02-16-03 @ 2:24 am EST

A stupid reaction I had to Ma scanning a Valentine's card with an imprint of the baby's hand led to an argument, her saying, "I don't want to talk to you anymore," lots of yelling and crying on my part, some hard words...and more arguing and crying...and awkward silences and lots of talking and arguing and such...but I hope that something comes out of this. I thought I was going to log on here and post an entry along these lines:

Guess what?

Tonight I told Ma I just want her to be proud of me.

Her response?

Silence.

That proves my point.

...but I so badly hope that that entry proves to be untrue. I really did try to calm down...I know I didn't do a good enough job, as when I get upset, it's very hard for me to get un-upset. But I tried so hard and I did try to talk it through with her--I told her over and over that I don't like to fight, I just want us to end something without her saying, "I don't want to talk about it anymore," and us ending the argument prematurely so it just simmers.

There was so much said and re-said that I can't type most of it...

But I hope that both of us learned things tonight.

I learned that when she tells me, when I tell her about my story, "Is anybody READING it?" and "So what are you going to do with it NOW?" she probably isn't brushing it off as unimportant because I'm not trying to get it published. What she says she's telling me is that to her, I have to at least try, or else I've done nothing. She isn't saying my writing is unimportant because it makes no money. She's worried that somebody else will steal it (at least I think she is), and she thinks that I have to at least TRY to get it published. I learned that she does not understand that when I react angrily to the baby's pictures, that I'm not angry with Eric, that I'm angry with myself. She didn't know this; she thought I wanted HER to be miserable. I tried to tell her otherwise.

I told her that I'm not angry about the baby; at least, not the baby herself. When I see the baby, it reminds me of everything I have NOT done. I told her that I feel ashamed about being so jealous of my brother when I should be feeling happy for him. I WANT to feel happy for him; I hate being so petty to be so jealous, to compare a baby to a story. I told her I will try harder in the future to not take my anger and shame out on her and on Rayne (the baby). I told her, when she insisted that I brush HER off also, that I probably do do this, and I'm sorry that I have. I never mean to be so snotty about these things. I don't want her to be upset. If anything I've always wanted her to be happy.

The thing is, it's very hard for me to feel happy about certain things because when I see that she is happy about them, it makes me feel insignificant. At first when I kept telling her this she reacted angrily and sarcastically. I hope that we both at least learned something. I told her that my reactions most likely are NOT warranted by what's really going on. It's just that my brain works in these stupid ways, and sometimes, something that seems innocent to her seems very hostile to me.

Case in point was what started the whole thing in the first place. She was scanning a handprint the baby made, and she wanted to know the proper scanning settings. I angrily brushed her off with "Do whatever you want." That led to "I don't want to talk to you anymore" (which I incorrectly interpreted to mean the same thing as "I don't want to talk ABOUT IT anymore"--she pointed out the difference, and now I hope I understand what she was really saying. She wasn't brushing off the argument; she just didn't want to talk to me when I was behaving like that. I hope).

I told her why this innocuous thing bothered me so much and led to me being so snotty toward her.

When she was so concerned about the proper scanning settings, it made me think, "She's very proud of the baby. So proud that she wants to scan the picture just right. She would never be so concerned about something that I do. She cares more about the baby and about Eric than about me. I can never make her proud of me. I'm unimportant to her." I let her know that I KNOW this is not the right way for me to react, and that based on what she was now doing (LISTENING to me, and finally offering counterarguments), I was probably wrong to think this.

I told her that because in the past she has almost always brushed off my feelings with "I don't want to talk about it" or with silence, that I thought that meant she did not care. She said she has NEVER gushed over Eric or told him she's proud of him. I told her, sometimes you do not have to SAY anything to make someone know you are proud of them. Merely the fact that she has spent so much time over the baby pictures let me know she is proud of my brother. I told her that I just wanted her to show that kind of enthusiasm and concern when there is something *I* am proud of, like my story. I honestly always felt that just because she was always silent or kind of snide sounding when I mentioned my story, it meant she didn't care that I was proud of it. I don't know if she understood this point or not. She was very insistent that I never let her read anything of mine (which to a point is true--when she comes near the computer when I'm typing I'll often tell her to back off, but that's mainly because what I'm typing then is the Chronicles--and she still DOES NOT know about that kind of writing); I told her this was because, by now, I'm ashamed of letting her or the family read any of my writing. I know that they are not interested, and honestly, though that hurts, it's not what's really bothering me.

I mean, truly...there are tons of authors and readers here who will never read my story because they do not like fantasy. And that's fine; I don't read certain things because they bore me. What upsets me on this site are when the people who DO like to read fantasy do not stop by to read my work, or even worse, when they don't care when I'm happy I've accomplished something. When I proclaimed that I had posted the final part of my story, most of the people who responded publicly were people who I know will NEVER set foot in that folder. And that's fine. Because at least they acknowledged my accomplishment, and they were happy that I had done something to be proud of.

I told Ma that this is what bothered me about her silence. I don't really mind if she doesn't want to read my writing; that happens. I'm just upset that she doesn't care that I DO write, that when I'm happy to have done something, she doesn't seem to care. I just want her to be proud of me when I'm feeling happy. When she finishes beading something, I said, I try to encourage her, and I tell her how pretty it is; when she starts talking about how much she should charge buyers for it, I offer suggestions, and honestly, I think most of the prices she gets for those things are too low. She is an excellent beader. When my dad carves a new walking stick or a figurine or statuette, I comment on that and let him know how much I like it; and honestly, I think that he TOO does not get nearly enough for the amount of work he puts into those things. My dad is a good carver.

I told her I wished I could feel this way about my brother. I want to be able to be proud of him. But this is difficult for me as I feel I have always lived in his shadow. I told her how in my first couple of years of high school, I was not "Rachel H." I was "Eric's little sister." I'm jealous of everything he's accomplished because everything he does, which she is proud of, just reminds me of one more thing I have not done, or one more thing I did that she was not proud of. That was why the scan got me so angry. Not because I don't want her to feel happy for my brother, but because I wish she could feel that way about me.

I'm not sure if she understood what I was saying, as I had to keep saying it; I don't know; maybe I really haven't figured out the right way to get it through to her. I know she would think I'm saying she's stupid, but she's not. It's just that the two of us think and feel in two different ways, and we just can't understand each other most of the time. This frustrates me, and I'm certain it's what leads to most of our hard feelings and arguments--she feels I overreact, I feel she underreacts. (She even asked me tonight, "Are you on the rag?" That got me angry, though she does have a point. I DO get more hysterical at that time, and I'm probably due, but I told her I felt she was trying to brush off my hurt as bad hormones. I'm not sure if she understood that or not.)

But she told me that when she says, "So what are you going to do with the story now?" it's not because she thinks it's worth nothing if it's not making money. She just thinks that for all the talking I do about it, I should try to DO something with it. Like get it published. And yes, she is right. I talk a lot about my writing, but I never really do anything about it. I'm not sure if I told her that because it's a great source of shame for me. I did tell her that right now, I'm at the point where just FINISHING a story makes me proud and happy. I'm not yet at the point where I feel secure enough to try to get something published...and I told her that honestly, I don't know if I ever will be.

She said I should at least try it because what can it hurt? I tried to tell her that because of my family's reaction to my writing--which is about nonexistent--I felt too discouraged to seek publication...but I think I left off of that because I knew she would see it as too accusatory, and it probably is. I don't mean it to be; it's just how I've felt. When your own family does not seem to be proud of you for what you've done, wouldn't you feel as if what you do is of no consequence? I know not all of you would; some of you have enough faith in your own work to not care what others think, and I so badly wish I were one of you. But I'm not; what others think matters to me badly. If nobody had ever commented on Manitou Island, I likely would not have ever finished it. I NEED encouragement to keep going. Even if, in the case of my family, the encouragement comes not from actual reading, but just from a sense of pride from them when I finish something.

But anyway, I told her that if I were to seek publication, honestly, I would not be able to do it alone. Truthfully I want somebody ELSE to take over that process for me. I am so ignorant of it all...all I know is that if you send a manuscript in, without an agent, its chances of being read are pretty much nil. I can't afford an agent so I have no clue what I should set out to do. We do have local publishers, of local interest material (and as my story is set on "Mackinac Island," it COULD have local interest), but it's a fantasy and it's so long, and those work against it. I would need somebody a LOT more knowledgeable and savvy than I am to push my story for me, because other than writing it, I have no idea what to do. I don't know which publishers would be best to contact, how to properly format the MS, how much of it to send, who to send it to, what sort of letter to include, what to expect in response, if anything. I don't even understand rights and monetary arrangements. Somebody could very easily screw me over when it comes to royalties and such and I would have no idea what it even means. I didn't tell her all of THAT, but I did tell her somebody would really have to help me, and so far nobody is interested in that. If somebody did all that for me, I would have to PAY them, and I can't afford that. That is the stuff that agents do, after all, and that's my problem, that I can't afford one. And knowing my luck, an agent would screw me over, too.

So I hope she understood that I'm just too ignorant and afraid, and I don't know if I'll ever move beyond that. Right now, yes, I'm happy just to be writing. But she told me that just to write, and never to DO anything about it, feels like a waste to her, and I understand that because there are so many times I feel the same way. Why do I write so much? I honestly feel nothing will ever come of it. Writing, to me, is a dead-end thing. I do it because I love it, but I will never make anything of it. I just get so frustrated and discouraged when I see others (a lot of them on this very site) who SEEM to put a lot less work into their writing, yet get so much more attention. It honestly makes me doubt my own abilities. I can't know for certain but Manitou Island is probably the longest story on this site. It has not had the longest amount of TIME put into it (I'm sure there are people here who have worked on their writing for YEARS upon years, much longer than me), but I like to hope I did put as much into it as I could. I literally slaved over it for two years. And I so very much appreciate the comments it has gotten, as without those, it probably would have gone nowhere. But right after thinking that, and deciding I should feel proud of it, I see another story by somebody else, full of typos and errors and cardboard (IMO) characters and poor formatting, a story with a few parts and maybe the writer puts a new part out once every few months, if ever...and it has a lot more ratings, and a lot more comments, and a lot more attention and Awardicons and people asking when the next part will come out...and it makes my story feel like sludge. I sit and fume and wonder what it is that *I* have done so wrong. I get angry with these other people, jealous of their success, and doubt my own abilities.

This is the exact same way I have been reacting to Rayne.

I don't think she fully understands that I don't care much if she doesn't want to read my story, because she did keep saying she doesn't even know where to find it, and she said a few times that I should print it out (I did have part of it printed out, once...but I didn't say that)...all I have ever wanted is somebody to be proud of me when I feel proud. Because as soon as that pride is gone, and I see somebody ELSE getting a lot more raves and attention than me, I will feel like nothing of importance. And as long as I feel somebody is NOT proud of me (and her silence honestly led me to believe she did not care, was not proud), I will sit and think, "Why do I even bother? Nobody cares about this but me. So why should I continue with it?"

I really do feel like this. I write for myself, but so much of the time I want to make others happy, and entertain them. If they do not want to be entertained, or if they do not care, I grow very discouraged. And of course, violently jealous of others' achievements. It just feels like there are so many people who get by so EASY without much effort--I could always be wrong and I probably am, I'm just of the mind that poor spelling and formatting and such are lazy, I'm sorry--but like I was saying, it seems that they can type something up in a breeze and immediately, without effort, they have legions of followers. Meanwhile here I am, typing away, agonizing over proofreading lest one stupid little typo get through, plugging myself constantly, reviewing other items in the hopes others will be interested in mine, joining webrings, even doing dumb little manipulative things like leaving the URL in my signature in my e-mail...and when I don't have nearly as much to show for it as others do, it feels like I have wasted so much time writing something very few people care about, when I could probably be doing something a lot better and more lucrative. Sure, I wouldn't love doing it, but at least it would make money, and one out of two--the more IMPORTANT one out of two--isn't that bad.

I told her I realize my reactions are probably unwarranted, but for so long I've received this impression that most people do not care about what I do...what was I expected to think otherwise?...when, after telling somebody over and over and over and over again of what my latest writing project is and how excited I am about it, and all I can get is silence or "So is anybody READING it?"...I'll just quit trying and not tell anybody about it anymore because to me, those messages tell me that my writing means nothing. I know she said that IN FACT what she really means is that she wishes I would do something about my writing instead of talking about it, and she's right...but I just don't feel like I should even bother, if nobody cares about it much. (And that's the crossed-signals message I've been getting all this time. Maybe I am completely wrong. But I really didn't know what to think otherwise.)

I'm sorry I keep saying "I know this...BUT..."...but here I go again...I still haven't learned how else to react. I really do want to be somebody who can be proud of MYSELF without having others to be proud of me. I want to be that person who can brush off the flames and bad reviews, accept the criticism, and not take the silence and lack of interest so personally. I want to be somebody who can have faith in myself, who can feel that my writing IS good and deserving of something, who can bother to DO something about it for a change. But I'm just not at that point yet. I can't seem to do anything without constant encouragement, as much as I wish it were otherwise, and I don't know how to fix that. And I really do feel that there will never be a magical point at which I stop feeling like this, and grow some self-confidence. Because if it were that easy I would have done it by now, surely. I know that to change into that person I want to be would take a lot of hard effort, and I'm just too afraid to face that on my own. By now, I'm too ashamed to ask her or anyone else for that much help. I don't want to impose, to demand that much of somebody when I have already demanded too much. Those of you who have always wondered why I never reach out to you when I'm hurting? It's because I just can't do it. I sit and wait for YOU to reach out to ME, and specifically ask me what is wrong, and to keep at it even if I should try to brush you off with "I'm okay, really..." because I'm not okay. I just can't come to any of you for help when I need it. I'm too ashamed of myself. I know you cannot know when I really need you to ask me what's wrong, because you are not mindreaders, and I will often try to mislead you. But I don't know what else to do and I'm too ashamed to react otherwise, to just come out and say what's wrong, to ask for help, too afraid to really work on myself.

This is why it gets me so mad when people stop by my journal and say, "Get off the computer and DO something." Because it's a lot like what my mom said--DO something about your writing. I'm just too scared to do it all alone, and nobody is offering me that helping hand. Sure, they may be WILLING to, but I would have to ASK for it...and I'm too humiliated to dare doing that. So I end up doing nothing. Nothing to improve my situation, nothing to get my writing out there in the world.

This entry really meandered off course, but it's all related after all...THIS is why I am so afraid of everything, why I always feel I'm not good enough. I really feel like I haven't gotten any encouragement from the people who matter most to me--my family--even though they MAY have been encouraging me all along, I couldn't tell it. I read the signs the wrong way--at least I hope I did; you can see I still just can't straight-out believe that they have pride in me, because that would mean I would have to trust MY OWN faith in what they are really saying, and I can't trust myself, ever.

So at this point, after all this, yes, I'm still stuck. Yes, I still doubt everything she said to me to disprove my own ideas--not because I think she's a liar, but because I can't trust my own perceptions, because I feel I am not worthy of anyone's pride, no matter how much I may demand it or want it. For every time I get angry and feel I have put a lot more work into a story than somebody else who is getting a lot more attention has, I afterwards feel equally ashamed that I dared to think I was good enough to deserve that kind of attention, I probably don't get the attention because I'm really NOT good enough. For every time I dare to be proud of something, I feel even more embarrassed that I did. And I do know that there is no magic fix, that I cannot take care of any of these problems without at least TRYING, but I also know that I can never try on my own and nobody will just up and help me THAT much, and I am too afraid to ask anybody to. So yes, my situation is still exactly the same and I never do see it changing. I never do see myself accomplishing anything beyond writing a story, and I never see my name in print, much less anybody even reading it.

But I really, really do hope that at least both of us understand a few things a bit more.

I haven't proofread this; it took an hour to type and I'm afraid I'll lose it all if I keep typing, so I'll save it now. I'm not angry, not anymore, though I was angry all night. And at least at this moment, I'm not jealous. But I am still ashamed and embarrassed and sad with myself. I want to be one of those strong people I'm so jealous of the rest of the time. Only then would I stand a slight chance of making somebody REALLY proud, and would actually deserve it. I'm too afraid to try it on my own, and too ashamed to ask somebody for that much. So yes, I am going to be feeling down for a little while...sorry.

(And I apologize to all those people I keep meaning to respond to, who have to keep putting up with me ignoring them every time I get upset...I'm sorry about that too, I really am. I would not be able to write a very good letter right now.)