This post is not about rape apologetics

Or, well, mostly not.  Anyway, coffeeandink  said some stuff.   I had one mild run-in with Kynn of Several Names and was negatively impressed.  I am much more invested in some shenanigans that went on off-stage in my religious tradition a few months ago which were the taphammer blow that caused the mountain to crack asunder...that is, not really the cause, but the precipitating event.  Anyway, I am not going to talk about rape culture and rape apologetics THIS ONE TIME because other people have said more and better.

However, in the post I linked to coffeeandink spoke about someone using probably genuine suicidal thoughts as manipulation, and went on to say, "I know a lot of depressed and suicidal people. There's a big difference between being depressed and being depressed and abusive."

Preach it.

Here's a thing:  You can have mental problems.  You can be abusive.  You can be both at the same time.  (If you aren't, then you are not my subject here). You can be both the victim of abuse and an abuser...and, statistically speaking, you are more likely to be.  Everyone knows that statistic but no one seems to put two and two together.  Everyone we know is the Virtuous Kind of Victim.  Right?

Or, rather, horseshit.

I don't mean to say that merely being abused means you are doomed.  It does mean that you have those patterns wired into your brain, and you are likely to repeat them...either as victim, over and over again, or as perpetrator.  Or, as I mentioned, both.  If you don't want to do that, you have a whole lot of work ahead of you.  Which never really ends.

Don't stop to tell me how much that sucks, how gut-grindingly awful and unfair it is.  I know.   Don't tell me how mean I am, either.  I have been one mean bitch in my time, but today is not that day.  I know the difference.  You too may have to come by that knowledge the hard way.

Here's another thing:  It sucks to have a mental illness.  It sucks to have a traumatic childhood, and the two often go together (either because your early experiences bent you, or because you inherited the condition from parents who were your primary caretakers, or again both).  If you are the kind of person whose mental illness does not cause you to interact in screwed-up and destructive ways with the people around you, then lucky you....I'm not talking about you.  If you are, come sit by me and I'll tell you something useful.  Those experiences and patterns of yours deserve consideration, they are real and they suck hard and chances are you don't give yourself enough compassion for them, but they also do not excuse you from acting like a human being and a grownup.  More importantly, you are much better off if you resist the idea that they do.  The fact that you are in some cases running with a handicap, and that it's grossly unfair...again, you don't have to tell me.  And yet...if you ever say, "I behave this way because I have these problems" and what you are explaining is behavior that hurt another person...that explanation better be the preface to a sincere apology where you ask (but don't demand) the grace of their indulgence.  Otherwise, you are essentially saying "My wounds are more important than your wounds...I am more important than you."  That is not forgivable, so don't be surprised if people won't forgive it.

You may be tempted to assume that the other person has it easier than you, that they don't have your obstacles and it's not fair.  You may be right about all that.  You may also be completely, utterly, devastatingly wrong.  You don't know, and unless they tell you, you have no way of knowing.  Most people don't share stuff like that with someone who is barking guilt at them, so chances are you aren't going to learn. 

Also?  Life isn't fair.  Two of my blood relatives were murdered before I was twelve, and my sister in law's little brother as well, in completely unrelated incidents.  I personally have almost died more than once.  And I can easily name people whom I consider to have gotten a much worse deal than I did...some of whom are no longer here and walking around.  If you posit the notion that life is fair then you also, by implication, are saying that somehow I did something to bring those calamities on myself, that the other people I mention also did something wrong.  If you think that, I don't want to know you.  There's the door; don't let it hit your ass on the way out.

There's something here about the belief that some people are Right and others Wrong, and if you can show that someone you oppose is Wrong then you (by extension) must be Right and Worthy...of love, of opportunities, whatever.  It's a kind of game, where you simultaneously try to hide all of your human flaws and furiously deny them if they are pointed out (which often comes in the form of "you did something that hurt me").  Wrongness means you are Wrong, and unworthy....doomed.  Nobody wants to be doomed.  Everyone wants to be perfect, and worthy of love.  We don't seem to question the flaws in the premise.

I happen to think that all of us are human, and many of us screw up.  I don't think that someone who persists in a damaging pattern of behavior should be given latitude to continue; that's what we call "boundaries," boys and girls, and I would cheerfully visit bloody, sudden violence upon a person who didn't take "no" for an answer from me or otherwise tried to do me physical harm.*  I do think that even wrong, screwed-up people deserve compassion.



*This is not intended to imply that I think that's the "right" response.  I don't think it's a wrong one, either.