staying oriented – Real Social Skills

There are people who look much better than they actually are. They trick other people into admiring them for virtues that they do not actually possess. Sometimes they do this by using their charisma like a mirror.

It works along these lines (I’m using ‘he’ here both for ease of reading and because this is *often* male-coded behavior, but there are also people who do this who aren’t men):

Charisma Man is a bad leader. He talks a lot about important causes, but doesn’t do any effective work on them.
Mostly, Charisma Man insults all the leaders who are doing serious work on those causes for not having fixed it yet.
Idealistic people see that the problem hasn’t been solved yet, and assume that it’s because the other leaders don’t care as much as Charisma Man does.
They are sincere, and they think Charisma Man is too.
They will tell everyone that Charisma Man is kind and wise and good.
None of this is actually true. There is wisdom and kindness and sincerity and goodness in the room, but it’s not coming from Charisma Man, it’s coming from his followers.
When they look at Charisma Man, they see their own good qualities reflected back, and then give him credit for them.
Charisma Man is wielding his charisma like a mirror in order to stop people from noticing what he is actually like.
People don’t notice all the ways that Charisma Man is failing at leadership because they’re seeing their own reflected goodness instead.
They also don’t notice all the ways that they are good and competent and valuable because they are attributing everything good they notice to Charisma Man.

If you are admiring a leader in an unbounded way and losing sight of your own worth, you might be looking at a charisma mirror rather than reality. It’s worth asking yourself:

What does this leader do that I think is admirable?
Do they actually do those things?
Is it unusual to do those things? Who else does them?
How is this leader helping others to be effective?
How is this leader valuing other people’s work?
When there is kindness and wisdom and sincerity in the room, where is it coming from? Is it from the leader, the followers, or both?

If a leader is making you feel like the only valuable thing you can do is follow them, sometimes is seriously wrong. Everyone, including you, has their own good qualities and their own contributions to make. Good leaders don’t want you to depend on them for your own sense of self worth, and they don’t want you to see them as the only person with something to offer. Good leaders don’t want unbounded admiration from their followers; good leaders collaborate and show respect for other people’s strengths.

A lot of things that are normal aren’t ok. It’s hard to notice this. We’re socialized to accept a lot of things that really ought to be unacceptable. When we try to object, we’re punished. Being punished for objecting is often humiliating and disorienting.

It’s hard to remember that these things are wrong even when others punish you for saying so. It’s hard to remember that you have rights when others act like you don’t.

One way to remember that things are wrong is to get angry about them. Feeling outraged can make it easier to hold onto your sense that, no, this isn’t ok, and yes, it is ok to object.

Unfortunately, the price of rage is high. Rage hurts. It’s physically unpleasant, physically exhausting, emotionally draining, and makes it hard to think clearly. The physical and emotional exhaustion from anger makes it harder to do other things. The fog of anger can lead to mistakes that make it harder to remember after the fact that you were justified in objecting. Rage is better than nothing, but there are other strategies that don’t hurt as much.

One thing that can help is to develop your understanding of the situation over time. If you learn to understand what you’re angry about and why, it can make it possible to use understanding rather than anger to stay oriented.

Questions like these can help:

What am I angry about?
Why am I angry about that?
What happened that I think is wrong?
Why do I think it’s wrong?

For instance, say I’m in class, we’re doing an activity, I’m not able to do the activity, and I’m feeling angry. We’re writing thoughts on big paper, and I can’t do handwriting well enough to participate. In that situation, I might think:

Why am I angry?
I’m trying to participate and failing over and over and that’s intensely frustrating.
Why am I angry about that?
Because I’m sick of being left out all the time.
What happened that I think is wrong?
The teacher knew about my disability and didn’t do anything to accommodate it when they planned the activity.
When I pointed out that I couldn’t participate, they didn’t do anything to fix it.
Why do I think that’s wrong?
Because I have a right to be here, and the teacher is supposed to be teaching me.
I’m a student here, and I have the right to learn the material and be part of the activities we’re using to learn it.
This is disability discrimination, and that’s wrong.

Then, the next step in using understanding rather than anger is to notice that something is wrong before you start feeling enraged. Sometimes that can make it possible to fix the problem without having to get to the point of outrage. It can also make it more possible to decide when to fight and when not to.

For instance, take the class activity. If I remember that I have the right to be there and that it’s the teacher’s responsibility to teach me, this might happen:

I go to class and see that there is big paper on the walls.
I remember that I can’t do big paper activities.
I remember that I have the right to participate in educational activities.
I remember that I have the right to learn the material.
I ask right away “Are we doing a big paper activity today? How will I participate?”
At this point, I’m annoyed, but not outraged, and able to assert something without it hurting so much.

They may or may not respond the right way — and I might still get really angry. But if that happens, I can repeat the strategy again, figure out what I’m angry about and why. Then I can get further without depending on anger the next time. (Even when you can’t win or fix the problem, it’s still often possible to use that kind of strategy to stay oriented without rage. I have more posts in the works about that specifically.)

Anger isn’t a failure. It’s ok to be angry when unacceptable things are happening. It’s also ok *not* to feel physically angry. Anger hurts, and you don’t owe anyone that kind of pain. You don’t have to be pushed to the point of rage in order to be justified in objecting to unacceptable things.

Sometimes it might help to explicitly remind yourself of this. Some affirmations that have sometimes worked for me:

I don’t have to hurt myself to prove that this is wrong.
It’s still wrong if I’m calm.
It’s still wrong if I’m not crying and shaking.
It’s still wrong if my heart isn’t pounding.
Even if I’m ok, the situation isn’t ok.
Even if I’m ok in this moment, it’s ok to object to a situation that’s hurting me and/or others.

It also helps not to beat yourself up for getting angry. Anger in the face of outrageous things isn’t a failure. No strategy can completely replace physical outrage for anyone. Holding yourself up to impossible standards won’t help. Working on your skills at staying oriented in other ways will.

These strategies are harder to learn and harder to use. They also make it a lot more possible to resist and stay oriented without hurting yourself. It’s not all or nothing — any skills in this area help, and it gets easier with practice.