Against, And Then For, Internal Loci Of Control

I think I might just be reinventing the concept of a golden mean?

This is what Unsplash thinks an internal locus of control looks like.

I.

I hear all the time about having an internal locus of control: that is, believing that you are primarily responsible for your success or failure, rather than other people, luck, fate, or powerful institutions. Having an internal locus of control, people say, is great. It makes you happier, healthier, more successful, and richer.

This is odd for me to hear, because my therapist and also everyone in my life who is close to me have spent years begging me to have more of an external locus of control. “Not everything is your fault,” they say. “You did not start having chronic daily migraines¹ because you’re a bad person who is probably doing it on purpose somehow. You don’t have to feel like a failure whenever someone you care about has a normal human emotional range. It’s not your responsibility to date every single romantically lonely person in the world. Sometimes people just dislike you for their own personal reasons. No matter what you will never become universally beloved. It is not true that you are a bad writer because sometimes you write a blog post and then some people continue to disagree with the thing you said. There is in fact nothing you can do to prevent people from saying stupid things about you on Twitter.”

And I have, through a lengthy process of personal growth, managed to admit that some things are in fact not under my control, such as “chronic illness” and “other people’s emotions” and “whether I am universally beloved” and “Twitter.” And this belief does make me happier and more successful, although I have not noticed many benefits on the health and wealth front so far.

I’m more with the Alcoholics Anonymous people. The three Cs of Al-Anon: “I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, I can’t cure it.” And of course the famous serenity prayer: “God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” And it’s the “serenity” part I have real trouble with.

II.

I suspect there are three distinct things going on in the “having an internal locus of control is good” phenomenon. The first is simple reverse causality.

The thing about having chronic daily migraines is that chronic daily migraines:

1. Suck

2. Are an extensive lesson in how little control you have over the outcomes of your actions and how well your life goes.

You can plan a wonderful night out: dinner at your favorite restaurant, tickets to a new show, a carpool there and back with friends. But if you have a migraine, then someone has unleashed a three-year-old into your brain and they are going to press every button at once, including buttons that you had no idea existed and the purpose of which you cannot fathom.² And so instead of your nice night out you are going to be lying under a blanket moaning as a small child experiments to find out what happens if you press the Nausea, Euphoria, Intense Sensitivity To Light, and Pins-And-Needles In Your Right Thigh, But Only Your Right Thigh, Everywhere Else Is Fine buttons simultaneously.

So obviously I don’t feel like I have control over how well my life goes. Most of the control in this matter has gone to an imaginary three-year-old.

The migraineless population has equally little control over whether they have migraines. It’s not like they made sure to buy imaginary brain Blippi to keep the imaginary brain three-year-old entertained and away from the buttons. But if a migraineless person has a nice night, they don’t think “wow, I’m so lucky that I didn’t suddenly get a migraine, which I have never experienced but which would have seriously fucked this up!” They think “wow, I’m great at event planning.”

There are any number of situations that are miserable for reasons outside of your control. Your spouse just died. Your child has a heroin addiction, is in and out of jail, and keeps stealing your money whenever they visit. You are trapped in an abusive institution and don’t have any way out. You’re a teenager and your parents are awful at parenting.

I can only speak to the disability side of things here, and the other situations might be different. But in my experience, it is a good idea to believe that you have control of the situation to the exact extent that you actually have control over the situation. Of course, if you have chronic daily migraines, you should keep trying new medications, and not take pain meds to excess and wind up getting medication overuse headache. But… if you are suffering from a migraine, it’s bad to treat yourself the way you would if you deliberately took a hammer to your toe to see what would happen and then discovered the answer was “excruciating pain.” Don’t assume that there must be something you can do and then waste a bunch of time, money, and emotional energy on quack doctors or cutting out 98% of all foods. Realize that this is the world that you’re in, and you can’t make yourself be in a different world you like better by force of will. And, you know, a little bit of self-pity is okay. This is what self-pity is for.

III.

A second factor is which goals people pick.

I suspect a lot of people with healthy internal loci of control simply do not choose goals like “being universally beloved” or “no one they love ever experiencing distress.” Their definitions of “success” and “happiness” are all things that are pretty much (chronic illness aside) within their control.

In some cases, the best thing is to stop wanting that thing and to instead want some different, better thing. I am trying to give up on my goal of being universally beloved. If you want something absurd that is never going to happen, then it is bad regardless of where your locus of control is located (it is also bad to get angry at other people for not loving you!).

But I am going to have a hard time feeling really truly happy as long as people I love are miserable—when they can’t find a job or have chronic pain. But I have to have an external locus of control about that. As absurd as it is to think that I have complete control over whether I am in chronic pain, it is even more absurd to think that I have complete control over whether someone else does.

I want to respect my friends’ autonomy, and that means having less control over whether they’re happy than I theoretically could. I could sit with my friend and watch them to make sure they’re applying for jobs, or make all their doctors’ appointments for them, or tidy their room for them. But that would be treating them like a child. If I am treating my friends like fellow adults, then I’m letting them make their own choices, and sometimes those choices will be ones that make them sad. Having an external locus of control is necessary to treat my friends well.

IV.

The third thing is, I think, what people mean when they say “an internal locus of control is good for you,” and it took me a long time to figure out.

Marsha Linehan says that there are four things you can do with regards to a problem:

1. Solve it

2. Change how you feel about it

3. Tolerate it

4. Stay miserable

One great secret of life is that, in general, you do not have to choose that fourth thing. One of the first three options is nearly always available.

Before I found a migraine medication that worked, I realized that there was a pretty significant chance that this was just the way life was now. I was going to spend a couple hours a day in horrible pain unable to do anything, and maybe it would be like that for the rest of my life.

And then it occurred to me that… maybe my life can be okay anyway?

There are lives that couldn’t be okay anyway. I am not philosophically against suicide. There are situations where I’d decide to take a permanent out. Sure, there are people who love me, and because they love me they wouldn’t want me to continue in horrible misery for the rest of my life purely for their sake. But I had good friends, financial security, and an indulgent husband, and… maybe it could just be okay?

But it was obvious to me that this was not happening on its own. My internal locus of control, that caused so many problems with Twitter and being universally beloved and so on, was my ally here. I couldn’t expect to stumble across a life worth living. It was in my power. It had to be my choice.

I suspect I’m lucky here because I’m a pretty easy person to make happy. I made sure I had delicious food to eat. I read books I really liked. I ran tabletop games. I wrote fanfic. I slept with a stuffed Cthulhu every night. Whenever I thought of something that was very self-indulgent and a little shameful, I did it. And there was horrible pain, but there was also cookies, so as far as I could tell it all came out positive. Other people are probably more complicated and have more complicated wants.

But there are still lots of things that most people have control over. If you’re miserable or unsuccessful, it’s a good idea to take another look at some of those grayed-out options. More than that, it’s good to not have the option “I can intentionally try to do something different than the thing I am currently doing” grayed out.

My internal locus of control isn’t a bad thing. I just have to point it where it needs to be pointed. There are lots of things I can’t control (the past, the future, other people’s choices, the weather, my chronic illness). But other things are within my power, and believing that they are makes my life better.

1. Unless you are a close friend or a medical professional I am paying, I do not want to hear your advice about how to cure my chronic illness.

2. One of my migraine symptoms is a distinct sensation as if someone has spread menthol on my butt. Why.