Willingness To Confront Difficult Issues Leading To Being Branded As A Horrible Person.

[wyrd_dragon]

I'm finding it really frustrating and hard right now.

I'll put my issues first for once: I am terrified of confrontation, triggered by disapproval, triggered by disapproval from authority figures and peers, terrified of silence and unresolved conflict, sociophobic, and extremely empathic with a tendency to put others first.

In my relationships, despite all this, I make a huge effort to communicate well, bring up issues, be compassionate, be supportive... and so on. If there's and issue I will attempt to communicate it and resolve it.

Over and over again this is leading to people who decide I am manipulative, terrifying, mean, and horrible and have some kind of vested interest in ruining people's lives.

This is canned and hard to explain, but I've had:

A friend with depression who a) wouldn't admit she had it and b) acted out in her social group, treated people badly, and was constantly excused for it. I didn't excuse the behavior, and attempted to engage with her about it because I cared about her.

She ended up going to our whole social circle behind my back while I was in Japan and attempting to get support in 'de-friending' me. She told everyone that I was 'damaging to her mental health' and that 'everything bad that had happened in her life for the last year was my fault'. She also accused me of breaking friends of mine up so I could sleep with one of them. She has continued carrying out this campaign to this day, up to and including encouraging people I've never met to malign me to other friends.

Most of my social circle excused this by saying that 'she needed to do what felt right for her.'


Later, a very close friend was in a relationship with a girl who was also a close friend, and a member of our pagan group. She came to me confiding that the relationship had become emotionally abusive and was causing her a great deal of mental distress. When she tried to talk to him about it, he would threaten suicide and cry and make things so unbearable she'd just cave. She asked me to talk to him for her, so that maybe they could start sorting things out.

He became convinced I hated him and was trying to break them up. He'd been a really close friend for over 3 years. He (to this day, even though they are back together and things are better) believed she only broke up with him because I made her. This even though she insists to him that she has her own agency and did so because she wanted to, I merely supported her decision.


And that coincided with my entire pagan group deciding that 'they couldn't tell me how they really felt because they respected me too much to tell me the truth or make me disappointed in them.'
This was over an issue we had with members of the group coming to me and vilifying another member who had serious mental illness issues.

I eventually got tired of hearing different stories from different people from different people all the time, and emailed the group to make it clear what my stance was, and that I'd like everyone to sort out their issues openly, or between each other, instead of constantly 'bitching' behind each others backs.

So the group broke up.
To this day they actively keep meetings 'secret' from me in case I come and 'take over'.


A young male friend of mine, who I'd mentored and supported through various issues for over four years, began seriously crossing boundaries of consent within his social circle and in his personal life. He started acting inappropriately with me and my husband, with friends, and with several close friends, up to an including pressuring vulnerable people into sex.

I cared a lot about this young man and was disturbed by the turn his behavior was taking. I thought he was simply unaware and would not want to continue this behavior. I eventually discussed it with him, then continued discussions. He was contrite and concerned in person, but the behavior continued and escalated out of sight. He began telling different stories to different people, and things fell apart.

Eventually his continued concerning behavior after a month of trying to help and sort things out lead to me and my husband drawing our own boundary and discontinuing the friendship.

To this day he believes I am manipulative, divisive, 'burn through friendships' and hangs out with two people I've mentioned before, so that they can tell each other how horrible I am.


Most recently, A very close friend, who is also a rape survivor with PTSD, has been posting concerning underage content. She's kinked and is interested in age play, and though this is not a kink I would engage in, I believe that between consenting adults it is not something I should judge.

The images she was displaying were out of context, however (nothing to say explicitly that it was about fantasy/kink) and looked distressingly underage. This is on a non-password-protected, absolutely public blog, not on a members only fetish or kink site, or a members only blogging platform. I attempted to address this with her.

She is a feminist and social activist, so I attempted to engage by talking about media, perception, and what happens when images, stripped of context, are posted on a public forum. I reassured her I did not have an issue with her kink, but encouraged her to educate herself more on the dangers surrounding posting kinked content without context or where it could be easily stripped of context.

She is now convinced I am trying to tell her how she aught to speak or express her feelings on her blog. That I have been 'yelling at her' (this communication has been through email at her insistence) and calling her 'immature'. She maintains I am 'ignoring her feelings' and 'policing her sexuality'.

She insists I am uncomfortable with her kink and want her not to engage in it or talk about it around me or where I may read it. She maintains that kink 'doesn't effect society in the same way that rape jokes do' (I attempted to draw a parallel between an article on the impact of rape jokes/culture and the dissemination of underage-looking sexualised images) and will not accept that there may be negative consequences from her choices of image and forum.

She has been passive-aggressively raging on her public blog (which she knows my husband still reads) about how it's 'her space' and how dare anyone tell her what to do in 'her space' and how I'm going to yell at her and isolate her.

So yeah.

Let me be very clear -- I understand these were all people with issues. However, every time I engage with a friend about this I tend to have them respond by trying to explain these peoples issues to me. Apparently that's supposed to make me feel like their behavior is ok.

I spend a great deal of my life in an effort not to act out my trauma on others. My knee-jerk reactions in most situations are dysfunctional. therefore, i find healthy ways to express them and attempt to engage rationally when I am able, rather than lashing out at all and sundry. This latest issue has left me nauseous, depersonalized, depressed, anxious, having self harming and suicidal ideation, sociophobic and in a great deal of fibromyalgia pain and hideous Chronic Fatigue symptoms.

Yet, I have (and am expected to) deal with this person in a compassionate, non triggering way. I have not raged or ranted or had tantrums at her. She regularly rages at people online if they are not careful of their triggers. She knows my triggers and put an image of child/adult sexual 'play' on her blog with no context and no trigger warning, knowing i would see it.

And now I'm 'evil DeathRay' again.

I just don't even get people anymore.

Help?

 

[saffy]

Hi Deathray

I can see that you have the best intentions in your heart for getting involved with peoples problems.

However, when helping people in what ever manner, especially by being forthright and open and honest, people just do not want to admit or hear the truth about themselves. They will see your 'help' as interfering and can take it the wrong way if it does not give them the answers or solve the problems.

As much as it is in your heart to be empathic and in your mind to try and 'save' them. They are just not ready, or want, to be saved.

It seems as a 'pagan' group it has encouraged a lot of unsavoury people who are not interested in paganism, in the sense, but see it as either something to dispel their own issues and to be part of something rather than being lost or alone.

There seems to be some very selfish connotations and hard line opinions from people who do not want to change or see the error of their ways. It would mean they would have to look deeper inside them rather than hide behind the cloak of a pagan group.

I think it is also important to allow them to take responsibility for their own actions, as you do with yours and to not assume you know what they are or are not thinking.

I have found in many experiences that I would hear them moan and groan about this that and another, and in my heart I thought, I can help. I need to be honest with them. I need to save them from themselves.

Unfortunately it is not what they want really. They like the little attention they get, even though you can see it is negative attention, by forcing their problems onto others.

The one thing I learned is that people do not like to hear the truth or want to be saved/helped.

As hard as it is for you to back away and not help when deep inside you really feel that you can, this is what you have to do for your own sanity. Getting involved in such a deep and intimate way can cause confrontation and misunderstanding.

For you it only brings on the feeling that you are being persecuted for trying to help.

Tell yourself and confront those who have misunderstood by staying calm and saying sorry if your actions has caused any upset but your intentions were purely to help. You will refrain in taking it upon yourself to help in the future and will not get involved with anyone if they ask unless who ever else is involved has also given permission for you to try to help.

I know it is your nature to help. It is in mine. But I felt it was always misunderstood in the end because people did not really want the help even though they complained about not knowing what to do or what to think. Helping others is not always rewarding or satisfying

People are becoming very insular and closed minded. They fear facing their fears or fear changing and loosing this victim/needy status.

I have learnt to sympathise but I do not automatically offer my advice, opinion or help any more. Instead I turned the help and empathy on myself and made it clear to myself that I am not here to save the world. Others problems are their problems not mine and that if they really needed my help and advice they would ask for it and listen and discuss what I mean with out pushing for me to protect them or sort out other people on their behalf.

Please remember to tell yourself that your motives were genuine no matter what they are now saying. You can move forward and not listen to fear and anger from others who are scared of the truth.

best wishes
Saffy :)

 

[Valentino]

terrified of silence and unresolved conflict

Are you sure that the motivation of your helpful assistance is out of compassion or maybe is it more so out of fear of unresolved conflict?

I have very similar past experiences, as a trauma survivor and highly sensitive person, I could and would very quickly recognize other people's issues, it was almost like their unresolved hurt and pain was calling me out, and I just couldn't help but try to understand, connect with, and talk to that pain.

But after some consistent experiences where I ended up on the receiving end of their defense mechanisms, I recognized that most people are just not ready to deal with their issues. Not only that, they don't want to. They would much rather keep using band-aid quick fix coping strategies (that usually involve distract, deny, avoid, or numb).

So.. I have learned that true compassion is opening your heart and consciously being with suffering (your own first, then you can do the same with other people). And the most compassionate action when I am around other people who have unresolved emotions, is just to try to be with them consciously, listen fully, and try to understand and accept them exactly as they are, where they are at that moment. Then with time, when THEY are ready, I can be available with feedback or input. Typically I try to cautiously spoon feed them suggestions, because the truth can be shocking, and it's very easy for them to emotionally shut down or defense mechanisms to pop up. It really requires a level of infinite patience and endurance, to watch and allow others to suffer, from repeatedly hurting themselves over and over again with their coping mechanisms, simply to avoid consciously dealing with past issues.

Also. A lot of times people just need to vent. They just have so much on their minds, they just need to 'let some weight off their chest'. Until they fully vent, emotions are clouding their judgement, so their minds and nervous system can't really even focus on healing.

Or, as they say a lot in alcoholics anonymous, most people need to hit rock bottom before they're really ready to start recovering and healing. For many people, it just doesn't hurt bad enough yet, to seriously do anything.