1:28pm July 31, 2014

➸ When people you love are mean

realsocialskills:

So, in a recent post in which I referenced “You’re ok, they’re mean“ as a response to ableism, I got responses along the lines of:

"But what about when it’s my parents? Or people who are really nice in other ways? Or my friends? Or people I respect? How can I say they are mean?”

The short…

Thank you. I wish I could’ve read this as a child or teenager. My parents are the epitome of complicated.

And yeah, there are a million reasons why people can be basically nice people and care about you and still be mean to you.

They don’t understand that they’re being mean.

They know it’s mean, but they feel justified, because they think you NEED TO LEARN AND TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY and they don’t know a better way to make you do that than to be mean to you.

They know it’s mean, but they feel justified, for some other reason.

They misinterpret you as being in a power struggle with them and keep escalating in order to “win.”

Their disabilities and needs are clashing with yours.

Following from #4—They can’t give you what you need and might even resent that you want them to. You need something they can’t give you and resent that you can’t get what you need from them. Conflict ensues, and lots of meanness on both sides.

They have their own triggers, emotional conflicts, and harmful coping mechanisms and you’ve just triggered them.

Their self control isn’t good enough to stop them from saying or doing the mean thing in the mean way.

They feel frustrated and helpless and don’t know what to do, so they blow up at you.

They have their own internalized self-hatred and ableism and they are acting it out on themselves and on you.

I feel like there’s more I’m not thinking of right now…

The point is that there are many shades of gray in between Abusive Relationships Where the Abusers Are Unreformably Evil and Perfectly Healthy Relationships Where the People Involved Are Always Nice. The kind I’m writing about is the one where the people are kind and love each other very much, and most of the patterns of an abusive relationship aren’t there, but they hurt each other a lot anyway.