When People Tell You…

I was speaking with someone once long ago about the shit line that some guys will pull up-front – the whole “I’m just going to hurt you” type of comment. The gal I was speaking to had definitely heard this before — from her then-husband when they first started dating. I did not know this when I heard the song which inspired the conversation.

Essentially, if someone right off the bat flat out TELLS me that they will just end up hurting me, guess what? This train stops right now and I am getting the freak OFF. Why? Because essentially I was just told that I had fair warning that I will be abused in the future and that if I proceed with this relationship in any capacity, it WILL happen. I have been warned, after all. What I told my friend was that basically if someone tells me right out of the gate “I’m a dick and don’t respect you enough to treat you with … well, respect” then I’ve got enough self-esteem to say “Ok, nice meeting you. Have a good life.”

What boggled my mind is that my friend never actually thought about this before. Hell, she MARRIED the jerk and then was all butt-hurt when he turned out to be … a jerk! As advertised. So as I see it, this statement is a power play which immediately puts the on-notice person into the “you will really have to work for my approval” category and for some reason, many people actually fall for it. Make excuses, as my friend did.

• He didn’t really mean that.
• I bet my love will redeem him.
• I love a strong man like that.
• Ooooo, a challenge.

*headdesk* All of these are rationalizations. Be prepared for the future abuse in whatever form! It’s a power game aimed at control and safety for the abuser.

But there’s a female equivalent which has never really been called out and I’m going to call it out now.

“If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.”

*blink*blink* So you are giving me notice that you are a raging bitch some days and candy sweet other days? That you are abusive, and then expect to be forgiven once the storm has passed — and it happens regularly enough you have to laughingly warn me about it. I call bullshit. Let me rephrase that to more accurately reflect every person that I am personally aware of who actively uses this mantra: “I’m abusive, and if you want the good parts then you’ll take the bad as part of the package without questioning it or holding me accountable for it.”

Sure everyone has bad days, and everyone deals with bad days differently. That’s not what this line refers to though. It’s a much bigger statement than “I sometimes have bad days and might be cranky then.” But if someone uses this line to justify and excuse their abusive, shitty, self-centered rage fests, then I’m outta there. That person’s “best” is definitely not sufficient payment to endure their “worst”.

Think of this physical example: bad day results in a fist to the cheekbone. MF ouch. Next day? “oh I’m sorry baby” plus excuses/blaming/promises. Guess what? Cheekbone still fractured!! The apology did NOT excuse or make up for the abuse. In any way. No “best” will make up for this “worst”.

Now here’s a literal, real world example from a former friend who loves this shit line (she) and a current good friend (he): they leave apartment and he thought he had keys for door. Get back at 10ish pm and turns out he grabbed the wrong key ring. She EXPLODES with blaming, name calling and other verbal abuse which lasts for HOURS. Next day, apologize and expect forgiveness. My response to this story when I heard it from him? Shock, sadness then anger on behalf of my abused friend. She was WAY out of line and flat abusive when it was a simple honest mistake relatively easily fixed with no real harm done. Except to his self-esteem, his personal power, his energy body, his confidence, his faith in himself. Now I’m going to start working in “emotionally abusive” language into our conversations when I hear this shit. Maybe it will jar him enough to re-evaluate some things. Some days, she’s super nice – but many days, she’s just a controlling, fearful girl who uses abusing others to feel safe. Not cool. SOOOO not cool. But it’s never her fault, of course.

So yeah. There’s the occasional “bad day” which I deal with and move on and it is NEVER okay to take it out anyone around me — EVER; and then there’s the person who has so many “bad days” that they become part of the character which has to be taken into consideration.

Listen to what people say, and take them at their word. If someone tells you, however veiled, that they are abusive in any form … walk away, and don’t look back.

Dualism Fallacy

I’m totally binge watching Supernatural and now I’m finally up to season 12. In season 11, they resolved the whole “God abandoned his post” storyline which was started in like season 3 or something. In episode 21 of season 11, Dean is airing his beef with God. There’s a whole lot of blaming God for everything bad – wars, plagues, floods, etc. There’s also a whole lot of demanding God apologize for not answering prayers, or taking care of shit other people started. Etc.

The character is pretty silent throughout this and finally says something akin to “helicopter parenting isn’t parenting.” I’m seriously paraphrasing that, but that was the gist. Essentially, “if I kept doing everything for you, you’d never freakin’ grow up.” I just about cheered.

Why?

I remember sitting in a panel way back in college during a religion and philosophy club luncheon. The guest speaker was addressing the question of if God is all good and all powerful, then why does He allow evil in the world. I actually chuckled at the question, and was then surprised to see how seriously others were taking it. A bit taken aback, I decided to listen to the lecture. At the end, I was still as completely puzzled at the question as a premise. At the time, I didn’t have the perspective to think “what is your foundational world view that is being violated such that it would lead to this question?”

Now I understand it. In a nutshell: dualism.

Well, apparently I’m not a dualist. At all. I was in high school when I read Piers Anthony’s On a Pale Horse and his devil character said “Didn’t you know? God is the Devil seen through the eyes of the ignorant.” That pretty much sums up my view on the whole thing. This dualistic split down the middle of all-good and all-bad doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s my take.

So if the question doesn’t make sense to me, what is my take on the concept of God “permitting” evil?

I think, ultimately, evil comes from the hearts of humanity. Almost all of the true evils in the world (and I’m NOT counting natural disasters or diseases as “evil”, those just are and we judge them by how they impact us) are done through the actions of humanity. In fact, I can’t really think of a single evil which is not attributed to some action, philosophy, religious ideology, inaction, etc. of humanity’s.

We choose how to act toward our fellow man. We CHOOSE to build walls and bombs. I think that what inspires almost all of the true ugliness is actually fear. Fear of change, of “them”, of loosing what I have, etc. And fear gives us permission to do all kinds of truly vile and evil things. Being a student of history, I shudder in horror at the tremendously creative ways that we have devised over the centuries to torture each other. It’s all rather convenient to claim “the devil made me do it” in whatever form so we can pretend that evil doesn’t lie in our own hearts, but that’s a gimmick.

So if humanity chooses to be evil, guess what? We can choose to be good too. And we do! We choose it with every act of compassion, kind word, and gesture.

I remember once watching a documentary in which a reformed extremist was saying that at the time he wanted to bomb the Twin Towers because as a culture we’ve lived in peace for generations. We didn’t know what it was like to live in terror of the scream of incoming missiles in the middle of the night, or random mass violence. He hated us for that, and he wanted to destroy that. He wanted to see us as violent as the world in which he grew up in. That was only fair. And there it is – the choice. Rather than saying “See, it’s possible. They are doing it! Proof! We can do it too. Let’s aim higher than where we are and embrace each other to live in peace,” this particular mindset instead choose the smaller path, the path guided by fear and jealousy. The one which says “if I can’t have it, you can’t have it either!” Those are the choices!! Both options are open to us. Which one will we take?

I’ve said elsewhere that the test is easy as to whether or not the idea or the message or the challenge before us is one of evil (Satan, and it’s very hard not put that in quotes) or good (God). God will always ask us to be bigger than we believe we can be. The good path is the one which says “I know you’re afraid, but step beyond the limits you think you have and be better, more loving, more generous, more open. Look up in order see your potential.”

So I don’t think God permits evil. I think we do, and it will be that way until we decide collectively to change it. It will be that way until we as a species grow up and put on our collective big-person pants and say “I’m responsible for this, I got it. I choose to help those around me.”