, how it is calculated is something you can either research or at some point sit down with a manager to help you figure out specif numbers" What this can give you, is a road map, things you do = this much profit to the company, extra things you do=much more profit in clearer numbers.  The idea of more or less exact profit a person brings to a company, the very knowledge, I found to be very useful in being secure in workplace (so you do not end up thinking that those who hired you are doing you a favor, on day to day basis).

 

Hope it helps.

[Canoe_Captain]

Hello InquisitorM I think it is a sign of personal strength to share your story with others. At least I always felt uncomfortable and vulnerable when sharing intimate parts of my life.

 

I have as well issues with posting feedback, always asking myself if my input is valuable. Nonetheless here it is:

 

I think your approach to gradually increase the challenges you face in terms of commenting and jobs seems very reasonable. In my case I consider any small step as an improvement.

 

 

I moved back in with my parents, oblivious to how harmful this was, while doctors wheeled out the usual parade of useless anti-depressants. 

 

Do you still live with your parents?

My parents are toxic and living with them even for a few days made me unhappy and stressed out.

 

 

For the first time I have been able to label both sides of the perpetual war: the bottomless, soul-shattering terror of being a child trapped (I am in floods of tears even writing that) in a world that has no regard for me and that I cannot negotiate with,...

This description of your feelings, seems similar to me to the experience an infant in an incubator could have.

 

I have a younger brother who was a premature infant and spent his first weeks in an incubator. I am no expert, but I think at least some infants will experience a trauma because of this. (You probably read more scientific facts about his than me.) Aged 26 today, he was never employed and spent 90% of the years since graduating from school in his room in our parents’ home.

 

I do not know if it helps you, but my brother had a good experience backpacking and camping in France and Spain by foot in late summer. He did so, to enjoy nature, to use his outdoor equipment for once and for the physical activity. During the first week he felt overstrained, was very unsure if he wanted to continue, but soon he fell in love with the concept. If he felt like talking he could talk to another traveler and if he felt like being on his own he could just walk for some days.

 

After returning from this 2 month trip he was much more articulate and it was much easier for me to communicate with him. He was much more open and trusting towards me and the world. I suppose the process of traveling on his own gave him a sense of self-efficacy, increasing his self-confidence.

 

He had plans to continue traveling indefinitely but after what was planned as a short stay at his parents’ home (after the journey), turned again into a long-term stay, he gradually reverted back to being sedentary, inhibited, self-conscious and closed-off.

 

My brother also had 6 consecutive weeks of private inpatient psychiatric treatment but the effects seemed minor to me compared to his journey.

 

 

 It was bad enough that no-body asked me if I wanted to be moved up, but what really rankles me now is that even then, inthe first year of secondary school, I was already devoid of any resistance to being pushed around – life wasn’t something I got to make any decisions about. [...] I’m supposed to love my extended family. I’m supposed to want to go to school. 

And for the first time I can actually feel my day-to-day experience of life as numb, rather than simply empty.

 

I also had a childhood where I was almost all the time told what I was supposed to do with very low parental interest/acknowledgement in my own little hobbies, passions or interests. I think if parents do not support their children in pursuing their own interests, an important skill is underdeveloped: When those children grow up they miss the bridge/connection of their consciousness to their inner wishes and interests. I often feel & think like pursuing my interest is unimportant, or I do even not feel any interest in any job or work at all, which might be similar to the experience of life as numb. 

I hope & think that this missing bridge can be rebuild by somehow connecting emphatically to your own childhood. (I have unfortunately not really fully succeeded to rebuild my own bridge yet)

 

 

I hope this somehow is valuable feedback for you.

[InquisitorM]

First of all I'm very sorry to hear about how trapped and ignored you have felt all of your life. Based on what you have said, and based on similar experiences I can draw on in my life I would say it sounds like you are resisting finding a job because you see it as an extension of your childhood. You see it as continuing the feeling that you are invisible. Your entire post seems to focus on this idea of you feeling invisible to those who you want love and acceptance from. You talk about how success frightens you and makes you freeze up, and I think that might be because it is not a reaction you are used to, or that it is one that goes against this feeling that you should be invisible. You have this reinforcing mechanism that kicks on to keep you invisible when someone praises you or you have the opportunity to respond to someone acknowledging you. So what do you think about what I've said?

 

Yeah, I definitely think that success, both literally and as an expression of desire, flags up as dangerous because it makes me visible. This is why I say that I understand that my protective reactions are my ally because they served a purpose, but I don't yet have the right language to repurpose a function that is no longer working to my benefit. There are lots of comparative minor misfires that I have isolated and exorcised with relative ease simply by being able to understand it and put it into words – or make it 'thinkable' as it is phrased in counselling.

 

There is another aspect to it, that of internalised value, but I'm going to mention that in reply to Slavic's post, below. Please don't think I'm short-changing you, and thank you for reading and replying

 

 

I could also relate to the fear of rationalizing my laziness, this comes (to what extent I don't know) from my dad, who always told me that finding causes where excuses for my own limitations.

Did your parents do the same to you?

 

Nothing like that, no. Frankly, my Dad doesn't seem to be able to get past the idea that other people don't see things exactly as he does – it's almost narcissistic now that I think about it like that. People need jobs to have money, therefore people should get a job. If that doesn't instantly make sense there there must be something wrong with you.

 

He's also staggeringly adroit when it comes to bullshit non-apologies. 'We didn't know any better' and the like. 

 

 

By the way, I'm aware that my comments here often are very self involved and perhaps lacking in sympathy, I'm just sharing my point of view.

 

Well, as I see it, there is a pretty fundamental (if not always obvious) difference between airing a similar experience to see if it lends context, and using context as an excuse to talk about yourself. I can certainly see how people might think the latter – you do have a rather intense way of expressing thought writing – but I think the real issue might be that 'unsympathetic' is being thrown out as a pejorative.

 

Does it seem a little unsympathetic? Perhaps, but that's just implies that something doesn't quite strike a cord with you. But I don't know you, so I can find no reason to take that as any kind of attack on my person or any indication of maladaptive behaviour on your part. In fact, I would go as far to say that it felt a great deal of integrity in the way you replied. Sort of, 'I've no idea if this helps, but here's what it makes me think of'. You didn't make any claims or judgements; you asked a question. Sympathy isn't a requirement for either curiosity or compassion – though it certainly helps.

 

 

One thing I want to add, a suggestion.  When you are going to work for people, you are going to provide value for them, what i mean by that, is that YOU have value.  Stafan mentioned this in his podcast :"Every job a person does, one way or another brings extra profit to the company, how it is calculated is something you can either research or at some point sit down with a manager to help you figure out specif numbers" What this can give you, is a road map, things you do = this much profit to the company, extra things you do=much more profit in clearer numbers.  The idea of more or less exact profit a person brings to a company, the very knowledge, I found to be very useful in being secure in workplace (so you do not end up thinking that those who hired you are doing you a favor, on day to day basis).

 

Yeah. Value. That's been a sticking point since my very first counselling session seven and a half years ago. It's not so much that I feel worthless – that is, a worth of zero – but I simply can't process on that level at all. Not applicable. Does not compute.

 

How to talk about my value to a company once I have a job isn't something I have difficulty imagining, but valuing myself to imagine that I could get that job in the first place is like harder that critiquing Vogon poetry – the mutually agreed language just isn't there. I have no idea how to press this matter at present. 

 

 

Do you still live with your parents?

 

No. Moving out was a big jump forwards, but without a job I'm still essentially benefit scrounging. That was a huge deal to come to terms with and it rankles at every turn, but there came a point where I just had to put it down to working with what was in front of me.

 

I haven't strictly de-foo'd, but after an unpleasant back and forth over my birthday (I have issues with my birthdays, Christmas, etc. because it's a system of expectation that I didn't get to opt out of) I told her clearly that I just wasn't going to talk to her again until I was good and ready. I make no pretence that it was a good way to handle it, but I have no desire to hold on to that relationship so I'm just focusing on what is more useful to me. I have a little more contact with Dad, but barely – he is still the enabler for some of Mum's craziness in a sort of 'don't upset your mother' kind of way. She can't be upset, but I don't get the same consideration, of course.

[Devon Gibbons]

Yeah. Value. That's been a sticking point since my very first counselling session seven and a half years ago. It's not so much that I feel worthless – that is, a worth of zero – but I simply can't process on that level at all. Not applicable. Does not compute.

 

How to talk about my value to a company once I have a job isn't something I have difficulty imagining, but valuing myself to imagine that I could get that job in the first place is like harder that critiquing Vogon poetry – the mutually agreed language just isn't there. I have no idea how to press this matter at present. 

I am curious, since you have been unemployed for 12 years which is much longer than I have had being unemployed (only 8 months total job experience however) - I am 22 and have been unemployed for 2 years - what is your definition of value? Because I think this is a meatball for my situation.

 

Also, where not is the mutually agreed language? Do you mean that between your employer and yourself, your definition of value is different? Would you say you equivocate its definition in your own head? If there is an equivocation and you clarified and removed it, I think it may help.

 

I look forward to your response, as I comprehended well the OP.

[InquisitorM]

I am curious, since you have been unemployed for 12 years which is much longer than I have had being unemployed (only 8 months total job experience however) - I am 22 and have been unemployed for 2 years - what is your definition of value? Because I think this is a meatball for my situation.

 

That, my friend, is a very odd turn of phrase. At the very least you gave me the giggles.

 

Interesting you should ask that question, though: I've been working on something that touches on that since I made this post, with the indirect help of one Dr. Gabor Mate – author of "In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts". As an extension of where I am in counselling, I had a very powerful reaction to his comments on implicit memory, and several details that I had been juggling fell into place. An absolutely crushing sense of worthlessness has come up time and time again, but after watching videos of the doctor, it just sprang into my mind – almost as if it had been waiting to be given voice – that not having my needs reacted to must, by extension, mean that I have no value to anyone. I've consciously excluded the circumstances of my birth (the incubator) from any previous emotional models I have built of my past because I've never felt any emotional traction with it before. Guesswork is useful for finding a thread to pull on, but I've always waiting for some emotional connection before digging too much deeper, lest I risk being led astray by internationalisations. This is what Dr. Mate's talks highlighted: that I had been following the threads of my need for distractions, rather then the underlying cause – a deep scar of worthlessness.

 

So when it comes to my definition of value, I would mostly do with the common dictionary definition – relative worth, merit, or importance – but with a strong reminder that value is always dictated by how much people want something. That is to say that the word 'value' on it's own is meaningless without either an implicit or explicit qualification of who it is valuable to. 

 

Also, where not is the mutually agreed language? Do you mean that between your employer and yourself, your definition of value is different? Would you say you equivocate its definition in your own head? If there is an equivocation and you clarified and removed it, I think it may help.

 

The reference was to Vogon poetry, not the idea of value. To follow on from above, if I have the internalised sense of being without value then it follows that I would have trouble understanding the value statements of others as anything more than arbitrary. I can understand the concept of a person who has worth and therefore can interact economically with an employer, but I cannot imagine what it would be like to have that sense of value – that is that part that is alien to me and feels like trying to communicate in a different language. And no, I don't think I've ever really experienced the feeling of being valued on a social level, either. I can tell you that there are definitely people that do, but I can't feel it. Again, the 'language' that would allow it seems to be simply missing, like a missing driver to use a piece of computer hardware.