The d word - what do you feel you deserve?

[Freemartin]

Stole half the title and the whole of the idea from another thread.
So, many of us have, ahem, slightly distortes views of what they do/don’t deserve. Good stuff, treatment, care, help? Nah. Past abuse? Sure.

So, what do you feel you deserve? Not in a cerebral, knowing way, but on the deeper, irrational knee-jerk level.

And: why? Why did/do/don’t you deserve it?

What if your thoughts were the other way round? What purpose do these beliefs serve?

I’ll go first.

Did I deserve the childhood abuse? Probably not. But I didn’t deserve care or love, either.
Do I deserve care, compassion, help etc. now? Nope. Because, ultimately, I could just get a grip and suck it up.

What purpose is this bs serving? I don’t quite know. Probably I would kinda collapse/implode if I thought what happened to me was not deserved. Can’t really get any further at this point.

 

[Movingforward10]

. Because, ultimately, I could just get a grip and suck it up.

This resonates strongly.

 

[In the weeds]

None of us deserved to be abused as children.
What we deserve now .. idk.
Knee jerk reaction there. Sorry.

 

[Friday]

What do I deserve? Nada. Zip zero zilch.

Earned? Certainly.

Bestowed? That’s the choice of others, nothing to do with me, but with them & their choices.

 

[arfie]

i will second @Friday 's assertion with the addendum that between religious, political and psych babble, the word, "deserve" has been distorted beyond functional value. what the deuce does that mean, anyway? i'd rather decipher the codes surrounding the word, "normal."

 

[Rose White]

It’s a tricky one, for sure. I’ve been playing around with “I belong [to] . . .” Not quite the same but in a similar manner.

Example? I deserve love. Or. I belong to the group of people who love. Eh… kind of wonky but it gets me somewhere.

 

[Freemartin]

What do I deserve? Nada. Zip zero zilch.

Earned? Certainly.

Bestowed? That’s the choice of others, nothing to do with me, but with them & their choices.

But surely you would say ppl can deserve some basic human rights things? Like, UK & Geneva convention stuff. Or patients in hospitals? Kids?

I kinda get the ”no-one deserve anything” thing as an aspect of a strictly secular/rational/cynical world view. Like, the universe owes you nothing, so stop making yourself miserable by keeping scores.

But. When you’re looking into the tiny eyes of a newborn? Who’d say: you know kiddo, you don’t deserve anything?

 

[FMCA]

If the point of life is meaningful connection with other people, then I think everyone deserves it.N one deserves to be isolated

There's thing about cutting toxic people out of your life but when someone has been your friend for decades and you do one thing wrong, then I didn't deserve to be cut off. Or Maybe I deserved to be cut off because they weren't my friends in the first place.

I certainly don't feel entitled to have meaningful connections with people but everyone deserves it. I think I owe it to myself to make friends because I deserve a basic human need, connection.

 

[Sideways]

what do you feel you deserve? Not in a cerebral, knowing way, but on the deeper, irrational knee-jerk level.

Pain and humiliation, to ensure that I can fulfil my purpose. That response rolls off the tongue as easily as “the sky is blue”.

why?

Intellectually? Because I was conditioned to believe that.

Of course, my brain has it wrapped up in all sorts of trauma-blah to justify and rationalise it.

Being aware of this is part of the healing process. The fact that I still believe it means my recovery still has a long way to go!

What if your thoughts were the other way round? What purpose do these beliefs serve?

The belief protects me from having to deal with the reality that my abusers were lying to me. That there was no purpose to my abuse than their own sick pleasure. There was, in fact, nothing special or remarkable about me and my situation, and no higher purpose being served by my enduring what I went through.

 

[Friday]

Example? I deserve love.

I would change that to demand, require, won’t accept less than, desire but am willing to be wrong, etc.… in XYZ circumstances, but not in A-W.

I’m suspecting you don’t mean that you deserve love from everyone you ever meet, because that’s a personality disorder you’ve shown zero traits of, in all the time I’ve read your writing. Which would still only be “A” everyone, at all times; meanwhile B would be “people in the room with me”, & “C” people I… etc. Work with. Live with. Date. Employ. Employ me. Etc.

But surely you would say ppl can deserve some basic human rights things? Like, UK & Geneva convention stuff. Or patients in hospitals? Kids?

No.

Those are things people FIGHT FOR. Die for. That’s the opposite of deserve. If it was our parents, our grandparents, or strangers a hundred years ago? Their sacrifice & determination, that they paid for in their own blood, and in the heartbreak of the lives of those they loved and lost??? Is something to be deeply grateful for, to protect; not take as some sort of thing we’re owed. When we do that? We lose it. And our children, and theirs, now have to pay with their lives. If they want the things we so casually dismissed, as “deserved”.

But. When you’re looking into the tiny eyes of a newborn? Who’d say: you know kiddo, you don’t deserve anything?

Me. Because I will not only fight to the death to give you as much of the world as I can, but I’ll even live for you, to ensure you’ve always got at least one person unconditionally in your corner. Even if I’m a fawking mess, you’d prolly be better off without. I’ll still drag my crippled body between you & harm to you. Not an imaginary answer. An actual one, that I’ve experienced. Skull fractured, shoulder ripped apart, and I still shoved my bleeding, battered, broken body between my kid & the asshole trying to kill us. I didn’t do much good… the kid is the one who saved both of us. Because he was also willing to fight. For what he believed in. For what he wanted. That’s not something “deserved”. That’s a choice. A series of choices. Made on both our parts. We didn’t “deserve” to win that fight. We still fought it.

 

[Freemartin]

But why would you do all that, @Friday , if you thought I didn’t deserve it? Why have all those ppl sacrificed all that they did?

I think we are trapped in semantics here.

I do think everyone deserves to be treated with dignity. And I really do know not everyone gets treated with dignity. I also know a lot of people have fought and suffered immensely for that said dignity. I really do not take it for granted.

What I’m saying is: having basic human rights is how it’s supposed to be. Because people are people. Human rights are frequently offended, that’s a fact. And at times, people have to fight for them. But that doesn’t mean the people who do the fighting get to bestow the value of the person they fight for. The person already had a value, and the person fighting for them is righting a wrong, not creating the value ex nihilo.

 

[Friday]

I do think everyone deserves to be treated with dignity

How do you treat someone you catch raping a child with dignity? Let them finish?

I know that can sound flippant. It really, really isn’t.