On Being Seen

Psychological Visibility and its Absence

I come back to speaking on psychological visibility more and more.  I keep experiencing how important it is in our relationships and on the world stage.  I often talk about how we need to see and be seen.  We go out, we make friends, we have dates, we join civic organizations.  Sometimes we just people-watch or just go about our night, dressed to kill. Most of us do so for various reasons.  People want to be seen, to be liked, to be understood.  Some need to feel that they’re not the only one that has certain political views or environmental concerns.  Most want to feel a sense of community.  And with friends and lovers we need to feel a sense of affinity, like our people get us, to see past the surface, maybe even past the flaws, to reveal our essence.  And we want the benefit of the doubt, to be taken at our word.  Otherwise, what’s the point?

Some people seem to be able to see facets of us at times.  It can be a great feeling.  But other times they may typecast us.  They may lump us in with others in our age group, gender, political affiliation, sexual orientation or religion. They may misinterpret our words and our meaning because our words or deeds may trigger old traumas, seen or unseen.  However this happens, it’s not always easy to sense when we are not being seen, but usually the mood feels different to me.

I feel uneasy in my gut.  I often feel anger, like my words are not being taken as I intend them.  If in a debate or disagreement, the person may not argue in good faith.  This can spiral into a fight or a breakup.  The misunderstanding can be mutual or one-sided.  We can talk past each other.  We can then reject or seek the approval of the other.  

The stance I’ve taken lately is to better honor myself.  I have decided to not associate with people who don’t see me or won’t see me or can’t see me.  Sometimes they just can’t see us.  They are too busy, too angry, hurt, self-involved or just not interested in seeing past their blinders or our presentation.  When they won’t see us, they may need to blame us in order to avoid seeing something unpleasant about themselves.  When they can only see us as a member of one of those categories, they won’t humanize us.  

This, to me, is the core problem: the universal human flaw of dehumanizing others.  I posit that we dehumanize others in order to protect our traumas.  And ironically, our traumas are most often the result of being dehumanized by others.  Not seen, not valued, not honored, not protected.  Used, violated, beaten, manipulated.  And as a result, we protect ourselves with pattern recognition.  If a dog bites us, we develop a phobia.  This is natural.  The body and the neurology are just trying to protect us any way they can.  It’s a blunt instrument.  And perhaps there was a time when this worked for us as a species.

Now, sadly, I see this working against all of us.  Not the vigilance or the boundaries, but the subtle dehumanizing of those who remind our reptilian brain of those who caused us such anguish, such terror.  All humans are suffering from PTSD on some level.  This is the human condition.  And I have my own traumas, blind spots and triggers.  But some have faced situations I can only imagine.  So it’s not with judgment or cynicism that I speak of my dissatisfaction with not being seen.

I even realize that I can and do and feed the narrative of myself as a caricature of maleness, of whiteness, of boorishness, condescension and so on.  Sometimes, in my ignorance and lack of awareness, I exhibit these behaviors in the moment.  But this is not my essence.  Other times I buy into a generalized narrative about myself.  I don’t see my essence myself.  Or I buy into the categorical assumptions and generalizations about men, white people, Americans, realtors, business owners, people of my age group or heterosexuals or any combination thereof.

And so we can’t always blame others for falling into the traps of dehumanizing us when our own behaviors may cue them unwittingly.  Furthermore, overgeneralizing can be a shortcut, a way to check out of a situation and/or a way to maintain denial. This feels maddening to me. The person levies a judgment, an opinion that doesn’t seem to be based on deep inquiry and presence, but a surface appraisal of the situation. It’s this kind of common sense blah blah blah that makes me feel unseen, unheard and misunderstood. I feel typecast, like I’m seen as a mere collection of my apparent categories, not a human.

Whatever it is, I’m finding myself saying No to these situations.  I don’t have to generalize in response, even if I see some general cultural trends that may be at work on the individuals I encounter.  There is no value in reflecting the essentialism that can be at the core of not-seeing.  Essentialism is false and a tool for dehumanization.

But I can move forward acting as if some percentage of certain groups may act certain ways because of being pandered to.  I can be especially vigilant against this trend.  And I can reject the behavior instead of the human embodying them..  I can move to a safer and more comfortable distance instead of blaming or rejecting those who can’t/won’t/don’t see me.

Because at its essence, many of us are often under what amounts to a spell.  People can’t find perspective in a situation, often because of the aforementioned traumas, preconceptions and cultural messages. The constant propaganda being beamed at us from those that stand to gain from division are plentiful and alluring.  Perennial outgroups that are suddenly ingroups being flattered and humored and pandered to can be unsure how to wield newfound power and yet still be deeply affected by the righteous indignation of intense experiential traumas.

It’s a perplexing dilemma, to be sure and we can see it on the world stage too, but that is for another post.