Our Flaws Make Us Interesting: EMDR Makes Them Funny

From Chris Roberts-Antieu, Monsters and Misfortune Collection, http://www.antieaugallery.com/browse/

Maybe our flaws even make us lovable.

My Flaws

I have a few characteristics of which I’m not proud. Most of them fall into the category of “uptightness” . . . fear and shame and rigidity. Before EMDR, I would not have written this post for fear of public ridicule.

First, I have this judgmental tendency that
springs up when I feel threatened or disoriented. I sometimes
pathologize, trying to make sense of something that
hurts or scares me (or that resembles something that hurt
me in the past). My job is a bit of a risk factor for this.

Second, I build walls that protect me from shame and
(imagined) physical and relational danger. The walls
started appearing back around 1970, but
I’ve reinforced them for the last several decades. They’ve kept me from having any broken bones, but they’ve prevented me from enjoying things like water sports or blowing a whole day on Outlander episodes. I always need to be productive.

I’d love to lose the uptightness. Just let it go, so I can be fully present to enjoy whatever’s happening in the moment. Then I’d be more like normal people.

But what if my shame and uptightness makes
me more . . . me?

Can defects of personality be lovable? Or at least
amusing?

Could something you loathe about yourself actually be the thing another person finds attractive in you?

People I’m very close to sometimes laugh at my uptightness – and they’re laughing WITH me. About how I’m reluctant to throw my shoes in a
big stinky pile with everybody else’s dusty
clodhoppers at the bowling alley. My true friends
like me even though I can sometimes be too driven
and exacting – and even though I have a hard time
winding down for fun (how I’d have to be dragged to the bowling alley in the first place). They love me even though I’m awkward.  Maybe they
love me partly because of all my awkward trauma residue. They
say, “It’s okay that you have a stick up your ass. We know why it’s there.” From these people, I learn self-acceptance.

Their Flaws

Then we laugh at THEIR flaws. And I love those
those dear flaws. They’re frickin’ hilarious. The one who interrupts – literally has to bite his lip to keep from talking over you, but then you know how exuberantly he cares for your conversation. The one with the “checkered past” who is so brave to share all her humiliating sexual moments with the rest of us, so we can feel better about ourselves. The one with no self control over food, and the one with a touch of agoraphobia, and the one who can’t touch public doorknobs or poop anywhere but at home.

I’ve spent too many years trying to appear flawless, and maybe I’ve fooled a few people. But I’m starting to think my embarrassments and scars, bad hair days
and unresolved hurts and relationship failures might actually
make me more interesting . . . At least to the right
people.

Oh, and EMDR helps moderate all of this: it changes my physiology around fear and shame, makes me kind of laugh at myself.