it’s the "gotta use Politics when talking about Abuse” monologue corner....

namely that if you only use the framework of Personal Responsibility(tm) to even consider what abuse is then that can only lead to victim blaming

even the effort to Define abuse via personal responsibility focusing on like, well okay, how does a dynamic of abuse spontaneously manifest between two people then? and when it’s solely about Bad / Harmful / Mean Treatment from someone, then like, you can’t really pin any of that shit down as what defines abuse, when people having the intent to affect someone negatively, or not necessarily that intent but hurting someone / having that negative effect anyways, or whatever spontaneous interactions that go badly / aren’t exactly constructive & relationship enhancing, etc etc etc, are hardly guaranteed abusive or exclusive to that. but when it’s about What Can An Individual Do Wrong alone, as per “we have to understand & solve things through the lens of Personal Responsibility as the be all end all essence of any social phenomena,” then it’s probably gonna be easy to get stuck in the realm of “well then we can’t just call anything that affects someone badly as Abusive” which in turn means “abuse” becomes this matter of like, well, it has to be something extreme that is thus Rare enough (cue: people going “well Everyone can’t have Trauma” like, they really can though lmfao. why should it be a Relative matter that shifts to mean “cut off to be: what we think only happens rarely”) and it’s also convenient, as it always is, to talk about the Unknowable Save To The Individual Themself matter of what someone’s real intentions & inner motivations & qualities are, like, well of course abuse would then also result from the Bad intention to abuse, and anyone can get caught up in not wanting to feel like they themself have that quality or capacity or whatever where people will be like wuh oh gamers, we’re surely starting to throw “Abuse” around too lightly (that has not really Overall been a problem, is it new that someone can use language in bad faith to serve their own purposes, people who are being abused aren’t immediately like “i am being abused” and you can always try to rationalize it some different way / sympathize / excuse / etc, cue again sentiments like, well clearly someone who’s being abused is Letting that happen) 

tbt a few months ago or something where quotes from some book like “conflict is not abuse” or whatever were apparently going around, like, already from the get go in that “we’re throwing around ‘abuse’ too lightly” oeuvre & the quotes i mostly saw were, even if you do accept the premise that any scenario / example posited therein is, in fact, not abuse, framed with bog standard victim blaming arguments & sentiments. some people are just too sensitive, any dynamic / relationship will have its problems / arguments / Conflicts, well it takes two to tango & maybe the Real problem comes when someone puts up a brick wall by Withdrawing & isn’t that unreasonable & why shouldn’t You tell Me if you’re uncomfortable while I’m Just Like This & I Know i don’t want to / won’t hurt you on purpose so I can’t be the problem, etc etc. things that Can Be True or whatever but like, a good faith read is never gonna be right. who out here Is good at handling “conflict” when generally an interpersonal conflict is considered Solved if, perhaps, some social hierarchy gets settled back into place and someone who might be uncomfortable / unhappy just shuts up about it & then how can anyone else be blamed if that person never said anything, huh??? rather than questions of, you know, well confrontation is not All Conflict & vice versa, what allows people to feel safe in Any given interaction with Anyone, b/c You may never notice a conflict only b/c you get to keep running over the other person who doesn’t feel like they can get anything else, and may in fact, not have the power to ensure that they do (spoilers: i’m arguing for identifying and analyzing Abuse through the framework of Power backed by ideology rather than emotion or intent) like, an abled cishet white man who never has to be aware of the elevated power afforded to that group that allowed him to Succeed more than others in whatever way, so bigotry & discrimination can’t play a part & surely isn’t a real problem & this is all merit now (& cue the implication that Persisting inequality is the fault of the affected groups, implying they’re deficient / Worse / less deserving, and/or Did deserve the discrimination Before that’s so  totally over nowadays....) because he didn’t like verbally invoke “give me that promotion b/c i’m white” or whatever and was never Aware of anyone around him being treated worse or having less power even in casual situations and Wouldn’t He Know???

and segue into how the altar of Personal Responsibility And Everything Is Earned On Merit of course is very convenient b/c it actually asks the Least of any given person / abdicates responsibility. if you see some Social Problem / someone suffering and go “well, they bring it upon themself, probably” you can tell yourself that neither you nor anyone has to do fuckall about it, individuals who Do choose to intervene are actually just enabling people Letting shit happen to them, and there doesn’t have to be any overall societal change to address the root causes of people’s situations, which may not only Affect you, but might ask anything of you (even more than a fraction of your money in taxes Ostensibly going to help such people, rather than all going to fund weapons like god intended) and/or even mean you have Less Power if it’s no longer power over such people (who bring it upon themself!) and another segue into how like, oh Things As Is / one’s idea of what’s Normal must be okay enough, so any societal changes that one will acknowledge Have to themselves be limited to the realm of Personal Responsibility. like, cue the intermittent event that is [someone talks about ableism behind words like Stupid or Idiot and everyone passes it around like “UMM ridiculous this is why i don’t care about ableism, the activists are being silly”] where it’s like, “think about your words” is both about the limit of what someone will consider to Solve [Social Problem] yet they’ll also point out like well This can’t be a big deal, right? so i’m not gonna bother. catch me doing the real shit: hypothetically waiting on those damn activists to come up with something this person approves of, waiting on a tweet about That to show up for them, & then ignoring it as also far fetched, too niche a problem, come back when you have something Eye can do in my normal life.......wherein like, a whole glossed over step there is how like, You could consider not whether you choose to alter your vocabulary or whatever (like, certainly, nobody’s called me the R word but i’ve been called obtuse & stupid & an idiot & whatever else in The Exact Spirit of it. this also doesn’t mean i think people may as well be using the r word too.) but Reevaluating A Framework / Your Understanding of everything here. where you can think of / notice / analyze the ways [xyz]’s permeation is present & affects Seemingly neutral, ordinary parts of everyday life, and consider its impact, like how words to describe disabled / nd people become more informal insults that are commonly used in that way enough that That becomes the supposedly formal definition and if centuries later we use these things flippantly / without malice and also manage to direct it again at nd people without thinking it’s some Technical Term abt disability, then if someone goes “well i think these words are bad b/c of their origins” then people can have a great time dismissing the particular [don’t ever use them then] directive And the underlying idea about Why and be like “lmao stupid. anyways”

that’s a bit of a tangent lmao but where are the boundaries? this is all interrelated / potentially different manifestations/applications of the same stuff. people like, well i’ve never noticed This happening much in my day to day life, i think everything is Ordinary enough, i think i don’t have malice behind what i do, i think most people don’t have malice behind what they do, so we must be good to go....no need to change anything Fundamental, or that seems too accepted as true, or would Ask too much from people Who Isn’t Personally At Fault, since of course this is all about personal responsibility & shit. why accommodate disabilities when it’s not Normal People’s fault some people are disabled & those people are in the minority right so why Inflict [you have to change behaviors / navigate things Not For You] upon all, or any, abled people about it? as though suddenly it’s Undue and Harmful to have to consider other people, to move through the world and take actions with their existence & experience in mind as just as real & just as worthy as your own, cough, key concepts here....why shouldn’t allistic people, who have only committed the crime of Existing Normally, perhaps have to think about the ways that their “normal” ideas about relationships, communication, interaction, etc, are all fucked & about The Social Hierarchy & power struggles therein & Actually about being desperate to avoid Actual Conflict, cue the double empathy problem, the conflict of a Misunderstanding / Misinterpretation is one that should be understood via kneejerk reaction as some malicious power play from the Weird, Difficult, Rude, Grating Person over there, go ahead and also kneejerk retaliate, or even if you don’t, Definitely retaliate passive aggressively in ways that person can’t actually do anything about via [general ostracizing / rejection of an autistic person] wherein, b/c that individual Doesn’t have the power of “being a group rather than one person” or the power of Acting Allistically In Ways Where People Think You Deserve To Be Acknowledged / Included / Even Appealed To, and they’ll be lucky if someone is another odd one out who will be decent to them, and perhaps lucky enough to have someone with Power, like a higher up, be on their side & be able to do anything about it, which still might not protect them that much. but umm why don’t autistic people just learn to act right....after all, Most People aren’t autistic, and we’re all being Normal without any Personal Malice, like how nobody goes “time to be mean to this person for the fact that they’re autistic” when that autistic person Obviously is getting to be so Rude and Annoying, thus wronging me, & i’d respond to Any rude annoying person by snapping at them or insulting them or just deciding they suck & i hate them, so I’m being fair, now it’s time for Their personal responsibility to be fair to Me and stop bothering me, or else they bring it all upon themself....and so on. why should allistic people have to learn the autistic social skills that they’re shit at & totally unaware that they’re shit at, ft. like, communicating to actually communicate? not assuming you can read someone else’s mind and that your immediate kneejerk interpretion / Guess about their mood or meaning or motivation must be accurate? god, sorry for being normal, why should I have to do anything about it to make it so that [difficult to idea of what being autistic without trauma looks like] doesn’t have to be true, probably they’re bringing it upon themselves. autistic people stop Earning/Deserving/Causing/Allowing trauma challenge: there, i’ve solved ableism. why should i have to think about incorporating ideas about how to treat nd people decently & successfully & Deservedly into like, my life as a whole, rather than a list of rules for very special and very rare and very fleeting occasions??? and if you Do get a list of rules, feel free to go “well this is clearly Not getting to the root of the problem, so i’ll express disdain for it and say it’s unreasonable and then wash my hands of the whole matter” like thank you hero, ableism is again over. b/c you’re waiting for disabled people to figure out what they should be doing themselves to make their experience Good & Normal enough actually. and that goes for anyone on the wrong side of an entrenched, systematically & ideologically propogated Power Imbalance

to bring it over to interpersonal abuse And disability (b/c like, also connect the idea of disability to the idea of Wellness, like, who’s “healthy,” who’s “living well,” who’s The Ideal Specimen? ties into a lot of things.) and to touch again on whatever’s going on in “conflict is not abuse” and just like, general ideas & sentiments, it’s always falling way short to Simply pathologize any Diagnostic experiences, like, autistic people figuring out themselves what actually being autistic means, b/c the shared Experience & Reality is there but the noted phenomenon & language is stemming from a medical / pathological model made by allistic people. exclusively considering Pathology is also going to keep things individualized & ultimately resolved through Personal Responsibility as well. so take it over to the idea of like, people who are abused then having perspectives, responses, approaches that are shaped by that experience and that reality of theirs getting That Quality pathologized lol like. idk, take the really oversimplified concept of like, hey if you were abused then you were like, Lied To / Tricked that things are like that / that’s Normal. like, no it’s not universal and certainly not The Natural Default(tm) for things, and maybe it takes some time to in fact realize that it can be different / it’s wrong, but it’s really not a lie & the victim isn’t “wrong” to have Gotten Used to things and adapted to that fact of their life, they weren’t tricked or something, that Is how it can be. the fact that people abused in one relationship might tend to find themselves in more abusive relationships, where someone might only go “ummm sounds like that’s definitely their fault, they need to have more Self Respect and shit,” like yeah maybe that’s what they’re used to, maybe nonabusive dynamics are actually overwhelming / scary b/c from the perspective of someone who knows [something that works v differently] That’s what’s unpredictable, but also it’s like, people aren’t victims b/c they’re Too Weak (thus again Worse than other people, deficient, Bringing It On Themselves / individually failing to exact the personal responsibility to get Stronger & thus stop being abused) like, people have resilience, people’s reactions where they Blame Themselves are ways in which they are actually affording themselves more of a sense of power in their lives even if, of course, when it comes to the material reality there, blaming themself doesn’t threaten the power imbalance / results in more room for More of am imbalance, again not the victim’s fault though b/c actually the person abusing them is not themself an object or spontaneous phenomenon that must be understood & accepted to just do what it’s gonna do) and like, people then having cptsd doesn’t become Something They Have Done Wrong when they’re interacting with Anyone Else. “but it’s not My fault they were / are abused” / “I’m Just Being Normal, how is that My Fault” / “god does it have to be Put On Me to accommodate Their issues when it’s clearly a Problem since like, ideally nobody would be abused. everyone would be normal” etc etc shut up to that hypothetical person lmfao. how about you’re not Wronged by being someone who doesn’t know how to interact with someone with trauma, or an autistic person, and you’re not Right for being More Normal than them, nor Just Acting Normally, or etc etc. what if you Do *have to* consciously behave in some particular way to interact with a particular person you know, which is already true for you & any given individual you ever interact with. what if your idea of I’m Being Nice, Or At Least Neutral Enough makes someone uncomfortable or upsets them. i guess you would have to write a book about it preemptively defending yourself from Specifically the word “abuse” being leveraged at you. we can’t keep letting them get away with it, now people are gonna be using their Ptsd for clout, like how ohhh everyone wants to identify as Autistic nowadays for that clout too, and oh boy now here’s all these trans people, or people i think should be cis merely Saying they’re trans (which i potentially think is all of them) Also trying to get that clout too. b/c suddenly there’s only a sense of the Power that might be at play when someone might have to like, genuinely think about something they maybe didn’t think needed to be spared a second thought b/c it’s just common sense / A Non Problem, and then what, have to change their actions???? have to think about this shit For The Rest Of Their Lives?????? WHO could be expected to think of this shit any time of day, every day???????? (answer: the people who already have to, b/c they are the ones adversely affected) but yeah i think we should take people with cptsd down a few pegs prob b/c they’re getting too bold (context: i don’t really think that)

umm so yeah actually what if Intentions aren’t what’s most important, nor feelings or even perceived character, because one looks at The Power Disparity as the heart of the problem, not the hypothetical hearts of the people involved which are either Good Enough that we can’t really blame them or Could be good enough so hopefully they can be won over / all Individually convinced to act otherwise. like the idea that someone can be as violently bigoted in any/every way in their heart of hearts but who cares / Sounds Like A Personal Problem so long as they don’t have the power to act on that in any way that could affect anyone else, and if they do, others have the power to shut that shit down? what of some hypothetical where the most sympathetic person in the world abuses someone who just seems like a total asshole. what of the limits of “well, what would be good for these people as Individuals” leveraged at an issue of interpersonal abuse. do we think that Improving The Relationship >>>> improving the power dynamic, which inherently means empowering the abused. for example, blaming someone who withdraws, shuts down, exits a situation or interaction or relationship entirely, like ohhh well That is unfair, That being unilateral actually wrongs the other person, who has The Relationship taken away from them, who has the Possibility of interacting w/that person further / in different ways taken from them. like, do we prioritize “anyone should get to have a relationship with another person so long as they want it / they think they should have it” or “anyone should get to have a relationship with another person No Matter What / no matter how they treat that person,” or do we prioritize “nobody should be abused.” is someone going no contact with an abuser Wronging Them b/c um well that would hurt that other person, that takes away the relationship, how is it supposed to Get Better if someone’s adding distance & subtracting communication / interaction / Access to themself?? is Anyone entitled to access to anyone else at all, much less No Matter What they’ve done with that access? is the priority “how do we make an abusive relationship Get Better / become a nonabusive, Good relationship” over “how can the abused party get out of an abusive relationship,” is the Key going to be supposing that the abuser Will Change, and again the power being all in their hands to, in fact, truly feel that they’re wronging the other person, & treat them differently. and possibly in going “well, the abused person can’t just Leave b/c umm what does That solve (answer: it solves The Problem Of Them Being Abused) so it must be the case that we also have to ask what They’re doing wrong / how They’re contributing to this Problem,” i.e. the victim blaming again, and oh as is always the case, if you move away from that / away from Personal Responsibility as the root/key to everything, you’re actually totally the one denying their power / infantilizing / disenfranchising them etc etc etc Whatever. while also, “well what if the abused person doesn’t / can’t leave? now it’s their fault for sure, and/or It Can’t Really Be That Bad” rather than like, what power are they lacking, like not having enough money, what is in play that means they don’t have money, what support are they lacking like [any connections / alternate forces that can keep people afloat if, say, they don’t have the money to do whatever, if there are barriers b/w them & other forms of support]....what if “what will allow this person to stop being abused” doesn’t have to be Good for the person abusing them. what if that’s a separate matter, and/or simply decidedly Not The Priority in such a situation. an analysis about The Power involved, rather than like, the Moral Ideals, the Personal Judgment, etc. someone can be beloved & sympathetic & someone else can be supported in getting away from them asap & entirely & permanently b/c of abuse & that’s not Wrong. unless one thinks that wellll, it’s Not peak important that someone without the power to do that already be afforded that power, and/or wellll power disparities are all problems of Individuals & power is Deserved via inherent superiority / merit sooo if someone’s abused then They need to individually make the change to stop being abused, and/or, underlying the previous sentiment, wellll maybe some people can’t be considered as much of people as other people & they deserve less, if a woman is abused by her husband then there’s nothing wrong with that b/c it’d be nice if every man Chose to treat the woman they own better, but they don’t have to, we can’t change that, how horrible if divorces are more available & women can have money & sign for shit w/o cosigning from a man. if a child is abused by their parent/s then that is that. what are we gonna do, let children not be confined to their home? just be Okay with someone going heartless sicko mode & separating from their family / parents??? that’s Bad, so it must be bad of the person, You Gotta be part of that family relationship No Matter What

anyways this has gone on a ways & idk. analysis focused on power vs theoretical “what might people who do Xyz really feel, does it matter if we think they are shitty & malicious enough / if things would be okay if Individuals who are good & benevolent were in such positions of power in such systems that dehumanize those who are Othered for being Undeserving (of being the have-nots that they are) in perhaps a chicken & egg kind of way. idk, if we’re gonna boil things down to The Individual, maybe it can be the Self & The Other & the failure to recognize the other as Also the self and yourself as the other, or certainly if not to recognize it, then to disrespect this, the border between that self and Other(tm) rather than the relationship that is inherent to Coexisting beyond even any direct interaction or emotional component....abuse as a power imbalance, abuse directly counteracted through material support / empowering of the abused, the choice to Prioritize this rather than more focus on what someone who’s abusing people might need to personally choose to stop doing that. (whole sidenote about how like, someone abused by someone may be sympathetic to them, see them as a person, care about them, want better for them, etc etc etc etc as would Theoretically be Ideal, and they can still recognize they’re being abused and do what they gotta do to Stop being abused. at the same time, do we think someone has to sympathize w/their abuser hard enough for long enough before they Deserve to try to take steps focused on [not being abused]. which they probably have done, but you know, what is The Perfect Victim and why should that matter / be a contingency/priority. people who Are trying to sympathize long enough & hard enough to see if that helps the abuse stop? oh well then that’s their fault, isn’t it. people who are just trying to extricate themself from the situation? oh well then that’s their fault, isn’t it, just Giving Up and abdicating their Personal Responsibility to improve the relationship, two way street isn’t it). b/c the Abuse Must Be A) Defined By One Party's Personal Malice & B) Extraordinary Enough As To Be A Rare Outlier “personal responsibility” framework will quickly lead to blaming victims if you follow any thread of that analysis very far. and like, how the hell do you enact anything about that Theory lol. results in Shrugging and “well i mean, i’m not abusing a partner or anything, so....?” and interpreting ppl talking more about Abuse as like, wuh oh, didn’t use to hear about it this much as though it were this common or like there was this many avenues for it to exist, people must be playing too fast & loose with it....now to lecture people about the only Real Ways to be transgender, or how well, isn’t everyone kind of autistic, don’t go self diagnosing, you just want that special kind reverent treatment autistic ppl get, or maybe i’m uncomfortable enough having to rework my expectations / understanding of [an autistic person] to include You, who i think is normal, i mean, I Would Know if someone’s autistic b/c it’s so extraordinary & unusual, and then when i Was interacting with them i’d get uncomfortable & avoid them i guess. oh don’t tell me you’re also Not Cis even though i think you look cis and aren’t [my idea of what makes someone not cis] Enough and god now i have to go through the hassle of using pronouns i didn’t already?? god forbid of changing my own understanding of you and of Gender Identities & what it can mean to not be cis & that being cis isn’t some direct translation of Universal Objective(tm) Reality??? that’s way too much to ask and you’re making it My Problem & why do you want to be special, i don’t get to be special, this is the down with cis bus running me over, very unfairly btw

anyways, have some more politics about it, is the idea. p.s. this really is brought to you by seeing a post the other day saying that Walking On Eggshells isn’t A Good Way To “Treat” Someone’s Anger Issues like, that is apples to oranges, friend. someone doesn’t start walking on eggshells b/c their intent is to make someone Different, it’s A Response to the situation they’re in and it’s about their own survival. which like Oh Wow Selfish like, yeah, if you deem someone looking out for their own basic wellbeing as selfish if they don’t sacrifice that for the sake of the person infringing on it for Their Own sake. don’t have to in turn blame that Angry Person for being “too selfish” or something either, and what will Treat them / Improve their own situation? is a separate matter from how other people around them are picking up trauma responses to look out for themselves lol. taking that path of “ummm having cptsd doesn’t make the situation better for the other person” (no shit they might resent it if they notice someone avoiding them / being afraid of them. doesn’t make it a matter of then blaming that person for doing so b/c it’s Part Of The Problem, it’s a consequence of the preexisting problem, not any cause of it) is like “ummm Leaving that abusive partner or Cutting Off Contact w/that abusive family member or Quitting that job or Unfriending that acquaintance? doesn’t make the situation any better???” like, you’re mid-stride stepping into the wider world of victim-blaming with momentum not on your side