Radford Noone Research Service

climbing your family tree

Mighty Drofdar

There’s a White Elephant in the Room: Self-Confidence and Self-Delusion

 

 

 

             “Don’t get close to Matthew,” the last director warned me. Apparently not only was I not to get physically close to him but I wasn’t supposed to get emotionally close to him. One day the same director saw me leaning over Matthew while he was on his microfilm reader and I was clarifying to him what he was looking at on the screen. I was politely talked to afterwards and I was instructed not to do that. “Why?” I enquired. The answer was blunt, “Because I don’t want him to proposition you.” Hummm was my only thought and to my better judgment I countered, “I could beat the crap out of him if needed.” The director in his stern god fatherly way ended the discussion by sharply counseling, “I just don’t want you to have to be in that position in the first place.”

             I can’t say that I’ve always been a self-confident person. In fact, for most of my life I’ve been the opposite. To even find myself as a prison volunteer, and enjoying it, surprises no one more than me. I have to ask myself, is this really self-confidence or self-delusion? Were warnings from that director justified or were they build upon something else. Since I wasn’t sure what my role was in this conversation I promptly slipped into self-confidence and ignored the whole incident, or even perhaps self-delusion while ignoring the whole thing. The difficulty I had in reconciling the director’s comments was that I really liked Matthew. He’s always treated me with the utmost respect, never been inappropriate towards me, and can frankly make me laugh like nobody else at the prison can.

             This principle of the line between self-confidence and self-delusion was brought home to me by two different inmates, giving me the same comment, but months apart. Sam, in the one-third of his personality that I really enjoy, looked at me and said, “Dwight you walk in here one day a week and you think that you own the place.” I shot back, “Well don’t I?” That was fun bantering, but then several months later, and for no apparent reason, John looked at me and in all seriousness said, “Dwight, you think you own the place, don’t you?” Now that stopped me cold in my tracks. Of course in that situation, I was obligated to shoot back the trite, “And the problem with that is what?” Yet, I wasn’t bantering, although I pretended that I was. I really had to think about this in more depth. What were those two comments really about?

             By this point in my volunteer work, I’m used to the guys saying what they think to me. “Dwight, your shirt shrunk in the wash didn’t it?” (Well, no it didn’t.) “Dwight, its cold in here, isn’t it?” (No, and I can’t help it, but what are you doing looking at my chest anyway?) “Dwight, it’s about time you got a haircut.” (You’re probably right.) “Dwight, everybody tells you their fantasies, and now it’s my turn.” (Define fantasies – on second thought you better not.) Sometimes, it requires my time and a mature response to keep the flow of the place going when comments are given. At other times, the rhythm of the place would cease if I didn’t let comments go in one ear and out the other. It’s a balancing act.

             Still the fact remains; I do feel comfortable at the LDS family history center in prison even as unnatural of a place as it is. I feel at ease with the guys, with or without their bantering comments, and I feel relaxed with the other volunteers. Why wouldn’t that reflect itself in how I walk into the room?

             I don’t think I started gaining self-confidence in my ability to do life in any functional way until after my divorce. I was in my mid-forties and after sixteen years of marriage, I finally had the space that I needed to look at myself and decide what I wanted rather than having someone else dictate that for me. Even if that was only in my mind. With this new awareness under my belt, when the time came for major life shifts to occur, I was ready for them. When needed, I was able to bring my then sixteen-year-old daughter through the death of her mother from breast cancer and to help her to understand what a wonderful person her mother was. I had no unfinished business with her mother, so I was free to chart life’s course in whatever direction I needed. There’s something to be said about coming full circle.

             Since that pivotal time in my life where I became the responsible party for trying to finish raising a healthy and stable teenager, it’s been important for me to be true in my relationships with the people around me. I don’t believe in secrets, nor do I believe in having unfinished business. Life is just too damn short. Maybe without realizing it, this has helped to plant me on the side of self-confidence rather than self-delusion, although I’m certainly guilty of backsliding at times. So when these two guys noticed something about me that I haven’t noticed in myself, it caused me to pause and take an accounting.

             I suppose that I do walk into the family history center and “think that I own the place.” It’s an unconscious view that I wasn’t aware of until they pointed it out to me. Even though it’s as odd as any prison can be, I still feel like I have a contribution to make there. I feel as though all volunteers, as well as the inmates, have an important contribution to make. I simply see myself as one of the pack. If that is self-confidence, then I accept the responsibility.

             However, the line between self-confidence and self-delusion can be very thin at times as I try and determine who is self-confident and who is self-delusional. This ties into that old proverbial white elephant in the room that nobody wants to openly talk about or acknowledge is there. Yet, there it is. There have been two particular white elephants that I’ve had to deal with, and they have been both frustrating and exhilarating. I had to soul search to find the best way to deal with them. Often the situations we find ourselves in are a delicate balance between self-confidence and self-delusion, and that old white elephant doesn’t help.

I knew that Matthew had a terrible reputation for things that he did years before I became a volunteer. I was constantly reminded of this as both volunteers and inmates would jump on the anti-Matthew bandwagon. However, through it all I just didn’t get it. I really liked the guy anyway regardless of what other people were saying. What can I say? He’s simply a hoot! My relationship with him was built upon both confidence and delusion, as everybody, including Matthew, simply insinuated why he had this reputation. The kicker is that I was never told what exactly that reputation was, just that it existed. Even that was insinuated at, creating the entire white elephant hanging between Matthew and me. Obviously it had something to do with sex, but that’s all I was able to figure out. The rest was a mystery. While everyone else seemed to have slid toward the negative in their feelings about him, I honestly had no reason to go there.

I decided that when it came to Matthew the route to go was on the side of self-delusion. It was all none of my business, and Matthew’s past was Matthew’s past. However, in spite of noble efforts at ignoring the talk, and remaining in self-delusion, the insinuations just wouldn’t stop. The warnings about not getting close to him, physically or emotionally persisted and still nobody would tell me why. I was told right out not to touch him. All this left me feeling somewhat  uneasy and schizophrenic in my thinking, and not towards Matthew either. My experience with the man was nothing like what I was being told that I needed to believe. I’m not saying that they weren’t right. I’m only saying that it wasn’t my experience. He was the first person I met in the prison system, so I can honestly say that I’ve known him longer than anyone. So in my lack of self-confidence in how to handle this matter, I gladly let it all slide.

From where I was, I found that warnings about him potentially propositioning me were interesting and actually comical. Since I believe that I’d have the advantage in a fist fight, I wasn’t worried. This is keeping in perspective that technically neither one of us could fight our way out of a wet paper bag if we had to. Still I think I’d have the advantage. Self-delusion – perhaps, but it made me feel better at least in the moment that I had to deal with comments. What made me so alarmed about the warnings was that I was indirectly being asked to try, judge, sentence, and execute Matthew for things that I was told he did long before I even knew him. These were things that in no way concerned me and were no skin off my back in the least – whatever they were. So in my self-delusion, I continued to treat Matthew like I would any of the other guys. I really cherish my time with him. I don’t, nor have I ever, hesitated to put my hand on his shoulder and give him the praise that he deserved on his family research. I just had to make sure that nobody was looking because I was growing tired of the insinuations. Nor did I feel like being chastised by the director. Matthew does a good and thorough job with his work, and I’m very proud of him.

I also realize that when people would warn me about Matthew that their reasoning was somewhat layered. For those volunteers who watched me come on board, they must have thought that I was this White Anglo-Saxon Mormon (WASM) kind of guy who was about the age of their own children. Maybe unconsciously I propitiate this image. I don’t mean too. In my mind I’m not even close to a WASM. Maybe that’s part of the self-delusion. I look WASM, I act WASM, and I probably even have the squeaky clean WASM smell. That is until someone gets to know me up close and personal. Why wouldn’t the volunteers, or even the inmates, want to protect this poor naïve WASM guy who is just trying to maneuver his way through the prison system? I do understand this, but honestly, after my first year there, they should have all figured out that looks can be deceiving and that some of the inmates dressed in prison white are more WASM than I could ever pretend to be!

Over the course of a year, as the insinuations, the stares, and the warnings came and went, it was Matthew himself who pushed that one last button I had left on the topic. He made mentioned in passing about when he was “locked down” in his cell for three months, and then promptly went on to another topic. That was it! I had had it with the topic. If Matthew was going to push that last button and push me over the edge, then I figured it was finally the time for pay back. I came right out and asked him what everybody, including himself, is always insinuating. He just howled with laughter, made an appointment with me for the next week so he could tell me the whole story. I could no longer live in self-delusion.

The day of our scheduled meeting, Matthew was all grins. I warned him as he started his story that if he made himself the hero of his own narrative that I was going to slug him. Fortunately for both of us he didn’t approach his story that way.  Unfortunately, the story he told me wasn’t what I expected. Blood, guts, gore, and orgies would have been a better climax after my year of torture in this matter. It was hardly the action packed movie that I had expected. Yes, it was questionable, and all I could do was shake my head. I asked him, “What were you thinking? Oh you were thinking with your crotch not your intellect.” It was not worth a year of torment on my end. As it turns out, his sexual experimentations in prison led him to not only set himself up for what was to come, but as he said, “I honestly didn’t do what the rumors say, although I did think about it. I’ll admit that I’m no angel.” Yes, he is no angel. All I could do was explore with him his behavior prior to the accusation. He reasoned that it was his immature years and that when time came for someone to set him up, who didn’t like him, he was a marked man. He saw that no matter what he said nobody was going to believe him. Yep, apparently he was right, and they still don’t.

Now whether he was actually innocent or not is beside the point. For me the overriding lesson was in the revelation that his immature behavior made him a marked man for anyone who would take advantage of the situation. I wonder how often we do that in our lives on the outside. Do we set ourselves up for the fall without even realizing that we are doing it? As I thought about this I realized that when I fail to balance wisdom and compassion that I too set myself up for the fall. If I were to dreg up the past, I could probably write an entire laundry list of the times that I have set myself up. So why should Matthew be any different? His lack of wisdom, maturity and compassion may have centered around sex in prison, but mine certainly centered around something else.

             With the damage done to his reputation, he finds it a hoot what still circulates about him and his sexual adventures (or misadventures). He has learned to deal with it by snide and very funny comments when it is brought up to him. I got to take my hat off to the guy, he knows how to rise above his circumstances and succeed. Still the rumors persist, and there’s nothing he can do about them other than laugh. In Matthew’s case I suppose it may even be prudent to make himself out to be the hero as he adds to the stories and engages the myth surrounding him. He has ample opportunity to engage the mythology as each new generation of inmates hears the stories about him and add their own twists and turns to his own twists and turns. He is indeed a hilarious guy.

             I left the conversation very happy that I had asked him for the storyline. I don’t feel like the white elephant is standing between us now.  As I shared with him, I heard the insinuations,

                                                                                           Continued……….