Standing Up For Yourself
First of all, are you sitting down? If not, find a patch of grass or a chair. Because we might be going about this all wrong when we work so hard to stand up for ourselves.
Many of my clients are worn to a frazzle trying to justify/argue/defend/explain (often called J.A.D.E.) their lived experience and the traumatic impact upon them. Friends, family and faith communities wonder why we are upset/angry/easily triggered/defensive/emotionally vulnerable when they ask “why you can’t get over it”, or advise that we “need to forgive”, or accuse us of “being the reason why the family can’t move on.” Most of us try desperately to stand up for ourselves when we really shouldn’t have to do that because we were the victims. And no matter how hard we try, it usually never works. If you have been caught in the J.A.D.E. quicksand, you aren’t alone.
It’s pretty hard to stand up for yourself in a calm and balanced way when confronted with a strange version of the logical fallacy that is called the complex question. (Wikipedia says of the complex question fallacy—"It is committed when someone asks a question that presupposes something that has not been proven or accepted by all the people involved.” For us, the assumptions of the question, advice, accusation are wrong. For example, “is it even possible to “get over it” entirely and they don’t actually know what “it” is. Maybe we don’t “need to forgive” at all, or maybe we have already! Or, perhaps the family “can’t move on” because they want it to be my fault and I refuse be a martyr! Whatever assumption(s) is wrong, is what we can’t challenge without escalating the interaction and making it worse. In the emotional deconstruction happening within us, we can’t deconstruct effectively the logical fallacy that caused it.
Maybe you, like me, have a personal history of needing to stand up for yourself. Perhaps at school, in the family, in sports, at work, or other settings, you had to learn to stand up for yourself against bullies, liars, cheaters, and/or misogyny or racism in order to survive. But when we try stand up for ourselves with people who aren’t the person who has harmed us, it’s an even more difficult challenge.
My stomach is tied up knots right now just thinking about it. Sometimes I just want to cry from the sense that I am completely ineffective at being a steward of a truth that nearly killed me, and then made me think about killing myself. That’s the nature of the abyss that opens up when people will not stand at the edge with us and see how much it has taken to keep from going over before they question, advise or accuse. We cannot always be sure that the same truth still may yet make a final, permanent claim on us. We’ve learned that the worst is possible and the unimaginable worst is just as possible.
It seems those people who question, advise or accuse so easily decide the problem is us—not what someone they know did to us. There is something “wrong” with us that becomes worse than the unimaginable worst we faced in the one we loved and supported and were loyal and faithful to in our primary relationship. The false “worse wrong” in us stands between people and the truth that we cannot forget.
Sometimes that last sentence helps us to move away, reassess friendships, keep family at arm’s length, change careers or step away from spiritual institutions. But most of us wish we had a few other options than those. How do we stand up for ourselves without disintegrating into a blubbering, raging, terrifying cartoon caricature of ourselves?
You can:
1. Stand up for yourself. Understand that your story is nuclear. It will be too dangerous for some to bear. They may not have the capacity, the bandwidth, the personal resources, to hear it, entertain any chance that it might be true, or touch it with compassion and support. Don’t tell it to just anyone. Test the waters: “I do not have an easy story and most people are not up to bearing its truth. Please accept that, for now, I don’t want to get into this with you.”
2. Stand up for yourself. Understand that your story is sacred. It is a pearl not meant to be thrown before swine. Its wounds are sacred wounds and need whatever you trust as the ground of your being and source of your life for healing. Your story is sacred. Do not give to those it who have no sacred grounding or life source that holds medicine for your sacred wounds. Don’t expose yourself to more harm. Test the waters: “My wounds are sacred wounds. They touched what matters most to me. Please understand that I am careful with who I allow to walk there with me.”
3. Stand up for yourself. Make people earn the privilege to know the details that nearly killed you. Don’t just hand them over. Try using a response something like this: “There is a great deal you do not know about this story. I know that because I’ve never told you what really was happening. Please bear that in mind before you pass judgement on me.”
4. Stand up for yourself. If you are ready to tell them something: “I am prepared to tell you a few things about what he did that you don’t know. But it’s not easy information and once you know, you can’t unknow it. So, if and when you are okay with that, maybe we can talk at another time.” If this doesn’t break through the fallacy of the complex question problem, as least it might mean they stop the questions, advice, accusations. In any case, it puts you in the driver’s seat for deciding when that disclosure happens, what you will share, and how you will share it.
There’s a possible way for some to be better stewards of their lives, and stand up for themselves by taking control of what is often an unexpected interaction about a deeply traumatizing experience. Don’t give more ammunition for their gossip groups or “discussion” about you and your “problems” by struggling in the J.A.D.E. quicksand. It never works for ending your social isolation and often makes it works. Take control of your story.
And it looks like another blog will be about suggesting ways to share some of your story with another person you have decided is “up to it.” Meanwhile, your story is safe here.
With you,
Diane.