The Fat Stupid Idiot Theory (of Psychology)

From the Happiness PhD Project with Jackson Kerchis...

As a kid, my kindergarten teacher sent me to the guidance counselor because when I got a question wrong or misspelled a word, I would cry, hit myself, and call myself a fat, stupid idiot.

Today, I’m no longer fat but I’m still an idiot (you can laugh at that).

Anyway, I’m not sure what caused that tendency, as I had pretty normal, supportive parents. I seem to have a naturally aggressive temper when it comes to competitiveness and my own failure. I rarely get so upset with others.

But even today, I have this self-directed rage when it comes to mistakes. And I still have my moments. A few years ago, I was hanging out with my cousin, who has been close with me since we were five. He spilled something, looked over at me, laughed, and started to fake hit himself, calling himself a fat, stupid idiot.

We had a good laugh about that, but since then, it’s become sort of a psychological tool for me. When I fail, forget something, or make a stupid mistake, I notice that same internal rage and resentment storming up. But then, most of the time, I catch it and label it as “the fat, stupid idiot.” Sometimes I’ll even chuckle to myself as I picture hitting myself and smashing my helmet or ripping my batting gloves (from my Little League baseball days).

Now, having studied various modes of psychology, I see there’s something to this.

Cognitive behavioral therapy essentially consists of identifying cognitive distortions (poor ways of perception and thinking that undermine happiness) so you can dispute them and shape a new approach to your inner world and outer response.

Psychoanalysis has you look back over your past to identify ways in which elements of your psychology undermine your well-being today, and then you work to reshape those patterns.

There are more behavioral psychology models, like competing response theory. Focus on identifying triggers for detrimental habits and then inserting new responses. For instance, keep an index card. Every time you go to bite your nails, take out the card and write down what you felt. Then rub your hands together or jump up and down or do some other stimulation and check it off on the card. Slowly, you rewire the habit.

Many others, like compassionate inquiry, the Hoffman process, and family psychology, challenge you to look back at your upbringing for unhelpful coping tendencies that don’t serve you well today. You label them and then take steps to reprogram them.

So, pretty much all you’re doing in any of these cases is what I accidentally started doing with my “fat, stupid idiot” bit. You’re bringing awareness to a pattern — a constellation of interrelated thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You identify or label it. Then, from that place of awareness, you can recondition or establish a new pattern. Over time, you repattern your psychology.

So, try this exercise: identify your favorite flavor of suffering or your most common unhelpful pattern. That is your version of the “fat, stupid idiot” pattern.

Is it a tendency to repress yourself, withdraw due to anxiety, or be a people-pleaser that leads to stress? Whatever it is, give it a label so that whenever it arises, it evokes awareness.

Step two is designing a new, intentional pattern to plug in there.

Another one of my favorites is whenever I’m feeling anxious and tense about getting things done, I think of people on farms in Africa or in factories in China working much harder than me. I exhale and say to myself, “So much time and so little to do.”

Let’s see if over the next week you can identify a pattern, label it, and then do something wacky, funny, or at least intentional to repattern it.

If I see you out there laughing hysterically as you hit yourself in the head and call yourself a fat, stupid idiot, I will know that you read this essay!

Your happiness nerd,

Jackson (thin, stupid idiot)