A photo of me in my rainbow Wonder Woman t-shirt
Last night when I was lying in bed, I was thinking about the word “pride”. I can sometimes be a bit of a word nerd, and sometimes I just go over words over and over again in my head and think about the various meanings and connotations of those words.
“Pride” is such a big word, such a loaded word. I was thinking I could get into all of the definitions, but I think if you just go check out Merriam-Webster’s definitions of the word “pride”, you can see just how complicated and loaded the word is. Even just looking at synonyms of the word “pride”, you can see that it can mean so much - self-respect, confidence, dignity, ego, etc..
Even just in my life, “pride” has been such a loaded word. In the Catholic world, St. Thomas Aquinas defined pride as “an excessive desire for one's own self which rejects subjection to God.” Growing up in such a Catholic household, you’d better believe I was aware of what the 7 Deadly Sins were. The Catholic definition of “pride” colored my ability to understand the word in any other context for a looooong time - I would hear that someone was proud of themselves, and think that they were sinning just for that sense of satisfaction in their achievements or recognition of their own self-worth. And when I would feel pride in the typical sense of the word - pleasure in myself that came from a sense of achievement - I would think that it was wrong and unholy for me to feel that way. I felt guilty for it.
Then, of course, there’s the type of Pride that Merriam-Webster defines as “respect and appreciation for oneself and others as members of a group and especially a marginalized group : solidarity with a group based on a shared identity, history, and experience”. Realizing I was queer at a young age, I would see news about Pride parades and Pride events, and see how the people in my life reacted to the coverage of those things, and think about whether or not I belonged to the community that shared an identity and felt respect and appreciation for ourselves because of it, and what the repercussions would be on my life if I felt that kind of Pride. And, before I really came to know myself and love the queer part of myself, I wondered if that Pride was, in fact, a sin.
As I’ve come to embrace other parts of my identity - specifically the parts that identify me as a member of certain groups (marginalized and otherwise) - I’ve felt pride in those parts of myself in what I think is a good way. I consider myself a proud feminist, a proud nerd, a proud animal-lover, a proud neurodivergent person, and (more and more) a proud gender-diverse person.
But sometimes those lines still get blurred for me. If, for example, I’m proud of the boundaries I’ve put in place for recognition of my own value and self-worth, is that just me mistaking the good “pride” for what is actually the ego-centric, conceited “pride”? If someone does something to hurt me, is that “hurting my pride” in the sense of appropriately deflating an overly self-indulgent ego, or is that “hurting my pride” in the sense of diminishing the self-worth that is valuable for me to feel and have? Does LGBTQIA+ Pride mean self-obsession and self-congratulations in defiance of “normal” people, or does LGBTQIA+ Pride mean appreciation and love for our identities as an oppressed community that shares characteristics and history and experiences? (That last sentence should be kind of obvious, but kind of outlines what I think a lot of conservative cis-hets think of Pride.)
Maybe the root of the problem is just in the language we use. Maybe we need separate words for these feelings and experiences. For example, if Christians most associate the word “pride” with one of the 7 Deadly Sins, and LGBTQIA+ people most associate the word “pride” with affection for a shared identity, should we be using different words?
Or maybe it’s just that I take things too literally. Maybe this is an example of my being unable to properly parse through ambiguity. Autistic people will often ask for the people in our lives to be as direct as possible. Sometimes, the level of specific explanation I need of what the people in my life are saying to me gets to be obnoxious for those people. I want to know exactly what is meant by what is said, exactly what is meant by the body language that’s being used, and I don’t want any level of ambiguity in an interaction. Of course, my trauma history also informs the way I go about interacting, with this hypervigilance to look out for any signs of impending rejection or abandonment (or worse).
But in this case, I’m getting tripped up by the word that I’m using in my own thoughts - pride. I know that I’m really proud of the boundaries I’ve established in my life. I know that I am really proud of the work I’ve done this year to understand and accept myself as a queer, genderqueer, Catholic, autistic, nerdy, progressive, soft-hearted, sensitive person. I know that I feel pride in my identity, and pride in the community of people with whom I share parts of my identity. I know that I want to walk into future challenging encounters with my head held high, proud of who I am and proud of what my values are and proud of sticking to my principles.
I’m just getting lost on which version of “proud” or “pride” I mean. And sometimes I think that my propensity towards alexithymia means that, even when I know the word for the feeling I’m feeling, I don’t know what the truth of the feeling is, or which version of the word is the right one for the feeling.
I’m not sure what exactly the point of this post is, other than just a way to express the way my brain is analyzing (perhaps over-analyzing) the words I’m using, the meanings of those words, and the many loaded connotations that a word like “pride” can have. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, language is limiting, and trying to understand an emotion or experience within the context of the language available to me is a frustrating exercise.
I will say this. With everything this year has meant for me - the really good stuff and the really bad stuff - I know that I am proud of myself. And even if I don’t know what that means, I know that it means something.