I, for one, am feeling pretty calm, if bemused and confused by this conversation.
Even someone that is perfectly healthy would and should be offended by that type of behavior.
Yup. Which I would think a...
white 55 year old male who's struggling with profound mental health challenges that have recently resulted in the loss of my business, the seperation from my wife and the sale of my home.
...would understand. My extremely valid personal experience of being objectified and disrespected by a man nearly twice my age should not be subject to reduction because of my mental illness. If someone yells at a veteran, and the veteran shoots the aggressor, that is some PTSD shit. If someone
tries to hijack a vet's car or
breaks into their home with the intent to burgal and gets shot? The veteran is having a completely normal response to a threat. See?
Of course being offended is a normal part of bring human. Triggering isn't.
Where was I triggered, though? I wasn't. I didn't react
at all to this man. I walked two paces, rolled my eyes well past his gaze, went about my business, and went home. I even saw him across the aisle in the parking lot, and I really wanted to be like, "Dude, really? I heard you. You know I heard you. There is no call for such juvenile behavior. I would hope you were raised better than that." But I
did not do that, and even if I had, that would not be a triggered response. It's just a response. I have friends who have not been abused who would be
more likely to respond to this situation explosively
because they were never traumatized and therefore feel more able to assert themselves.
I never claimed in this post to be triggered, because I wasn't. I take the word "trigger" really seriously, and nothing about this situation was triggering to me. If he had said, "I'm going to take you home and make you take it, c*nt,"
that might have triggered me, because that specific language was part of my teenage abuse.
So, please, where do you see this "triggering" happening? Because I went home and decided to write a letter of what I would have loved to hypothetically say
hours after this happened? I am so confused about this.
Sometimes, when "society" is wrong, NOT to demand that it change is the wrong thing to do
Amen to that, sister. Or maybe we should go back to women and people of color not being able to vote, no social security, and, oh yeah, throwing "crazy" people who don't make enough money to be treated well into asylums.
You are mixing up 'trigger' with 'stressor'.
Correct - learning to manage the response to a trigger - which is a fairly agitated PTSD response, whether one masks it or no - is on the individual.
Responding to a stressor - such as someone calling me a fat lazy cow as I walk down the street - is a different thing.
I might choose to tell the person to shut their f*cking face.
I might choose to stay non-judgemental and know that it's nothing to do with me.
I might get upset, not know what to do, realize I'm having an inner trauma response to an old stressor, go home, and work on it. I might even be talented enough to write about it.
But was I supposed to simply tolerate an inappropriate comment because I
am fat?
Was
@Simply Simon supposed to tolerate an inappropriate comment about her attractiveness?
Amen, but also, it wasn't a comment about my attractiveness, really. Let's get real. It was about my identity, because I was reduced to a bodily object whose feelings were disregarded and whose worth was assessed, just like someone calling you a fat cow is reducing you to your body and making a value assessment of it. At best, he was just having a little fun with his own privilege as a large, older male commenting on a young, lone female. The thing is, if I'd been accompanied by a man, I'm completely sure this would have never happened, because
he would have
respected the
man I was with. I'm completely feminist-buzzword-free about this! :roflmao: No, really, I know this would not happen if I were with a man, because it
never has.
I'm sorry that you were hurt by this. I just always try and choose to not let stuff like this get to me, it's just not worth my getting sick over it. Sometimes, shit just happens.
I appreciate your solidarity on this, She Cat, but I
really did not get sick over it. I just came home and wrote a thread on a PTSD forum. That's really all. :) Mostly, I'm tired of this. I'm just really, really worn down by this happening
all the time. I'm shocked by it, sometimes, which is a good thing, and sometimes I want to shock
them back, because it's difficult to always be a non-player in this scenario. It sorta feels like eating shit all the time, you know? But sick, no. Tired, surely.
what made me the most angry was the use of the word "that". His failure to act like she could hear him suggests her feelings didn't matter to him. His use of the word "that" suggests that, to him, she isn't even a person.
Oh, hell yes. And he totally knew I could hear him. It was totally a power thing. He practically spoke into my ear as he passed me. Really not cute.
frightened, humiliated and dirty yes
@RussH exactly the feeling when hearing this stuff as a younger woman.
Well, yes, and that is sort of the real crux of the issue with my reaction. I
wasn't triggered. My first thought wasn't, "How dare you? f*ck you, buddy," it was, "Damn, what have I done to attract this extremely demeaning attention?" And
then I was like, "Wait, no, that was not cool, man."
hope you don't mind my saying that you are attractive" .....would have been a better comment, methinks?
As a man, I feel bad that he talked to you in the manner that he did, not all men think of women as pieces of meat .....although, unfortunately, it does seem to be a lot of men that do.
I get flirted with, hit on, and propositioned all the time. If a man says, "Hey, cutie," I don't really care. I just brush it off.
Another large black male nearly twice my age tried to pick me up at this very same store months ago, and I actually had dinner with him.
Why? Because he was super nice. He didn't even really hit on me, at first. We bonded over the fact that he was being obviously ignored by a salesperson, because he was black (my town is super racist), until I walked up behind him and commanded attention. And we laughed about it. And then he offered to pay for my stuff (he didn't). And then we chatted. And then I gave him my number, because he was all alone in this town working under contract, and he told me I was like a breath of fresh air. Gentlemen,
that is how you court a woman.
But
this guy? He didn't want to have dinner with me, trust me. He was not trying to pick me up. He was really just flaunting what he could get away with, and whether he knew it or not, he was using fear--both social and interpersonal, because he did
not expect to be called out, and he wasn't--to his advantage in making me feel uncomfortable.
If you see someone heading for a cliff edge, do you not say anything?
Dude, where is the cliff? Also, seriously, my T is going to love the shit you say. Oh, man. For someone who so struggles with mental illness
and is a psychologist, you
really love to pathologize stuff to the nth degree. :hilarious:
That's all I meant by that comment; I know it can be a touchy conversation, and could have approached it with more grace. But you didn't seem to care too much about applying grace, when you reduced the OPs experience to 'feminist buzzwords'.
Thank you. Seriously, way to reduce my entire experience because I used an extremely well-known term in social theory. Your feminist buzzword comment is all about me using "hegemonic masculinity," right? You're in psychology. Surely you took a social theory class, for real. But, yeah, next time I'm in the ivory tower, I'll be sure to tell the social sciences professor that a T I corresponded with online told me that my knowledge of social theory was contributing to my mental illness. :hilarious: I can't even!
ETA: The thing I was most worried about in composing this letter was how I ended it, because I expected members of this community to be like, "Bystanders would be on your side, girl!" But you,
@Alistair, have single-handedly validated that ending by being that bystander. Thank you!
