Moments of Permanence - Good people do bad things: demonising Them is not the answer

From: sami Date: May 22nd, 2009 09:08 am (UTC) (Link)

*nods* That sense that you've already gone this far is dangerous too, yeah. If the next step isn't too far from here, and you're not thinking about the next step, taken separately... you might never quite have the point where it feels like you really should draw the line.

I've been realising, lately, just how much my fucked-up childhood has left me needing to unlearn. Because, for the same kind of self-defensive reasoning, I learned some seriously messed-up habits, that remain very, very bad for me. I'm only now starting to learn how relationships based on mutual respect and love actually work. And learning that various things don't automatically lead to punishment, that it's okay to feel certain things, okay to speak up for myself as well as for others.

In an odd way, it's made me a better person morally, too, because developing the ability to say, no, I will not, that is not something that is acceptable to me, includes the ability to say, no, I will not, because that is wrong, and I choose to try to be a better person than that.

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From: willow Date: May 22nd, 2009 10:11 am (UTC) (Link)

People recovering from effed up childhoods tend to be BIG on boundaries as good things. Which means we're more sensitive to the crossing and/or violation of said boundaries, which immediately pings to us as wrong.

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From: sami Date: May 22nd, 2009 12:04 pm (UTC) (Link)

Huh. I never thought of it that way, but that's exactly it. It's the conscious way of limiting definitions of appropriate, acceptable, etc.

Thank you for that.

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From: morgan_dhu Date: May 22nd, 2009 07:05 pm (UTC) (Link)

Yes, that's a very good way of putting it.

Sometimes I also wonder if it can make someone more sensitive to the idea that someone who does bad things is not necessarily a completely bad person. I know that growing up with people who did both very bad things to me, and very good things, was confusing, and may have made me more conscious of boundaries, but also prepared me for the fact that people are not generally all one thing or the other.

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From: willow Date: May 22nd, 2009 11:06 pm (UTC) (Link)

True. The person who burns your hand with the iron may also be the person who buys you ice-cream and pets your hair and doesn't let other people bully you.

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