The Stories of Our Lives

This episode dives into owning your own story and how that can help you not care about the negative opinions of others. 
TW: violence

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Transcript

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Hey my friends. It is that time of year where allergies are hitting hard. Everything is blooming and boy do I feel it. So if you've been listening to the last few episodes, you will remember that I mentioned that I had a panic attack in my Krav Maga class. So if you didn't listen to that episode and don't know what I'm talking about, basically, we were learning a defense against being pinned against the wall. The pinning exercises always kind of put me a little on edge anyway, because that was one of my ex's favorite techniques of coercion. He liked to pin me down until I gave into whatever it was that he wanted. So it's a little spicy for me to start. But then I was partnered with a woman that I hadn't worked with before. And she's been doing it a long time and she just like went full power at me and I wasn't expecting that. So it startled the hell out of me and that just kind of sent me over the edge and I ended up having a panic attack right there in the middle of class. And the woman felt really bad for not going easier on someone newer and she said to me, like Promise you won't quit. And I was like, No, I'm not gonna quit like why would I quit? Like it's just a panic attack. It'll pass. I'm surprised it hasn't already happened. It will probably happen again. It's really no big deal. And I had a couple of other people who I shared what happened with ask me also if I was going to quit and I was like, why do people keep asking me that? And I realized it's because of the way that they are thinking about panic attacks. It's what they are making it mean in their own heads that they think that quitting is the natural outcome of having a panic attack in class. Or at least a possibility. Whereas the way I was thinking about it, it wasn't even something I was remotely considering. I'm not saying that not quitting is better than quitting. Like both are equally valid decisions and there isn't like a morally superior option. But I do want to talk about how the stories we tell ourselves about things that happen shapes our lives and our outcomes. Because there are the facts of what happened. My breathing changed to shallow and rapid. I had water come out of my eyes and down my face. My heart rate went up. There were other people present who may have observed me. I left class early. Those were the facts of what happened. Anything on top of that is just a story I would be telling myself about those facts. And that, my friends, is where all of our power lies-- with the stories that we tell ourselves. And I say this all the time on here. We can't always control our circumstances. I didn't get to control what my body did in response. But I get to choose what I make that mean and I have chosen to make it mean that panic attacks are just the mark of someone who has survived incredible violence. It doesn't mean anything else. That wasn't always the case for me. I used to tell myself a very different story about having panic attacks. I used to tell myself that it meant I was broken and damaged and I needed to fix myself because I was crazy. I would have been mortified at having a panic attack in public. I would have called it humiliating. The panic attacks are the same in both scenarios. A panic attack is a panic attack: elevated heart rate, shallow rapid breathing, water running from eyes down face. The only thing that has changed is how I think about them. I chose on purpose what I wanted it to mean because the reality of living with PTSD is that panic attacks probably aren't going anywhere. You might go decades without having one, but PTSD doesn't get cured. It just gets managed. So there's always going to be the possibility of having one or being triggered again. But knowing that reality gave me a really important choice of how I wanted to think about this thing. Because I could choose to think about it in a way that brought more suffering. Or I could choose a way to think about it that made it easier to carry. So I chose to believe things about it that let me carry panic attacks well. I recognize when I started having one and I work to calm it down. I take care of myself during it and after it. And I'm not mean to myself about it. The only thing I believe about it is that it is a mark of my having experienced great violence in my life, which I have. Other people haven't so they don't get them. But I don't think it means anything more about me than I think it means something about people who get migraines. I don't get migraines. Some people do. I don't think that it makes them weak or bad or defective. They just get migraines for whatever reason. I just get panic attacks. It really isn't a big deal to me. The other thing I get asked about a lot is what about other people, what other people think about it? But the thing is that you can't ever control what other people think. Are there people in my class that could think awful things about me based on me having a panic attack? Absolutely. But the thing is that I think the only kind of person who could think something bad about me based off of that, is someone who has no fucking experience whatsoever with violence. Most of those people in there probably only have ever been attacked inside of that classroom. They are only learning violence in theory. I have real world fucking experience. I know what it feels like to be pinned in real life. I know what it's like to be at gunpoint in real life. So why should these people who not know nothing, have any kind of opinion that matters? They don't. It's like someone who has read all about riding a bike, but never actually ridden one, trying to tell you about riding a bike. If I've ridden a bike before, I don't give a fuck what someone who has only ever read about it has to say about it. Get on a fucking bike before you talk to me. So I just really don't worry about those types of people. They aren't worth my time or my energy. There are so many sayings and Proverbs advising you not to argue with fools. And I think this is that. Some people are just stupid and you got to let them be stupid. There was one woman at a place where I worked who found out that I had been divorced. And she looked at me and she made a face and was like, Yeah, marriage is hard. And it was so condescending the way she said it. I was just like, yeah, and I just let it go. I ignored her. I let her be wrong about me. I let her judge me. And why? Because I knew that her definition of hard and my definition of hard weren't the same. I knew she would shit her pants if she ever went through a fraction of what I had. The only thing I thought about her is that she was really fucking dumb and knew nothing. And I don't argue with fools. I don't argue with stupid people or argue with crazy people. Because you just can't. It will suck the life out of you to try. The more solid you are in your own beliefs about yourself, the easier it is to just let stupid people be stupid people. There's a quote by George Bernard Shaw that says "never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it." So that is what I have for you this week. My friends, choose on purpose what you want to believe about yourself, your circumstances, the things that have happened to you. Because you get to choose which story lives in your head. And the stronger you get in your own story, the more other people's stories just roll off of you. You can email me if you have any questions. My email is on my website www.melindagerdungcoaching.com. All right. My friends. Until next time, be well.