2 minute read
On Being Difficult
BY FIONA MEESON
PHOTOGRAPHER KIERAN TURNBULL
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n a moment of exasperation, someone I
Ilove once said to me, “Fiona, can you stop being difficult for literally five minutes?” Maybe they were tired, or drunk and didn’t really mean it, but the word “difficult” has haunted me ever since.
In fairness, I was being difficult. I was having a fit over something insignificant. It was mortifying to realize that the people who cared about me thought I was a total pain. For years I had been desperately trying to appear chill, easygoing, or low-maintenance. In the immortal words of Gone Girl’s Amy Dunne, I wanted to be a “cool girl.”
I’ve not yet been called a “cool girl.” Instead, I’ve learned that I’m difficult. If you want to be kind about it, I’m high-strung. Others might say I’m a nervous wreck. I’m foolishly stubborn, I have a hair-trigger temper, and I’m incapable of forgiving people who’ve wronged me. When my heart breaks, I don’t try to get over it; I want to lie in the street outside my ex’s house and throw a temper tantrum. I want to wear a T-shirt announcing my juvenile agony to the entire world. Sometimes, I wonder if I was born already holding grudges. I’m obsessed with the idea that I’m a bad person, that I need to identify all my awful traits and destroy them.
If you Google “difficult person,” a test comes up. It’ll give you a percentage to show how difficult you are (I got a 54.29%, if you’re curious). Other search results: lists of ways to cope with difficult partners, how to deal with difficult people in the workplace, how to spot symptoms of difficulty within yourself, and how to obliterate them. It’s always someone else who’s the problem; you never want to be that person. But what does “difficult” really mean? How do we use the word? Who do we perceive to be “difficult?”
Too often, women - particularly women of colour and women who are queer, disabled, or dealing with mental illness - are labeled “difficult” when they’re genuinely struggling, or simply speaking their mind. It’s a way of silencing us, of minimizing our pain. People who’ve preached the importance of sound mental health have abandoned me when I’m physically sick from anxiety or barely able to leave my bed. I’ve been called a “bitch,” a “cunt,” and other things I can’t repeat by men who grope me at clubs or scream at me from their cars, because I have the audacity to tell them to fuck off. I don’t want to self-victimize, but I’m tired of having my feelings invalidated because they’re painful or make other people uncomfortable. I’m tired of being dismissed as difficult. I don’t think I’m alone in that, either.
But so what if I’m difficult? I can definitely work on being kinder and more considerate to the people in my life, but I can’t overhaul my whole personality. While I wouldn’t say being difficult is inherently emancipatory, I understand now that what makes me difficult is what keeps me true to myself. Maybe I’m not the easiest to love or live with, but honestly, is anyone?
