White snake oil madness

So I have someone who I used to be friends with on Facebook and she now seems to spend all her time posting things like 'Self Mastery - Ascended Souls - THE EVOLUTION OF THREE TO FOUR' accompanied by a black-and-white photo of an old man in an apron and several paragraphs, and a video with the caption about how "When a giant hole opens up in someone's life, it's actually much more supportive to acknowledge that hole and let pain exist."

The thing is... context is key. I find this stuff somewhat unnerving and frankly, also quite offensive. It's reminiscent of GOOP and how its business model seems to be to a significant degree replicating the idea of the 19th-century high-class invalid woman. Think Charlotte Perkins Gilman, except that GOOP and its ilk are not telling you the truth. To be very corny, they are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem. As with many an abusive relationship, the message is corrosively individualistic: not that society needs fixing, but that you do. You just need to find the right, conveniently expensive and exclusive, way to deliver you from your ills. They're your friends, girl, looking out for you! Lean back and let the placebo effect, credulity and good old fashioned MONEY make you feel like 'something is being done'!

The thing is, especially at this current point in time, we exist in a very hierarchical world where power dynamics really exist and really affect our lives. The snake oil product you bought from GOOP or wherever because you're 'so effing tired' (very clever marketing by them!) may not make you feel less tired, rich white lady, but your race and class privilege sure as hell are cushioning the ride for you. Some of us will never get access to these rarified echelons (not that it's necessarily something to crave), whether that's due to race, class, place of birth, or any number of factors.

This former friend of mine is, no surprise, a relatively middle-class white lady. I would go so far as to say that she is middle-class, because she was previously living in London and working in the City, in a role that had something to do with the Stock Exchange. I obviously can't pass judgement on everything that she has experienced, not least because I don't know about it all. However, it really felt like there was something very performative and perhaps narcissistic, seeing some of the things she was sharing. Not to mention some of the gobbledygook associated with these posts SCREAMED 'cult.'

So I Googled the woman behind a lot of what she has been tagged in, or shared, and good grief. It's somehow both what I expected and worse. There is the standard racism and even an edge of anti-feminism in there. Not to mention that she has the look of someone who could play the evil aunt in an Indian soap, or a younger Cruella de Vil. Bitch even has a picture of herself in a sari (OF COURSE). 'Former friends' are quoted talking about how she is probably mentally ill, and honestly, a lot of the quotes to me suggest a psychopath (not that I am placed to diagnose).

Much like Scientology, it really feels like yet again, this is something that would HAVE to come from white people. Narcissistic is absolutely the word. Cult? Definitely - when you're pushing people to get 'branded' with your tattoo and going on about your ESP and the aliens you've got cosy with... Wow. They say that whiteness is a hell of a drug, and I must concur. When you can graft together an entire ideology from the pre-existing ideas of others, while also conveniently ignoring and/or discarding the painful realities of the world (like how maybe black women are perceived as less attractive because of misogynoir?)... that's whiteness. 

When you can afford to spend time circle-jerking over all your suffering in Costa Rica with other like-skinned individuals (yes, I know there's a handful of Asians in the entourage, and I am NOT SURPRISED, frankly), it doesn't take ESP for me to see that this shit is PRIVILEGED. Those of us who are lower down the ranks have to make do with such trivial concerns as how to get paid and how to avoid being penalised for existing. I feel like I may have to remain a spectator rather than try to break through to my friend, given how utterly vile her cult of choice is.

Taking a moment

Taking a moment is something that I know I should do more often and that I long to do more often.

Realistically, I cannot very well justify why I don't do it more. Perhaps feeling like a perennial 'late developer' in life, I am constantly adrift in the fear of being 'left behind' or being 'pipped to the post.' The notion that other people are constantly outpacing me and that I am not able to catch up to them... but for what? What is it that they're outpacing me in or at?

Rationally, I do not know. Perhaps it comes from being the third in a group of four siblings - an inglorious status, particularly when you are the youngest of 3 girls and followed by the much-longed-for boy child. My older sisters cast quite the shadow professionally, but then again, it was a very different time for them when they went to university. One of them not only had no student loan, but even got a grant... what a notion these days.

I went for a walk at lunchtime and looked up into the sky at one point. A small break in the clouds had formed around the sun and it was asserting itself with surprising brightness. There was something strangely magnificent about that gleaming coin amidst the billows of grim grey and I felt a sense of wonder. I have long felt that I am a person in need of a religion... maybe I was a sun-worshipper all along.

I joined a dating app... for friends

I've joined a dating app for friends. Note, this does not mean using a dating app for making friends - that would just be unfair. I'm also not sure that allowing the uncertainty that already swamps online interactions to proliferate is wise.

No, this is geared specifically at allowing me to meet friends. I have been cultivating a measure of technophobia for some time, and by technophobia, I really mean 'fear of technology.' Blame it partly on the show Person of Interest if you will (but do watch that show, because it is SO. GOOD.), but I have felt the ever-increasing presence of technology as a light but consistent pressure on me, which I am yielding to ever more, unless I break rather than bend.

Break, I have - I was never one to get too into 'social media' anyway and the commitment they demand has always felt to me like a chore upon other chores. In 2012, my life underwent considerable upheaval 'IRL' and that remained the case until 2016. From 2016, some of the madness abated enough to make me ask Big Questions.

Big Questions like - who AM I? I had goals for myself - don't murder your mother, find love and get the hell out - which I achieved. Then it was a case of finding a job... and now it is a case of finding a career. Though that's even some of the way towards being resolved.

The question of WHO AM I must be answered in component parts, because no-one is one monolithic self, but a collection of selves. I'm a wife and I'm also now a home-owner. Two things I never really thought I'd be, but hey! Due to the way I got to the wife and home-owner stages, I need to now answer the question of WHO AM I in relation to friends.

When you lack emotional support, love and acceptance, you will allow a great deal of unacceptable treatment just in order to maintain a connection with somebody. Boundaries become something of a disaster zone. This is almost certainly to do with my upbringing, which was all very heavily predicated on being the 'right' way. Be feminine, be obedient, be very slim, defer to seniors/betters but also be educated, be a successful professional, don't be too dependent on others to decide things for you... I was the disappointing, difficult daughter. So insidious was the messaging I received, constantly implying that I couldn't succeed because a) I didn't want to enough, and b) I was inherently incapable. SPOT THE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.

It's worth noting here that parental narcissism and the gaslighting involved therein is a long-term project. I shouldn't really be surprised that a) it's affecting me to this day and b) I didn't spot just how dishonest it was earlier. My husband tends to use the terms 'survival' and 'surviving' when discussing my adolescence, and I'm really seeing how apt this is now. It occurs to me that maybe I'm a survivor in more ways than one? Maybe I have got so focused on 'getting through' that I am finding myself, as of this moment, back full circle blogging to try and get the welter of emotions under control.

Good Lord, are feelings complex or what! 'Feeling' your feelings, 'processing' your feelings and 'managing' your feelings... it's a lot of work.