Posted by Larry Hoover on January 20, 2004, at 10:06:30
As you probably know, I've had considerable time to think about what I might say, but, truth be told, I could have written this two weeks ago. (In fact, I pretty much did, but there are few changes to make in it, except to reflect ongoing events.) Sometimes your knowledge of a situation is nearly complete, and you need but one final incident to permit a clear decision to be made. This is one of those times.
I cannot return to Babble. It is not good for me to do so. I seldom speak of myself in the open manner in which I'm about to, but that's only because I don't talk about myself all that much. There are so many *other* fascinating things to talk about. ;-)
One of the things that I struggle with, on a daily basis, is PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). It's been a part of my existence for so long, that I don't know me other than that way. It took me over a year of discussions with my therapist (and a mugging, which gave me acute PTSD on top of the chronic), for me to even accept the conceptual framework of PTSD. Now, I have no doubt. One of the obligations of self-care with PTSD is to choose environments. Of course, you can't predict with certainty what any environment will hold, but choosing environments at least permits the illusion that you're doing all that you can for yourself.
When I first found Babble, it must have been in its Wild West days, because I recall thinking it was too raunchy for me. Maybe my memory is foggy on that point, but anyway... I found Babble again a little over a year ago, and I thought, "This is a good thing. This is a place where I can fit in." (If you feel otherwise, please permit me my conceit.) Structured as it is, in such a way that verbal violence is minimized, a PTSD person might find discourse and support without (excess) distress. Like a duck to water, I took to it.
It took me a while to get my bearings, to determine how it works, and who was who, and so on. My problem is that I never really did figure out how it works, or perhaps more succinctly, how I can make it work for me.
My childhood was characterized by arbitrary and capricious acts. If you follow certain kinds of family dynamic theory, I was the family scapegoat. It didn't matter what was wrong, it somehow was made to be my fault. I desperately sought to understand the rules, so that I might avoid subsequent verbal and physical violence, but it took me more than thirty years to decide that there never were any rules. There were patterns, I suppose, but nothing that could ever be used to determine whether it was a duck or a goose. I kept looking for the line (between being good and being bad). I never found it. Sometimes things (the abuse) made a little sense, but there were other times when I didn't even know *what* was wrong. And, with a child's world-view, I couldn't possibly know that it really had nothing to do with *me* at all. I was fulfilling a role. If 'all the world's a stage', then I had a very bad role in a very bad play. That's the intellectual perspective. The emotional landscape is still filled with echoes and reflections and mysterious ghosts of my formative years.
I'll just try and paint a brief generic "picture" from my childhood. My brother and sister would taunt me and provoke me, with the sole purpose of getting me to the point of acting out. My mother, on hearing the disturbance, would arrive on the scene. With no regard to the context, without even the pretext of trying to determine what was going on, would simply declare, "It's over. Stop." If sufficiently disturbed, I might cry. Wrong. I'd be met with, "What are you crying about? I'll give you something to cry about!" I hadn't done anything wrong. It wasn't over, notwithstanding declarations that it was. I just wanted to be okay, to have my boundaries respected. And in return, I got verbal, emotional, and physical violence, compounded by having real feelings trivialized and ignored.
I hope only to show that rules, boundaries, intent, and consequences remain important to me. If there are problems in such areas, I want to discuss the whole thing. The absolute worst thing, for me, is the "silent treatment". I don't expect people to deal with things on my timetable. I just want to be acknowledged. Second worst would be "making nice". Call a spade a spade.
PTSD is a weird beast. 9/11 and the WTC (I have trouble even using that acronym, still, after all this time) very nearly caused me to disintegrate. If I hear a siren, I choke up. Somebody needs help. If somebody asks me for my help? I'll do what I can. PTSD's very much a part of my identity, just as is my intellect.
So, now to the block thing, and why I can't return to Babble. If I have erred (this time), it is purely in style, and not content. I truly believe I did nothing wrong.
I'm an academic (disabled). I have no doubt, that if I had never become disabled, I would now be a professor, doing good scientific research, and teaching others how to do good scientific research. There are certain things that come with that environment, and one is style. You use the passive voice. Now, that's a grammatical term. Here's an example. Active voice: "I added 40.0 mg of the reagent..." Passive voice: "40.0 mg of the reagent was added..." It's a scientific/academic requirement. Here I am, trying to write a personal message, and I can go back and find examples of the passive voice herein. It's integral to my style of communication. If I'm not actively communicating with a specific person, I will not use first and second person, and I will default to passive voice. Moreover, if others have expressed a similar opinion, it is also a default to employ ellipsis (implied words not literally stated). (In my opinion, and that of others) X is true. (See references, as listed.) You may lead the geek to Babble, but you can't take the geek out of the geek. Sorry for the mangled metaphor.
Mair said it very well. Thank you.http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20031120/msgs/297774.html
(Aside: Sometimes it only takes the reading of a brief passage to know that I really like someone, and I like you Mair. I'm sorry we don't any longer have this board in common, to become better acquainted.)
I'm going to mangle another metaphor here....it feels like I have the Sword of Bob-ocles dangling over my head. The very fact that Bob rephrased my statement (that got me blocked) as a first person active voice statement that was acceptable to him (which did not appreciably change the meaning of what I said) demonstrates that the issue was style, not content. No "please rephrase". Nope. Lar had to be wrong.
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20031120/msgs/297507.htmlI've spoken about this rephrasing with many people, and I am not alone in my belief that the first person version is more emotionally charged than is the passive voice version. They both criticize the statements made by maxx, neither one is directed at maxx, but the first person version adds a new construct, the active sense of hurt feelings.
I won't digress into minutiae of argument here, but I sent Bob an email the day after the s*it hit the fan, that he didn't so much as acknowledge. The silent treatment is unacceptable to me. It's just another reason this is not a safe place for me. I've added the text of that email below (as a post script), if you're interested in seeing what I said.(Dr. Bob and I did enter into a dialogue on this matter, but not for some days after I wrote the body of this piece. I have secured Bob's permission to quote from our email discussions, and rather than attach that here as a post script, I have decided to present it in the form of a dialogue, as a separate posting. I really tried to find a common ground acceptable to us both, but I suppose that we must part due to irreconcilable differences. That makes me sad.)
In any case, it's not like I called maxx a fu**wit, or a blowhard or something. Maybe I should have. I haven't used foul language before this, and perhaps I might have received a PBC. In my opinion, I merely agreed with maxx. It looks very much like he knew he was being both provocative and threatening, to me. He concluded the triggering post with, "scary? please, don't kill the messenger..."
Anyway, I'm not going to flog that horse any longer. The point of this long-winded bit of prose is that extensive efforts at compromise, at defining rules more concisely, have come to nought. I cannot agree with Bob on what civility is, but I am certain that it is *not* "making nice", and it would seem that the issue of harmony (in his own FAQ definition) gets ignored altogether. As I cannot foresee that I will be able to abolish the passive voice from my style of prose, and I may call another spade a spade, and, as the next block will be of four week's duration, I cannot permit myself another chance at Babble. The echos from my childhood are just too strong.
Many have spoken about feelings of safety. As currently constituted, this is not a safe place for me. Arbitrary and capricious blocks are acts of violence.I'm wrong because he says I am (I disagree). It's over when he says it's over (I'm blocked). I can't discuss it (direct and indirect forms of the silent treatment). Penalty disproportionate to offense....Automatic doubling of blocks seems just so knee-jerk, with an emphasis on the jerk. Six months for using bs? (Volkswagen makes great cars, but they gave up on the idea of air-cooled rear-engine designs. Sometimes you have to get a new concept going.) I've tried to compromise, but there comes a point where compromise requires giving away too much of self, of core ways of being. I've tried to find some understanding, but it seems to me that all I've accomplished is to no longer be eligible for "please rephrase", because we've already talked about it all, and at great length. Anyway. I could write a book, I guess, but I'm trying not to do that. So.....
This is a farewell post. I'm not saying I'll never come around again. I don't believe in words like never. But I don't see much point, with a four-week block permanently dangling overhead.
Farewell means that. I hope all who read this far have a chance to find some peace in this, and in all their relationships. I hope that I have brought some good into some lives, and that in those where I have not, that life will grant us another chance to make that better.
I have found peace, myself, in borrowed ideas. Peace is where you find it. I'd like to close with one more little snippet of my life, and a prayer.
Some years ago, following a failed attempt at self-medication (augmentation strategy for psych meds), I found myself 12-stepping. Now, there are many flavours of same, and flavours within flavours.....I found myself drawn to a blend of AA and Native American philosophies. And so it was that I found myself attending a combination AA/pow-wow camp-out weekend convention, near the end of summer. I'm trying hard to not get all verbose again....
In the morning, there was a drummer... went through the camp, drumming on a soft deerskin drum, calling all to the sunrise ceremony. It was a beautiful way to wake up. And I came a little late to the sacred fire, as things were already well underway. There was a wedding taking place, in accord with the ways of the Ojibwa. In the Ojibwa philosophy, even the word wedding is something of a misnomer...words fail me (if you can believe that). The elder who spoke, spoke words of such resonance within me that I was transfixed, tears of joy/relief/acknowledgment/community streaming down my face....again, words fail. Afterwards, I went to the elder to thank him for his words, and blabbered on about how I felt somewhat out of place observing such core elements of his culture, like an eavesdropper... and there was both a moment of dissonance in his eyes (Huh?), and then, of deep wisdom. He replied to me that those were the words of the Creator, carried on his voice, and that He had meant them for me to hear, so it can only be a good thing.
And so it is, that if you have come to read this far, that you were meant to read the following prayer, and that it is intended just for you.
Ojibway PrayerOh Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds
And whose breath gives life to everyone,
Hear me.I come to you as one of your many children.
I am weak .... I am small ... I need your wisdom
and your strength.Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever
behold the red and purple sunsets.
Make my hands respect the things you have made.
And make my ears sharp so I may hear your voice.Make me wise, so that I may understand what you
have taught my people, and the lessons you have hidden
in each leaf and each rock.I ask for wisdom and strength,
Not to be superior to my brothers, but to be able
to fight my greatest enemy, myself.
Make me ever ready to come before you with
clean hands and a straight eye.
So as life fades away as a fading sunset.
My spirit may come to you without shame.
Chi mii'gwetch. Giga-waabamin.
Great thanks, and goodbye.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:303199
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20040112/msgs/303199.html