Author: Real Social Skills

“Well, he throws chairs at people!”

Real Social Skills
Content warning: talks about abuse of people with disabilities in schools and other programs, and ways people rationalize it.
 
A reader asked:
 
Thing about “last resort”- people will often make brutal things to do look connected to things they are not connected to. “You pinned him to the floor?” “Well, he throws chairs at people!” failing to mention that the pinning to the floor was actually because he threw a pencil. Even if it is factually true that the kid sometimes throws chairs at people.
 
realsocialskills said: 
 
Yes, absolutely.
 
Another thing that can happen is that someone will be described as “he throws chairs at people!” even if he did that one time five years ago.
 
Or if another teacher *told* them that he threw chairs at people, and they don’t ask for details. And maybe what actually happened is that he picked up a chair one time, and they decided that meant he was going to throw it. Or he habitually throws chairs, but never actually at people.

Distinguishing between gaslighting and distorted thoughts

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
how do you tell the difference between when someone is gaslighting you and when you’re doing the distorted thinking thing from anxiety/depression? (for example you KNOW they’re judging you because they’re your parent and you’ve learned what that LOOK means but now they say they’re not judging you which means you can’t trust your own perceptions)
realsocialskills said:
One thing that’s important here is that distorted thinking and gaslighting are not mutually exclusive. When you know that you have distorted thinking, gaslighting abusers sometimes exploit that to get you to doubt your perceptions. Even when you are having an episode of actively distorted thinking, that doesn’t mean that the things someone else wants you to believe are necessarily true.
I think there are a couple of things that can help to sort out what’s really going on and what’s distorted thinking: outside perspective, and paying attention to your perceptions over time.
Regarding paying attention to your perceptions over time: Even if you have depression, you’re not always going to be equally depressed. Even if you have anxiety, you’re not always going to be equally anxious. If you still don’t like what someone is doing to you even when you’re not actively anxious or depressed, it’s probably not distorted thinking.
Also, if every time you object to something someone does, they consistently convince you that it’s distorted thinking, something is probably wrong for real. Nobody is perfect, and sometimes you’re both depressed *and* reasonably objecting to something. If someone consistently uses your mental illness to try to make conflicts go away, that’s gaslighting and wrong even if your perspective actually is distorted.
 (That said, if you’re actively anxious or depressed, it can be hard to tell in the moment whether or not something is a pattern. It’s possible to feel like it is a pattern when it isn’t, due to distorted thinking. That’s a reason why it can be really helpful to pay attention to how you feel over time.)
One way to keep track of how you feel over time is to write a journal. If you write a journal, you can pay attention to how you felt yesterday and whether you still feel that way today. Writing down your perspective is a more reliable way to track things over time than relying on memory. It’s hard to have accurate memories of how you’ve felt over time, and it’s particularly difficult to have accurate memories of what you thought when your thinking was distorted. (That said, journaling does not work for everyone, and if you can’t do it, that doesn’t mean you can’t figure things out.)
Outside perspective can also help a lot. That’s one reason that therapy is very helpful to a lot of people who struggle with distorted thinking. If you can find a therapist who you can trust to have a good sense of when you’re probably getting something right and when it’s probably depression/anxiety-related distorted thinking. This backfires horribly if your therapist *isn’t* trustworthy. I don’t really have any advice about how to find a good therapist (I wish I did, and if I ever figure it out, I’ll post about it), but I know that for many people it is both possible and important to find a good therapist.
Personal blogging can also help as a way to track your perceptions over time and get feedback, but be careful about that. Personal blogging attracts two kinds of people who can create problems for those who struggle with distorted thinking: mean people who try to make you feel awful about yourself, and people who unconditionally offer you validation no matter what you say or do. Neither of those kinds of perspectives are helpful for sorting things out. In some ways, unconditional validation is particularly dangerous, *especially* if there’s a possibility that you’re abusing someone.
Friends and relatives can also sometimes be really helpful, particularly if they know the people involved or observe things.
If you have a sibling you can trust (not everyone does, but some people do), you might be able to have this kind of conversation:
  • You: Sarah, when Mom made that face, was she judging me or was I imagining it?
  • Sarah: Yeah, that’s definitely her judgey face.
  • or, depending on what she thinks:
  • Sarah: Actually, I think she probably didn’t mean it that way this time. She just talked to me about her obnoxious boss and I think it was her pissed at my boss face.
Similarly, friends sometimes have a really good sense of what’s going on.
The caution about blogging goes for consulting friends/family and other forms of peer support. Be careful about people who offer unconditional validation of all of your thoughts and feelings no matter what. That can end up reinforcing distorted thinking, which is not going to help you learn how to improve your perspectives and trust yourself when your perceptions are accurate.
People who are offering you useful perspective will sometimes tell you that they think your perceptions are off base, and they will not be jerks about it when they are critical. They will also not try to coerce you into adopting their perspective. Sometimes they will be wrong. Sometimes you will disagree with them and be right. You are allowed to think for yourself, even if your thinking is sometimes distorted. No one else can think for you, even if you go to them for perspective and help sorting things out.
tl;dr: Gaslighting and distorted thinking are not mutually exclusive. It’s common to experience both, even simultaneously. If you have distorted thinking, people inclined to gaslight you tend to exploit it. Tracking your perceptions over time, and getting outside perspective, make it much easier to sort out what’s actually going on. Sometimes therapy is helpful. Sometimes blogging is helpful. Sometimes friends and family are helpful. Be careful about trusting people who are mean to you or who offer unconditional validation.

There are different kinds of neutrality.

Real Social Skills

Content note: this post uses examples involving people doing awful things to explain why neutrality can be bad

One kind of neutrality is fake. It pretends to be a matter of principle. People who do this aggressively object to taking sides, and push you to see all sides as equally valid. That’s a bad attitude to take because sometimes the sides to a conflict aren’t equally valid.

For instance, when someone asks a guy to stop hitting on her and he gets offended, there are not two valid sides. When a parent deprives a child of food, there are not two valid sides. When people claim that vaccines cause autism, refuse to vaccinate, and cause outbreaks of preventable diseases, there are not two valid sides. Pretending that there are two valid sides ends up making you complicit in harm done to people who are being hurt.

But that is not the only kind of neutrality. Not all kinds of neutrality are objectionable. It is often ok to stay out of things. Sometimes you’re in them and there’s no way to be neutral that isn’t effectively taking a side by default. But sometimes you can actually stay out of them.

Sometimes neutrality means recognizing that you don’t understand an issue, and choosing to stay out of it, at least for now. A lot of stuff is really complicated to understand. No one can understand every issue where there are sides.

For example:

  • If you’re not in a position to be making military decisions or foreign policy, it’s ok to decide you don’t understand a certain conflict and be neutral about it (so long as you’re not pressuring other people to think it’s wrong to take sides)
  • If you don’t understand a piece of legislation, it’s often ok to not have an opinion on it, even if it’s related to an issue that’s important to your community (unless it’s in some way your job to understand it, eg: if you run an advocacy organization.)

It’s ok to stay out of many things, if you’re not in a position in which you have a heightened obligation to take a side because you have specific responsibility for what happens. Nobody understands everything important; nobody *can* understand everything important. You don’t have to drop everything until you feel up to taking a position on every issue that someone in your life cares about.

Another kind of neutrality is offering certain kinds of help to people who meet certain criteria, or even anyone who asks, without regard to who they are, what they’ve done, and without taking a position on whether they deserve it. That can be a good thing, or a bad thing, in ways that I’m not sure how to explain.

For example:

  • Operating a food bank and giving food to anyone who needs it
  • Advocating for better conditions in prisons for all prisoners, even those convicted of awful things, without investigating to see how strong the evidence is that the people you’re protecting did awful things

Short version: Neutrality means a lot of different things. Some are good, some are bad. Sometimes it’s ok to stay out of things. It’s not ok to aggressively insist that there are always two sides to everything or to refuse to ever take sides on anything as a matter of principle.

Setting the stage for disclosure of awkward or stigmatized things

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
I’m on disability for mental illness and I recently moved to a new place. (I moved because the area I lived was rather toxic for me and I have a best friend here who is great support.) This means I’m meeting a lot of new people, and a lot of them open conversations by asking about work or why I moved here. I can only get by with “non-answers” for so long, and sometimes there are people who I would like to tell more to but not yet. I don’t know how to handle these questions. Suggestions/ideas?
realsocialskills said:
I don’t know much about the specific situation you’re in, but I do know some things about setting the stage for disclosure of awkward or stigmatized things:
First of all, it’s easier to disclose later if you don’t lie now. (There are reasons that lying might still be a good idea sometimes, but it has the downside of making later disclosure more difficult.) If you’ve already told a lie, then if you want to tell the truth you also have to effectively disclose that you lied about it, which can be awkward. (This isn’t necessarily always a huge deal. Some people will absolutely understand why you lied. But it does make things a bit harder).
Second, there are intermediate areas between telling the whole truth and giving a complete non-answer. You might be better off erring on the side of giving partial answers. Partial answers send the message that, yeah, there’s probably a story there, and now isn’t the time, but maybe you’ll get there eventually.
Partial answers can be things like:
  • “I was dealing with some medical issues and moved to be closer to supportive friends.” (I don’t know if that line works well for mental health – I feel like it should, but I don’t actually *know*, and I hope that people who’ve dealt with disclosing that degree of psych disability will weigh in)
  • “Things were really hard where I was living before.”
  • “I’m out of work right now.”/“I’m not able to work right now.”
  • “I’m between things.”
  • “It’s a long story.”

Partial answers work best when you combine them with an immediate subject change. The most effective way to change the subject is by asking them an open-ended question about something they are likely to want to talk about:

  • Them: Why did you move here?
  • You: Things were really hard where I was before and I wanted a change.
  • You: Do you know any good bookstores here? I’m always excited to learn where the new ones are in a new place.

Some kinds of questions that work well for changing the subject:

Asking them about themself:

  • Most people like to talk about themselves
  • If you get people to talk about themselves and listen to them, they will usually enjoy it and not mind that you haven’t told them much about yourself yet
  • It also can be a way for you to find out more about them and get a better sense of what it might be safe or comfortable to tell them
  • This works best if you ask them something specific but open-ended, eg questions like “How long have you lived here?” “What do you do?” work better than “Can you tell me about yourself?”
  • If they ask you a question, it’s often particularly effective to ask them the same question after you give a partial answer. People generally ask questions in getting-to-know-you contexts that they are eager to answer themselves.

Asking them about the place you’ve just moved to:

  • Most people like to feel competent and like they have expert knowledge
  • So they generally like to explain things they know well to people who are eager to find out about them
  • Asking about the area and listening to their answers is likely to make them feel happy and competent
  • Which can lead to them feeling positive about the conversation and happy that they met you
  • And, again, it’s a way to find out more about them and how they think

Pay attention to what people tell you:

  • If you notice other people who seem nice and also give non-or-partial answers to common smalltalk questions, they might be good people to get to know a bit better
  • (Not that it’s guaranteed; sometimes people are evasive because they’re hiding something that is actually bad. And even if they’re hiding something that isn’t bad, that doesn’t necessarily mean you and they will be good friends. But it *is* a sign that they might get it.)
  • If people say awful things about psychiatric disability, exercise caution about trusting them. It’s likely that they mean it, even if they are otherwise nice.
  • Listen for people who share your interests, even a little, and talk to them. Connecting around interests bridges a lot of gaps.

Ask your friend for help:

  • If your best friend has been in the area for a while, they might have a sense of who they trust to treat you well if you disclose things to them
  • Especially if they can introduce you to nice people
  • It’s a lot less stressful to deal with this situation if you can identify some people who are likely to be nice to you once you’re ready to tell them things

All of that said: you may actually be better off just being open about things in a matter-of-fact way. That has a lot of downsides, but it also has a considerable upside:

  • If you are open about something stigmatized, then you find out fairly quickly who is going to be a jerk about it and who isn’t
  • This means that you get a lot more people being directly awful to you, but it can be a more bearable kind of awful
  • Because if people you don’t particularly care about say horrible things to you, it can only penetrate so far.
  • It hurts a lot more if it’s someone you’ve really been trying to build a friendship with for a long time.
  • It is in many ways far less stressful knowing how people are going to react than worrying about how people are going to react
  • And it also makes it *far* easier to identify people who get it and won’t be jerks
  • In particular, if you are open about things, then people who *aren’t* open about things will be able to identify you as a trustworthy person, which means you’ll be able to find each other.
  • Also, people often take cues from how you talk about a stigmatized aspect of yourself
  • If you can talk about something stigmatized in a matter-of-fact way (possibly combined with an immediate subject change), people tend to react better than if you talk about in in a more cringing way
  • This approach has a major downside too, but it’s worth considering

Short version: There are a lot of approaches to disclosing stigmatized things about yourself. You might be better off being really open about it. You might be better off disclosing more cautiously. It helps to give partial answers to questions people ask, and to change the subject. It also helps to ask people questions that they’ll want to answer, and to listen carefully to what they say.

Free speech includes the right to set editorial policy

Real Social Skills

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are about having the right to choose what you say. Part of this means being able to say what you want to say; an equally important part of free speech means the right to refrain from saying things you *don’t* want to say.

And, in a broader sense, this includes editorial policy. If you publish a magazine, you make choices about which articles to include and which articles to reject. That’s an essential part of what a magazine is. A magazine has a certain topic and point of view, expressed as much in what it does not publish as what it does.

For example:

  • Socialist journals do not publish articles in defense of capitalism
  • Medical journals do not publish articles that have not passed peer review
  • Jewish community newsletters do not publish arguments for conversion to Christianity

The fact that these types of publications only publish things that support their mission and policy is not a violation of free speech; it is an *expression* of free speech.

This is as true on the internet as it is in print media.

Deciding what to put on your website, and what *not* to put on your website, is part of how you exercise your free speech. That includes things like:

  • Posting about things you want to post about
  • Not posting about things you don’t want to post about
  • Responding to responses to your writing that you want to engage with
  • Not engaging with responses you prefer not to respond to
  • Making decision about whether you want to have comments, and if so, which kind of comments to allow

No matter what choices you make about these things on the internet, someone will accuse you of censorship and insist that their right to free speech means that you have an obligation to publish their opinions. It doesn’t. Their right to freedom of speech is about what *they* say; it does not give them the right to make *you* say anything, or to publish them, or to pay attention to them.

Free speech means you have the right to say what you want to say, and to refrain from saying things that you do not want to say.

Plans, changes, anxiety, depression, and conflict

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
I have anxiety and depression and probably some other shit I get very scared and panicked when someone says “I’ll be right back” and walks away from me and if I’m supposed to meet someone and they are late or don’t show up. I guess it’s abandonment.
So my question is: how do I keep from flipping out on my boyfriend when he accidentally distresses me, like when I’m supposed to pick him up but he finds another way home. His phone is off so he can’t tell me.
And I guess my other question: is it fair for him to get frustrated and angry with me when I tell him that doing this is inconsiderate? He said he thought he’d get home before I left to get him so it wasn’t intentional, but I still feel disrespected.
r
ealsocialskills said:
This doesn’t sound to me like it’s just a depression and anxiety problem. It sounds to me like either something is going wrong with your communication with friends, or people aren’t treating you well, or a combination of both. It’s hard for me to tell which from a distance.
Having anxiety and depression does not mean that you are wrong every time you are upset about something. Sometimes, you’re going to be upset because something is actually wrong.
It is not unreasonable to want people you make plans with to either show up or let you know that they’re not going to make it. It is not unreasonable to want people to tell you if they are going to be late. It is not unreasonable to want people you’re supposed to pick up to let you know if they found another ride. Those expectations are normal, and not something unusual caused by mental illness. Most people would be upset if others habitually made plans and failed to show up.
(It might be unreasonable to expect people to refrain for saying “I’ll be right back” and walking away, depending on the context. For instance, that’s sometimes a euphemism for going to the bathroom. So if you’re, say, eating at a restaurant and someone says that, it’s probably not reasonable to object.  But if they’re, say, leaving you in the middle of a crowded park without any clear plans for how you’re going to reconnect, that’s a problem. There are any number of configurations for that; it’s hard for me to tell just based on the phrase.)
It is entirely reasonable to want people to care that they flaked in a way that was distressing. Even if they did it for a reason or thought it would be ok, they should care that they flaked on you and apologize if it caused you distress. They should also be willing to think about how to avoid that problem in the future. In close relationships, people make mistakes from time to time that cause one another inadvertent distress. If someone gets angry and defensive every time you feel upset about something they did, something’s going wrong.
That said, it’s not ok to regularly flip out at people close to you for making mistakes. It’s hard for me to tell from your description if that’s what’s happening. Like, I could see a few possibilities:
Possibility #1: You’re actually flipping out in a way that’s not reasonable. Eg:
  • You: WTF?! Why didn’t you show up?! You’re a terrible boyfriend. You always do this. Why don’t you respect me?
  • Him: I thought I’d get home first. I’m sorry.
  • You: That’s not good enough. You’re awful. Why can’t you be considerate ever?

If this is what’s going on, you flipping out may well be part of the problem (but not the whole problem, because wanting people to either keep plans or let you know that they’ve changed is entirely reasonable even if the way you react is not.)

If actually flipping out on people is part of the problem, then it’s important to learn how to distinguish between how it feels to have anxiety triggered and what someone actually did. If you’re freaking out, it might be best to hold off on talking about what’s going on until you’ve calmed down. It might also help to say explicitly something like “I’m not rational right now; let’s talk about this in a few minutes.” (This is also the kind of issue that a lot of people find therapy helpful for. I don’t know if you’re someone who would find therapy helpful, but it might be worth looking into.)

But even if you are doing things that look like flipping out, that may be misleading. It’s possible that he’s intentionally provoking you in order to make you look unreasonable to avoid dealing with the problem. That brings us to possibility #2:

Possibility #2: He’s accusing you of flipping out as a way to avoid dealing with the thing you’re complaining about. Eg:

  • You: I went to pick you up and you weren’t there. What gives?
  • Him: Chill. I thought I’d be home by the time you got here. Why are you flipping out on me?
  • You: Can you please call me if plans change?
  • Him: Why are you accusing me of being inconsiderate? I didn’t do anything wrong.

For more on that kind of dynamic, see this post and this post.

Possibility #3: You’re responding to a pattern, he’s insisting that you treat it as an isolated incident, and that’s pissing you off. Eg:

  • You: I went to go pick you up and you weren’t there and didn’t call. Can you please let me know if plans change.
  • Him: Oh, sorry, I thought you’d come home first and see that I was already here.
  • You: Ok, but this happened last week too. Can we figure out how to stop it from happened?
  • Him: That happened last week. That’s over and done with.
  • You (raising your voice): This keeps happening! I need it to stop!
  • Him: Why are you flipping out? I *said* I was sorry.

Possibility #4: You both mean well, but you’re setting off each other’s berserk buttons inadvertently. Eg:

  • You (visibly close to melting down): You weren’t there?! You are here? Why weren’t you there?
  • Him (freaked out by the idea that he did something seriously upsetting, also visibly close to meltdown): I tried to be there! I did! I thought it would be ok!

If that’s the problem, finding an alternate way to communicate about problems might solve the problem. For instance, it might mean that you need to type instead of speaking, or use IM in different rooms, or talk on the phone. Or it might mean that you need ground rules about how to communicate in a conflict without setting each other off. For instance, some people need to explicitly reassure each other that this is about a specific thing and not your judgement of whether they’re a good person (sometimes judging people is appropriate and necessary. This kind of reassurance only help if that really *isn’t* the issue).

This is not an exhaustive list. There are other patterns of interaction that could be going on here. But whatever is going on, it probably isn’t just your depression and anxiety making you unreasonable. It is ok to expect people to either keep plans or let you know when they have changed.

You don’t have to like being disabled

Real Social Skills

This is what I think disability acceptance means:

  • Facing what your abilities are and aren’t
  • Accepting yourself as already having value
  • Living your life now and doing things you care about.
  • Not putting your life on hold waiting for a cure

But, some kinds of acceptance talk end up putting destructive kinds of pressure on people. And I think:

  • It’s ok to like or dislike being disabled. It’s ok to like some aspects of your condition but not others
  • It’s ok to want treatment and to be frustrated that it isn’t available
  • It’s ok to pursue treatment that *is* available
  • It’s ok to work hard to gain or keep certain physical or cognitive abilities, and to be happy or proud that you have them
  • It’s ok to decide that some abilities aren’t worth keeping, and to be happy or proud about moving on from them
  • All of those things are very personal choices, and no one’s business but your own
  • None of them are betrayals of acceptance or other disabled people

The point of acceptance is to get past magical thinking.

It means seeing yourself as you actually are, without being consumed by either tragedy or the need to focus on overcoming disability. It means accepting where you are, and living now, without putting your life on hold waiting for a cure.

Acceptance creates abilities. Acceptance makes it easier to be happy and to make good decisions. But acceptance does not solve everything, and it does not come with an obligation to love absolutely every aspect of being disabled.

Self-diagnosed people

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
How do you feel about self-diagnosed autistics?
realsocialskills said:
I think that autistic people are autistic whether or not that they have been diagnosed.
I think people often know that they are autistic without a doctor telling them that they are. I have absolutely zero problems with someone thinking that they are autistic or wanting help. Even if it turns out that they are mistaken and not actually autistic. That happens sometimes, but I don’t think that’s hurting anyone, and I don’t think it’s a legitimate reason to object to self-diagnosis.
I think that people with disabilities need support, coping methods, and accommodations whether or not they’re diagnosed with anything.
I think we should move towards a world in which accessibility is seen as routine and normal rather than something people have to beg for access to. As it stands now, support resources for people with disabilities are often drastically limited. That is not the fault of people who identify their problems and support needs without medical diagnosis. Resources are scarce because our culture doesn’t value people with disabilities enough to make support readily available, or to routinely make accessibility and inclusion part of planning in schools, organizations, architecture, workplaces, or anywhere else. That’s the problem. Self-diagnosers who want help are not the problem.
There’s this notion that people with disabilities who need to do things differently are somehow trying to get away with something, and that they need to pass an extremely high bar to prove that they can’t help it. That attitude hurts all of us. Hating people who self-diagnose plays into that attitude, and it doesn’t help anyone.

Acceptance is the opposite of giving up

Real Social Skills

I’ve seen a disconnect between parents and self-advocates when we talk about disability acceptance:

  • Advocate: Disability acceptance is really important. Disability is part of who I am.
  • Parent: You mean I should just accept that my kid is suffering and can’t do anything and not even try to help them?!
  • Or, even worse: Yes, it is. My kid is my special little pillow angel and I love her just the way she is. It’s great having a kid who will never grow up.

By acceptance, we do not mean either of those things. What we mean is more like this:

  • Kids whose development is atypical get treated like they’re failing before they’re even old enough for kindergarten. (See all those checklists that say “by the time your child is 2, he or she should be…”, and think about what it’s like for a child’s earliest memories to involve adults thinking they were failing)
  • Being disabled isn’t a failure, and it shouldn’t be seen as one. There is no should in development, and there is no should in bodies.
  • Childhood isn’t something you can flunk
  • Magical thinking will not help, and neither will centering your life around searching for a cure
  • Children with disabilities who live to adulthood usually become adults with disabilities
  • They need to be prepared for disabled adulthood, not encouraged to think that if they work hard enough they will be normal
  • It is ok to be a disabled child, to develop atypically, and to become an adult with a disability
  • You can have a good life and be ok with your actual brain and body
  • Imagining that you will have a fundamentally different body one day makes everything harder
  • Life gets better when you accept yourself and work with your body and brain rather than against it
  • Shame is not a cure
  • Disability is not an emergency, and panicked intense early intervention will not make disability go away
  • Early education can be important, and kids with disabilities need appropriate support and care, and in many cases medical treatment
  • But their life needs to contain things other than treatment; people with disabilities need to do things besides be disabled and get therapy
  • Their life is already worth living and they don’t need to be cured to be ok
  • Don’t panic

Short version: Acceptance isn’t about denying that some aspects of disability can be awful, and it’s not about categorically rejecting medical treatment. It’s about working with yourself rather than against yourself, and pursing life now rather than waiting for a cure.