The cringe-worthy title to my newsletter is intentional. Hopefully, it provokes an ironic smile. If you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, I’m referencing the very famous and high-grossing (in more ways than one) ‘Debbie does….whatever/whoever’ pornos of the 1970s.
The inspiration comes from when I was around 13 or so. A naïve only child at an all girls school, I was looking for an umbrella in the hall closet of the two bedroom apartment I shared with my mum and step-father. Without even trying to snoop, I came face to face with a big box of porn videotapes sitting front and centre on the shelf.
I rifled through the top of the box with morbid fascination as I saw that the tapes were variously entitled Debbie does this, that and the other thing, here, there and everywhere, with the cover photos making it all too clear what she was doing. Suffice to say, it was a damn creepy discovery, because I was always called Debbie at that time.
Look, it may have been mere coincidence that my step father collected that series. You want to hope so, right? But regardless, it felt very off then and it still does decades later.
Mum was shaken when I told her what I found in the closet, but I’m not sure my step-father even cared. When he died, those tapes were still in his house. Mum had left him and the tapes by then.
I never watched them, or more than a few seconds of any porn for that matter. They’re not my cup of tea. No judgment of others’ likes, but there are some things you just can’t unsee, and I don’t want those images haunting my head ad infinitum. There’s already enough shit to contend with in there.
Anyway, getting creeped out by my step father’s videotapes wasn’t a huge incident in itself, it just represents one brick in an ominously large wall that ultimately led me to therapy, and to becoming a therapist myself. Various messages had stacked up in my heart about what got me attention and made me feel liked and cared about, and what didn’t. Looking back, I can see how hard I fell for the insidious conclusion that a female is valued for her sexuality, above all else.
This is not a simple confession for me. It was previously too humiliating to admit to any internalised mysogyny in myself, towards myself.
Being a woman, it’s particularly complex to unravel that kind of deep self-derision. You see, if you’d asked me as a teenager about the worth of any person, of any gender, I would have stressed the importance of smarts and values over beauty. I would have blindly trotted out the sentiments I knew should be true. I would have said I believed them because I thought I did. I wanted to.
I hadn’t yet learned to examine or feel into the deeper beliefs forming in the cells of my body, or the dark, non-verbal parts of my consciousness. So much in my world confirmed the idea that being a female meant that my worth was utterly tied to my appearance and sexuality. There was a glitch in my software, created by all the unspoken tiny signs that had been noted, even before I had words for them.
Meghan Markle’s comments about being treated like a bimbo while modelling on a game show, reminded me of the inner conflict I felt as a young actress back in 1892. On the one hand there’s Meg’s genuine outrage at being objectified for her sexuality - fair enough. On the other hand, there’s the hard fact that she actively competed to win that gig of trotting around in a push-up bra, mini-skirt, false lashes and cheesy smile in front of a massive television audience. Meg knowingly embraced the bimbo economy harder than most of us do and I have zero problems with that, if she was at peace with herself and her decision.
What I have a problem with is getting caught in unacknowledged inner conflicts that cause us ongoing harm, sucking us into self-hatred and shame. It takes insight and courage to shake ourselves out of doing things that are incongruent with what we say we believe. It takes courage and insight to face up to beliefs that repeatedly beckon us into self-defeating places, while our intellect screams at us on mute.
Civil wars waged inside ourselves between unseen beliefs and conscious intelligence, our words and our behaviours at odds, can leave our inner landscape damaged by addictions, bad relationships, unresolved traumas and all the sufferings. The most insidous suffering is our own shame and disappointments with ourselves. Even when we are victimised, or our suffering comes from many outside sources, we will often find a way to turn the circumstances into humiliation and blame. It’s not just you or me. It’s human nature.
The good news is that we have more power over our own inner life than we know. Ultimate power. It’s not easy to dig down deep enough to see it and unpick the painful knots that keep us stuck in pain or disatisfaction - dis-integrated within the parts of ourselves.
If you see some of what I’m talking about in yourself, be gentle, not judgmental. Please smile at how normal you are whenever you unearth any of your own glitches.
That’s what this newsletter’s all about: Insights, healing and coping with suffering, finding support, deep self-understanding, discussion and answers about the human condition, and overall growing in wisdom and emotional intelligence.
I’ve seen and done therapy from both sides of the couch and more. I know that the best work I can do now is through my transparency, humanity and authenticity beyond any ‘right’ words.
Send your questions (I’ll change your name), leave your comments if you like. I’ll be here every week Deb doing therapy (I haven’t been called Debbie for a very long time now.)
See you every week with much more. This is just the beginning.
Soundtrack to writing this piece: Kiss on my list by Hall and Oates. According to Daryl Hall, the song is more about conflicted feelings than being madly in love. You have to dig down a little to hear it.