Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Conflict averse
So I’m wondering, to what extent do we have control over our neuroses? Can will power alone undo ingrained personality traits?
As I think I’ve written (albeit long ago), I grew up in a war zone. The arguments were constant and high stakes, and since my bedroom shared a wall with my parents’ bedroom, I heard everything. How my brother (who shared my room) slept through it all is beyond me, or perhaps he did hear it and chose to keep quiet. I used to bang my fist on the wall and scream at them to be quiet. I don’t recall it ever doing any good.
I’ve always attributed my conflict-averse personality to this aspect of my childhood. It’s a pervasive trait, and I consider it a neurosis since it does impair me, at least to a mild degree. When I was in private practice, I made Karen do all the firings. Not that there were many, but she got the job. I would leave the office when she was ready to do the deed. I’ve never been able to watch more than ten or fifteen minutes of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Crazy shit like that. In public, at work, in the hospital, if folks are yelling at each other, I’ll run the other way.
The thing is, it’s sometimes necessary for me to stay. To not run the other way. To endure, to listen, to keep my head together. And it’s damn difficult.
If this were a phobia, I could cure it by gradually ramping up the intensity of the exposure. Start by watching Bill O’Reilly interviews, perhaps, and then graduate to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Eventually, I would go on the Maury Povich Show.
I wish there were an easier way.
D.
Perhaps you can find solace in the paradox that what you consider a fault, others may consider a virtue.
Is the issue conflict or is it yelling/scenes/drama? I have no problem disagreeing with people if it’s over facts or something that isn’t personal (of course, one man’s impersonal is another man’s jihad). Conflict that’s over personal things or things that I think may be outside the person’s control (like throat clearing or finger tapping or loud gum chewing) is a different play game. In general, I’m an avoider. But if it’s crystal clear that I’ll be facing the same situation again and again, well, it’s worth the risk to discuss it. What risk? Well, it’s hard for me to bring up something that’s important to me, since if it can’t be accommodated, it’ll be that much harder to bear in the future (and, yes, someone has indeed used my irrational hatred of loud gum chewing to annoy me and I was that much more annoyed, since I’d previously asked, nicely, for it to stop).
I suppose I could have saved some electrons and said – man up! We all know what happens to appeasers!
Actually, my question – why this post now? A potential conflict (possibly at work, I’m guessing, or maybe a new neighbor or maybe Jake’s school?) brewing? If so, good luck! Early intervention is probably worth steeling yourself up for.
As you well know, I have the same conflict-averse personality, but as I get older, I tend to put up with less crap from people, and my current position has forced me to deal with these conflicts. Even so, I had to wait for the right time (and I grabbed it with gusto) to tell a fellow colleague not to print out multiple copies on the office printer.
i don’t know that you need to watch bill o’really or the maury povich show. i had the same sort of childhood that you did, complete with the banging on the wall and pleading for them to shut up. somehow i learned to divorce myself from other peoples’ conflict. i’ll still run if i’m actually involved, mind you, but i will tell them to sit down and shut up and mean it if need be. i’m not exactly sure where it came from, but i know there was no shitty daytime tv involved.
however, i did fire the pool guy not long ago and actually enjoyed doing it? i wonder what that was about!
Lucie, I’ll have to remember that next time Karen complains. “I’m not neurotic, I’m virtuous!” Yes, it has a great ring to it 🙂
Kira, many things out there that I just can’t divulge on a blog. Patient care, co-workers, legal stuff, etc. As much as I’d love to tell you about the room full of bull elephant seals butting heads and chests with one another, I’m afraid that’s all the detail you’re gonna get.
To answer your question, though, it’s the drama that gets under my skin. I can handle conflict when I must.
Sis, I hadn’t thought about it, but your current role does require a certain amount of ballsiness, eh?
joolz, the other problem is that my efforts in the past have often come to a dead end. There was once a resident I tried to get disciplined, and that went nowhere fast. The chairman told me, “You think that’s bad? You should have seen him as an intern!”
I try to avoid conflict too. I’ve always associated it with not being a skilled debater. I mean, I know that 1 + 1 = 2 in base 10 math, but if someone were to debate me on it, and insist that 1 + 1 = 3, I could lose, even though I would know that I’m right and would, in fact, be right.