Okay I tried to find a pull-quote, but the text is pretty academic so I will do my best to summarize. Developmental theory posits that every human in order to mature needs to disconnect. That is, to take themselves away from "the intense human desire for relationship."

NB: which isn't to say romantic love. In psychological terms everything that involves a communication of desires and feelings is a relationship. A person is in a relationship with themselves even. Mostly though, this disconnect means learning to refer to the self as singular/isolate and separate from other people. Not learning to accept this primary boundary is considered quite unhealthy.

Boys in childhood are taught that this disconnection is a function (or the price) of their masculinity and girls are taught this disconnection is a function (or the price) of growing up into "Women", so basically it comes at the price of their sexuality...

What does it all mean though?

Sorry boys, I am going to stick to girls in this post. Mostly because I am more interested for personal reasons, but also because since the trajectories of development are so different for the genders it will not be possible unless I double the length of this post to get into how I see the problems of the disconnect for you dudes..

I am going to set this out by going back to Janes house. We were watching the Simpsons this afternoon, and in this particular episode Homer is reading the story of Joan of Arc to Lisa and Bart.

At the end of the story Saint Joan (Who is Lisa of course) is tied to the top of the the flaming pyre and she says.. "It's okay right 'cause the Lord is going to get me out of this, right lord?" The flame catchs her robe and she says, "Hey it's getting pretty hot down here!" with a little panic in her voice.

We cut back to the Simpsons living room and Lisa is standing by the side of the couch and pulling at her dads arm, she says, fairly upset, "But she doesn't die right dad? Joan of Arc doesn't die does she?" Homer looks terribly awkward, he opens his mouth to say something (maybe the truth) when Marge dashes in and rips the book from his hand.

Marge looks at the book as if reading and says, "Of course she doesn't die honey." She adopts a reading voice and recites; "Just at that moment Lancelot rode up on a white horse and rescued Saint Joan. He took her to see his spaceship where they lived happily ever."

Then in a single compulsive motion Marge rips the page she has been fake-reading from the book, stuffs it in her mouth and swallows it.

What is being resisted in the therapeutic process. What is being looked for by adolescent girls who refuse to see in themselves the ability to comport themselves according to relationship rules they see to be false, is that lost page of the story, that thing hidden from us by our mothers for our own good.

Once adolescence is reached teen-age girls have to start telling themselves two stories. One is the internal story of what they wish to have and see and do and who they wish to care about. The true story of their lives.

The other story is how they will go about achieving those ends given a social circumstance where they are meant to be "good", "nice" most of all "not to fight", and to generally speaking, put how they are seen by others ahead of how they see themselves. Quite understandably girls, who by the very fact that they are in therapy are having trouble making the transition, resist being therapized into a position where they would have a better success at making their own individual personal matrixs subject to such oppressive rules of conduct.

What are the implications of a therapy dedicated to not "fixing" the problems but just trying to unearth the buried stories of teen-aged girls? I like this possibility;

"A girl who chooses to authorize her life experiences by speaking openly about them resists the security of convention and moves into uncharted territory; she sets herself adrift, disconnects from the mainland; she risks being, for a time, storyless. And to be without a story - to be without a conventional story of female becoming - can be a deeply frightening experience, since it is to be done without a model and thus potentially to be on one's own, confronting the responsibility of authoring one's own life."

from: "Telling a Girls Life: self-authorization as a form of resistance", Lyn Mikel Brown

My favorite aspect of the above quote is that it has summed up for me what the experience of coming out and learning to create a queer identity has been...

What would human relationships be like if people learned to speak openly honestly and lovingly about their desires and fears instead of learning early and well that it is better to either need/desire nothing, or to manipulate your external situation so that what you want appears to "happen" to you.

If this is resonanting, I have a scenario for you;

Ask yourself how many times a day you think one thing and than say another. For whatever reasons, because you are not certain that the outcome of your honesty would be the result you hope to achieve. Or frankly you're afraid to say what you "really think" because you don't like to "argue". And if like me, you are what is commonly known as a girl, ask yourself how much of what you are doing is being polite and how much is being dishonest with yourself and also dishonest with the people around you, who you care about and who care about you.

It's scary, it scares me.

What scares me is that a lot of the time, I can barely tell the difference between what I do to stay in the "right (and therefore wrong myself)" and what I do to keep myself healthy and sane.

Generally speaking even as I make the sane and healthy choices that occasionally do lead to conflicts or to dissapointments, there is a little voice saying you could have made that person happier, you are being selfish, and worst of all, behaviour like this will make you be alone.

Today I am trying to remember the girl who came before the 16 year-old who lay on the couch hurting herself for her refusal/inability to be what was expected of her. I am looking for the girl who only had one little voice and that little voice really wanted to know, what happened to Joan of Arc?

Posted by Miriam at June 8, 2005 8:51 PM | TrackBack Posted to Hope