Aftermaths of social skills lessons

Anonymous said to realsocialskills:

I’m autistic, I went to a group that was supposed to help me with autism-related issues, and they gave me some social skills advice that I honestly think was terrible. And the group was pretty terrible in general.

I ended up quitting for various other reasons, but it’s still sorta bugging me ‘cause what if they’re RIGHT.

The advice went like this: It’s okay to disagree with someone, but it’s never okay to explain WHY, because that’s pushing your opinion on them and that’s wrong.

realsocialskills said:

That rule is way too oversimplified to be useful. It’s true in some circumstances, and completely wrong in others — and completely useless at helping you to understand when it is and isn’t ok to contradict people.

The truth about social skills is that all rules are approximations at best. And often, as in this case, rules taught in social skills classes are completely useless and misleading.

Learning to be good at social interactions isn’t a matter of Learning the Rules; it’s a matter of learning to develop your judgement. Approximations and rules of thumb can help with this. They can’t replace the need to think for yourself and rely on your own judgement.

Social skills classes often teach people really destructive things about themselves and about social interaction. Here’s one way that can happen:

  • They tell you that autism (or whatever else) is preventing you from understanding social situations
  • They tell you that there are rules and that everyone else knows the rules naturally
  • They give you some simplistic rules and tell you to always follow them
  • The rules might sometimes be plausible-sounding or half-truths
  • Following the simplistic rules does not actually get the results they claim it does (because life is more complicated than that)
  • This can be really confusing
  • If you express this confusion to them, or say that it isn’t working, they attribute it to your autism and tell you to try harder or trust the process or something
  • They sometimes say this in a harsh way, they sometimes say it in a gentle or encouraging way. That difference is mostly aesthetic.
  • Either way, it amounts to the same pressure to believe them unconditionally and stop thinking for yourself

I suspect that something like that is going on here. The rule itself is useless. There’s no way to use it to tell whether or not it’s a good idea to explain your reasoning to someone you disagree with.

But it sounds just-plausible-enough to fuel self doubt, because there are some situations in which it really is mean to explain things to someone. (An example that’s been circulating on Tumblr recently: It’s ok to dislike Minions. It’s not ok to hassle kids about liking Minions or try to convince them that it’s bad and they shouldn’t like it.)

It can be hard to remember that these tiny kernels of truth aren’t actually meaningful. But they’re not. Kernels of truth in a simplistic rule don’t make it useful — and they don’t make the people pushing simplistic rules right.

Also – people who are wrong aren’t always wrong about everything. They may have told you some things that were true. They may have told you some true things that you didn’t know. And they may have told you some true things that you *still* don’t know. That doesn’t mean that their overall approach was ok, and it doesn’t mean you should trust them or doubt yourself.

I think, push come to shove, you have to think for yourself and develop your own judgement about these things. And sometimes that will mean that you make social mistakes — but they will be *your* social mistakes, and you will learn from them. It’s ok for autistic people to make social mistakes. Everyone has to learn this stuff, not just us.

Short version: Social skills groups can really undermine your ability to trust your own judgement. They give you simplistic rules that are impossible to follow, then blame you when it doesn’t work. It’s not your fault if this happened to you, and it’s not your fault if you’re having trouble recovering.

Not being believed

Content note: This is a post about ABA, and not being believed about the harm ABA does.

A reader asked:

People don’t believe me when I say I was a victim to ABA abuse, not even my parents.

I was misgendered routinely, I could not drink water even though this was harmless and was often asked to write my name even though this was effectively pointless.

How should I convince people I was really abused?

Am I just whining and should I “get over it” because that’s not “real abuse” and I’m not autistic?

realsocialskills said:

It’s not your fault that therapists hurt you. It’s not your fault that people don’t believe you. What people did to you matters, even if no one believes you.

ABA is degrading on a level that it can be very hard to recover from or even describe. The basic methodology of ABA is finding out what you care about most and using it to get compliance with arbitrary demands.

I’ve written some here and here and here about the kind of damage that does, and that’s only scratching the surface.

Increasingly, one of the things behavior therapists demand is that you pretend that they’re not controlling you. They often go so far as to demand that you act like you like what’s happening and believe that it’s both necessary and enjoyable. And they do that even as they make you do obviously pointless things (like writing your name over and over), and even as they do obviously awful things to you (like denying you water and misgendering you).

That kind of thing can mess with your mind really badly, especially when you’re surrounded by people who don’t believe you.

It’s not your fault that people don’t believe you. They can refuse to acknowledge what people did to you; you can’t make it go away. It matters even if no one around you cares.

You will probably always have to deal with people who don’t believe you. Most people are reluctant to believe that therapists ever hurt people in ways that matter, and ABA has a particularly effective publicity machine. Some people will say that you’re whining, that you’re lying, and that the things you’ve described don’t happen. They’re wrong. It matters that people hurt you in the name of helping you. It’s horrible that people who you should be able to trust don’t believe you.

Some of them may eventually come to understand. Sometimes people come around, in the long term. But you don’t have to wait for that in order to be ok, you don’t have to explain it to them if you don’t want to, and what happened to you matters whether or not people believe you.

Also… You are not alone. What happened to you shouldn’t happen to anyone. There is a community of people who know that it’s wrong to treat people that way. Making connections with people who believe you might help a lot.

It’s much easier to hold on to your perspective if you’re not doing it alone. This is hard. It’s also possible. You’re ok.

Short version: Abuse matters even if no one believes you. That said, making connections with people who believe you can help a lot. You are not alone, even if really important people in your life don’t believe you.

A behavior modification aftermath

Content note: This post is written with parents and professionals in mind. It’s about a common way that rewards-based behavior modification hurts people, and the importance of being aware of that effect in work with people who might be ABA survivors.

I’ve seen a lot of well-meaning people who are trying to fix special education and adult disability services say things like “you have to find out what they’re interested in and incorporate it.”

This can be good advice. It’s also important to realize that this is loaded, and that not all disabled people are going to be willing or able to show you what they’re interested in.

For people with disabilities, “what do you like?” can be a deeply intimate personal question. It can be very dangerous to let people know what you are interested in.

Autistic people (and others with intellectual and developmental disabilities) are often subjected to intense behavior modification. This is often aimed at silencing them, getting them to pretend to be non-autistic, or otherwise change in ways that deny fundamental things about who they are.

You have to take some pretty extreme methods to get someone to comply with that kind of behavior program. One traditional way is to use painful punishment like starvation and electric shock. These days, that’s considered distasteful, and most therapists prefer to use positive methods.

In practice, what that often means is that anything a disabled person expresses interest in will be taken away and used as a reinforcer for a behavior plan. The more they care about something, the more their access to it will be contingent with compliance with what powerful people in their life want.

Even if the thing they care about is something like math. Or books. Or access to fresh air. Or their teddy bear.

People subjected to this kind of thing learn quickly that when they express interest in something, it will probably be taken away.

And beyond that, they learn that when people know what you care about, they will use it to manipulate you into doing awful things to yourself. In many cases, this includes being manipulated into maintaining a grateful affect and praising the therapist.

When people have experienced this type of violation, sharing their interests with anyone is a big risk. Particularly if that person has power over them. Particularly if that person is a member of a professional culture that largely approves of what was done to them. (And if you’re a teacher, therapist, direct support professional, or similar, you have power over them and your professional culture approves of misusing it.)

It’s important to keep in mind that people you work with have every reason to believe that it is dangerous to tell you what they care about. They don’t know what you will do with that information, and have every reason to believe that you will use it against them. (Or that information they give you will get back to people who will do so.) It might take a long time before some people are willing to share their interests. Some people may never trust you. The way you teach and offer support needs to take this into account.

Short version: It’s important to be aware of the loaded nature of asking disabled people to express interest in things. It’s important to make space to incorporate interests; it’s also important to allow people to keep their interests private.

When joking teasing is a trigger

A reader asked:

Having grown up with abuse, and having been in an abusive relationship after that, I have a lot of trouble dealing with “normal” teasing. I was used to being accused of all kinds of terrible things out of the blue. So if, for example, I accidentally take something that belongs to someone else, and they say, “Haha, you just wanted it for yourself!” I want to cry and beg forgiveness. I’m terrified and I can’t laugh. I feel I can’t ask people not to tease me, but I don’t know how to deal with it.

realsocialskills said:

It’s ok to be bothered by this, and it’s ok to tell your friends not to tease you.

Playful teasing is only friendly if everyone likes it. A lot of people don’t like it, and a lot of people don’t do it. It’s entirely possible to be friends without insulting or teasing one another. If someone teases someone who they know hates it, that’s not a joke anymore, it’s just being mean. It’s not ok to be mean to other people for fun.

It’s ok to say “I don’t like jokes like that; please don’t say things like that to me.” You don’t have to explain in order for it to be ok to tell people to stop teasing you. Continuing to do stuff like that is already a jerk move, even if people don’t know your history. Not liking it is a good enough reason.

It’s also ok if you do want to disclose (and for some people, it might make it more likely that they’ll take it seriously and realize how important it is not to make jokes like that with you). But you don’t have to disclose in order for it to be legitimate to insist that people stop. If you do want to disclose, it’s usually better if it’s not in the heat of the moment, but when you’re relatively calm.

Most people don’t want to say intentionally hurtful things to their friends. Some people realize that some people find playful teasing hurtful, and will readily stop if you tell them you don’t like it. Some people don’t understand that some people don’t like it, and will probably have to be reminded several times before they take it seriously. Some people are mean and will keep saying things like that to you even after you say to stop, and some people might even start saying them more because they think it’s funny that it bothers you. Part of the solution to this might be to make sure you’re hanging out with people who care about treating you well, as much as possible. Having friends who are kind makes life a lot better on a number of levels.

A possible script for disclosing:

  • “Hey, I know you weren’t intending it but playful teasing and joke insults really scare me. Too many people in my life have accused me of ludicrous things in order to hurt me, so I have trouble telling when it’s a joke and I tend to freak out. Can you please not say things like that to me?”

Another possibility: finding ways to tell whether they mean it or not:

Think about the person you’re with, and what’s likely to be their intention:

  • How well do you know the person you’re with?
  • Have you seen them joke insult people before?
  • Have you seen them actually aggressively accuse people of ludicrous things out of the blue?
  • If you’ve seen them tease people in a way intended to be friendly and haven’t seen them make horrible baseless accusations out of the blue, they’re probably not trying to hurt you
  • That doesn’t make it ok, and it doesn’t mean you’re wrong to object
  • But it does mean that they’re probably not trying to hurt you, and you’re probably not in any danger

Look at body language:

  • This isn’t possible for some people who get scared in this situation, but it can work for some people
  • Look at their face: Does it have an angry expression, or do they look happy?
  • Look at their hands: Are they held in a way that looks angry or violent, or do they look like they’re just socializing?
  • Think about their tone of voice: Did they sound mad? Was their voice raised? Or are they talking in a tone that seems more friendly?
  • (Many people have a specific tone of voice that they only use for teasing or joke insults)
  • Are they looking at you in a way that’s demanding an answer?
  • If their body language and tone of voice doesn’t seem aggressive, they probably didn’t mean the words they said aggressively either.

Check how other people are reacting:

  • Do other people seem to notice the offense you’ve supposedly committed, or are they continuing the conversation they were already having?
  • Does anyone look mad, or do they just look like people socializing?
  • Have other people in the group stopped what they’re doing to look at you, or are they continuing as they were?
  • If other people in the group don’t look mad, or don’t look much interested, the teasing was probably meant as a joke rather than a serious insult or accusation

Another possibility: using a standard script to create some distance:

  • It can help to immediately change the subject when someone says something like that
  • If they were just joking around, they will likely be receptive to the subject change
  • Changing the subject can show you that you are safe and not under attack
  • It can be hard to find words in the moment to change the subject
  • It might help to memorize some subject-changing scripts and use standard ones every time this happens
  • Then you won’t have to think of something to say in the moment while you are freaking out
  • Which scripts are most effective will depend on you and your group
  • (This post on deflecting fight-pickers has a lot of subject-change scripts.)
  • You can also change the subject back to what people were talking about before
  • Eg: “So, you were saying about the cats we’re all here to talk about? What do you think about the fluffy ones? I see your point about their hair getting matted easily, but they’re so pretty and soft.”

Another possibility: asking what they meant:

  • Sometimes you can defuse fear by asking people whether they mean it
  • ie: “Do you really think I was just trying to take it for myself?”
  • This can be awkward, but it can also be effective
  • Whether or not it’s a good idea depends on your friend groups
  • Some people might get offended and sarcastically say yes, of course they think that.
  • If you can’t read sarcasm when you’re scared, this might backfire
  • But when it works, it can work really well

It would probably also be a good idea to work on having perspective when other people are angry at you. Your friends and people close to you will be angry at you sometimes. That doesn’t always mean that you’re in danger or that they are going to hurt you. It also doesn’t always mean that you have done something wrong. Finding anger more bearable will help you in a lot of aspects of your life, including when people tease you. If anger is less terrifying, teasing will also be less terrifying.

Short version: Teasing is only friendly if everyone likes it. Doing it to people who don’t like it is mean. It’s ok not to want to be teased or insulted, even as a joke. It’s ok to ask people to stop. Some people will take that request seriously and some won’t. (Everyone should, but not everyone does). If teasing scares you because you have trouble telling the difference between real insults and joke insults, there are things you can learn to look for that make it easier to tell the difference. It also helps to learn how to keep perspective in the face of other people’s anger. Scroll up for some more concrete information.

Red flag for being taken advantage of

A reader asked:

I’ve had an issue in my life with people who take advantage of me, and only recently have I been able to start recognizing a few of the red flags of that. Stuff like: You always end up paying more than (or getting less than) your fair share if you go out with them, they pressure you into doing stuff you can’t afford, etc. I think it’s wrapped up in emotional abuse, but I’m bad at seeing it. Are you better at recognizing red flags that you’re being taken advantage of, and if so, what are they?

realsocialskills said:

I think the biggest thing to watch out for is what happens when you don’t want to do something, get angry, or try to say no:

  • Is there ever a polite way to say no to something, or do you always have to either do what they want or be rude?
  • Is “I can’t afford that” something they are willing to take for an answer without arguing or guilt-tripping?
  • If you’re angry about something, do you always end up apologizing for being angry/blowing something out of proportion/etc, or do people sometimes agree that you have a point and apologize to you? (If only one of those things ever happens, that’s a problem).

If there’s a pattern where you have to be rude in order to say no, something is really wrong. Some people manipulate the rules of politeness to stop people from having boundaries or saying no to them. Some people are really good at making you feel like you’ve done something wrong every time you say no to something.

If things are going well in a friendship, everyone involved will say no from time to time. Everyone will get annoyed from time to time. Everyone will have inconvenient preferences from time to time, and everyone will compromise to accommodate the others from time to time. If you’re the only one compromising, something’s going wrong. If you’re always doing what others want even if it makes you really uncomfortable or hurts you, something’s wrong. If you’re not able to express feelings or say no, something’s wrong.

The thing going wrong might not be that people are taking advantage of you. There are other possibilities. For instance, some people are trained in childhood to never say no, and it can be hard to learn as an adult that you don’t have to want what others want, that it’s ok to say no, and that friendship involves compromises in both directions. If you haven’t learned that, it might be hard to communicate and negotiate, even if no one is intentionally taking advantage of you. That said, all of this is a major red flag for people taking advantage, and it’s worth taking the possibility very, very seriously. (And both problems can be happening at once – manipulative people usually prey on people who already have trouble asserting boundaries.)

And in any case – if you’re not ok with what’s happening, that’s a problem that matters, because it matters what you want and what your boundaries are. If you’re not ok with what’s happening, then the situation is not ok. You’re allowed to have boundaries whether or not anyone is wronging you.

Perspective in the face of other people’s anger

This is a thing that happens with some people:

  • People get angry
  • They tell you off in mean ways that make you feel horrible
  • Or their anger scares you, even if they’re not actually being mean
  • You feel like the way you’re feeling is evidence that you’ve *done* something horrible
  • Or you’re afraid, and feel like you have to grovel for forgiveness in order to be safe

It’s really, really hard to tell whether you’ve actually done something wrong when someone is being mean to you. (Or when you’re terrified by anger or conflict.)

If you’re afraid or hurting, or especially both, it’s hard to have perspective. Especially if you feel like acknowledging that you’ve done a horrible thing might make that person stop hurting you. *Especially* if you’re really good at reading what someone wants to hear.

This is doubly true for people who have been abused. If you’ve been hurt by someone who demanded that you stop thinking in the face of every conflict, it’s hard to think when other people are angry with you.

There are countermeasures. It’s possible to learn to deal with anger and conflict without falling apart.

Countermeasure #1: recognizing feelings that indicate that your perspective is off, and creating distance

  • If you’re panicking and feeling inclined to make an abject apology, it’s probably time to step back
  • Even if it turns out that you were in the wrong, a panic apology is unlikely to make the situation better
  • Because when you’re panicking, you’re not really capable of apologizing sincerely anyway
  • It’s ok to need time to think
  • It’s ok to realize that you’re panicking and need to back away from the situation to be able to think
  • Someone who won’t let you do this is probably not someone you should trust

Countermeasure #2: considering reversal:

  • Think about what you did, and how the person who is angry at you is reacting
  • What do you think you’d do if the situation was reversed?
  • In light of that, do you think their reaction is reasonable?
  • And do you think you actually did something terribly wrong?
  • (The answer to this might be yes even if you think you would have reacted differently. But thinking about reversal can still make the situation easier to understand)

Countermeasure #3: Think in concrete terms:

  • What, specifically, does the person who is mad at you think you did?
  • Do you think you actually did that thing?
  • If not, do they have a reasonable basis for thinking that you did that thing?
  • Are they understanding correctly? Are they listening to your explanation of what you think you did? (eg: if they think you said a slur and you actually said a different word that they misheard, are they screaming at you and saying you are just making excuses?)
  • If you did do the thing, why are they angry about the thing?
  • Do you think it’s reasonable that they are offended?
  • Do you think it’s reasonable that they are *as* offended as they are?
  • (Think about this seriously, especially if they think you are being racist, sexist, transphobic, ableist, etc towards them. Your initial reaction to this kind of thing is likely to be off base. But it is also possible to be wrong about these things, and ultimately, you have to think for yourself about whether you think you’re guilty of what you’re accused of.)

Countermeasure #4: Considering the perspective of someone you respect:

  • Think of someone who you know well and respect as someone who treats people well
  • If you’d done the thing to them, how do you think they’d react?
  • Does that match how the person who is angry at you now is reacting?
  • If you’d hurt the person you respect in a similar way by accident and they were upset with you, how do you think you’d be reacting?
  • Does it match how you’re reacting here? (Eg: are you more afraid? more inclined to panic-apologize? more defensive?)
  • In light of all of that, what do you think about what’s happening now?
  • Do you think that you did the thing you’re being accused of?
  • Do you think it was wrong?
  • Do you think that the way they are reacting to you is unjustified or otherwise objectionable?
  • Do you think you should apologize?
  • Do you think they should apologize?
  • (These are all real questions. Considering the hypothetical perspective of someone you know doesn’t give you automatic answers, but it can be helping as a way of getting unstuck when you’re afraid and inclined to panic about something you’ve been accused of. You might find that, even after you’ve stopped panicking, you still think that you have done something wrong and that you should apologize for it.)

Countermeasure #5: Outside perspective:

  • It can help to discuss the situation with people who know you well (especially if they’re not parties to the conflict)
  • Particularly if they are people who you can trust to tell you when they think you actually *have* done something wrong
  • Some friends are mutual check in people for one another.
  • Some people get outside perspective from therapists.
  • When you’re panicking, it can be hard to tell from the outside that you’re panicking. Panic in response to conflict can feel like you’re just accurately recognizing that you are terrible or something.
  • It’s much easier to tell from the outside when that is happening
  • So, if you have people you trust to help you check your perspective, it is tremendously helpful in staying oriented and figuring out what’s actually going on

Short version: Some people find other people’s anger terrifying. If you experience that, it can be really hard not to automatically try to fix things by conceding that you are terrible and did a terrible thing. There are countermeasures that can help. It helps to work on noticing how you are feeling so that you can get distance when you need it. It helps to think about what you’d do if the roles were reversed. It helps to think as concretely as possible about the specifics of the situation. It helps to think about what you think someone you know well and respect would do (and what you would be doing if the conflict was with that person). It helps to get outside perspective from people you trust about what’s going on. 

Pushback on “don’t hate younger versions of yourself”

About the “don’t hate younger versions of yourself”- I can see that with ignorance and inexperience, but wouldn’t it make sense if someone used to be violent and/or mean to hate who they used to be?
realsocialskills said:
I don’t think that hating your former self helps in that case, either. Some people have a lot on their conscience for which the only appropriate reaction is horror and atonement. That is not the same as hating yourself. Self hate will not help.
Partly because – the person who did and believed all of those things is still you. You will always be someone who once did those things, even though you now know better.
I think that kind of past creates obligations. You have to be able to face what you have done, and do work fighting the kind of evil you were once responsible for. That work has to be done with love.
Part of those obligations have to do with – finding ways to communicate to others who are cruel in the way that you once were that it is immoral and inexcusable to do those things.
I don’t think you can do that if you hate them, or if you see them as worthless and irredeemable. You were not worthless or beyond hope when you acted that way. You learned to stop. You are not unique in that regard. There are others who can stop, and there is work you can do to make that more likely.
It doesn’t mean that you have to renounce all boundaries and let mean people hurt you, or that you have to be close to people who are doing the kind of harm you once did. But it does mean that you have to do things beyond feel disgust. Hating your former self is a cop-out.
Push come to shove, you have to live with yourself. Hating yourself won’t make your past go away, it won’t undo anything you’ve done, and it’s not a way out of your obligations going forward.

Trauma aftermaths when you’re not sure what to think about the people who hurt you

Is it still considered abuse if the person doesn’t mean for it to be, or doesn’t think it is? My parents have always been really harmful for me (manipulative, intimidating, not taking my health concerns/disabilities seriously, screaming at me, etc.), but they won’t even say that the stuff they said/did caused harm.
Or they will say they didn’t know/couldn’t have known. And now that I’m an “adult” they’re a lot better, but it just makes them deny them ever being harmful to me.  like, some of it I can kinda get.
They didn’t know I had fibro, so me sleeping too much they thought was just me being lazy. And like they didn’t know how them yelling made me shut down because Id just sit quietly.
They didn’t know I was queer and that the shit they’d say was hurtful to me.
But at the same time I’m just like, it all messed me up so bad. But was it “bad enough” to be considered abuse? Does it even matter now?
realsocialskills said:
It sounds like, whether or not it was their fault, you’ve been hurt very badly by people who had the responsibility for caring for you.
It also sounds like they haven’t acknowledged that.
I think that “is this bad enough to be considered abuse?” is probably a counterproductive question (because no matter how bad something was, you can *always* find a way to convince yourself that it was Not Real Abuse if you try hard enough). I think a better way of framing it is:
  • Was I hurt?
  • Were the people who hurt me culpable?
  • Are they still hurting me?
  • Where do I stand with them?

It seems like getting clear in your own head that you were hurt will help you. And that, regardless of the conclusions you come to about the extent to which your parents were at fault, your suffering is real and your hurt is real and things happened to you that shouldn’t have.

Even if all their mistakes were innocent, even if they had no culpability, that doesn’t erase your trauma. What happened to you matters. Finding a way to erase their culpability would not erase your hurt.

Further, denying that they hurt you in the past is something they’re doing to you *now*, in the present. Keep that in mind, too. It might have a lot of bearing on how you relate to them.

I don’t know them or you, and I don’t know how you should relate to them now. That’s a very personal choice.

Some people find that it’s better to drop the subject (either by not bringing it up or by refusing to discuss it). It might be that you can’t get them to understand, but that you can avoid the subject in the way that makes a relationship possible. If you go that route, it doesn’t mean that you have to forgive them or concede that anything that happened was ok. It just means that you’re not discussing it with them.

There are other approaches, but I’m not quite sure how to describe them.

About apologies

When you’ve been inadvertently rude:
  • Eg: If you carelessly bump into or trip someone
  • Or if you take away a chair away that a scooter/wheelchair user wants to sit on
  • It’s good to say “excuse me” or “sorry” in that situation
  • That kind of apology says implicitly “What I did was inadvertently rude. I don’t mean it as an insult, and I don’t think it’s ok to be rude to you.”
  • (It’s better not to say that explicitly, because saying it explicitly sounds like you’re pressuring them to reassure you that you’re a good person)
For the sake of someone you’ve hurt:
  • Sometimes when you hurt someone, apologizing is a way to undo some of the hurt.
  • Because it can be a way of saying “That wasn’t your fault, it was my fault, you deserved better and I’m sorry”
  • (That can be powerful, because people often think that it is their own fault when someone hurts them, and they are in fact often pressured into thinking that it’s their fault or that it didn’t happen by their entire social circle. If you apologize without offering any defense, that can go a long way towards fixing that, particularly if you are also honest with third parties)
  • If you hurt someone without apologizing, it can be an implied threat that you will do the same thing again in the future.
  • If you realize that what you did was wrong and apologize for doing it, the person you hurt might feel safer and be spared the stress of living under the implied threat of harm you’ve created
  • (but this is something you do for their sake, not yours. The point is to stop threatening them, not to get them to feel better about you, forgive you, or trust you. You don’t have any right to any of that and shouldn’t put pressure on them to give it. They’re allowed to be afraid of you, whether or not you feel you deserve it)

For your own sake:

  • Sometimes, you offend someone with power over you (eg: a boss, a teacher, a nurse, a social worker) without actually being in the wrong
  • Or a group with power over you (eg: an activist group)
  • And, in that case, it is often a good idea to apologize even if you have done nothing wrong
  • The point of apologizing in this case is to appease powerful people enough that they will stop hurting you
  • Everyone does this at some point; there’s no shame in it even though it can be humiliating
  • Sometimes it’s also good to draw a line and refuse to apologize and take the consequences of taking a stand. But you’re not going to be able to refuse every time you offend someone with power over you

It’s very important to be clear about which type of apology you are making:

  • If you’ve hurt someone, it’s important that the apology be for their sake and not yours
  • Sometimes if you hurt someone, they will be angry at you. They might also tell other people what you did. They might be afraid of you. They might avoid you. They probably think of you as a person who does the kind of thing you did to them (because you are: if you did the thing, you are the kind of person who does that thing). They might be afraid of you.
  • None of those things are wronging you; they have the right to do all of those things and you don’t have the right to stop them
  • Since all of those things hurt, it can feel tempting to use the scripts you use when you’re apologizing to a person who is wronging *you* to get them to stop.
  • It is not ok to do that when you’re the one who is in the wrong.
  • The point of your apology is to give them something, not to get something from them or make them stop doing something

If you’re really sorry, you have to be willing to admit what you did to third parties without defending yourself:

  • Eg: “Yes, they’re telling the truth. I wish I hadn’t done that, but I did, and they have every right to be angry with me”.
  • This will mean that some people *other than the person you’ve hurt directly* won’t trust you either
  • It means that some people whose respect you value will have a low opinion of you
  • You have to be willing to accept this without trying to gloss over what you have done; anything less is continuing the harm done to the person you hurt
  • Even if you have sincerely changed, you still did what you did, and no one has to trust you. Everyone gets to decide for themself

Sometimes it’s important not to apologize:

  • If you have reason to think that someone would find contact with you terrifying or otherwise unwelcome, leave them alone
  • In particularly, if someone you have hurt has told you not to contact them, do not contact them with an apology
  • When they said “don’t contact me”, they meant it. They did not mean “don’t contact me unless you’re sorry” or “don’t contact me unless you feel like you have a good reason”
  • It is not ok to violate that boundary, no matter how much you regret the circumstances leading up to it. Your victim does not owe you help in your healing.
  • If you’re considering contacting your victim to apologize even though you know they don’t want you to, you probably haven’t improved nearly enough to be capable of offering a sincere apology anyway. Go work on understanding boundaries and your actions some more before you think you’re all better.

It’s not the abuse that made you awesome

If you’ve been abused, and you’ve also learned a lot and done awesome things, some people might try to tell you that the abuse made you stronger. That your awesomeness came from the abuse in some way.

But it’s not the abusers who made you awesome.

You did that.

You’re responsible for all the things you’ve learned and done. Not people who hurt you. They don’t get credit for any of what you’ve done.

And you don’t have to be grateful for any of it.