Thread
For @Chotiari
You said: "I have been feeling distressed at the anger and violent rhetoric directed at people like me, coming from people I have known for decades.
Talked about it with my therapist yesterday. She says that personalizing it is a cognitive distortion. They are venting at a caricature and a projection. They don’t want to purge *me* from society.
Confronted, one actually said, "'I don’t hate you. I’m heartbroken that you can’t see X and Y.'"
Rather than give you advice, I'll tell you about my own experiences.
Of my five siblings, four are rabid leftists. They became rabid leftists as a knee-jerk act of rebellion against our Republican parents.
My fifth sibling has become a conservative hothead who wished he'd been one of the people who raided the Capitol building.
Me?
I'm the cheese.
https://writingexplained.org/idiom-dictionary/the-cheese-stands-alone
I'm neither Democratic nor Republican. It's my total aversion to joining ANY group.
My siblings got more and more extremist as time went on.
I fully understand the concept of not personalizing the rantings of those who hate.
But FOR ME, the very fact that someone can stereotype perfectly reasonable positions into Nazism means that the person is unfit to be in my life.
People can't compartmentalize their hate.
Would black people be told to not personalize ravings about lynching all people of their race?
I think that's an unreasonable demand. It puts the onus on the TARGET.
Those in my life are required to control their mouths.
My communist folk-singer brother brought home people who badmouthed my elderly parents to their faces.
Everyone put up with it.
You know, "Don't personalize it."
Well, FOR ME, I refuse to live like that.
I have ground rules.
Respect me or go away.
But that's why I don't have any friends.
It's not a problem. I've found that people can't abide by the simplest ground rules, so the cheese stands alone.
The mouse DID eat the cheese, but only SOME cheese.
THIS cheese was eaten, and then it reconstituted itself as a cheese that can survive everything life throws at it.
I fully admit that I'm pathologically intolerant of those who don't play by my rules.
BUT.
I've met several people who had the same rules, and we had the best friendships or encounters of our lives.
What I do is LISTEN. I don't ask.
It's up to the other persona to volunteer information. If they never do, that means they don't want to.
When someone understands that you GET THEM, they relax, and you have the interactions that so many people crave in their lives.
It's about respecting boundaries.
My accidentally adopted son took YEARS to open up to me.
I never asked a single question about his background.
It was all up to him. And now he's eager to tell me his story.
So again, no advice from me. Just telling you how I live MY life.
When people say and do certain things, it frees us up from caring about them in any way, shape, or form.
The reason I eject people from my life so easily is that I overcame astronomical odds.
I should've been a monster.
But I CHOSE to not be one.
I underwent the most merciless talk therapy of any patient in the history of the science.
AT MY INSISTENCE.
The therapist DID HIS JOB, and he ended the sessions after 18 months because he said he'd done all he could.
I demanded to know why I made such terrible choices, and I told him I could handle ANY TRUTH.
So he did as I asked and told me the truth about MY role in being a failure. It was agony.
But it had to be done.
It changed my life.
For the better.
END
This 👇 100%!
'I have ground rules.
Respect me or go away.'
*I have told people directly,
"you are not authorized to
speak to me like that."
@Baline @ThomasWic Kim, this is EXACTLY how I live my life. Having grown up a first generation American who's parents didn't know how to raise American brats, I suffered atrocious bullying until High School, when I became the captain of the Cheerleading team, as I had been a professionally trained ballerina. THEN they wanted to be my friend. Fuck THAT! People will ALWAYS show you who they are. Believe them and SET BOUNDARIES! So much easier. If they show their faces, its always a gift. CLICK! 😜
@oystergirl @Baline @ThomasWic
I think that is why my WWII veteran relative is a bit of a loner -- he's not only fantastically smart, but he can't tolerate people who don't live up to their words or are flakey. He also grew up in the midwest where everyone was pretty trustworthy and blunt.
@Lisa22 @oystergirl @ThomasWic
I suffer from terminal bluntness😄
@Baline @oystergirl @ThomasWic
I have to watch it as well -- I grew up in a mostly male household, lol.
@Baline Blunt is good lovely,,,😁👍
@leslied_g @Baline ??? Oh hi,, shit!! Now what have I done???
@leslied_g @Baline I could tell a story one day that puts a positive spin on bluntness, a bit risque, but positive nonetheless.
@leslied_g @Baline don't know how on this tablet,,,,
@leslied_g @Baline You're a pretty darn good shiela herself lovely,,,
“Terminal Bluntless” is now added to my vocabulary!!
@Baline absolutely they will. Like children, many in today's society need boundaries or they will push the envelope unmercifully all to get attention. Screw THAT! I am NOT your mother. I have two children of my own, and that's all I need!
I’m gonna remember this. 👍
This is a great line! I will remember it for future use with my daughters et al.. meaning my sons-in-law!!! 😁
@ThomasWic So you gonna enlighten us on your valuable lesson or leave it be? I understand if you want to. Some things are too personal.
@ThomasWic Everything that happens to adults is mostly their own fault- the exact opposite of what leftists (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) believe.
Agreed.
I went into talk therapy to find out why I MYSELF did things. I already knew the context of my upbringing, but I wanted to know how to STOP making the same terrible choices.
The therapy was about MY OWN DECISIONS and why I found it rewarding to be a failure and a target.
I told the therapist that I wanted to leave every session bathed in sweat.
Hardest thing I've ever done, but it was necessary.
@ThomasWic @MichaelDaudel The fact that you went in to talk about YOURSELF shows you were football fields ahead of most. I naively thought I was going to cure relationships once I got "clear". Nope.
Maybe by some standards, at the time you started that therapy, you could have been considered a failure.
But in the last few years you have affected DOZENS OF THOUSANDS of people to become more thinking, better versions of themselves.
See how many people wish to follow you from one platform to another (me included, of course). For whatever worth that has to you.
And if that is not the definition of the ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE of failure, I don't know what is.
@ThomasWic Excellent thread. Thank you!
I feel like you’re also describing me. Is there any chance that you’re a tiger Leo?
@ThomasWic
The truth sets us free.