Why I react so much to the words and thoughts of others

Through other people I’m exposed to words, feelings, ideas, ideologies, assumptions, passions. And I don’t want to, but I can see what’s dangerous or unbalanced or problematic or incomplete about all of them, all the time, from every direction. The conservatives are freaking me out, and so are the liberals. The Christians are freaking me out, and so are the non-Christians. I can’t find any safe place to stand or listen. I never have, but it’s even worse now. These things really concern me.

And I’m hearing about them more and more all the time from my friends and family and coworkers and aquaintances, they’re swallowing up the world. Everyone has become a source, a point in the conflict. Everyone is a venue for me getting exposed to the ideological struggles and perspectives. Everyone always was, because everyone is unique and has their own perspective and approach. People are just able to be driven to greater extremes than before, thanks to the current social and media environment and how it’s able to reach and influence us.

So I’m hearing things from all around me, different things from different sides, depending on where people are coming from. And I can’t help but hear it all and be concerned and worried. There’s no getting away from it, and there’s no getting away from me and how I react to it. And you you bring home some of those things too. Different from what this person or that might bring up. And you know who else does brings those things home to me? Me! I’m one of the people, and I tend to bring myself problems from across the spectrum.

So what I’ve decided is that I can’t make having no conflicts or concerns or disagreements be the basis of my relationships. I can’t make resolving them be the basis of my casual, working, friendship, family, or love relationships. It’s just not possible. Because I can’t even sort things out within myself. I can’t resolve all the serious concerns and conflicts in my own mind. And if I can’t do it there, or among my own carefully chosen influences and people I want to hear from, then it can’t be had. It’s not a basis for building my peace and focus in life.

So yes, sometimes things you say and think upset me and worry me. But things I think upset me. Things everyone thinks concern and upset me. But I realized that fixing all that isn’t what I’m called to do. I’m called to love my family. I’m called to love my wife. I’m called to love my neighbors and parents and coworkers. That’s what I’ve got to do. If something is getting in the way of me being able to do that, I’ve got to push it down and reduce its influence and effect on me. Right now that’s social media, because it’s just too fraught, compared to normal, face to face interactions.

I understand what you’re feeling because I’ve felt it myself, for quite a while. I’ve been afraid to say what I think about things to other people for a long time, because it’s always yielded such poor results and left me on the outside of everything. I know it’s hard to believe about someone who seems so loquacious and seems to speak calmly and confidently often, but I’ve not felt able to really share my thoughts or feelings with anyone hardly. I just let out what it seems like I can when it seems like it’s fairly safe. And at some point I gave up on there being much point and decided people couldn’t be reasoned with, so why bother trying?

Being me and expressing myself didn’t get me anywhere in college, or in church. And at some point I had a revelation that I was taking way too much for granted. I had assumed that most people shared way more in common with me than I thought, and I was way more of a radical and outlier than I had thought, although people had been telling me so for quite a while. I still think of myself as quite conventional.

I had that moment with you too, when I realized I had been taking way too much for granted. That your idea of what the world was like and what it consisted of and how you understood it were actually similar to mine. Your faith also had a very different origin and expression and self understanding than my own, I realized. In many ways we came from completely different backgrounds, despite our apparent proximity. And I realized that my own ideas about things weren’t so common and probably placed me at a great distance from everybody. So I felt like I didn’t have a common ground with anyone and couldn’t really talk to or understand or be understood by anyone any more. And that included you, and in a way it included me too. I knew from listening to people that a lot of what I thought was actually intolerable. That I would be the enemy if anyone knew how I felt or what I thought.

And since I was afraid of everyone, including you, I stopped talking, mostly. I stopped listening. I got off social media, and I’m off again now. I got very depressed. Then, later, I worked my way through it. I gave myself space. I got off of social media. I refocused on the world in front of me. I tried to figure out how someone like me was supposed to live and have relationships in the world as it was.

I tried to learn how to live in such a way so that my relationships weren’t based on a lack of tension or on resolving of the tension of concerns or disagreements or differences I might have with people, because apparently I’m a weirdo who can’t help but have a lot and can’t help seeing them and can’t even avoid them in himself. Since I can’t yet resolve the complications within me, I’ve got to live with them. And that means living with it in the world and people around me too. And focusing on what we share and have in common. Using that to figure out how to serve and love them, because that’s all I can do.

I’m still having a hard time with it. Every day I wake up and my feet are dancing and my heart is racing and pounding in my ears, and I don’t want to get up. Some nights I’m so anxious I can hardly fall asleep. I’m afraid to talk to people about anything important. I’m afraid to hear from anyone about anything important. I feel unsafe. I escape into my electronic journal to have a safe space where I can express myself and not have to worry about what anyone thinks of it but me. Where I can voice my thoughts and concerns and know that no one has to read it and knows what they are. Because I don’t want to fight the whole world, and I don’t want the world to despise me and hate me and feel offended at me. I can’t extract this part of me, so I found somewhere to put it and keep it.

Its harder for me with some people because I care about them more. Care more about what they think and feel, care more about how they would react . Care more about my own distance and isolation from them and how speaking could make it even worse. And that worries me. Because I care more about them than anyone else, because they can affect me more than anyone else, I’m more afraid of them than of anyone else. But those are my msot important social connections. You might recontexutalize how you interpret the various ways I act toward you, stupid and aggravating as they often are, in light of the assumption that at all times I’m afraid.

I’ve been afraid people have been leaving me behind in where their minds and hearts and thoughts are going for a while now. That they’re going places I don’t understand, can’t share in, and can’t follow. I’ve been worried I’m leaving myself behind. And at some point I realized that maybe I was never in the same place as anyone in the first place. Maybe I was always far off in crazy town. Maybe I’m only just now waking up to reality of it. And maybe I’m upset by all the reminders, because they’re a painful reminder of a reality and a comfort I’ve lost and maybe never had.

I don’t know if I’m saying anything helpful. I’m trying to give insight that might be helpful. I want you to know what I want. I want to love you and care for you. I want to have my life be about my family and be about loving and enjoying them. And I feel like there’s this whole other world that is trying to wreck all that and distract us all and drive us up the wall and pull us apart, and I just can’t stand to hear any of it any more, because some stupid part of me (that comes from a place that doesn’t want to sit well with anyone or anything) can’t help but struggle with it and want to resolve that conflict. I don’t want to be a part of any of it, I don’t want to get dragged into it, I just want my life.

And this has given me two realizations. First, my realization that you deserve the same. I think it’s a very unjust world where an earnest, caring, thoughtful person like you is unable to feel at rest and is driven out of groups that you want so much to belong to and serve. There’s something dreadfully wrong with the whole world, if that’s what’s happening. But it’s unfair to expect you to resolve it or live with it. I can’t make myself do it, can’t figure it out myself, so it’s unjust to expect you to do it. So you deserve some space and some rest, if you can find it.

I wonder if there isn’t something wrong with the whole world that this seems to be the feeling everywhere (expressed differently as it may be), that there might not be some larger reality we’re all suffering from that’s driving this experience on every side of every spectrum, and it’s not just whatever each single person thinks the problem is. That the ubiquity of reactions across the spectrum show that it’s not a wall pushing against us from one side that’s responsible but walls closing in from all sides, leaving no room, driving everyone into a panic. And that’s something I’m still trying to understand. I don’t think the problem is here or there. I think it’s everywhere. It’s something bigger that’s just finding homes in every side. And I’m not sure where it’s headed or how to respond to it. And that’s part of what disturbs me.

My second realization is that I need to give you space to walk your own path and live your personal history, just as I’m trying to find mine. And unlike me, you may not have reached the point of deciding that there are no safe places to talk and be yourself. You want to be able to talk and share and have sympathy and safety within a group of like minded and understanding people. And it’s not very pleasant for you if I’m not good at being one of those people, because I can’t seem to hear from people about things without being uncomfortable and afraid and disagreeable and disturbed in my mind. I’ve been trying to find a solution to this. I think this is an area where I just need to admit guilt. Just because I’m suffering in this way doesn’t mean it’s fair for you to also.

I have good will toward you. There’s nothing I want in the world more than to love you and make you happy. Unfortunately all I have to work with is this me that I am and this world that we’re in. All I have is the children and family and coworkers and neighbors and country that I actually have. So I’m trying to embrace it. I’m trying to find strength.

So just know that I’m trying. And I want to love you and help you and comfort you and give you rest and pleasure. I don’t have many good works to my name. I’m very imperfect. In fact I’m often awful and disappointing and pathological and undeserving. But maybe you can count my faith as righteousness. I want to love you. I believe in our love. I’m just made of such inadequate materials. And you’re going to suffer because of it, because I’m going to do things badly. But at least you know what I want to do them well.

I remain, always yours