Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2012-01-06 08:03 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2012-01-06 08:03 pm
"It's great! Morale improved!" Hidden warning signs vs. the privileged princess
There are some thoughts I've been having sometime over the past, eh, yearish? something like that, about some of the reactions I get when I hear certain things from people I know.
It's generally a situation where something good is happening for that person, and they're reacting with delight and enthusiasm, and my reaction is not the expected delight for that person and the situation that they're in (though I'm glad things are going well), but something about their phrasing and emphasis is ringing belated alarm bells about the sort of situation that they tend to be in.
An altogether too rapey example: For example, if someone was in a new relationship and was raving about how amazingly consensual all the sex they were having was -- not how great it was, not how generally considerate a lover the new partner was, not how awesome the communication was, not even how enthusiastic the consent was or even how awesome enthusiastic consent was, but how amazingly consensual it was, I'd start pondering whether I needed to take my sword to get it sharpened.
Or maybe "My paycheck was so accurate this week!" or "My paycheck hardly ever bounces!"
I kept hearing these really enthusiastic descriptions of how nicely things were going with these various people in these various situations, and I kept having to beat down my impulse to harsh their squee by responding with annoyance that they were going out of their way to celebrate something that should be so very 101. Yes, your goddamn paycheck should be accurate. Yes, your goddamn paycheck should clear. Yes, your best buddy should exhibit basic goddamn courtesy on a regular basis. But do any of these things warrant over-the-top celebration? Hello! *eyeroll*
But since having that sort of reaction in my outside voice would be a dick move, and I do try to avoid being a dick when I can, I shut up about it and sort of just sulked and punched my pillows a lot. (Petty annoyances stick in my brain and keep echoing around while I'm trying to go to sleep. It's amazingly unpleasant, and means that little things that happen to occur near bedtime, or that I happen to be reminded of near bedtime, bother me far more than they should.) I just could not shake the feeling that there was something not right about those simple statements of enthusiasm and delight. Some of it seemed way too emotionally frou-frou: hello, basic common courtesy, why are you going into all this ecstatic detail about the mechanics of how not treating each other like dicks works?
It took an embarrassingly long time for it to dawn on me that these things that I was thinking were so basic and should be a given were very possibly not the default for the people who were celebrating them with what I felt was an excess of enthusiasm.
That changed my viewpoint some. Person enthusiastic about having had a respectful discussion about their field of academic study with a professor from another department? What sort of fucknut professors had they been dealing with in the past?! Going on and on about negotiating boundaries with family and having them respected? Yeah, just because I have a family who respects my autonomy and doesn't scream at me doesn't mean that everybody does.
Just because I viewed something as a given and thought that everybody should also have this does not actually mean that the rest of the world is like this. Well, duh, you useless Betan frill! Welcome to the world where shit does not always work the way it should. I should know these things! Just sometimes it takes a while for it to sink in.
Now that I'm hearing the celebrations that I found too enthusiastic for something expected as an indication that this sort of thing is unusual, the little uncomfortable feeling that something about this is not quite right is correctly coming through as warning sirens about that person's past and general situation.
There are the oddly-specific bits of enthusiasm, of course, like "My mother-in-law called today and she didn't promise to come by my house and poop on my car again!" where you don't really have to have any background in that situation or any particular leap of insight to realize that something is really not right. But sometimes it's subtle enough that if your worldview includes something as a given, you don't notice it until you really consider it straight on (and sometimes it doesn't become apparent until someone else points it out).
I can deal with warning sirens. I know how to deal, more or less, with the sudden realization that there are things that are various sorts of not-quite-right with friends. Once I realize that stuff isn't quite right, I may even be able to act helpfully to mitigate some of the suck if it's still happening, or at the very least act with a little more sensitivity around things that might well be a sore subject. (Sometimes it's avoiding the topic. Sometimes it's saying "Hey, I sort of picked up on the concept that maybe not all is right with that one dude? He, um, sounds like he's treating you poorly, and you deserve to have a partner who doesn't treat you like shit. LMK if you want to yell about it or anything, or maybe I could just put the fear of me into him if he ever pulls those shenanigans again.") It's much better than being annoyed with people I like because what they're saying isn't sitting right with me and I can't put my finger on why.
It's generally a situation where something good is happening for that person, and they're reacting with delight and enthusiasm, and my reaction is not the expected delight for that person and the situation that they're in (though I'm glad things are going well), but something about their phrasing and emphasis is ringing belated alarm bells about the sort of situation that they tend to be in.
An altogether too rapey example: For example, if someone was in a new relationship and was raving about how amazingly consensual all the sex they were having was -- not how great it was, not how generally considerate a lover the new partner was, not how awesome the communication was, not even how enthusiastic the consent was or even how awesome enthusiastic consent was, but how amazingly consensual it was, I'd start pondering whether I needed to take my sword to get it sharpened.
Or maybe "My paycheck was so accurate this week!" or "My paycheck hardly ever bounces!"
I kept hearing these really enthusiastic descriptions of how nicely things were going with these various people in these various situations, and I kept having to beat down my impulse to harsh their squee by responding with annoyance that they were going out of their way to celebrate something that should be so very 101. Yes, your goddamn paycheck should be accurate. Yes, your goddamn paycheck should clear. Yes, your best buddy should exhibit basic goddamn courtesy on a regular basis. But do any of these things warrant over-the-top celebration? Hello! *eyeroll*
But since having that sort of reaction in my outside voice would be a dick move, and I do try to avoid being a dick when I can, I shut up about it and sort of just sulked and punched my pillows a lot. (Petty annoyances stick in my brain and keep echoing around while I'm trying to go to sleep. It's amazingly unpleasant, and means that little things that happen to occur near bedtime, or that I happen to be reminded of near bedtime, bother me far more than they should.) I just could not shake the feeling that there was something not right about those simple statements of enthusiasm and delight. Some of it seemed way too emotionally frou-frou: hello, basic common courtesy, why are you going into all this ecstatic detail about the mechanics of how not treating each other like dicks works?
It took an embarrassingly long time for it to dawn on me that these things that I was thinking were so basic and should be a given were very possibly not the default for the people who were celebrating them with what I felt was an excess of enthusiasm.
That changed my viewpoint some. Person enthusiastic about having had a respectful discussion about their field of academic study with a professor from another department? What sort of fucknut professors had they been dealing with in the past?! Going on and on about negotiating boundaries with family and having them respected? Yeah, just because I have a family who respects my autonomy and doesn't scream at me doesn't mean that everybody does.
Just because I viewed something as a given and thought that everybody should also have this does not actually mean that the rest of the world is like this. Well, duh, you useless Betan frill! Welcome to the world where shit does not always work the way it should. I should know these things! Just sometimes it takes a while for it to sink in.
Now that I'm hearing the celebrations that I found too enthusiastic for something expected as an indication that this sort of thing is unusual, the little uncomfortable feeling that something about this is not quite right is correctly coming through as warning sirens about that person's past and general situation.
There are the oddly-specific bits of enthusiasm, of course, like "My mother-in-law called today and she didn't promise to come by my house and poop on my car again!" where you don't really have to have any background in that situation or any particular leap of insight to realize that something is really not right. But sometimes it's subtle enough that if your worldview includes something as a given, you don't notice it until you really consider it straight on (and sometimes it doesn't become apparent until someone else points it out).
I can deal with warning sirens. I know how to deal, more or less, with the sudden realization that there are things that are various sorts of not-quite-right with friends. Once I realize that stuff isn't quite right, I may even be able to act helpfully to mitigate some of the suck if it's still happening, or at the very least act with a little more sensitivity around things that might well be a sore subject. (Sometimes it's avoiding the topic. Sometimes it's saying "Hey, I sort of picked up on the concept that maybe not all is right with that one dude? He, um, sounds like he's treating you poorly, and you deserve to have a partner who doesn't treat you like shit. LMK if you want to yell about it or anything, or maybe I could just put the fear of me into him if he ever pulls those shenanigans again.") It's much better than being annoyed with people I like because what they're saying isn't sitting right with me and I can't put my finger on why.
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But yeah, I get what you're saying about the warning signs; sometimes it's odd to realize that one's generally comfortable, drama-free existence is not shared by everyone.
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(For the sake of the privacy of some of those actually involved, I've not mentioned a few of the things that did happen in my view, so it wasn't exactly that. But I hope that some of the situations are roughly equivalent.)
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XD
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The hell of it was, it was something where there was a lot to squee about! But the specific description of it was pinging my weirdometer something fierce: out of all the potential awesome there, why did you choose that to highlight. And, well. *sharpens things*
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Yeah, I get that.
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Then I became that squeeful person.
Part of it is continually running headfirst into all the ways I'm privileged... my privilege only seems to increase and I feel duty bound to increase my awareness just as much and to work just as hard as ever to mitigate the effects of it.
Mostly it's outlook, though, revelling in what goes right for you when it never used to in the past. My paycheck for my first job was always inconsistent, I never knew when it would come. My paycheck for my second job was more regularin theory, but would sometimes be delayed by several days with little to no notice. With Wag, the checks came on time every time but I had to watch every single paycheck, I kept tabs on my hours worked and my breaks until the day I left because there was always some funny business going on and I didn't trust them not to screw me. Now, there's none of that.
I can't speak for others, but for me it's a glass half-full sort of thing- remembering shitty situations you were in before and wallowing in how it feels to know you don't have to deal with that anymore, or at least not this time.
I still get the annoyance, but instead of being annoyed at myself for saying or thinking it I am angry with the outside forces that make these small things, whatever they are, still an issue.
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Sometimes people need help shifting to a new paradigm. It can take years. In my experience/observation, when it's your first exposure to something that's good for you, it's amazing. It's like you discovered all of science at once. The longer it's been, the longer it takes to really get settled into that new way.
A lot of times, I know I don't say anything at all because no one's going to get it and it might not last. Why get excited when it won't last, and then I'll look stupid. And, worse, getting excited about is going to tell everyone just how bad it was before. It's humiliating on some level, even if it wasn't my fault. But I do get excited. And confused. And scared. And hopeful.
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warning: possible triggers in this comment (brief discussion of assault/abuse)
So whenever I have an experience where I get to practice consent as an ongoing, engaged process, I'm pretty much like "yay party!" because it says volumes about how well I am doing at finding partners who respect me and also how good I have become at initiating those conversations. It's also pretty "yay party!" that I had an experience where I felt safe and any PTSD issues I had were negotiated and worked through or around. These days I am feeling pretty awesome about all of this, but it is a CONSTANT PROCESS to remind myself that this is how it works and I never, ever have to settle for less than this.
I think I talk about this and contextualize it when I post about it in my journal, so maybe this is less directed at me, but... I don't know. When I see people post about this stuff, I feel so joyful. I have had great discussions with my Mormon roomies about consent and agency. I just want everybody to be able to experience sex and sexuality in a way that makes them feel happy, safe, and affirmed. I do not assume that this is the default. Which sucks, but hey, whatever.
Re: warning: possible triggers in this comment (brief discussion of assault/abuse)
Re: warning: possible triggers in this comment (brief discussion of assault/abuse)
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And of course, most other people have a father who isn't a raving lunatic.
So at times, I might celebrate a bit if I have a period of time where the little voice has fucked off, or if my dad has made actual coherent sense for once. I guess I recognise that I'm celebrating what for others is just normal, but still, it's worth celebrating, because it's not normal for me?
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(I get the social error flashbacks too. It's a hell of a thing.)
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I don't do yay parties, because I live in fear that anything that goes right will be taken away from me. Yes, that speaks volumes about my life growing up.
It's awesomely interesting to watch your thought processes. I love it when you share them, after working through something.
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Mostly I'm mad at myself that it took so long for me to catch on that what I was finding really weird squee ought to be a warning signal that All Was Previously Not Well rather than something for me to roll my eyes over. There are always reasons for the things I find weird. Sometimes I just have to, you know, look.
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I can't even chalk it up to my problems (mostly due to getting dealt a somewhat unfortunate hand genetically) leading me to gravitate to people with apparently similar issues, because I first started wondering about it when talking with employees at one company where I consulted back in the day.
In any case, it's a rather disturbing notion, even if it did have the positive effect of sensitizing me to the another aspect of privilege. (I already had a grasp of some of the more obvious ones. It's been an interesting life, occasionally in the sense of the apocryphal curse.)
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I'm usually on the other side, the one telling people that no, not every adult they know or work with got to eat every day as a child. That no, I never saw a doctor until I was 12. That no, some people's experience with guns isn't from police but from drug dealers.
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I think we celebrate the ordinary because so much of the time, what our lives are aren't the ordinary, or what should be the ordinary. It says loads about what we accept as the cost of living, but as The Doctor said, "Sometimes, everybody lives." It's not as often as it should be, but those moments are usually worth celebrating.
So yay for understanding.