Double Standard? Me?

  I believe I am just as big of a pain to others as they may seem to me. I recognize the natural double standard that we humans operate from in our lives.  My brain is in my body with the job of keeping me alive and no one else’s brain has that job. 

In the quest to stay alive, I over-react all the time.  It’s a brain thing.  My EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM  telling me I’m in danger, when I’m not. Telling me I have to be right and other people have to be wrong for me to not feel threatened.  Telling me other people don’t try as hard as I do to make life work. 

I believe I am just as hard to live with as my husband is to live with, that I cause as many anxieties for my sister and brother as they might for me. I recognize that sometimes I’m the goof in the wrong line at the grocery store, I lose count of whose turn it is at a four-way stop. And, yes, I am the devil’s own:  I was in a hurry on the way to the airport and rear-ended someone while I was talking on my cell phone.   believe I am someone’s nightmare as often as I complain about someone else. If you think you don’t have a double standard, you’re really sunk, but hang on to that notion and turn on that radio (see “Miss Lake Superior.”):

All of this is to point out something I was thinking about yesterday.  When I get into an emotional tennis match and say things I don’t mean–with me it’s usually a statement that I will stop doing things I enjoy but don’t come with a lots of ego-massage, or a statement that I’m going to break off communication with someone.  I’m not really going to give up writing mysteries or any important relationship.  My husband knows that.  He knows not to take these EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM threats as real.

Here’s where the double standard comes in. Let’s say we are into a downward emotionally guided spiral and he counters my proclamations with his own EMOTIONAL SYSTEMS statements. . . . Well, I NEVER forget what he says at that moment.  This conversation isn’t going to end until he torturously takes back everything he said. I’ve got the lower lip out until he convinces me that he’s not going to follow through on his threats to cut off activities he enjoys or cut off from an important person. All the while, I expect him to let what I said go, because after all he KNOWS I don’t mean it.

The double standard is: When I say stupid things in emotional moments, other people are supposed to understand and just let them go.  When other people do the same thing . . .

…. And, Mexico?  That was like me having a triple standard…