Tyranny Vs. Leadership

[Rainman8772]

I am not certain how to say it any differently. This isn't a thread about politicians. It is a thread about abusive families.

Anyway, have at it.

I read it but got way more of a political vibe from it. Like @Ronin said ADD moment.

 

[Ronin]

@Rainman8772 ;) I added to my post, cross-posting with your #13 post...

Don't think your ADD is to blame at all. Think the OP phrasing & style is to blame for why we allegedly misread the topic.

 

[shimmerz]

Like I said, make it whatever you guys want. I am out.

 

[Friday]

This isn't a thread about politicians. It is a thread about abusive families.

So that’s the things about triggers & stressors, yeah? Making connections that aren’t there, and reading more into it/overlaying past experience so heavily we’re not seeing what’s happening now, for what’s happened then.

An example from my own life?

When I was divorcing my ex, I was having panic attacks so badly that not even “you should be unconscious, by now!” levels of benzodiapines could make a dent.

The reality of the situation? This was divorce court, in the USA. I would walk in, listen to people talk, stand up sit down stand up, walk my happy ass out.

But what my central nervous system was absolutely convinced was going to happen? I was going to be snatched from my bed, thrown into a vehicle, beaten, raped, beaten some more... snatched up by my throat and hair, made to stand/kneel/bow, as other people talked, and other people were beaten, and other people were stood against a wall and shot. That I would either be stood against the wall and shot, myself, or sent back to my box to be beaten and raped some more. Rinse lather repeat. Sometimes alone, sometimes with others, increasingly mad, over and over and over. For real, in my dreams, in the echoes of the walls and darkness of my box as the shots rang out from other people’s trials.

Deeeeeeee-voooooooor-sssssssss court. :facepalm: The building itself? FLOODED with fancy lawyers, and tattered lawyers, minimum wage coffee vendors, eager eyed law grads eating hundreds of grand worth of debt to be clerking for judges rather than debts paid off at fancy firms, bored bailiffs, polished wood, marble floors, cheap ceilings and walls, the ADA who always wore a thong with tight pants, people in their best worst clothes, a thousand (slight exaggeration, but the place was a sieve, impossible to lock down) doors and windows, virtually weapon free... the stupid place couldn’t be LESS like the courts in my memories and nightmares... but try telling that to my brain. :banghead:

Roughly half the time the connections my heart and mind made (helplessness, powerlessness, other people being in control of your life and the lives of those you love, the fallout from the decisions of assholes and well intentioned idiots, power, fear, sport, rage) were so strong I couldn’t even think/talk rationally about it... absolutely convinced this dinky little US court was the exact same thing, just in makeup and cheap perfume... the rest of the time I could easily see the vast differences, how this one thing was nothing like the other, I could THINK rationally about it... even as I was shaking, and puking, and cutting my palms with my fingernails, and biting through the skin on my knuckles... even if I could not FEEL rationally. <<< So I forced myself to go, a lot. I’d testified in other people’s trials without batting an eyelash // I’ve been told I’m a trial lawyer’s wet dream, because I’m funny, concise, and stay on message. In no small part? Because of HOW DIFFERENT American courts are from my own experience. It’s freaking Disneyland up in this bitch. American courts are ridiculously sanitized. But in my own divorce? I lost my ever lovin mind. I couldn’t disconnect, emotionally, and was like a raw nerve of pure unadulterated terror & rage. So I went. I walked around. I sat through hours of other people’s hearings, trials, judgements, for days and weeks. I bought coffee. I talked shop. I broke the sharp spikes and razors off my triggers/stressors JUST ENOUGH that I could keep a calm facade up during my own time on the stage... even though I’d be a howling wreck just minutes after making my exit.

***

The connections you’re making between abusive families & real tyranny... vs an incrediably tame political moment? Are like the connections I was making with American family courts and where I was, where I had been. They’re real/not real. Which is why the pushback. If you were talking Tito? Mugabe? Ahmadinejad? Vicious dictators in incredibly oppressive/violent/abusive regimes, where no one is safe, and few can escape, and all are affected in profound and subtle ways? The themes of abuse and tyranny would be flowing page after page after page. But you’re making a connection in Ontario that isn’t real. The premise is trauma-forged, rather than reflective of reality.

I hope that helps... even though I know I personally would have lashed out at anyone calling me on my being triggered/stressored by divorce court, if they caught me in a bad moment. So I hope this finds you reflective rather than hurting.

 

[joeylittle]

The connections you’re making between abusive families & real tyranny... vs an incrediably tame political moment? Are like the connections I was making with American family courts and where I was, where I had been. They’re real/not real. Which is why the pushback. If you were talking Tito? Mugabe? Ahmadinejad? Vicious dictators in incredibly oppressive/violent/abusive regimes, where no one is safe, and few can escape, and all are affected in profound and subtle ways? The themes of abuse and tyranny would be flowing page after page after page. But you’re making a connection in Ontario that isn’t real. The premise is trauma-forged, rather than reflective of reality.

Really beautifully put.

I hope that helps... even though I know I personally would have lashed out at anyone calling me on my being triggered/stressored by divorce court, if they caught me in a bad moment. So I hope this finds you reflective rather than hurting.

I hope so, too.

 

[Justmehere]

When found out, he attempts to back paddle by stating that groups of 6 or less are fine and that he was careful with social distancing with his kids. I have to be honest. I don't f*cking care. That seems like a clear path to gaslighting if you ask me. And THAT ties directly into my experience with my parents.

Do as I SAY and I will do as I please and will punish you dearly if you notice and say something about it. It was this constant inequity in my family of origin that had me feel always off balance, see-sawing back and forth between my need to be an honourable and decent child and my urges to fight against this inequitable and unjust power dynamic.

Hypocrisy in politicians and leaders... yep. Stinks. I'll give you personal example. Someone with an organization told me I was "too much diversity" for a book study group. They had JUST GIVEN a talk on inclusion of everyone. GAH. Are they in the ranks of Pol Pot? Well, no. But I think you get that. Is it alarming? Triggering? Frustrating to run into discrimination by someone speaking on the very issue? Yep. I tried to explain why this interaction bothered me to a friend, who said, "why not just sign up for a different group? It's not like he shot you dead for being a minority." My friend was right, but also not... I have another friend recently lamenting about people who were NOT wearing masks ("how dare they not wear them!") and yet turned around and complained large gatherings are not allowed. I have another friend who is a doctor telling everyone to stay home and yet was in denial about their own need to stay home when they had a fever until the practice caught them walking in with a fever. Contradictions abound in this pandemic as everyone is trying to re-calibrate. Hypocrisy is painful. Watching people bumble around with planks in their eyes trying to control the speck in other's eyes... UGH.

Narcissists and hypocrites were around prior to the pandemic. How to handle them?
Well like abusive family members - with boundaries and a refusal to have their actions dictate one's self worth.

Anyway, I don't know what I am really saying. I want to be socially responsible. I have been being socially responsible. I have lost out on a ton of experiences and it has been really difficult being socially responsible yet I have done it. So has my family. Yet right now I feel like I have been and idiot and my face was just rubbed in it because I have this guy in charge who is rubbing my face in the fact that I don't have the rights that he does. My understanding of this situation was that it didn't matter what your status in this world is, that we need to follow the rules to get to health again. Now I call bullshit on that.

Well no. There isn't equality. There wasn't before the pandemic, and there will never be perfect equality. I don't say this to belittle it - but to commend you for your heart for equality. Striving for it does matter. A hypocrite in higher office does not mean you are an idiot. Maybe living in a country, your neighbor to the south, where political nonsense happens on the regular, I am more used to not taking it as a personal reflection on my choices and my worth when someone screws up. It doesn't make you lesser. Frankly, if you are going to compare...

Why not see it as a sign that you are better than him?

He made the mistake and you responded with commenting for thinking you are the idiot. Yeah, trauma survivors do that with abusive family members too. But it's the other way around. Their shame is theirs. Give it back.