Part of what's so hard for me in this is that I have had to teach myself not to take advantage of people, and you make it so damn easy to take advantage of you that I sometimes find myself starting to backslide. This situation is also a great example of that. Low self-esteem is the only thing that might have kept me from saying, with full knowledge of your situation, "Well, if you think it's worth it, do it." Now I have ethics in place of the low self-esteem (oh, they are so not the same thing!), which I feel better about but which are also less reliable. In short, that makes it really difficult for me to be around you when you're being so self-sacrificing, because I have to constantly remind myself that just because you want to throw yourself on your sword doesn't mean it's right for me to say "Here, let me hold that steady for you".
And if you can't be convinced any other way that these trends of yours are damaging to friends and friendships, imagine how you'd feel if a friend came to you and said, "Hey, Brian! I want to throw myself on my sword! Will you hold it steady for me?" Afterwards, no matter how much you knew it was his choice, no matter how much you knew that if you'd said "no" he might have found someone else, you'd know that you'd contributed to his demise, and you'd have to live with that knowledge in yourself. Enabling sucks for everyone. Please, please try not to put your friends in the position of holding your sword for you. If you're going to damage yourself, at least do it yourself. I'm not exactly stupid and it's still really easy for me to get drawn into these patterns of neglect-and-support, as with my first reaction of feeling that I had to make decisions for you because I didn't think you could make them yourself. I know I'm not the only one who does it and I hope we all clue in and stop before you end up stabbing yourself, over and over, via people who care about you.
I don't want to be your parent. I don't want to be a "wayward teenager". I want to be your friend. Friends are equals. That means that you hold me in the same esteem as yourself (within a reasonable margin of error, say +/- 2%). Let me know when that's something you think you can do, even if it means regarding me as poorly as you regard yourself. I'd still prefer that to being forced to consider and treat you as though you were inferior, when I know perfectly well that you aren't. I may think your judgement is sometimes faulty, and we certainly have different priorities, but that doesn't make you a lesser human being and I'll be damned if I'll keep buying into your claim that you are.
Your decisions are yours and I won't argue with them. I won't shy away from telling you when I think you're wrong, though. That's what friends do, because they consider each other worth improving, worth taking the time to talk to and argue with and convince and learn to understand. If you were worthless, I'd walk away. You can take my sticking around as proof to the contrary.
(Yes, that's calmer. Calm enough that I think I can go to sleep now. I hope you'll respond when you get a chance, but it's fine if you don't. I've said what I need to say.)
just because you want to throw yourself on your sword
Interesting... because when I choose to do something, or help someone, I don't feel hopelessly self-sacrificial about it. I might grumble to myself if it is kind of an unreasonable request, or the third time they've asked for something that week, but I generally am not walking around feeling martyred.
you'd have to live with that knowledge in yourself
Which sounds like assisting in self-abuse, or like I'm beating myself up by volunteering. Which arguably also assumes that I'm not capable of making my own informed choices...
The closest thing I've done to enlisting others in self-abuse was in a certain LJ flamewar a year or so ago, and the other parties did not indicate that they were conscious of the role. Certain I wasn't volunteering to help those guys! Heh.
I didn't think you could make them yourself
You admittedly fight to not take advantage of others... I admittedly tend to put others' needs ahead of my own priority-wise. So there is a natural tension. I *can* make them, but the ethics and basis may be sufficiently strange to you that it seems uninformed.
You can take my sticking around as proof to the contrary.
I consider you my friend, and take your criticism and comments as a gift. I don't consider myself worthless, either... heh. In many respects, I'm an arrogant SOB who believes that the poly community and his friends are lucky to have someone with his skills, talents and connections... but I don't let that side out very often in public.
In many respects, I'm an arrogant SOB who believes that the poly community and his friends are lucky to have someone with his skills, talents and connections... but I don't let that side out very often in public.
Maybe you should? Maybe it would help? Not out-and-out arrogance, but dude... knowing your own worth. It's a good thing, I think.
I'm working on it, slowly. As a kid, any time I appeared to display openly any self-esteem, I got beaten up by schoolyard bullies. Or mocked and humiliated, later on. So I learned to show the world a self-effacing facade, especially when I felt threatened in some way. And then had to be satisfied with blowing the grade curve, quietly, for revenge.
It has taken years to let out this much... but inside, I know my own worth. Damn straight. ;-)
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jay
no subject
Date: 2004-04-21 08:20 am (UTC)Part of what's so hard for me in this is that I have had to teach myself not to take advantage of people, and you make it so damn easy to take advantage of you that I sometimes find myself starting to backslide. This situation is also a great example of that. Low self-esteem is the only thing that might have kept me from saying, with full knowledge of your situation, "Well, if you think it's worth it, do it." Now I have ethics in place of the low self-esteem (oh, they are so not the same thing!), which I feel better about but which are also less reliable. In short, that makes it really difficult for me to be around you when you're being so self-sacrificing, because I have to constantly remind myself that just because you want to throw yourself on your sword doesn't mean it's right for me to say "Here, let me hold that steady for you".
And if you can't be convinced any other way that these trends of yours are damaging to friends and friendships, imagine how you'd feel if a friend came to you and said, "Hey, Brian! I want to throw myself on my sword! Will you hold it steady for me?" Afterwards, no matter how much you knew it was his choice, no matter how much you knew that if you'd said "no" he might have found someone else, you'd know that you'd contributed to his demise, and you'd have to live with that knowledge in yourself. Enabling sucks for everyone. Please, please try not to put your friends in the position of holding your sword for you. If you're going to damage yourself, at least do it yourself. I'm not exactly stupid and it's still really easy for me to get drawn into these patterns of neglect-and-support, as with my first reaction of feeling that I had to make decisions for you because I didn't think you could make them yourself. I know I'm not the only one who does it and I hope we all clue in and stop before you end up stabbing yourself, over and over, via people who care about you.
I don't want to be your parent. I don't want to be a "wayward teenager". I want to be your friend. Friends are equals. That means that you hold me in the same esteem as yourself (within a reasonable margin of error, say +/- 2%). Let me know when that's something you think you can do, even if it means regarding me as poorly as you regard yourself. I'd still prefer that to being forced to consider and treat you as though you were inferior, when I know perfectly well that you aren't. I may think your judgement is sometimes faulty, and we certainly have different priorities, but that doesn't make you a lesser human being and I'll be damned if I'll keep buying into your claim that you are.
Your decisions are yours and I won't argue with them. I won't shy away from telling you when I think you're wrong, though. That's what friends do, because they consider each other worth improving, worth taking the time to talk to and argue with and convince and learn to understand. If you were worthless, I'd walk away. You can take my sticking around as proof to the contrary.
(Yes, that's calmer. Calm enough that I think I can go to sleep now. I hope you'll respond when you get a chance, but it's fine if you don't. I've said what I need to say.)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-25 12:35 am (UTC)Interesting... because when I choose to do something, or help someone, I don't feel hopelessly self-sacrificial about it. I might grumble to myself if it is kind of an unreasonable request, or the third time they've asked for something that week, but I generally am not walking around feeling martyred.
you'd have to live with that knowledge in yourself
Which sounds like assisting in self-abuse, or like I'm beating myself up by volunteering. Which arguably also assumes that I'm not capable of making my own informed choices...
The closest thing I've done to enlisting others in self-abuse was in a certain LJ flamewar a year or so ago, and the other parties did not indicate that they were conscious of the role. Certain I wasn't volunteering to help those guys! Heh.
I didn't think you could make them yourself
You admittedly fight to not take advantage of others... I admittedly tend to put others' needs ahead of my own priority-wise. So there is a natural tension. I *can* make them, but the ethics and basis may be sufficiently strange to you that it seems uninformed.
You can take my sticking around as proof to the contrary.
I consider you my friend, and take your criticism and comments as a gift. I don't consider myself worthless, either... heh. In many respects, I'm an arrogant SOB who believes that the poly community and his friends are lucky to have someone with his skills, talents and connections... but I don't let that side out very often in public.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-27 12:28 am (UTC)Maybe you should? Maybe it would help? Not out-and-out arrogance, but dude... knowing your own worth. It's a good thing, I think.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-01 06:44 am (UTC)It has taken years to let out this much... but inside, I know my own worth. Damn straight. ;-)