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yvannairieTalking about the goings on with my friend, it made me realise that if there's something I wish was better understood to be a conflict of needs, is that indulging people's fear-based behaviour is not an option for some people.
Being treated as a threat, being treated like you're a bomb that might go off, has just as much of an effect of putting anyone even a little more outspoken who gives a shit about how they treat people in walking-on-eggshells mode. We should be capable of sympathising with anxious people without indulging their coping mechanisms if those coping mechanisms are maladaptive and harmful. Jumping, flinching, being startled all signal things to the environment, and unless contextualised, the person doing that is ultimately responsible for how they're received.
Someone projecting their inferiority onto me and apologising a lot as a result is harmful for me because it fucks with my read of and expectations for that person. Someone treating me like I'm out to take advantage of them has the same effect. Someone treating me like I'm aggressive and dangerous is literally doing the exact same gaslighting thing that was done to crush my sense of self when I was younger. These are not value-neutral behaviours just because they're defensive.
Just because someone is behaving defensively because they think their needs will not be accommodated doesn't mean their defensive behaviour should go entirely unexamined. Just because someone expects to be mistreated doesn't give them a pass for treating people like they're personally responsible for that trauma.
Poor self-esteem needs to stop being treated as a pass for a lack of prosocial behaviour. You get treated the way you treat others, and nobody is under obligation to wrap their own issues up just so they can treat you better.
Being treated as a threat, being treated like you're a bomb that might go off, has just as much of an effect of putting anyone even a little more outspoken who gives a shit about how they treat people in walking-on-eggshells mode. We should be capable of sympathising with anxious people without indulging their coping mechanisms if those coping mechanisms are maladaptive and harmful. Jumping, flinching, being startled all signal things to the environment, and unless contextualised, the person doing that is ultimately responsible for how they're received.
Someone projecting their inferiority onto me and apologising a lot as a result is harmful for me because it fucks with my read of and expectations for that person. Someone treating me like I'm out to take advantage of them has the same effect. Someone treating me like I'm aggressive and dangerous is literally doing the exact same gaslighting thing that was done to crush my sense of self when I was younger. These are not value-neutral behaviours just because they're defensive.
Just because someone is behaving defensively because they think their needs will not be accommodated doesn't mean their defensive behaviour should go entirely unexamined. Just because someone expects to be mistreated doesn't give them a pass for treating people like they're personally responsible for that trauma.
Poor self-esteem needs to stop being treated as a pass for a lack of prosocial behaviour. You get treated the way you treat others, and nobody is under obligation to wrap their own issues up just so they can treat you better.
