Subjectivity: A review of The Vegetarian by Han Kang

I wrote this review in 2016, intending to publish it in a different venue, then forgot about it. I’ve added references to two films that came out after I wrote it.

As I discuss, it’s debatable whether The Vegetarian really qualifies as a feminist novel. It’s about people who have retreated so entirely into their wishful fantasy lives that they are incapable of accurately perceiving the world around them – or themselves. In our third year of COVID, this is more apropos than ever.

ADHD Pleads Guilty

As I continue to learn about ADHD, previously unsuspected associations between ADHD and lifelong quirks and struggles arise every day. Sometimes depression and/or personality are also factors, but identifying ADHD as an additional suspect finally illuminates why it has been so effing hard to get a handle on some of these things, no matter how long or how hard I tried. I’m simply outnumbered!

Here are a few of them:

Mortality

I learned last night that a singer who was important to me once has died. She died several months ago, as it turns out, but it was news to me. Or perhaps not. I had been thinking of her off and on over the past few weeks, or rather of her music, as first one of her songs, and then another drifted into and out of my mind for a few days. Somehow, I knew, so seeing the past tense in the search results did not shock or surprise me, as it so often has in recent years. Maybe I caught a fleeting glimpse of a headline awhile back, and put it away out of consciousness until I was ready for it to surface.

For a moment, when I saw the singer’s age, I thought, oh well, she was getting up there. Then I remembered my own age, which I often forget, and which is not much less than hers.

Savage Breast

Music meant a lot to me during my depressed years

HappyStance

As I promised I would in my previous post, after I published it, I went and read what Elaine Aron had to say about the distinction between anxiety disorders and HSP overwhelm. The subject is actually an FAQ item on her website.

Fear Itself

The article is quite long, and its messages are rather mixed. I was appalled to find that Aron comes right out and says at one point that anxiety is “normal” for HSPs, therefore it is not a mental disorder in us. This seems like an extraordinarily bizarre and irresponsible statement for a mental health expert to make about 15-20% of the population. However, when you read the whole article, her message is more nuanced

Is Overwhelm the Same as Anxiety?

I’ve been grappling with a challenge I variously refer to as procrastination, low motivation, or a need for an astronomical amount of down/processing time, for awhile now. Years, actually. As you can see by my list of labels, the crux of the problem is not solving it (problem-solving is one of my natural strengths), but defining its nature (possibly less of a strength). Longtime readers may recognize this state of bemused non-functionality from the inception of Sensitive Type.

Just to be clear, the tasks I’m having trouble with are self-initiated. Some are associated with work, and I will eventually have to be accountable for them, but there is no one looking over my shoulder from day to day. Others impact only me. Ironically, the space to “be where I am” that I built in to my life in response to my previous crisis reduced the stress of pressure from others, but by also reducing the motivating imperative of deadlines, new stress was born.

Finding the Right Frame

I have framed the issue in many different ways, trying to find one that fits.

Rest

Having accomplished a self-directed life where I answer to no clock but my own, I struggle constantly with the balance between activity and down time. I often suspect the struggle is with self-judgment rather than time management, but I’m never quite confident enough of that to surrender myself wholeheartedly to my periods of rest. Maybe that’s why I need so much of it!

Like most human experiences, this one is neither unique to me, nor new. It was with a dawning sense of vindication that I listened to the following articulate and compassionate defense of down time from a book published by Herbert J. Hall more than a century ago. Hall received his M.D. from Harvard in 1895, and soon gravitated towards patients with “nervous complaints.” He was clearly well-acquainted with negative self talk long before the phrase was coined.

Here is a chapter from his 1915 book, The Untroubled Mind, now in the public domain.

Coping

I wonder if HSPs have an advantage in a crisis, as we are already very familiar with overwhelm. While that’s no guarantee that we are better equipped to deal with it, at least it’s not a new feeling. If we have learned to balance our sensitivities with a sense of perspective, perhaps we can rediscover sooner than others that our emotional reaction is not a measure of our capacity to cope.

Global pandemic really shouldn’t surprise anyone, as we have had a high level of rapid international travel for at least 70 years. What’s surprising is that it didn’t happen sooner. I don’t expect that to be a comfort, but I am ever-hopeful it will promote facing and planning for other future challenges (not holding my breath, though).

Hunkered Down

Inside Depression

It’s been a rough spring. The clouds won’t quit. They’re damping down my everything. I replaced my SAD light bulb, but my light meter showed no change. So I waived my no-new-charges credit card policy just this once, and bought a new light, only to get the same readings. So much for the light meter. But whether the light is too weak or my SAD is too strong, I don’t need a meter to tell me it isn’t enough.

Looking Up from the Bottom of the Year

When poets refer to the “dark night of the soul,” or gasp “more light!” with their dying breath, I know exactly how they feel. As a person with Seasonal Affective Disorder, my personal objective each winter is:

Just get through it.

So it will probably not surprise anyone that today, the Winter Solstice, is my favorite holiday. Last night was the longest night (and shortest day) of the year. Starting today, each span of daylight gets a little bit longer for the next 6 months. There is another month or more of chilly weather ahead, but I made it through the bottom of the year, a very heartening milestone.

In Which, At Last, My Ship Arrives

After six years of integrating a new understanding of my own character, the last three of which were focused on an agonizingly slow career evolution, things are looking up. My new profession finally gelled, and a lot of other things that were on hold along with it are finally flowing too.

I started this blog hoping for such an outcome, and also hoping that sharing my process along the way would be useful to others. It didn’t quite work out that way, especially for the past couple of years. The things that were getting in the way of my working life also got in the way of my blogging life.

And the Answer Is…

I’d give you the magical life-fixing key, but it turns out I had it all along, and you probably do too. The trick is having enough faith to try it in the door.

If there is a secret, it’s self-acceptance. Reconsidering personality through the prisms of introversion, sensory processing sensitivity, and Clifton Strengths helped me give myself permission to be who I am, and to build my life around my own physical and emotional comfort, without drowning in guilt or shame.

It still feels a little daring just to write that. What’s so horrible about needing to feel respected at work, anyway? No one would find that excessive in a man. But the female role monster lurks in corners, ready to pounce on me for my unwomanly egotism.

This is Your New Life

My new life is a lot like my old one. I still have to stick to my depression management program. I still struggle with internalized critical voices, and the stresses of being an HSP introvert in a mostly unsympathetic culture.

And yet, it feels different. Things I have been visualizing for years (if not decades), are finally coming to pass. I followed my own drummer, and it turned out OK. It seemed like every other decision was waiting for that affirmation. I was afraid to let go of other things, even when they were weighing me down, whether unneeded possessions or short term jobs I hated. My backup plan was failure. Some security!

This isn’t the end of Sensitive Type, because it isn’t the end of a road. More like another twist on the spiral. Progress is so incremental, and there will be other challenges and other deepenings, I’m sure. See you then.