I like to write about all the options, so let’s talk about externalizing. I want to imagine what it would be like to be an externalizer. I’m too much of a “good girl,” I am an internalizer. When things get heavy, I try to get stronger. Externalizers are more likely to throw their load at someone when it gets too heavy. I think that we’ve all been both, but I want to unpack the feelings and growth for externalizers. Externalizers tend to believe that others need to change when there’s a conflict. In my last post, I talked about this as blame. Internalizers tend to feel at fault and try to fix themselves, externalizers tend to feel like someone else is at fault and that other person needs to change. There are going to be circumstances for both to be true.
Externalizers tend to seem explosive. I dated an externalizer for a while, and it was awful. I honestly had a really hard time ending things because he made threats against me and I worried what he would do if I upset him by ending things. As I write this, I’m still not sure if he’s accepted that it’s over. It’s that bad. He still thinks that I need to accept him for who he is, and as much as I tell him that isn’t what I want – he can’t accept that it isn’t what I want. He just keeps pushing me to be with him despite all my reasons for not wanting to be. It’s terrifying for an internalizer like me, but I’ve managed to keep him away for over 3 months. I still get consistent text messages that will not end… I feel like that’s just my karma for my anxiously attached messages to others.
There are times when the externalizer is right, though. My best friend called me out when I wanted to do something he felt was inappropriate, and he wasn’t nice about it. It felt explosive, like an externalizer (and I’m not labeling him as one, we all do it.) But, I took the message and I adapted accordingly. Sometimes, we might need someone to externalize to keep us on course. Sometimes the explosion is all I’ll listen to because I run at goals like a steam train. It isn’t bad unless you aren’t being accountable for your actions. Using externalization to deal with every problem results in people not wanting to be around you at all. Like everything, it has its place.
I’ve had the inclinations to externalize, but I don’t act on them very often. I think the most “externalizer” I get is that I will offer to do something, and if it’s rejected, sometimes my RSD will kick in and I’ll feel rejected. I said to my department “If you don’t want me, don’t vote for me.” But, I meant it as exactly what I said. It would have been externalizing to say “I don’t want to do it anymore” because some people didn’t want me to, but that wasn’t my message. My message was that I’m not here to force you, vote however you want to, and if you don’t want me – don’t vote for me. The thought of the externalizer came to mind, for sure. I had a short period of feeling like I should just take my name off the ballot, but I sat with it a while and decided that a few voices opposed does not signal a majority. The right thing to do was to let the department vote.
One of the things that externalizers experience from this is a sense of peace that internalizers don’t get. It allows a release from blame, so there is a release of guilt if they can pass it off to someone else. Living with constant guilt isn’t good for us, so we do need to find healthy ways to stop beating ourselves up in search of being better. There are tools in externalization that allow us to carry less “weight,” and perhaps that’s something useful.
From what I’ve read, most externalizers are not going to realize they are externalizers… so the best path to growth, which requires acknowledgement, is a hurdle that externalizers must mount. Which, sounds like it will only happen when their externalizing behaviors isolate or damage their relationships to a point where they finally realize they have a problem. That is not something easy to reach. I think the best thing we can do, as a society, is to teach empathy and emotional regulation to our future generations, and spend our time working on cultivating compassion for each other.
My story this week is about one of my cats, Snow White.
I LOVE cats. Always have. I don’t have any currently, but someday I will again. After my parents were divorced, one of my dad’s friends dumped a cat on us, that he found in a dumpster. I was so happy! A white poofball kitten. I loved her immediately. She needed a lot of care as she recovered from her dumpster-diving lifestyle, but she was an affectionate cat once she realized we were her new home and food was readily available.
We must have tried a dozen names for her; snowy, whitey, I don’t remember. She came to Snow White, and was henceforth Snow White – no longer the dumpster cat. Snow White was the chillest cat I’ve ever had. Flip her around, rub her belly, carry her like a baby, she didn’t care. She was happy to be loved. I bonded with all my cats, but she bonded with my dad. She lived with him full time and I only visited. She was my second cat, and my first longhair. I loved her. I think she’s the reason the future cats were longhairs, honestly. She was a buddy, and Goldy was a familiar. Having a buddy was nice.
Be a buddy and work with each other, but also be a buddy and call each other on bull. Empathy, compassion, and emotional regulation. Let’s make this world a better place.
Always with Love, -S.
Shells from a Beach 