We Pollyanna types have done it a hundred times. We meet s Sociopath, Psychopath, Narcissist, or a cling monster with Borderline Personality Disorder any of whom may also have a series of addictions or untreated bipolar or Schizo-affective disorder and we sweep aside all this ‘other stuff’ because we see their inner loveliness, their humanity, their potential… or do we?

Maybe we see our own Pollyanna addiction to hope, our fear of fear, fear of despair, fear of depression or fear of helplessness. Maybe our own castration from the right or ability to judge or feel anger, sweeps us right up into our Pollyannaism. Maybe our pasts as the children of users and abusers honed these scars for us to the point of perfection, these marvelous scars of smiling never ending hope, optimism and Emperor’s New Clothes type ability to see what would be so much easier to see, or at least wouldn’t rock the boat. And don’t we all love a bumbling fool, an innocent child dancing under moonbeams and there’s the wolves of course not smiling, they’re baring their teeth thinking ‘dinner’,

So I had had a most wonderful day, a happy-non-birthday with fab people and I said to my hubby, we have always had lovely parties, only once did we really have an arsehole put a damper on one…. but then I clarified, no, he was not an arsehole, he was… well he probably had untreated Schizoaffective disorder, and addictions, and was a Sociopath and… well none of that was his fault…. and then I caught myself in my Pollyannaism and said… that’s how it happens, isn’t it… its the “But aside from all that….” syndrome. And I said, thing is that we could all do this with every seriously damaged using, leaky bucket, stalking, cling on, flag waving martyr, emotional vampire, bad boundaried, insatiable me-me-me, cause-addicted, self pitying, users and its true that they will have MOMENTS when ‘aside from all that…..’ But it IS just moments… And we Pollyannas don’t dedicate moments to these types, nope, we don’t give them a small piece of the big cake, we give them the whole damned cake, after all, Pollyanna lives on air half the time, or at least in the Glad Game she could convince herself that an air cake would do her if she’d given her own cake away.

So why don’t the Pollyannas just give away MOMENTS? Why do they throw years down the toilet on people who they should have only waved to at a bus stop and then caught another bus? Well Pollyanna is the first to become engaged. Want to know the time, ask Pollyanna. Want to be shown which way into town, Pollyanna will show you. Oh dear, you found yourself suddenly kicked out, well of course Pollyanna will give you a sofa in the living room. And will she ask herself why YOU didn’t improvise to solve your own problems, head them off, or do the adjustment work so you weren’t a walking need machine? Nope, for Pollyanna is a master of beingness and as such lives in the moment and doesn’t do the math.

So if she does learn to give away moments, would those be wonderful? Can a psychopath ice a cake? Well they tend to do well with icing and embellishment so, sure. And would Pollyanna imagine the cake might give her food poisoning? Nope, she lives in a world where a cake so nicely iced must be good under all that.

So it has taken me years to let the cynic rise up and have her voice and she and Pollyanna were so at odds. Progressively they understand each other and we are so much safer for it.

Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.net

I acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.