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Hey, I'm Jane

ummm floor pie a quote from homer Simpson (the simpsons)
and the pie times wish i could subscribe
 
Southern Discomfort said:
'lo!




What do you mean by 'deprogram'? Curious.

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I essentially am talking about getting rid of all of the default internal and external responses I have to other people, negative thoughts I have toward myself based on past unpleasant interactions with people, and believing that I am innately flawed and worthless.

TL;DR - My life was awful until my mid-twenties. After a large altercation with over a dozen women I'd considered to be friends, I figured there must be something legitimately wrong with me since so many people hated me. I eventually discovered information about female autism, found a number of people who'd had similar experiences, then took my research to a neurobehaviorlist who confirmed my self-diagnosis. Since then, I have been working to teach myself how to allow my heart and mind to be my own - uninfluenced by other people's unwanted opinions and insults.

___
Long explanation:

I always thought I was a freak of nature, because I realized when I was about 2 that I did not fit in with people around me. So, I thought I had to hide my true self and pretend to be "normal" so that nobody would notice. I treated all of my innate thoughts and feelings as completely wrong/disgusting and worked hard to try to fit into whatever role I was expected to fill.

I grew up in a very unsupportive and abusive atmosphere (at home, school, and church), so I constantly felt like I had to be on the defensive and do whatever I could to prevent people from picking on me. Ridiculously, any time I would neglect one little "problem" with myself, thinking nobody would notice, that specific thing would become a topic of ridicule within a day or two. It was miserable.

Unsurprisingly, this led to me growing up with no sense of self, no self-esteem, no concept of self-worth, etc. By the time I headed to college, I was suicidal and really just going through the motions because I was "supposed to". I didn't care about anything and just went to school because that's what I'd wasted 12 years working toward. University was miserable - I was depressed, anxious, lonely, and simply did not want to be there.

I ended up marrying a guy, literally because he he asked and I figured I'd never get another chance at someone wanting to marry me, and withdrew from school. I honestly thought I could grow to love him because, "that's what people did in the old days." :-/ Predictably, this did not work out the way I thought it would. He ended up being a very controlling and jealous partner, who did all he could to isolate me from the world.

As a people pleaser, and someone who'd been ingrained with the "obey thy husband" mentality from birth, I tried to do whatever I could to keep him from criticizing me or accusing me of being a whore. This included exclusively wearing men's clothes, not talking to anybody in public, quitting music, quitting writing, quitting all hobbies he didn't approve of, and giving up on any ideas or preferences that made me a separate person from him. None of it mattered to him, though, and I constantly thought of myself as a piece of garbage, deserving of nothing, and probably just meant to be a tool for other people to use - because why else was that my entire life???

I stuck with that as long as I could, seven years, before I came to a point where I knew I either needed to choose to live as myself, or I was going to die. (As in, my predominant thoughts were about going to sleep and never waking up again, and I was disappointed when I woke up every morning.) I was pregnant at the time and absolutely would not entertain the idea of killing that child along with me.

I decided then and there that I was going to become who I needed to be and I was going to stop pretending to be everyone else. I told my husband I was not in love with him and did not want to be married, I started writing music again, I started playing live shows, I started selling products at a farmer's market, I started finding actual friends, and I stopped seeking his approval.

I still had low self esteem and truly believed I was a piece of garbage for trying to be myself, but I also knew that was the only way I could stay alive for my children. I still pretended I was a normal person, still acted how I thought society wanted to me to act, etc.

I'd been a part of an online group for about a decade at that point, and I considered some of those people to be my friends. I had small disagreements with people here and there, but nothing I thought of as significant. One day, someone posted a picture of a non-member, making fun of her and criticizing everything about her. I replied, asking her to please remove the image because the subject was not there to defend herself. The OP immediately began calling me names, accusing me of "thinking I'm better than them", and so on. All of the cronies jumped in, being very cruel and rude, and listing instances of interactions that had happened in the past that "proved" I was just an asshole. These people had apparently been cataloging everything they hated about me over the years, because 15 women threw out their laundry lists of why they hated me and why it was justified.

I was crushed, absolutely crushed. Here I had been thinking of those people as my friends, and they'd hated me the entire time. How had I missed that? How had I caused that? What was wrong with me that made people hate me so much?

I started trying to find some reason for this discrepancy in my thoughts/feelings and reality. I fully expected to find that I must be mentally ill, have brain damage, be mentally defective, or some other extreme thing that could explain what was wrong with me and why I was constantly the target of everyone's hate.

I stumbled upon a story that was nearly identical to mine - erstwhile friends turning to enemies in a moment's time. I found the story in an Asperger's forum. From there, things started to make more sense, and I compiled a significant set of data that supported my idea that I really did have some form of high functioning autism.

When I was finally diagnosed, it was like I had entered a new world. I no longer had to hide myself, I no longer had to try to fit in, I no longer had to compromise everything about myself just to survive. Deprogramming is the active work I do to combat those automated social behaviors I'd always used to keep my true self hidden. I just don't care anymore, because I recognized that my heart and mind had been right for me along! I was not wrong or backward, I just had a different perspective of the world.

About a year later, those same women did the same thing - this time because I asked them not to make fun of a young child with a unibrow. That time, though, I knew without at doubt that they were being despicable people. There was no second guessing. I laughed at their attempts at insult, pointed out their flawed logic, and proceeded to block those 15 women so I'd never have to waste another minute of life reading their petty-ass, shallow nonsense that was fueled by their own insecurities.

Life has changed dramatically for the better over the past few years, and I owe it all to a group of self-righteous internet jerks. :)
 
Streetwise said:
what is the origin of tanfei i ask as i find words hard to understand the only language that is easier is Hebrew but my knowledge of hebrew is minute
is it tiawanese, Korean or mandarin
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It's Mandarin! I studied Mandarin at university, and was given the name Pan Tan Fei. Pan is my actual ancestral name (from a great-great grandmother), and Tan Fei was the closest the instructor could get to my legal first name. Jane is my middle name, and I like Tan Fei better than my actual first name, so I call myself Jane Tan Fei or Tan Fei Jane. :)
 
tree said:
2be318212b5a79fe1121945ad5eb429f.png
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Thank you, tree!
 
oh no now youve got wanting to know what your first name is
my appetite for words is ravenous
janetanfei said:
It's Mandarin! I studied Mandarin at university, and was given the name Pan Tan Fei. Pan is my actual ancestral name (from a great-great grandmother), and Tan Fei was the closest the instructor could get to my legal first name. Jane is my middle name, and I like Tan Fei better than my actual first name, so I call myself Jane Tan Fei or Tan Fei Jane. :)
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epiphany would be hard for me!!! to get right if it was my name its a nice
i cant get used to people calling babies a surname as a first name or a counties in France like brittany
but being a follower of Yeshua (Jesus) i must love first
 
its strange again that theophania is slightly easier than English word epiphany
i think the infection i had damaged the part of my mind that understands language
 
janetanfei said:
Much obliged, Nitro. Thank you for keeping this place running for us all!
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Thank you much,but it is actually the fine staff and membership that makes it all work.

I hope you like it here and enjoy being a part of our family :)
 
Streetwise said:
are there emojis available on the site to post messages like the laughing face
i have them for email but not this or is it texts my memory is weird now
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I just type in a happy face or whatever and it shows the emoji after I submit the post.

I do see an emoji button above the reply field - it's a happy face next to the image button. I clicked it and an emoji bar popped up at the bottom of the text field! :leafwind::herb::tulip:
 
Streetwise said:
epiphany would be hard for me!!! to get right if it was my name its a nice
i cant get used to people calling babies a surname as a first name or a counties in France like brittany
but being a follower of Yeshua (Jesus) i must love first
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Close! Look again - it's not the actual meaning of Theophania, it's the English version of the name. Hint: This was a popular name for girls in the '80s.
 
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