Lawn mowing shame

[oak]

A few months ago, while I've been unemployed, I realized that as a healthy 37 year old man I could help an older or disabled person out around the yard this summer and fall. Leaves and grass. I had the time and physical ability, and would be happy to volunteer my time.

I asked my buddy, and he knew of an acquaintance whose needs turned out to be the peanut butter to the chocolate of my interest.

It turns out she is a great person, and due to health problems can't mow her lawn. Mentally she is sharp, and she is very kind. I am really glad to have met her.

The shame begins even before I started to help her. My mental dialogue, with/to myself follows. As if the mean-me is berating the ordinary-me, while actual-me was still considering helping.

(While I don't really hear voices in my head, I can hear the mean part of my conscience judge the actual-me.)

Mean Me: "Look at you. You are 37, healthy, and vigorous. It is obscene that your unemployed ass doesn't help people."



I've been mowing her lawn for about six weeks. The imaginary voice in my head is not pleased.

Mean Me: "Look at your so-called method of mowing the lawn. [Sneers] You are so inefficient."

Actual-me: "But mean-me, this is a riding mower, and sometimes I miss a spot here or there."

Mean-Me: "Maybe. [Disgusted] [Looks at the 1% of the lawn I missed.] I bet the woman you're 'helping' is inside, wondering how she got a dipshit to mow her lawn. You can't even mow a lawn right. How will you get or keep a job if you can't mow a fucking lawn?"

Mean-me also is incessant about the (non-existent) judgement of the neighbor.

Mean-me: "I bet the neighbor looks at your disorganized mowing patterns and wonders what the fuck is wrong with you. See, you had to go back and get that part you missed. You couldn't mow those six inches of grass with a mower with a five foot radius? Man, what a fucking idiot you are."

Actual me: "But the neighbor has always been happy to see me. He always smiles and waves hello."

Mean-me: "Whatever. [scoffs]"


And right now I feel shame because this is such a low stakes "problem". I am happy to spend two hours a week to help her; since she is on a fixed income, even if she were to pay me modestly, that would quickly add up, and I have the free time.

I can't argue with my own brain. It doesn't give a fuck about me. Everything I do is wrong, even when I am trying to do right.

[shanarchy]

I can relate Oak.

For me, it was worse before, but for the past few months it's gotten better. I believe it's thanks to the new meds and maybe the other changes I've been making, like getting sober. The mean voice in me has lowered their tone and lessen their criticism.

I'm still having issues though. For example, it's difficult for me to hose the driveway. The mean voice (which sounds a whole lot like my father) says I'm wasting water and I'm doing it wrong. My Dad has strong beliefs about saving everything, water, electricity, nature, I think it's just everything. Another example, just last week, I told him I cut down a palm tree in the back yard to put an above ground pool and you should have seen the look on his face, it was like I said I killed the dog. I am environmentally conscience, I bought three palm trees and other plants to replace the one I cut down. But, it's not enough for him. By the way, I'm 36 and haven't lived with my parents for more than 15 years. It's amazing how much the little things affect me so much.

Anyway, give your mean voice a message from me. Tell it to calm down or it'll have a problem with me.

Take care.

[gfyourself]

Hey Oak, I got a good laugh out of your "inside conversations"... I have those too some times.

Its pretty crazy how we can take a good intention and turn it around on ourselves. David Burns has some similar "conversations" in his book, Feeling Good (cognitive behavioural therapy).

Try not to be so hard on yourself! Or another thing to do is just shout down that negative voice in your head!

[mouse]

As someone who hates mowing the lawn, I can guarantee you that she is so so grateful for the help you provide. Unless she's super OCD, 1 or 2 patches of uneven grass are not going to bother her; she probably won't even notice. Don't be so hard on yourself! You are a wonderful person for donating your time, and I salute you.

Hugs!

[weary]

I can't argue with my own brain. It doesn't give a fuck about me. Everything I do is wrong, even when I am trying to do right

Boy, does that ring true for me. That inner critic is relentless, I honestly feel like its progress when I actually "hear" myself telling myself those things, because there are strategies for learning how to talk back to it with more realistic, balanced thoughts (the Dr. Burns book mentioned upthread by gfyourself was a good intro to that for me). A lot of the time that used to happen to me on a more nonverbal feeling level - I would feel the inadequacy, shame, guilt, humiliation but not really know who or what was triggering it. Like you with the neighbor, I would project that others were making those judgements about me all the time (or alternatively that they would if only they knew x,y,z... so I must hide x,y,z completely).

Oak, you are so not alone in this, and sometimes it is actually a little worse for the low stakes problems in my experience. This is the kind of thing that CBT is good at addressing if you have he patience and commitment to follow through in doing the work (which honestly I have not been very good with). The only other general tip is to take those thoughts when they arise and ask yourself if you would make those same judgments about a friend in that same situation. My guess is no. We would cut someone else some slack and not expect perfection and not tear down anything less than perfection. So why is it ok to act that way to yourself?

[Fargin]

Hi Oak,

Unfortunately my mean-me operates on a subconscious level(devious sob), so I never really catch myself berating myself.

I don't know how you can get mean-me to shut up, but I can tell you this: Mean-me sounds like a real asshole and I bet mean-me never helped some lady mowing her lawn. Mean-me is lucky to have you(actual-me) and he should tell you that more often.

[oak]

Hey all. Much forum love for your encouragement. I especially appreciate your suggestions of how to question that voice. You have given me a new perspective.

I will check out that book, and I am already questioning that voice.

In happier times I liked to host dinner parties. I discovered that a certain percentage of people would be highly critical of _everything_ regarding my planning and implementation.

When I would query them, I'd find out that they'd never hosted a dinner party themselves. In fact, they underestimated the time, cost, and level of planning it would take to host a dinner party.

Same thing with this voice: an invariably critical voice, but a voice that offers _no_ context.

[oak]

Update!

I was mowing said lawn today, feeling shame at a level of a 2 on a scale of one to ten.

I've since grown in riding-mower skill, and have a certain je ne sais quoi with driving that thing around. I am noticing patterns of how I fuck up: when I make a left hand turn, that is when I am most likely to miss a spot. The size of the missed spots are shrinking as my skill grows.

Today, while riding the thing around, I realized that the negative (not auditory, but emotional) voice would have to criticize my mowing skills: me mowing the elderly lady's lawn is the action of a good person, and that voice can't handle the cognitive dissonance; if presented evidence contrary to it's crazy/evil voice, then it has no place in my life. Thus it has to fight.

[oak]

Final update!

So I finished the summer of lawnmowing on Saturday, but not without a bunch of shame and anxiety

It turns out the lady and her daughter were super appreciative, and repeatedly told me how grateful they were. They never criticized me.

Anxiety!

Logically enough I volunteered to do her leaves, which would have been alot of fun. I bought a leaf vac/shredder, and bags. It turns out that now that I am employed, and the sun started to go down earlier, it was difficult then impossible to get out to her house on weekdays.

Then I hurt my wrist. I could use the riding lawnmower, obviously, but my grand plan to vac the leaves ended. The fact that I couldn't "properly" do the leaves caused me a lot of anxiety over alot of weeks.

Particularly when I saw all those leaves on the trees. They looked really formidable: I estimated that there were a million leaves on her big ass trees.

In reality, there weren't that many leaves ending up on the ground, and the mower effortlessly turned them into little shreds.

Takeaways from this situation

Excluding this experience, I've had alot of really negative experiences volunteering over the last ten years. I've been demeaned, insulted, ignored, and condescended as a volunteer.

Meanwhile at work I've been appreciated, affirmed, welcomed, utilized.

For the time being, I am putting volunteering on the "do not do for awhile" list, along with fakebook and drinking alcohol.

While I'll probably never drink again, both volunteering and fakebook dissipated my efforts, my attention, my energy.

If I were (heaven forbid) unemployed again, I'd gladly do clearly-defined, short term (preferably one-off) volunteering situations to help pass the time and get out of the house.

Final conclusion

I am glad I helped this lady.

When I was unemployed it was the only unambiguously good thing I'd accomplish all week.

Despite my anxiety about my technical skills in lawnmowing, I must admit that the lawn always looked fucking awesome when I was done with it.

[gfyourself]

Hey Oak

Nice to see your final update. And I like your comment about only volunteering in specific circumstances. I've done things like volunteer tutor but find it difficult to commit to make it every week. So I can appreciate your comment.

How is your "new" job going? Perhaps you've made a comment in another thread already.