Random disconnected thoughts

I'm tired, and my allergies are VERY bad this morning. If I were not so pathologically dedicated to my work, I'd probably have seriously considered taking a sick day today. Not that sitting at home would make me feel any better than teaching my classes would, now that I'm up.

I ran across this article about 'validation' last night. I guess "validation" is the official term for what I've talked about, where I called it "feeling special," or "being asked to cheerlead" or "reassurance" or many other terms.

Validation is fundamentally "being heard." Or, perhaps, "being heard and agreed with upon some level" (the writer gives the example of a friend asking them* if the food there was good. The writer didn't know, never having used the place before, but they said "Yes" because it made the friend feel better.

(*The writer has a name from a different culture from those which I am familiar and I don't know their gender, so am using the genderless pronoun)

And yeah, yeah, maybe that's one of those "white lies" a million episodes of "educational and instructional" kids' shows have been written about but - yeah. I understand the whole situation totally; that is kind of the water I swim in: people ask for reassurance that a decision is good, someone gives it to them. It is like being polite: it is the lubrication that keeps the wheels of community turning and prevents things from sticking and hanging up.

The author points out that this kind of "validation" is something that's part of community, part of relationship: for one thing, it's how we judge whether our actions are OK or are beyond the pale.

But the problem comes in, because humans aren't always good at subtlety and self-control. So some people become crazy-needy of validation (Yes, I see that tendency in myself, and I try very hard to squash it down). I mean, isn't all of social media about validation? "Like us on Facebook!" "retweet me!" "Tag my photo!"

(Then again: I would argue in some ways a lot of us are more isolated than we once were. I do not live within 700 miles of anyone I am related to. I did not grow up here so when conversations of natives turns - as they invariably do - to what happened in high school or some convoluted family-history of some big family in town, I just sit there, silent, and count the tiles on the floor)

And so then, the new thing is: "Well, people like validation. And people ask for it. So validation must be bad!" and then the new mindset is "don't look for validation from your peers! Do what makes YOU feel good!"

And as Zalani (the author) points out: that's not so great, either. Because then you run the danger of becoming a monster of a different sort - the kind of person who basically says "Forget you and your feelings, I'm going to do just what I want" and this leads to things like people sitting on their porches at all hours, blasting loud music, while the neighbors ask them to turn it down. Or the person who parks in such a way as to take the better part of three parking spaces (yes, I have seen that) because they don't want to risk their car getting dinged*

(*though they are lucky that another monster-of-selfishness doesn't come by and key their car because they took three close parking places - and yes, it seems I see the line-straddlers ALWAYS in the close-in spots; no one ever decides "I will park distant from the store and walk, so I can protect my car's finish)

The thing is, though - a third thing Zalani doesn't mention - is how for some people, this idea of "validation" is kind of one-sided. Or at least it feels so. One of the reasons I think I get so worn out during the week is that I have a lot of people asking me for validation in some form: students going "Is my answer here right?" or "Am I making the right choice in classes" or my un-favorite: "Can I still earn an A in the class?" (Except for cases where the answer is a very extreme "no, it is not mathematically possible" I don't know what to say. I can't foresee the future; if I could, I would be doing something else altogether with my life, like picking stocks or breaking the bank at Monaco...)

And sometimes I get it from colleagues. I have one in particular who often stops by to tell me things, and I've sussed out that what he really wants is for me to nod and make reassuring noises, or to say "wow, that's good" or something similar.

And I see it from other people. There was, in particular, one woman at my church (who has since moved to be closer to family) who always needed reassurance, or needed to be heard, or whatever.

When I am feeling strong, I can do that. I can tell myself, "Those people don't get heard a lot" or "They are anxious people and need some reassurance" or "Often undergrads feel like they don't know what they're doing."

But you know? When I'm not so strong, or when my allergies are bothering me*, or when I'm overworked, or when I'm sad about something else, it's really hard. Some days it feels like I'm pulling off pieces of myself and handing them to other people, and I worry that I won't have enough pieces left for me. (And some days, I don't. Some days I spend giving so much reassurance that I have none of that energy left for me)

(*I've said it before, but will restate it here: often my allergies take more subtle and insidious forms. I don't have a runny nose or a sore throat, I don't sneeze a whole lot. But I do get tired, and borderline weepy, and it feels like there's a grey scum over everything - the world seems an uglier place. It is not unlike what friends have described low-level depression as being like. I do know if I tough it out it gets better in a few weeks, but when my allergies are really bad - they are worst in the spring when the trees are flowering - it's just HARD)

And one thing I've found about myself: it's hard for me to directly ask for reassurance. I wish I were the kind of person who could walk up to someone (well, you can't do it on a college campus, anyway) and ask them for a hug. Or where I could fundamentally ask someone: "I'm good/pretty/smart/okay/whatever, right?" and know they will just sigh and say "yes"

But I do still need that validation. (I guess I think of it more as reassurance). One of the reasons I waste a lot of time various places online, I think, is because I don't get a whole lot of direct reassurance in my day to day life. And yeah, yeah: I spend a lot of time internally screaming at myself YOU ARE AN ADULT YOU SHOULD NOT NEED THAT AND JUST LEARN TO ACCEPT THAT IF SOMEONE ISN'T CHEWING YOU OUT FOR SCREWING UP IT MEANS YOU ARE DOING FINE, LEARN TO TAKE **THAT** AS VALIDATION but I can't quite do it.

(And yes: some fields are different. The performance-based fields like music and theater seem to fundamentally have a lot more reassurance given than in the sciences; I suppose it's because in the sciences skepticism about what people have done is the default - so you don't tell someone what they did was good because you're not sure it's repeatable, or you're not sure of their experimental design, or you're jealous you didn't think of it first....)

So I don't know. I wish I needed it less, but I admit it's reassuring to read that article and not hear- what you often do hear - that you're a freak because you need it.

Still, I wish I were asked to give it less, or that the balance between giving and getting validation felt like it was more in my favor these days. (I think also that is part of my frustration with the whole "Higher ed is expendable" mindset and the whole fact that for a lot of my students, work or sport schedules take precedence over coming to class, because that's how they get money/scholarships to afford tuition, and it means I feel like a servant, because I'm expected to remediate for the times they've missed, and feeling like you're a servant is fundamentally invalidating, and....)