Eventually I saw that all these people were writing to complain about various things regarding the transfer of Blogger and it didn't seem from my perspective, that no one was really trying.
Then I decided to approach it from the other end - from Google. So I logged into Google, which I really never use, and I found out that there's another whole bunch of Google accounts that I needed to sign up for and then when I clicked on the Blogger logo it took me right back to my usual place. I went round and round with this a few times and I guess I'm okay with this legacy thing now.
Back to out text...
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This text is patched together from the section titled: "A New Formulation of Identity and Commitment," and the subsection is "Identity.""Burke and Reitzes (1981) note three distinctive features of identities. First, identites are social products that are formed, maintained and confirmed through the process of 1) naming or locating the self in social categories...; 2) interacting with others in terms of these categories... ; and 3) engaging in self-presentation and altercasting to negotiate and confirm the meanings and behavioral implications of the social categories. Second, identies are self-meanings ... that are acquired in particular situations and are based on the similarities and differences of a role in relation to its counter-roles. Third, identities are symbolic, calling up in one person the same responses as are called up in others. Finally identies are reflexive. Persons can use their identities to assess the implications of their own behavior as well as of other people's behaviors; this assessment if part of the reflected appraisals process... We now add that identies are a source of motivation for action, particularly actions that result in social confirmation of the identity. The self becomes an active agent in interaction." (p. 242; underlines mine)
There is a LOT here and it might take a while to dissect it. I'll go through the First, Second, Third, Finally, and "We now add" sections separately, one-by-one.
I came to Vienna with a pretty strong identity vis a vis missions in Eastern Europe. I think I would have been open to influence if there hadn't been the lying and deception, and certainly not the sending me back to the States the way the did under the guise that they used. So I very early closed myself off to being open to any influence from them regarding identity influence. This is just another way of saying what I've been saying all along, although I haven't said it, I don't think, in terms of identity. I definitely did not want to identify with their value system because that was not "okay with me" it did not match my value system and I knew enough about missions in Eastern Europe and I was raised with such a strong vew of the Bible that there was no way I was going to be convinced that that kind of deception and way of living was necessary and so I was not open to identifying with them and the things they did to me and they way the treated me were an immediate shut off.
On the one hand they immediately presented all these deceptions and lies and then they smothered me in sweetness. I don't know, maybe it's sort of like smelling puke and then trying to cover it up with perfume. So you have the perfume and the puke both going on at the same time. Now if you're a guy out on a date with a new gal and this gal comes smelling like that what are you going to think? Do you like it? Or is it repulsive? I don't know about you, but in the mission it was very repulsive and actually I sort of ignored the sweetness, I guess because I thought I was only a secretary and that kind of welcome was overblown for a secretary. And then the negative things were awful. So wanting to identify with them was out of the question.
That said, however, they were of the type that they weren't above using force. They made me cut my friends from my prayer letters, they made me put things in my prayer letters (or leave things out), they pressured me to attend the English language church until I couldn't take it any more. So I felt like they made me into someone I didn't like any more. So I don't know if you cound that exactly as "social products" It's not as if it was a give and take process. Rather it was a push-push-push process. Or sometimes even just a demand process. That is social, in that I didn't do it myself, though. I'm not sure I made any identity changes just from the usual social processes while I was there though, because I was too busy dealing with these other heavy duty things. Not that I didn't socialize, but my thoughts and concerns were more preoccupied with the other things.
On to the second, self-meaning, section, I guess these would be the meaning I gave certain roles and situations in the mission. The thing is that no one knew about these things, especially after my being sent to the USA the 5th month of my tenure with the mission because the main thing I learned from that time in the States was to shut up and keep my thoughts to myself. So I became very good at that for the duration of my time with the mission and that's why no one, even my parents guessed what I was thinking. I became afraid to let people know. I didn't trust anyone after that. I mean anyone connected with the mission, in particular.
My self meaning, especially vis a vis the time I was spent with the Vienna mission, was a bright, enthusiastic, person who liked to take initiative, liked to work with people, liked writing, liked languages, enjoyed entertaining, etc. I didn't see myself as a secretary (which I've said umpteen times here) but I was willing to be one for 2 years to see what possibilities that might open up. I saw myself as sincere also, and people on deputation had told me that as well. This is how I saw myself when I arrived in Vienna.
It was completely different when I left, but I don't think I'll attempt that too much right now. I will say that towards the end of my time in Vienna I did begin to take serious though to what I might do after my 2 years was up because it was clear I couldn't stay with them. (Whether or not they wanted me, I did not want to stay with them.) Since there were hardly any missions left I might work with (except Child Evangelism Fellowship, which I definitely liked, but I didn't feel called to work with children), I had to really switch gears, which was a major identity change for me as I had given so much for so many years to be an Eastern European missionary.
Regarding the third element, that identities are symbolic, I think that was a problem for me in the Vienna mission. Since I wasn't ever fully integrated (although it wasn't nearly as complex in the U.S. office) I don't think I ever got to the point where you could say calling up in me "the same responses as are called up in others." That's not to say that that didn't happen to a point or in some cases, but I never reached the level of certainty that I should have because I really hadn't internalized the social norms and values (often because I didn't understand or know them, but at times maybe because I didn't agree with them.) If they weren't pushing and testing me generally these differences weren't too noticeable I don't think (except for my continued work with Austrians). But as soon as they started putting on the pressure or testing me it would become clear that I had no intention of submitting. And at the end I wasn't going to be the one coming begging to them on hands and knees for a position either, because there was no way they were going to get me to change my values.
They got me to change my external actions and crush me, but not inside, so the analysis at the end of my stay, that I was "standing up on the inside" was accurate. For two years, even through counseling, I managed to "stand up on the inside" and manage to come out of it still standing up on the inside. I'm not sure anyone else has ever been able to do that. I don't think a theologian could get away with that because they'd be more on their toes, but since I was "just a secretary" I got through their fingers. Basically, they underestimated me, to my advantage. But my life was devestated.
For the "Finally" reflexive aspect of identity, I guess I must have used this a lot because I was under a huge amount of stress. Can you imagine? I was there all by myself, no one to talk to, all these powerful people (even perhaps the U.S. government if it was related to Dad's work), I had to think, thnk, think, try to figure things out. I was afraid to even write things down. My landlady seemed nice enough, but she was friends with people from the office and went to church with them (that's how I got the apartment). So I was constantly trying to figure things out from a myriad angles. And I did pick up jogging and biking. And I did get out with my own extracurricular activities.
I had to have a solid ground and these were my solid grounds to stand on:
1. The Bible
2. What I knew about Eastern Europe and Eastern European ministry & missions
3. My values that I really believed and was committed to for a reason, had studied and thought through prior to coming to Vienna
4. My educational background
(I may think of something else, but those are major ones.)
If I didn't have some kind of solid ground I'd most definitely sink like in quicksand at the hands of the mission, whatever their intentions were for me. So these were my solid ground. The education was more a resource than a solid ground, but it helped immensely. I used them as a comparison point to analyse what was going on around me and try to make sense of what was going on. I'm not sure if these things are exactly my identity, but they are, certainly wrapped up in who I am. My theology and my values seem like they would be parts of my identity, at least.
So I had a very strong identity as far as things related to missions in "Eastern Europe because I had a background developed for it and I used this constantly, non-stop to help me keep from basically going completely crazy. I felt like I had to make some kind of sense of it all. I think coming at it this way probably gave me a back door way to being able to adhere to some of there ways of doing thing that not controversial to me too.
And lastly, the "We now add..." source of motivation for action part of identities. This definitely was what led to me wanting to work with Austrians and it was also how I had devloped friends in so many places. So it was a major blow when the mission made me cut my prayer letter list. I should have tried to work around that more somehow, I guess. But I lost so many friends that way. But the way the mission molded me made me continue to lose friends because I was a totally different person on the outside by the time I left the mission and no one knew about what I'd been thinking and it was too hard to explain and I was too broken to explain it well. A few people seemed to understand, mainly not family. The mission succeeded in quelching the motivation I'd had, but not completely. I picked up the pieces just a year after leaving Vienna and went to Russia.
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Addendum (a few hours later): The authors use the example of a student trying to get others to see her as she sees herself, and that being a way identies "are a source of motivation for action." I'm not sure I did that consciously or not - I'd have to think about that more, but when I was doing things like getting involved in Austrian ministry that was pure me (well, and hopefully God in me, but you know what I mean), I wasn't doing it out of spite, to prove anything , or anything like that. And it wasn't anything that I thought needed to be shouted from the rooftops - made a big deal of or anything. But to be deprived of it (and my friends and a host of other things) just killed me and my spirit. They couldn't replace it. All they were doing was killing me, emotionally, speaking. They just kept saying no to everything that was me, everything that meant anything to me. And then they replaced it with things that to me were very poor substitutes to me and were forced upon me to boot. So the mission basically rejected everything about me because they took it away from me and replaced it with what they wanted me to be. They should just have told me upfront that they hated me and be done with it, because that's what it boiled down to, right? I mean, if you don't like anything about a person it comes down to you really hate her, right? Well, that's what it came down to in the end, that they hated me. They could deny it in words all they want, but their actions speak louder and what they did was in fact displace everything I valued about me and replace it with what they wanted that most (if not all) of the time was disgusting and/or degrading to me. And, by the way, I don't think it takes a psychologist to tell you that that's not a very good way to get someone to open up. Especially anyone who is at all astute. Thankfully, they took me to be "just" a secretary, or I'm sure I can't imagine what else they'd have done to me. They didn't know that I could think.
