Tag: social skills

When you have mixed feelings about an abusive relationship

Real Social Skills

Content warning: this post probably uses language that gets used against abuse victims. I’m trying to avoid that, but I don’t think I’ve entirely succeeded, and some of these words might be triggering. Proceed with caution.

So, here’s the thing.

People are complicated, and relationships are even more complicated. Abuse victims are often pressured to pretend that things are simple. They’re pressured to believe that if there was any positive aspect whatsoever to an abusive relationship, then it wasn’t really as abusive as they think it was.

But it doesn’t work that way. People aren’t averaged. People can do some really good things, and some abusive things. They don’t cancel each other out. They coexist. Whatever else happened, the abuse was real, and you’re right not to tolerate it.

Sometimes… sometimes your abuser is also the person who taught you your favorite recipe.

Or something fundamental about how you understand the world.

Or a major skill you now use professionally.

Or maybe they gave you a lot of valuable criticism that made your art better.

Or maybe they supported you materially when you were in real trouble.

Or any number of other things.

And…

…none of that makes the abuse ok. None of that is mitigating in any way. It doesn’t cancel anything out. Sometimes people talk like the abusive interactions and the good ones get put in a blender or something, and like some sort of theoretical blended average is what really counts. That’s not how it works. It’s the actual interactions that count, not some theoretical average. The abuse is real, and significant, no matter what else happened.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. If some things about an abusive relationship were positive, it’s ok to acknowledge and value them.

And you can still refuse to ever have anything to do with your abuser ever again. You can still be angry. You can still hate them. You can still decide never to forgive them. You can still warn people against them. None of these things are mutually exclusive.

And, most importantly, valuing some aspects of the relationship or having some positive memories does not in *any way* mean the abuse was your fault.

All communities have predators

Real Social Skills

No place is inherently safe; every space ends up having predatory people in it.

Well-run communities/organizations/schools/whatever have things in place for dealing with this. And, from time to time, abusers hurt people, and the communities actually use the things they have in place for dealing with abuse.

And they will be able to tell you what those things are.

And if the community has been around for a years, they will be able to tell you about instances in which that has happened. (In general terms; they don’t have to (and usually shouldn’t) reveal identifying details).

If a school or business or something gives a training on harassment, and they can’t tell you what’s happened in the past when abuse has happened, and they only say “we take that very seriously”, it’s a major red flag.

If a community/school/whatever tells you that abuse can’t happen there because of how great people are, or how much training there is, or anything like that – that’s an even bigger red flag.

The safest communities are those that recognize that no space is safe all the time, and that it’s always necessary to be on the lookout for abuse.

Even more on learning no

Real Social Skills

Boundaries are complicated.

Sometimes you want someone to stop doing something, and you have every right to demand that they stop. Sometimes you don’t, because it’s something they have every right to do.

Sometimes it depends on the relationship.

Sometimes it’s very, very ambiguous.

Sometimes it’s the kind of thing where it’s ok to ask, but not ok to demand.

And this works in reverse. Sometimes it’s ok for people to demand that you stop doing something; sometimes it’s ok to ask but not demand; sometimes it depends on the relationship; sometimes it’s ambiguous.

When you’ve been taught that you aren’t allowed to have any boundaries, part of what that means is that you’ve probably been prevented from learning the tools to tell which things it is and isn’t ok to demand, insist on, or request. The relationships and various categories of obligations are probably unbelievably confusing.

Part of learning how to have boundaries is learning how to respect other people’s boundaries. Respecting boundaries isn’t at all the same as deferring to people, but the difference can be really hard to sort out.

This means that when you start learning to have boundaries, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. You’re going to demand things it’s not really ok to demand, and you’re going to refuse things it’s not really ok to refuse. You’re going to make mistakes about other people’s boundaries.

And you’re going to hurt people, including yourself.

That’s unavoidable, because it takes time to learn these things. This doesn’t mean you should give up.

Sometimes, while you’re learning about boundaries and making a lot of mistakes that hurt yourself and others, you might feel like you should give up. You might feel like you are irredeemably bad, and that maybe you’re just too awful to allowed to have boundaries. You might even feel like you’re too irredeemably awful to have the right to live (I’ve felt that, at times). These are really common and normal feelings for people who are learning this, but they’re not the reality.

You have the right to exist. You can learn this. You can learn how to have boundaries and respect other people’s boundaries. You can learn how to keep yourself safe and still treat other people well.

You have a lot to learn, and you have to keep caring how you treat people. It’s important to keep actively paying attention to your boundaries and other people’s. You have to continually work on it and improve, in both directions. You have to do the best you can, learn from your mistakes, and try to do better. You can do this. 

It’s ok that you are going to make a lot of mistakes. It’s not ok to ignore the mistakes you make. Part of learning to assert boundaries means that there are a lot of other skills you have to learn about understanding obligations and treating other people well. This gets messy.

You also have to accept that some of your mistakes are going to have consequences. On the extreme end, you might hurt people in ways that mess up relationships while you’re learning. Some mistakes you make might be deal-breaking for people you’d really like to remain close with. Even if it is not entirely your fault, even if you messed up ought of honest confusion, it still might be legitimately deal-breaking for someone else. You might get banned from cons you like. You might get fired. You might lose your place in a group you valued. It’s awful when that happens, but it’s bearable. It doesn’t mean you should give up. It means you should take what you’ve done seriously, keep learning, and leave the person you hurt alone if that’s what they want. 

Even when it’s not your fault you don’t know how to treat people, other people don’t have to tolerate it when you treat them badly. They also don’t have to sympathize, forgive you, or listen to explanations about how you came to misunderstand the situation. 

That’s the extreme end. That might not happen. What will definitely happen is that you will hurt people in more minor ways that almost everyone your age knows how to avoid. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person, but you do have to take responsibility for what you do, fix things if you can, and keep learning.

This is hard, but it’s important, possible, and worth it.

Don’t give up.

More on learning to say no

Real Social Skills

When you first start learning how to say no, you won’t know how to do it politely.

This means that you’ll offend people. Even when you have every right to say no. Even when everyone agrees that it’s ok to say no.

Asserting boundaries politely is a skill worth acquiring, if you can do it. But that takes time and practice. It’s something that’s learned alongside learning how to have boundaries; it’s not something you can learn first as a prerequisite for being allowed to have boundaries.

And when you haven’t figured out how to say no politely, the reactions you get might look to you like evidence that you really *can’t* say no. It might look to you like you have to choose between having no boundaries, or hurting people in unreasonable ways.

This is especially true if you are a disabled person who has learned to pass as nondisabled by following rules. A lot of disabled people are taught that they must pass at all costs, and taught not to asset boundaries as part of this. Starting to learn to have boundaries will probably undermine your ability to pass. That can be terrifying, and some ways people react might be triggering. But you’re ok. You’re not broken. You’re allowed to have boundaries, even if it means looking weird. Even if it breaks rules. Even if people are offended. You are a person and you have rights.

The rules for politely asserting boundaries are really complicated. It takes time and practice to learn these rules. And not everyone can master them. And even people who can have to be rude sometimes in order to have boundaries, and that’s ok too. Being able to be polite is not a prerequisite for having rights.

It’s ok to say no, and it’s ok to have a rough time learning how.

One thing though

Real Social Skills

There are different kinds of no:

There’s a kind of no that’s asserting a boundary, and there’s a kind of no that’s pushing people around.

For instance, this are things that are personal boundaries:

  • Declining a job offer
  • Saying no to a date
  • Not sharing your computer with someone who wants to use it to check their email or look something up
  • Not letting someone hug you

These things are usually pushing someone around:

  • Telling someone they’re not allowed to talk to their friends
  • Telling someone they can’t read particular books or blogs, or watch certain movies
  • Telling someone they have to sit still and look normal and not wave their hands

Boundaries without anger

Real Social Skills

One of the hardest life skills is learning how to assert boundaries without being angry.

People will want you to do all kinds of things that it’s ok for them to want, and ok for you to say no to. It’s important to be able to say no even when you’re not angry or offended.

Some examples:

  • If someone asks you out, it’s ok to say no even if it was ok for the person to ask you
  • It’s ok not to want to answer personal questions, even if they weren’t offensive questions to ask
  • It’s ok to decide not to go to the movies with your friends
  • It’s ok to decide not to take particular job even if it’s a good offer and other people think you should

If you only know how to say no when you’re angry, it’s hard to say no to any of these things. And things like that come up pretty much constantly.

And if you do become angry and say no to something, it’s hard to keep saying no after you cool down. Especially when the person you got angry at didn’t really do anything wrong. It’s also hard to keep saying no if the person did do something wrong, but not in a way that made your level of anger reasonable.

And even if they did something seriously wrong, it’s not possible to stay angry constantly. If you can’t say no when you’re calm, it’s really hard to protect yourself.

If you can only say no when you’re angry, it makes it really hard to have boundaries. It’s usually easier and more comfortable to allow someone to cross a line than it is to become enraged. Over time, this can get really bad, even if each thing taken by itself wouldn’t have been a big deal.

Anger is important. It has its uses. But it’s important that it not be the only tool you have.

Learning to say no without having to get angry first is hard, but it’s important.

I know some things about how to learn that skill, but thus far I haven’t been able to put them into words. I’m working on it.

Complicated power relationships in a work context

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
Someone contracting with you to do something is like a boss, but it’s a different relationship; such a person is a client and a client is more like a customer. It’s your job to do what the customer wants but the customer isn’t in charge of the business. Or maybe I’m off base. Of course, if the disabled woman didn’t hire and can’t fire this person, the person’s working for the parents, then, aren’t they?
I think the power relationships between assistants/PAs/whatever and folks with disabilities are a lot more complicated than that.
Even with a direct hire, it’s more complicated than other types of employment. For instance, hiring someone to write a webpage for you is really different than hiring someone to do things you need in order to survive.
Especially, given that when people murder folks who are disabled enough to need extensive care, they often get away with it.
And there are all kinds of complications I don’t understand well.
I don’t know more to say about this, though. Do any of y’all?

Acknowledging power

Real Social Skills

When you have power over someone, it’s important to acknowledge it. If you don’t acknowledge that you have power, it’s hard to examine your use of it. If you’re not paying attention to how you’re using your power, you will come to abuse it, and you won’t notice.

Sometimes, when people are uncomfortable having power over others, they deal with this by telling jokes about it. These jokes are about either denying that they have power, or denying that they’d ever be capable of abusing it. For instance:

  • Jokes about how people who they have power over are really in charge  (eg: “Sometimes I say my secretary is *my* boss”, “I’m the teacher, but the kids are really running the show”.
  • Jokes about how they could abuse power. (“Next thing you know, I’ll be having you interns fetch my dry cleaning and babysitting my kids.”)
  • Jokes about how people could overthrow them. (“I see you three gossiping. Plotting a revolt?”)
  • Jokes about being an oppressive boss (“I’m such a big mean ogre.”)
  • Pretend unreasonable orders (“We all have to work until midnight… haha just kidding, go enjoy your family”)

These jokes are especially bad when they’re told by a powerful person to someone they outrank. They’re basically the humor equivilent of saying, “You’d better tell me that I don’t actually have power over you and that I never misuse it.”

Getting people to tell you that you’re a good person doesn’t help you to treat others well. Acknowledging your power, thinking about how you use it, and soliciting and listening to actual feedback does.

Accidental awkward eye contact

Real Social Skills

There some situations in which eye contact is considered inappropriate.

In neurotypical body language, initiating eye contact with someone means that you want to interact with them. It’s often the first stage of a conversation, or of flirtation.

This can lead to awkward situations for those of us who don’t make eye contact naturally and don’t have it in mind much. 

For instance, on the subway it is not considered appropriate to make eye contact with strangers. On the subway, people are supposed to leave each other alone.

People who make eye contact naturally kind of know where not to look, and don’t have to think about it much. For people who don’t use eye contact as a natural part of their communication, avoiding inappropriate eye contact can actually be difficult, since they don’t automatically pay attention to where not to look. 

If you look in the direction that would be for eye contact if you did that sort of thing, people will interpret it as an attempt to initiate eye contact with them. And they will often look back and smile weakly, because it is considered rude to ignore eye contact. But since they don’t want to talk to you, and it’s in a situation in which people expect not to talk to each other, it’s invasive.

For that reason, if you have this problem, it might help to intentionally figure out some other place to look in order to avoid inappropriate eye contact. (Eg, your bag, your phone, the floor, the ads).

About oppression analogies

Real Social Skills

This is a way different groups run into conflicts.

  • One group has seen historical discussions of something bad that used to happen to another group
  • They think this is over
  • They want to use this as an analogy for a group they are part of
  • So they say “well, what if x happened to that group?”
  • and then they don’t realize that actually, this thing still happens to that group all the time
  • and so they end up hurting the other group by erasing their experiences

Some common examples:

  • LGBT groups that say that they are the new civil rights movement, as though racism and discrimination have ended
  • Any time one group says “just substitute black for [my group] and no one would think this was ok (because there are still a lot of anti-black racists who do that thing; this isn’t over)
  • People using an analogy to the n-word to object to the way another group is discriminated against. (This is bad because the n-word is still routinely used against black people, and saying it still hurts people even if you think you aren’t racist)
  • Mental health advocates who say that people don’t get blamed for physical illness, so they shouldn’t be blamed for mental illness either (people get blamed for phyiscal illness all the time, especially chronic illness)
  • Eg "Imagine if you were blamed for having cancer”. 
  • Autistic advocates who say that asking them to make eye contact while talking is like asking someone with motor coordination problems to do pushups (which is a thing that happens too)
  • Comparing things the the Holocaust that aren’t similar (abortion opponents and animal rights activists often make these sorts of comparisons)

These are some examples I know about, and I know there are many I do not know about. What are some others? (And did I get any of these wrong?)