Finding What I Have to Say, or Why I'm Here

What if B.F. Skinner was female, recovering from depression, traumas, and career upheaval — and decided to start writing to see what he could find?

This post is intended as a “pre-welcome” post. My intention is to explain the complexities of my motivation for writing and how I wound up here, in as few words as possible. It’s written in historical present tense, so keep that in mind: I’m talking about the past in present tense. It also touches on SI, so if that is a trigger for you, please read with caution. I trust that you can make decisions that are best for you, as I can for me. That’s why I’m finally giving Substack my all. Welcome in!

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It’s 2021. I’ve moved back to my father’s home, to help him through a health crisis; he’s been discharged from hospice, proclaimed a medical miracle, and is slowly recovering. Me, I’m recovering from depression — which, spoiler, is a lifelong process — and experiencing chronic pain. I just quit my tenure-track academic position, entirely burned out, and told the next one, “I’m sorry; I cannot move across the country again after all. I have family to help.”

In truth, I needed to help me.

Despite the smiles on my face in public and in pictures, back then, I wake up crying most mornings, before wiping off the tears and putting on my mask of stylish clothes and genuine smiles. The behavioral contrast between private and public is sharp.

I attend yoga with friends, run, work, dine with students and colleagues, smile and laugh. I take the pills, all the pills, and go to therapy. I self-medicate. I meditate. The food I manage to keep down provides energy for all this not-quite-real doing—including gardening, my then-obsessive hobby that kept me grounded, quite literally.

I would’ve left this plane of existence months ago, in 2020, if not for an intense out-of-body meditative experience I had when thinking of all the people who love me, and all the subsequent work I would end up doing, every day, to find meaning and joy in staying. Since that experience, I’ve been leaning into using behavioral principles to improve my conditions. They have improved, considerably; more on that another day.

Me, in Summer of 2021, helping at a local Farmer’s Market, leaning into behavioral principles to improve my life circumstances.

Yet, in 2021, despite improvements in the form of life being more bearable, I’m frustrated: Frustrated with how much time and money I spent chasing a dream that was just that — a dream, entirely illusory and fantastically constructed. I’m angry that I made so many sacrifices — friends, marriage, children, homes, possessions lost in move after move — for what feels like nothing (to my ego, at least).

I’m also unimpressed with how the science I love, Behavior Analysis, is being taught and applied — how some of our graduate programs are failing their students, how private equity companies are exploiting evidence-based practices for profit, how it feels impossible to break out of the autism niche. Most igniting of all, I’m frustrated with how many Behavior Analysts do not seem to live by our own philosophy, Radical Behaviorism. Not in a thoroughgoing way, at least. I certainly had not been, until that epiphany.

What does it mean to live radically, I wonder? To truly treat everything we do, say, think, and feel as a product of biology, learning history, and current circumstances is an ongoing task, much more complex than it appears to the devout behaviorist.

I think I’ve found the path, but I’ve only glimpsed it.

I know I want to be here, to stay. I know this life is special, and it’s the only one I’ve got. The only real there is. And escape — no matter how much the elusive freedom of dreamless sleep appeals — is not an option. Hurting people I love is not an option. Wanting something I’ve never experienced is part of the big, beautiful range of human experience. How blessed I am to experience a broader range than most. I must persist.

Among the many things I do on a daily basis to combat my private events, I decide to take B.F. Skinner’s advice on Finding What You Have to Say.

If you don’t know of him, or in case you’ve been misinformed, B.F. Skinner was the most eminent psychologist of the 20th century. Don’t just take my word for it: The American Psychological Association said so! Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism and the science on which it was based, Behavior Analysis, influenced the whole of psychology, whether the other subdisciplines acknowledge it or not.

Yet, his philosophy, research, and the field his work generated have been misinterpreted and misrepresented, countless times, by people who didn’t spend decades studying, practicing, researching, and teaching it. The science of Behavior Analysis and the philosophy of Radical Behaviorism continues to be ignored and underused, despite its generality and ability to solve many human and non-human problems. That’s not grandiose thinking — it’s natural science. Yet, sometimes our approaches to dissemination aren’t all that effective; this is why I want to share it with you in new and creative ways, if you care to listen.

Anyway, it’s still 2021. The world is hurting, my heart is hurting, and I don’t know what to say or do about it. I know the sources of my ache are external, but I don’t know where to put the ache, if not inside me.

So, I do what Skinner would’ve suggested: I stop looking inside and look outside. I stop wishing for things to be different in me and make things different about me.

More genuine smiles for the camera, with my dog, Risley

Among those things, I write. Almost every morning. It started with journaling the year before — things for which I’m grateful, lists of people I love, kind words about them…. You get the idea. Private writing, for me and me alone.

This year, back in 2021, I generalize that writing to notes, poems, essays, fiction — mostly, with the intention of sharing bits of pieces of the worldview I find so helpful with the rest of the world. Sometimes, at the time, simply to tell myself I am: I am a writer. I am hopeful. I am loved. I am contributing. I am… I am many things besides sad.

To me, at the time, the “rest of the world” seems impossible to reach, and I’m not ready to share all of my stories with the general public. So, I settle on using Facebook as an outlet—just to start, I tell myself. I make a Facebook page called “Everyday Behaviorist,” a tongue-in-cheek moniker because the experiences I write about are not “everyday” to most.

I stay on Facebook for years. It’s easy to post there. There’s immediate reinforcement, and it’s where all my friends already hang out. Plus, given the temporal structure, my more sensitive posts get buried, so the anxiety of oversharing with strangers fades fairly quickly. In another year, I’ll make a website, but, the year after that, more events happen — more deaths, more career upheaval — and I cannot keep all the plates spinning.

So, I just…

Write. On Facebook, letting some of my most beautiful word combinations get buried.

Over the next few years, my readers help me find my voice. They include some colleagues I respect and admire, as well as childhood friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers. They make me feel confident in my writing. They encourage me to pursue bigger and better things. They know Facebook has limited growth for writers.

Long story coming to an end, years after all of this, here I am, on Substack. Trying to make this writing journey something more than what it initially was: An attempt to find my voice. An attempt to find meaning and purpose. An attempt to disseminate behaviorism in new, creative ways.

Now, years later, writing has become a part of who I am. I’d like to continue finding what I have to say, merging my old and new audience. I want to bring some of what I’ve previously written, and incorporate new work, too. It’s not all about depression recovery — in fact, most of my writing is not. To put it briefly, it’s about life, love, and spirituality — an entire human experience — improved and interpreted by a natural science worldview.

That’s why I’m here: To share what I can, while I can, in ways that I can. Because others are making those attempts, too, without a unifying underlying philosophy of natural science. So, whatever I share, in whatever ways, it’s all valuable, whether I am able to niche down or not, whether this “goes somewhere” or not.

‘Cause the thing is, I’m still me. Still limited by my capacity, learning history, current circumstances, and cultural variables. Still the same me, living a life I didn’t expect to live, dealing with grief, trauma, relationships, career struggles, and systemic oppression — but also still experiencing the joy, wonder, and beauty life has to offer.

I’m here, doing my best. And I’m glad you joined me.

A welcome post is coming soon, in which I’ll explain the types of writings I’ve already posted, what I plan to post going forward, and when to expect them. Thank you for being here as I find what I have to say to a new audience, in this new space.

Peace, love, and stimulus control,

Jennifer

2021, my sunset gratitude practice, which I’ll tell you about another day :)

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