Sunday, April 20, 2008

sometimes i get tired of the pity party

this is going to be a fairly non-specific post, because i want to make it clear i'm not speaking about any one person or group of people.

but sometimes i get REALLY tired of the whole "pity party" that tends to happen when people are coping with having a history of abuse. sometimes, it feels like there's a culture of saying "oh, woe is me, these bad things happen and there is NOTHING i can do to change this, and now another bad thing has happened, and ANOTHER.... oh, woe is me. oh, i can't do anything to change this."

and then you look at the situation, and it really seems from the outside that there ARE things that person could do, but if you suggest those things, then you are being unsupportive and cruel and not validating how difficult things are.

i guess maybe part of this, on my end, is a reaction to my older sisters.

here's my usual example of the kind of thing i mean (no triggers, unless you get really freaked out by a lack of sympathy on my end, or by financial stuff):

my older sister has trouble with her finances. she tends to spend impulsively, and she doesn't budget. she is well into adulthood--she has spent more of her life over the age of 18 than under it. and she would keep having services shut off, and wound up having her house foreclosed, because of financial mismanagement on her end.

her response? to be upset that our mother hadn't taught her to budget when she was growing up. so it's not my *sister's* fault she had money trouble, because it was our *mother's* job to teach her to budget.

and i often see people (to my knowledge, not people who comment on this blog, in case you're wondering) who do the same thing with their abuse histories. they are like, "oh, i wasn't treated right when i was a baby, so now i am forever scarred, so feel sorry for me."

well, ok, yeah. we do get scarred. it totally sucks. but there are things we can do to change that. particularly once we reach adulthood, we have a LOT of options.

it's not like we can make things perfect, because we can't. yes, there are a lot of things that are hard. and there are days when i can't bear the thought of going on trying to cope and heal.

what i'm objecting to is the people who really do seem to be refusing to move beyond acknowledging the pain. the ones who spend a whole lot of time talking about how everything is so hard, and don't spend time taking responsibility for their own lives. with people online, i try not to say much, because i know that only a tiny part of who they are shows up, and it's entirely possible that they *are* doing a lot of things to improve their lives.

but sometimes, people online remind me so strongly of people in my non-computer life. the ones who, rather than sitting down and learning to budget for themselves, spend twenty or thirty years bemoaning the fact that they weren't taught to budget in childhood. the ones who refuse to take action on their own behalf, because they are still waiting for someone to come and save them.

and, yeah, i'm speaking from a place of privilege. i managed to figure out how to go to college, and because my parents weren't paying for it, that meant that when i left for college, they no longer had any concrete way of controlling me.

i was fortunate enough to not get into an intimate relationship until i'd done enough healing work to be aware of what a healthy relationship looked like.

i have been amazingly lucky in my friends. while we all have our issues, we do seem to be more likely to encourage people towards healthy rather than unhealthy behaviors.

i have also been fortunate in the therapists i've worked with (barring the idiots right after i was in the hospital, but that was two months out of my life, and i was able to see that they weren't doing me any good).

it's not that my life is perfect, or that i don't have hard days. and i don't know, maybe there are people who look at me and my life, and see that same pity party going on. i mean, i'm not working, because of the fact that between fibromyalgia and DID, it's just a struggle to get more than three or four "good days" in a row. and i'm sure there are people who look at me and think "well, if she would just ______ then she could be doing so much better."

so i do try to be sympathetic, and generally, i hold my tongue when people seem focused on having a pity party. sometimes, i even type words of support, trying to be compassionate and respond to their pain.

but then i get frustrated, and just kind of back off. because there are some people who seem to focus so much more on how other people mistreated them, and how they are wounded, than on figuring out how they can take control of their own lives, and change things for the better.

just had to get this off my chest. and apologies to anyone i might have offended by writing this.

5 comments:

Battle Weary said...

I have a 3d friend who started out as a chat/blog friend, who is also DID...and is starting grad school this fall. She and I (they and we? :P) have spoken about this topic togethter, before...not in nearly as much detail though. We both had made the decision to no longer be in contact with a 3rd (decision made separately) because of this very thing. When we discussed it, the reasoning we both had came down to one thing... we can't subject ourselves to someone who doesn't even try (or want?) to "get better". When the constant "feel sorry for me...my life is so bad" starts to impact my own healing, then I can no longer take part. I have to believe this is a good decision for me. Of course I have my own moments like that...but that is the key I think...moments. Not a constant state of being.

I completely understand what you are saying.

I do have to say...finding a way to pay for college sucks!! It looks like I have it all "dialed-in" now, but it was a struggle for sure! And in response to your comment on my hidden place...the 3rd person whom I haven't invited is my T. She reads the blog (rarely comments but does read), and she is pretty smart (a little TOO smart sometimes!) so she probably knows I was talking about her and will bring it up if I don't.

Jigsaw Analogy said...

i think it is the failure to try and/or want to get better that irks me... or the failure to take the necessary responsibility for taking steps to make their lives better, honestly. because i think the people in question definitely *want* to feel better, but they mostly think it's someone else's responsibility to make that happen.

as for paying for college... i acknowledge that i've been lucky so far as that goes, because i am reasonably intelligent and very good at taking tests, which gave me a leg up in getting scholarships. but i was amazed to discover that my siblings all thought that somehow i'd gotten scholarships just because i'm black or something (rather than applying for 40 or 50 scholarships, and getting seven or eight of them). and also, that they assumed i hadn't had to take out student loans in order to pay the rest of my college bills (i did take out loans, and while the debt sometimes stresses me out, i'm still just as glad i did it).

oh, and i was guessing the 3rd person was your t. not sure why, but it seemed likely to me. she might not go, but i don't think it would hurt to tell her you'd *like* her to go.

Patches said...

I think this very same thing sometimes. Like you mentioned it's the failure to try, or really seem to want to change that irks me most, as well as that someone come and save me bit.

Again like you said, it sucks the childhood but we don't have to stay in that victim mindset, if we choose to work to get out of it.

We all have bad days/times. It's the constant bad days/times that become tiresome.

I used to know someone like this in life and over time she just sucked everything I had out. I had no more to give, and when we moved, we didn't stay in touch with her.

Rising Rainbow said...

It's definitely easier to blame our problems on someone else than have to take responsiblity for our own lives. That's why so many people take that road. The road of change is difficult but worth the investment but few really take it seriously. There is a reason they call it the road less travelled.

Mr B The Tech Teacher said...

I think it was Steven Covey who said that unsuccessful people let themselves become a victim of their circumstances. Rather than taking some responsibility for their life and the world around them, these people are always dictated to by what happens to them and as such always place blame on the things around them.
In defense of your sister though, I suffer from a simillar problem with financial management. I am a compulsive spender and never seem to consider consequences of things like not paying taxes and so on. Sometimes i'll even make a conscious choice between something frivolous and something really important-choosing the thing that is going to give me short term pleasure. It's incredibly difficult to stop though, despite being generally intelligent and aware of my choices, i still can't seem to stop doing the wrong thing. Is it lack of self control? A kind of Hedonism? Self destruction? I have no idea!
~Shiv