Being Good

Editorial
Written By Dustin Stoddart

I think it’s safe to say that a lot of folks who are drawn to tabletop games have a tendency to look for enjoyment in what we loved as kids. We’re here for a multitude of reasons—including wanting to make friends, have fun, and be creative—but I’d venture to guess many of us are also chasing that potent sense of safety and comfort that games brought us when we were little.

As a kid, I got a lot of praise for two things: figuring things out on my own, and always doing the right thing. I felt better solving math problems by myself than working on them with my friends, and I told my mom I’d rather donate to charity than receive presents on Christmas. These inclinations have gotten more nuanced in adulthood, but (for better or worse) they're still a big part of who I am.

In my early 20’s (after noticing I had physical symptoms), I realized I suffered from social anxiety. In my early 30’s I began finding tools to help deal with it, and it was only very recently that I actually considered therapy.

Dustin at 17, deeply uncomfortable with being photographed, but miraculously unaware of his social anxiety.

The way I looked at it, I hadn’t been subjected to any kind of abuse as a kid, had never experienced a panic attack, and didn’t struggle with self-harm. I nodded my head whenever someone told me that everyone should do therapy, but never actually internalized why. Besides my anxiety (which I thought I could solve on my own), most of my stressors were external—they had to do with my job and the state of the world (not the sorts of things I could fix by talking to a therapist).

It was only when I hit a wall in my marriage that I realized my tendency to work through everything on my own had hit its limit. I was still convinced that my problems had to do with things outside myself, but they were overwhelming enough that I wanted help.

Now I’ll cut to the big twist: Most of those “external” stressors have been tied to the ways I learned to navigate the world as a kid.

The most challenging issue for me so far has been understanding my need to “be a good person”. How could anyone say it’s bad to be good? I’m beginning to see that while it’s certainly good to do good things, the urgent need to identify (and be identified by others) as Good is profoundly stressful, makes me susceptible to being taken advantage of, and even gets in the way of doing the right thing in some situations.

My career—and even what I studied in college—fed these tendencies and helped obscure them. Teaching, in particular, rewarded me for being independent, self-sacrificing, and willing to tolerate discomfort for the sake of “doing what’s best for the children”. In work and my personal life, I still often ignore small issues because I worry about disappointing people (only for them to later become larger crises and confrontations). All of this has been to the detriment of people close to me, my physical health, and more.

 

Dustin, senior in college, discovering the abundance of serotonin that teaching can bring.

 

People learn to navigate the world in childhood, but we don’t always learn to recognize when those strategies stop serving us, or how they connect to the negative patterns we experience in our adult lives. It’s so easy to avoid that work! Even when I have been at my lowest points, I’ve told myself that therapy would be more expensive than it really is, or that it would just stress me out more because of my busy schedule. In the end, I was amazed at how affordable it can be under a sliding scale, and how much I get out of two 45-minute sessions a month.

Our minds are the single conduit through which we perceive beauty, express love, experience joy, and deal with all the challenges the world throws at us. I can’t think of anything more worthy of being prioritized and cared for.

All the best,
Dustin

Some mental health resources that come recommended by folks in our community:

Dustin Stoddart http://www.dustinstoddart.com
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