How to Talk About You and I
Not you and me. We’re fine. Unless you have something we need to talk about, in which case DM me or ping me or whatever the kids say these days.
No, I want to talk about the use of pronouns, what those in the mental health field would call The I Language.
During my 1999 treatment, I reaped the benefits of my husband John’s support group for caregivers, offered for free at the estimable Gilda’s Club in Chicago. [I had my own support group for cancer patients, but I’m saving tales of its uselessness for another time.] John’s support group moderator, Andrea, was a cancer survivor herself, which I feared would be a conflict of interest but she turned out to be masterful. She led her charges on a safe exploration of their fears and dark days, ever mindful of giving them tools to support themselves first and their loved ones after. John shared many things he learned in that support group, and we still use them today.
Our most time-tested lesson was the emphasis on the I Language: In an argument, don’t say You are impatient or You’re a raving lunatic or You suck. Instead say I feel hurried and chaotic or I feel small when you raise your voice or I want to smack your sucky face. Maybe Andrea didn’t really suggest that last one, I could be misremembering. It’s been a long time.
Perhaps the vital difference in the phrasing of such complaints is not a surprise to you, dear reader. Perhaps you have come to emotional maturity earlier than I, you can see clearly that using I Language helps to both clarify one’s own emotions and create a dialogue free from defensiveness. You also may agree with me that it’s challenging to remember to use it properly in the heat of the moment [I feel like you're being an asshole, oops wait let me start over], and that careless use of You Language affects more than just a spat in the master bedroom. We use this mechanism in a variety of scenarios to insulate ourselves in some way; it serves to reduce the risk of hurt, judgment, vulnerability, scrutiny. You Language just as sticky and fraught outside the bedroom, creating its own distance and opposition in daily life.
I saw it recently when my Facebook friend Carolyn told the tale of a surprising and scary health crisis. Thankfully she is well, surgically rescued from the brink of death and heading back to recuperation after only a couple days in the hospital. Carolyn was told by her medical attendants how amazingly vibrant she was, powerfully healthy enough going into the trauma that her recovery was impressive and speedy.
What struck me was that rather than exclusively using the I Language — I believe it is my obsessive exercise regimen and obscenely strict diet that led to my preternatural recovery —Carolyn launched into the un-called-for You Language, appealing to all and sundry on her feed: “You must take care of your body, exercise and treat it well with good food, and it will take care of you when the time comes.”
Amazing how the You Language stirs defensiveness. Add the air of You Should and my entire nervous system goes into high alert.
I admit my defensiveness may be perched at the starting gate, simply waiting for any invitation to go a-galloping. But there is so much wrong with the You Language when it comes to health and illness that I don’t even feel the need to whistle my defensiveness back to the starting gate for a time out and meditation. I am called to be defensive: defend I shall.
Carolyn was likely sharing something she felt proud of, and on some level aimed to instruct. But this You Language is super-charged to a patient like me and has implications beyond simple advice. If you get sick, you just didn’t take care of yourself well enough. If I got cancer, it’s because I didn’t do enough to prevent it. It’s the worst of the Patient as Superhero Warrior mentality, because it suggests that staving off cancer — or post-partum depression or arthritis or heart disease — is completely within one’s control.
On a more practical note, it’s simply impossible to declare You Will anything when it comes to our health. I can no more tell a breast cancer patient what she will experience than I could predict what I would experience the second time. It was different for me, it could be different for you. My first rounds of chemo made me vomit before I even left the infusion room, but invariably I bounced back within four days. Sixteen years later, I didn’t vomit once but had 16 bloody noses and was bedridden for 1O days at a time. There is I Experienced This, Other People Experienced That, and never the ’twain shall meet. I can’t tell you what will happen. You can’t tell what will happen. The You Language contains too much hubris.
The You Language removes the individual from the conversation and turns what should be a personal expression into something else entirely. I marvel at its constant, unnecessary and off-putting use everywhere. My pet peeve is when an interview subject is explaining a particular experience; invariably — and quickly, so very quickly — the answer veers into You Language. For, say, a celebrity discussing the pitfalls of fame, the use of the You Language distances the individual from his own perspective: When the concert is over and you’ve given so much of yourself onstage, you don’t want to hang out and sign autographs, you just wanna go lay down, you know? Does he really think that any single person in his position would make the same choice? Why can’t he just say what it’s like for him, with his unique background and qualities and intentions? Perhaps he fears if he admits how much he hates his fame, he'll come off as a spoiled brat. In trying to insist we'd all behave the same, he removes himself from the conversation and misses an opportunity to be heard. I may not be thinking he's a spoiled brat, but I'm not closer to understanding what it's really like for him.
For a victim of a harrowing disaster, the You Language is likely more self-protective, aiming to avoid reliving what may have been upsetting in a very real and visceral sense. I am more likely to overlook trauma victims who need the safety of the You Language, I understand that mechanism. I still wish for a more universal commitment from us all to speak more I than You. I want to know what it's like for you, and I want only to tell you what it's like for me.