Many years ago, there was a man in my life who told me that he couldn't bear to hurt people. What this meant to him was he felt that if he did cause me pain, I should not tell him because that would be far too traumatic to him. That relationship did not go anywhere. It's an experience that has stayed with me over the years because it raises so many questions for me about what any of us feel entitled to do in response to our own distress.
Clearly in this example a line has been crossed. Refusal to take responsibility for causing harm isn't acceptable, no matter what horrors you have in your back history. He certainly had a few, and they entirely justified him in asking for slack to be cut. They did not entitle him to a free pass on shitty behaviour.
There are a lot of people out there who struggle with all kinds of things - the trials and traumas of neurodiversity, chronic pain, limiting conditions, the constant frustrations of bodies that don't work. There are many people living with ongoing trauma and with trauma legacies, dealing with mental illness, and with appalling levels of stress and pressure. Anyone dealing with troubles on those scales is going to mess up sometimes. We all mess up. Hurting and flailing, anyone can make serious mistakes.
There is however a world of difference between asking for understanding when you've messed up, and asking for a free pass. We can afford to be patient and compassionate in face of each other's struggles. There is absolutely nothing that you can struggle with that makes it ok to take that out on someone else or otherwise cause someone harm. If you've got to a point where you genuinely can no longer control yourself (it happens, I've been there twice) that raises significant issues.
Needing someone else to be responsible for you because you are unable to take responsibility for yourself isn't asking for a free pass. Babies do not get a free pass, they get support around the things where they have no options at all. This is a state of being that goes with having little or no power over yourself, as with being seriously ill. If however you are able to use your issues as a way to hold power over other people - as with the example I offered at the start of this blog - it is simply a power move.
Human minds are shockingly fragile things. I don't think it's possible to understand just how fragile we are without having experienced a breakdown of mental functioning. It's a hideous, terrifying thing to go through. It robs you of dignity, autonomy and the ability to trust yourself. There but for the grace of (god, goddess, the universe, sheer blind luck) goes any of us. Part of the path back from all of that involves being able to reclaim your power and take responsibility for your actions, and the consequences of your actions.
Being accountable and taking responsibility is the foundation of relationships. If you don't have that, you don't really have anything. People might choose to take care of you, but you can't have equitable relationships without those things. The desire to be comfortable, not to be challenged and to be free from all criticism is a really unhealthy impulse that robs a person of any scope for real human engagement. It's what takes people into narcissism - a condition that is entirely built out of the choices of the person suffering from it. No matter how uncomfortable, it is better to own things and deal with them, and thus get to have the fullest and most meaningful relationships you can.
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