Hostile assumptions? Or just calling it like you see it?

pookie wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

Yiwah wrote:

My problem is that I can strive to avoid doing these things to other people...with varying degrees of success....but what I'm not able to do is ignore it when it's being done to me.  I'd like to not care when someone decides that I have some secret motives...but again there's that fundamental sense of being unjustly accused that always pisses me off.  It's abusive.  And I could probably actually let it go in a space where I don't give a damn about what people want to believe...but when it happens in a place I want to have the space to explore ideas, it means I feel less able to explore ideas for fear of saying something that someone will come along and...deliberately mischaracterise.  Almost like sharks cruising.  It makes me wonder why it happens, and why we let it happen.  So here I am again, talking about it. 

I suppose the biggest obstacle is that it's unlikely people doing this are going to feel as though they are attacking...it's going to feel justified to them.  Hence the lack of change. 

Well said.  I've been thinking in a similar vein, and it's good to see I am not alone in this.

It's the reason I virtually never post here anymore.

Yiwah wrote:

Because I would try to see it from his point of view, and he would convince me that the way I said something had really made him think 'x'.  And because I understood he was suspicious and jealous and controlling, I could see how that made sense...and I would try to modify my behaviour and words to not trigger his suspicion and jealousy and controlling bullshit.

But I don't want to do that.  I would like to be given the space to say what I mean, and if there is at all any confusion on the part of the person receiving it, I would really like the opportunity to clarify, rather than having assumptions made about me.  I want to afford this same respect to others as well.

I understand where you are coming from in terms of him using your need to understand against you by making things make sense.  It came to a point with my abuser where I just had to say (in my head) you are insane.  You don't see reality. And realize I had to give him the respect to keep on believing what he believed. I don't have to change what he believes and I don't have to try and make what he believes real by changing my behaviour or believing what he says.  I give him the respect of continuing to believe what he wants to believe.  I didn't have to be with him because his beliefs hurt me but I do have to give him that respect.  By doing this I don't give him the respect to clarify his beliefs, I don't give him respect by making assumptions about him (rather than trying to understand I just assume what he is saying is insane).  But he is not asking for that respect.  He is asking for the respect to be left alone because he would attack whenever I looked to closely at his version of reality (even if I was just trying to understand).  Instead I would just repeat to him phrases like "that is not true" - and not get into why, or I understand that you see it that way - and not get into what is really happening (by this I mean - you don't love me because you are not giving me money when in reality my love has nothing to do with giving or not giving money but he saw the two intrinsically connected).

My point in all of this to do with the board is that I have found that sometimes people just want to believe what they want to believe about me and I have to give them the respect of believing that.  As long as it is not harming me as a member of the board (ie the mods think that I am really a right wing spy so might kick me off) then sometimes it is best to let it go because they don't want to understand me, they just want to see me as the enemy.  If the attacks are focused on the issues then debating the issues is fine but if the attacks are personal you allow them the space to believe what they want to believe but you don't have to concede that it is true.

 People will always make assumptions about me based on what I say and if they want to understand then I give them the respect of explaining what I mean (on the board this is usually done when people talk about the issue that I have brought up in a post) but if they make the assumption about me not because they want to understand but because they just want to make a judgement about me (this is usually done when they don't quote anything that I have said just say something about me) then I respect that they don't want to understand.  Then I either leave it by saying nothing or just let them know - well I am glad that I don't depend on you to modify my behaviour.

And the last thing that I do is I don't expect to receive respect from anyone.  I don't need other people to respect me.  So when I am treated with disrespect I leave it alone.  Why because if I were to insist that someone treat me respectfully I am actually being disrespectful towards them because they don't want to treat me respectfully for whatever reason they have in their life and who am I to jump in and insist that they treat me with respect?  And the kind of respect that I WANT, irregardless of the fact that they might not be able to give it.

This thread read entirely differently when I didn't have to moderate it.

Yiwah, seriously, thank you for continually trying to look at what the mechanisms of babble culture are. I'll post more thoughts, as they come to me, in the new thread.

Oh, hi, I'm back.

Closing for length. Please continue here.