Fiction Solves Our Organizing Problems: That “I’m Going to Throw Up Feeling”

The Question: OK, I’m new to organizing, and I have a lot to learn. I don’t want to miss out on opportunities to learn. There’s this guy in my chapter that has been giving me a lot of advice, all of it really useful and important, but like… I don’t like it. I feel so entitled saying that, I don’t like it? But… It just feels weird. Like... weird vibes. But that could totally be my anxiety talking. Maybe he’s just being friendly? But I take it really personally because I’m insecure. But then I told my friend about it, and she got kind of weird, and was like… Don’t spend time with that guy anymore. Is she overreacting? Am I? Is this guy trying to just be nice? What should I do? 

— Ready for Growth

Oh man RG. Fear. 

Fear!

Fear is something we’re all trying to rise above, to overcome. It’s hard to overcome fear — especially when it’s hardwired into our nervous system, flaring up at inopportune moments.

I have made so many decisions, or more accurately, NOT made decisions, out of fear.

But there are a couple of decisions that I’ve made in my life out of fear that I don’t regret at all. 

Your question, without any further context, makes me want to tell you about one of those decisions, a time when fear was in charge, but I don’t regret it a bit. 

Then, I’m going to quote “in the dream house” — which means every Queer reading this just clenched their jaw and cringed.

When I lived in Maine, I tried to go to a martial arts gym for a while, one with a Jujitsu class.

It was kind of a pain to get to, because Maine, as is well known, gets really fucking cold in the winter. Going to this martial arts school meant taking a bus that didn’t always show up, and a lot of walking outside. Still: I was lonely, and beating myself up for not putting myself out there more, making more friends, trying new things, being “social”.

In the first 20 minutes of that jujitsu class, the instructor, a kind of goofy looking older dude with gangly legs and nerdy glasses, put his hand on my leg in a weirdly intimate way to show me the right way to do a pose. This happens all the time in martial arts, both because it is a physical sport and because I have basically no spatial awareness. It isn’t something that usually freaks me out. When this guy did it, he also said something really innocuous. And for whatever reason, the way he said it made all of the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

It made me feel nauseous, and kind of like I wanted to scream.

After the class was over, I went into the shitty bathroom (why is this bathroom exactly the same in every martial arts gym across the country?) and hit the wall.

In Carmen Maria Machado’s In The Dream House, she describes this feeling as a “dark super power,” a visceral response to certain people she meets that happens almost instantaneously. She feels nauseous, wants to recoil.  

In The Dream House is a gut punch of a book. It’s horrible — full of the kind of insight that hurts your feelings and probably makes you a better person. 

This quote in particular enraged me when I read it.

You’re supposed to LISTEN to that voice?

Not just shove down deep inside of you and ignore it indefinitely?

How come no one told me?

Admittedly — no one told Carmen Maria Machado either. 

But she told me (and everyone else who read In the Dream House.)

So... now I’m telling you, RG.

You’re not supposed to ignore that feeling.

Luckily, the time I went to the jujitsu gym in Maine?

I didn’t. 

It was one of the times I paid attention to that voice, even though I didn’t really know what it was.

And afterwards, I really beat myself up for it.

How come I was always flaking out on things, letting fear control me?

Nothing even happened!

It was probably just an excuse to avoid having to do hard things, from the walk to the bus in the cold, to the interactions with people who are different from me (most people at martial arts gyms tend to be both in terms of temperament and life experience).

And sure— maybe I was flaking out, avoiding hard work.

Maybe by not giving this guy a second chance, refusing to look beyond whatever I was projecting on him, I missed out on an incredible opportunity. 

Maybe if I had gone to that gym, we would have built up a begrudging respect, a sports movie mentor/mentee relationship. 

Maybe it would’ve turned out the discomfort I felt was recognition of my own discomfort with my gender identity, or a reflection of our shared social anxiety.

Maybe, through hard work and personal growth, the kind that fits into a Rocky Montage, I would have became the Jujitsu champion of the world, supported by his tough love coaching style.

Maybe. 

But I never went back. 

And that’s one choice I made out of fear I never ever regret.

So. RG. 

Don’t ignore the feeling.

Sometimes fear is on your side.