Self Awareness is a crucial tool to help us stop doing this to people, but we also need a code of ethics.
The ethic must be based in the idea that everyone's time and thoughts are worthy of respect, and that nobody is more worthy of attention and time than anyone else. It's an egalitarian idea that may not float well in some more authoritarian (Republic of Gilead) circles.
To put it more viscerally, no person is another person's word dumpster.
In effect,
You were not put on this Earth to sit and allow me to empty my mind of every idle thought, yammering on with my thought trash, chasing every thought rabbit from topic to topic, acting as if you were not even in the room as a sentient being with thoughts of your own, but only as a receptacle, a captive audience that, as a place holder, is simply there to make me feel heard while I dump.
It is an inhumane way to treat someone while I get myneeds met. Does this sound extreme? Try it a few times and find out just how demeaning and dehumanizing it is (not to mention boring). I might also mention at this point, that it is also a well-recognized technique of gaslighting, a known emotional abuse method.
I found out how I had been making people feel over the years as a needy kid and teen and ERMERGRD 20-something and(DEAR GOD) know-it-all 30 and 40--something when I finally became more self aware in therapy groups and decided to make a radical turn and become a Listener.
It was like changing from a dog into a fire hydrant overnight, and I found out what it was like to get peed on by everybody in the neighborhood. It sucked. I was not ready.
Years and years later, after working harder on my listening skills, it still sucked. I presumed my personal or spiritual growth was lacking, and I kept working on various aspects of that, but being a better and better listener while other people obtusely continued to DUMP never sucked less.
It finally hit me this was not my problem to fix, other than the fact that I was not erecting boundaries. When it came to storytelling events, I interviewed audiences and noted that many listeners were being abused.
This was a cultural problem, a two-pronged one.
Prong one: Many people are sloppy talkers, not knowing how to reign it in, and worse, not feeling the need to do so (as a radio broadcaster, I was trained for years in the importance of concise speech and the beauty of brevity. "Shut up and play the hits" was thee Golden Radio Rule I was first taught. Unfortunately, most people aren't taught this simple reality, that the less you yammer,the better-and even worse, most people don't recognise the responsibility incumbent upon them when in front of a captive audience (an important term to understand):when people feel they can't, in keeping with common good manners, escape the scene, then you have a captive audience and in that situation-think teaching a getaway weekend workshop or giving a lecture in your area of expertise-, much as it may be tempting to bend or even break some ears, it's especially abusive to do so). A captive audience is at your mercy and deserves all the mercy you can spare them.
One excellent rule to remember is that people can listen to almost anything for four minutes. Keep any talk , story or presentation as close to four minutes as possible and you are being as kind as possible.
Prong Two: We all want to be polite and listen. Nobody wants to ring the Shut Up Bell, although at one event I witnessed a man, Paul, who had abused his time onstage so savagely, by simply connecting loose thought to loose thought in agonizingly boring fashion for over an hour, not making a story happen and refusing to yeild the floor. The group finally had elected one woman to remove him, and she did so-physically. She was forced to push him bodily out the door, even after everyone-EVERYONE IN THE ROOM WAS CALLING FOR HIM TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE. Still, in a misty haze of getting-needs-met, on and on he droned, unable to hear all the voices telling him in no uncertain terms to GO AWAY.
At that same retreat I met a friend; she and I would sit together at meals and events. We were regularly accosted by one man who presumed to fascinate us with his presence, launching into stories as he sat next to us, even as we were deep in private conversations. The soft glow in his eyes was the same unmistakeable needs-being-met glow of the storyteller-being-heard, even as we got up and moved away so we could hear each other and continue in our conversation that was well under way. He had no sense of us as people; to him we were merely a cardboard Audience placeholder to chase around.
I would like to explain the term abuse, because I see sloppy talk as soft abuse. And I'll explain.
When you are the victim of hard abuse you can see in your abuser's face the joyous rage of the attacking wolf; an appatite is being sated. This even appears in the verbal abuser who is whisper-taunting you, softly using sadistic words to try to frighten you or bring you down. The facial expression is still bloodthirsty. But the soft abuser is merely oblivious to your existence, subsumed in the bliss of their own needs being met, like an infant at the breast or the opium addict on a high. Sloppy talkers who chase rabbit to rabbit, thought to thought, from den to den, are emptying the thought cache and experiencing that relief as they dump. I know this, because I used to do it. I know the value of journaling, because I no longer dump on people-I no longer make them carry my thought junk for me. I yammer at my dog as I throw the ball for him while I take notes before journaling, because it helps empty the cache, helps me to hear myself and seems to be soothing to him as well.I know it doesn't make him more anxious. And I only post or text when I have seived and find what I trulty think has value, has usefulness, or that I truly need reflection or accompanyment on once I've heard the thoughts aloud to him (at least, I usually follow my own rules on this, but some times I'm weaker than others). This I think of as thought heigene, and I think it's essential for good relationships.
For a short time I had an aquaintance/friend who had no sense of thought heigene and whenever we talked she only seemed to have a vague sense that, "Oh, good, here is my new friend Robbie, who will listen to me so well, I can just go on uninterrupted and she won't make me listen to her stuff."
On rare occasions when I interjected my own feelings or point of view I was met with a cool silence and sudden change of subject. I see now, because I had not stayed on-point, in keeping with thee point being about HER. Rather sadly, she has passed on now, but also rather blessedly, for that "friendship" was exhausting and one-sided, much like my primary family relationship that I have withdrawn from for my own health.
At this juncture,not just for my own health but for the broader cause of cultural mental health I have arrived at a harder stance as a former yammerer, now a Listener.
As a former yammerer, I am not throwing shade on yammerers-merely on the ACT of yammering. And I am not shaming. I have done plenty of it my OWN self. That's why I feel qualified to call for guard rails. I set a timer on an ap on my phone for threeminutes titled "talk" and I practice with it.
I 've begun to time myself in groups when called upon to do check-ins and comments, keeping my remarks to a tight three minutes or less, so I have the moral grounds to ask the same of everyone else.
I gather my thoughts before meetings and take notes throughout, as I do in conversations with friends, so I can be more clear and bring more content of value. I also try to write concise and entertaining emails. These practices support keeping my remarks and conversations tight and concise; it's a rigorous practice that requires lots of polishing.
And I have decided that even if you are at the mercy of OCD, you get a a total of THREE subject changes when talking to yourself in the presence of someone else and not including them in the conversation simply because you are selfishly talking to yourself in their presence, making them your very own verbal dumpster because you just kind of felt like it and didn't bother to ask them to be a willing participant because you figured you were just that fascinating and/or you were too lazy to bother to ask if it was OK with them (hello, captive audience), in which case YOU ARE A SOFT ABUSER and need to come to terms with that! Happy Holidays! At least you have a chance to change your ways now, cowgirl! yippeecayyay(please forgive the Bruce Willis reference, but DieHard IS a great Christmad movie)!
Start listening by picturing everyone's words on paper, as if you are printing out a transcript of the talk. INCLUDING YOU. When the subject changes, change to a new paragraph. When ONE person is talking and changes the subject THREE TIMES, it gets indented THREE TIMES and that's a LOT of blank page for one person...and it's like, HOLD ON NOW///HOW MANY RABBITS IS THAT?! You need to start acting like there are other people are in the damn ROOM!
It may ruffle feathers and bruise some egos at first, but if you asked me that's part of growing up and learning to act like a GentlePerson.
Today, rewatching an old Paula Poundstone comedy special, she talked abourt being OCD and the fact that we are all born with the tendency, but it's expressed differently in all of us. For her, it's in i"ncessant chattiness". "I try to listen I do!"she said, "But then someone triggers me and I'm off again."
Sloppy talk as mental illness, hmmmm.
But stll, boundaries. We need them. You may have a mental illness; you have the right to seek help. You have the right to request support from the group. But you don't get to make the rest of us sick with your illness by railroading us with your "incessant chatter". You need to respect others' time and presence here and rein yourself in, make room for other people. You need to respect the presence of others. Because that kind of speech that cuts other people out as if they aren't there is alienating and could well be traumatic and triggering for some(as a feature of narcissistic abuse and even gaslighting), so it could trigger or even cause illness in some people. So I say a flat No to allowing yammering, which I define as one person holding the floor for more than four minutes with multiple(more than three)* subject changes. HARD NO.
I'm REQUIRING standards that call people to self-check when it comes to how long they yammer, to respect listeners, respect other people's precious attention, energy and time, and rein it in as a matter of respect, self-respect, and even craftsmanship. Certainly I am requiring self-discapline, and that will scare some people off.
To that I say, Buh-bye.
You can't smoke or shoot up in here, either.
kicks soapbox into corner
* IF you have OCD you you get three subject changes WHEN in the grip of "incessant chattiness". The human nervous system recognizes a sense of completion in the number three. Three little pigs. Three bears. Three plot parts: beginning, middle and end. Three chances to solve the riddle and pull the sword from the stone; it's the magic narrative number. So you get a maximum of three subject changes.
Timing-wise,you get four minutes, BECAUSE people can listen to almost anything for four minutes: that is how human beings are neurologically wired. I did not arrive at these numbers randomly, but specifically, from historical and biological precision.
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