The tyranny of expectation

For as long as I can remember I have been tyrannized by expectations. When someone has an expectation of me, whether its as simple as expecting me to meet them for lunch or as complicated as expecting me to complete a multi-phase design project, I become anxious an begin to withdraw. Usually with the simpler expectations I can shake off the anxiety and go on with the activity. Afterall, who doesn’t like to have lunch with a friend? But when I can’t shake it off I create all sorts of trouble for myself on an unconscious level in an effort to avoid dealing with whatever the expectation is. I become irritable, I get headaches, my mental processes get fuzzy, I forget things, I find or create a variety of household chores that must be done immediately, I get depressed. In fact, I have spent much of my life in clinical depression, so much so that I have been medicated with prescription anti-depressants for almost 20 years. For the most part these medications, like Prozac, have been helpful. They don’t fix the problems but they do give me the mental/emotional resources (more of the “happy” neurotransmitter serotonin) to feel like the problems aren’t completely overwhelming. And I’m pleased to say that in the last few years I have needed only a very low dose to maintain a (mostly) stable, happy mood and not get overwhelmed and too irritable to live with.

I know that my biochemistry has not miraculously improved on its own. I have worked very hard (with the constant help and support of my husband) to understand and release the issues underlying the depression. This work that has changed and cleared my thinking, brought deep emotional understanding and release, and released copious amounts of stagnant negative energy has in turn altered my biochemistry. Now I face another issue… the tyranny of expectation.

As I said earlier this isn’t a new issue. Its like a monster that lurks in the depths of my psyche tormenting me from deep within and occasionally coming to the surface to poke its head out of its cave. When it does I wrestle with it, gathering bits and pieces of information about what created it and how to keep it from overwhelming my life before it crawls away again. Over the years I’ve learned a lot about the ways in which it torments and controls me and how it triggers my avoidance mechanisms, but I’ve never really gotten to the core of it—what created it, what truly motivates it, and how to get rid of it.

Now I’m in graduate school and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to continue. I’ve known all along that most of the anxieties about school originate with the expectation demon, but I still can’t get a firm grip on them. After the first year of grad school I did finally realize that part of the problem was that I was in the wrong program. Once I realized that the fears and anxieties about meeting the expectations of that particular course of study were quite legitimate I was able to relax some, change degree plans, and start again. But other seemingly free floating anxieties remain and are getting worse.

One thing I realized in the last week or so is that part of the expectation anxiety seems to relate to a fear of being exposed as a fraud. Please understand that there is no logical basis for this. There is no place in which I have misrepresented myself, no person to whom I have promised more than I can deliver. In fact I have learned to be quite careful about making promises by always giving myself a way out (e.g. “I’d love to meet you for lunch on Friday. I’ll call you on Thursday to confirm.” or “I will definitely get this jewelry repaired for you, but it may take me several weeks to get it back to you.”) So, I have to conclude that this is a fear that I’ve carried with me from another life. I also conclude that the reason this fear remains so overwhelming is that the circumstances generating the fear must have been dramatic and terrifying.

When I was talking with my husband about all this earlier this evening I was trying to find a way to convey to him the intensity of the fear of being found out as a fraud. So, I made up a story. I said it would be like being a painter who could do nice, competent work and made a modest but happy living selling pretty paintings to local housewives and small business men. Then out of nowhere he finds that some enterprising fellow has sold him, for a comfortable commission, as the next great painting genius to the Pope. Before he knows it the poor fellow is hailed as the next coming of Michaelangelo and expectations for his next works soar. The problem, of course, is that he has neither the genius nor the talent to meet these expectations, despite his very best most sincere efforts. Before he knows what’s happened he is brought up on charges of fraud, publicly denounced as the worst sort of charlatan, and publicly and violently executed.

Is this a story from a past life? My husband and I have often uncovered past lives through similar sorts of story telling. What is so interesting about this story is not the events I described, but the visceral response I had to them. As I was telling the story my stomach began churning and my heart started pounding. Clearly there is truth for me in the emotional content—being happy doing your own thing in your own small way, having someone else tell you that your own small thing isn’t good enough and you must reach higher and do more, failing to meet others’ expectations in an arena in which you never wanted to perform in the first place, being judged by other peoples’ values and expectations and ending up horribly damaged as a result.

Such a seemingly simple little story and yet there is a lot to think about here.

I’m sure there will be much more on the tyranny of expectation later.