Impact is on the Impacted
Or "Compassionate Assholery", or "Trigger Puppies" or "Fragility, how to."This topic is edgy. It is edgy because we have managed, as a society, to somehow create an entangled mess made of power dynamics, comfort/discomfort swamps, morals and ethical binds, personality minefields, convoluted hierarchies, logically inconsistent value systems, penalties and punishment terrors, community recognition and restitution desolations, and an overall relational clusterfuck (that’s a technical term), just to mitigate the fact that we cannot really work well with harm.
I will limit this exploration to the topic of non-malevolent behaviours that trigger old wounds, because malevolent behaviours, i.e. intentional and conscious harm-causing, are a whole different ballgame. Of course we can talk about that too when I am ready to discuss one of my favourite topics as a therapist - Sociopaths and Narcissists - we just won’t do it today.
So these are the ground rules of this post: (1) We will talk about harm that was not intended as harm. It may be accidental, ignorant, or plain dumb. (2) We will talk about triggered pain, not new pain, though they can be easily mistaken as new pain. (3) I will not give “trigger warnings” at all, but I will caution you that I will use some edgy examples and that I trust that you can take care of yourself. (4) These are just words on a screen, nothing harmful is actually going to happen here.
I will also explain why I am not giving you specific warnings, there is rhyme and reason to all of this.
Grab a glass of water, put on nice music, take care of yourself, and let’s go.
So you go to a dance with a broken toe. You know that your toe is broken, some of your friends in your inner circle know that your toe is broken, and even some friendly attuned strangers can tell that there is something blatantly (or very subtly) wonky with the way that you move or carry yourself. You sometimes gently (or not so gently) push people off and away when they come too close to your feet because you fear that they might step on said toe. And it works! Mostly works. Mostly, no one is terribly offended by your shoves. You dance. It feels sooo amazing to dance… You can almost forget that your toe is broken.
Then someone comes in, dances with you with fondness and smiles. And WHa-BAM they accidentally step on your toe, you feel the blood drain from your face, and you fall into this space between shock and pain. You feel like you are about to faint. Your ears are ringing and you see stars… What a fucking oaf! What were they thinking?!
You are so angry with them and the damage they may have caused, and you scream… You scream in pain, and in fear that some extra damage happened, you shout at them because you are in terrible pain. They sure seem confused about it… and don’t really know what you want from them. They accidentally stepped on you, Jeez! What’s the big deal? They said sorry!… But you are in so much pain, you scream at them that they are assholes. They tell you that they absolutely had no intention to hurt you, and you scream that they should stop being “defensive”. You are so hurt. At this point, they look pissed and they just won’t apologise to you further or even try to help. The jerks! You are livid. You tell your friends to never dance with this asshole. Not only are they a toe-stepper, they are obviously defensive, non-apologetic, and clearly narcissistic assholes with zero capacity for empathy.
Look.
I get it. You are massively hurt. Your toe absolutely needs taking care of, and you need care. Of course! This is in no way shape or form an appeal to deny you of care, of recognition, of restitution and more. It’s just a calling-out of a pattern that has been massively prevalent. That you are hurt? doesn’t mean that it is anyone’s fault, even if they literally stepped on your broken toe… nor does it give you the right to attack them. And by doing that, you’re actually getting in your own way to be receiving care right now.
Why? Because people make mistakes all the time, and we can be very generous and gracious about it. If your toe wasn’t already wounded this would not have been an issue at all. You’d say “Ouch!”, The other person would say “Oh my god! I am so sorry!!” and you would say “That’s ok!” or somesuch… and that would be it. But because YOU were previously wounded, the impact has been far far greater than the accidental stepping, and that, my dear friend, is on you, and not on the stomper.
Take a deep breath with me.
Yeah, I really just said that.
I am not saying it is your fault you are wounded! Or that you were stepped on. God, of course not! I am not saying anything even remotely close to that. What I am saying is that in the scheme of things, what makes this situation different than a simple minor silly neutral accident that could be easily laughed at and brushed off, or graciously forgiven? Is not the stomper. It is you, you, and your toe.
And they are defensive, absolutely. But that’s because you just attacked them.
Trigger Warnings!
The nature of trauma responses is that at the core, they are an avoidance response. They link that which had already happened to the context in which it had happened, in such a way, that the two may become practically inseparable. It is literally what happens inside the brain: “Fire together, Wire together” - The nerves figuratively wrap around each other and they think that they are one. It takes some work to detangle that, and the good news is, that it is doable. Some of us (hi) are certified psychedelic-assisted therapists and that's what we help people with.
Say that you got bit by a dog as a child. Your smart brain couples the impact with the context - Pain and fear from the event itself, with All The Possible Dogs. That is to say: The very specific pain response - with the generalization of the context. All dogs are terrifying and may be dangerous at all times. This is hardly the truth, but it is a pretty solid strategy to avoid death. The brain is pretty darn invested in us not dying. Yeah. Fuck dem sweet puppies. Dey Dangerous!
You (and not just you) may have been sexually abused/raped once/a million times, this is indeed horrible. I will not make light of this in any way shape or form. But now we are at this place where societally, all nudity is bad, all men are bad, all cocks are bad, and practically all sex is bad. We have full-on religious doctrines taking care of that shit for us. What is this if not a collective context avoidance pattern?
Ironically, many rapists don’t end up in jail. So instead of taking care of the harm causers, we punish all of society by making nudity. sex. and all men bad. Yep. Yep. Solid plan.
Fragility Much?
My child does not identify through gender, and neither do I, actually. I mean, many people assume that I am “a woman”, which is hardly the case, and if I am not that, I am likely “a man”, which is also hardly the case, and if I am neither, then I must be “non-binary”, which, again, is hardly the case. So I must be “agender” or “gender non-conforming”… Which really, is not the case. Because if I was gender non-conforming, I would have to acknowledge that this construct pertains to me, which I do not. Much like I do not identify with organized religion or with being “Not an Orange”. I am me, religiously, sexually, gender-wise, race-wise. I am me. I encourage you to be you too.
Basically, I am saying that I don’t care if there are people who “conform to gender”, I will not identify as “someone who does not conform to gender.” (You can read more about this in a previous post about identity and reference groups)
So when my kid told me in tears that “when someone refers to them as She” it “hurts”? I said “Honey, people will project the shit unto you day in and day out… You will have no control over whether they will call you He, She, They, or schmee-schmee. Let them. We can go around trying to control the idea of who we are in all the minds, that’s an interesting, if futile, endeavour. And the bottom line is that You know who you are. And the people who care about you and you care about them should know too.”
We need to help the kid be confident and strong in who they are, and “padded” well emotionally and physically, spiritually and intellectually to face the world, and not pad the entire fucking world, Woke style, so that everyone can run around willy nilly and never bump into anything sharp… GAWD. That strategy is SO off. And we do try to do that! and then someone comes in and bumps into you, and you scream bloody murder. That doesn’t make any sense yall. That’s fragility in the making. And it really goes against everything we know about the ANTERIOR MIDCINGULATE CORTEX, resiliency, well-being and more.
“But it is not just about that,” I added, “if it truly matters to you that many people will have more awareness of this idea of gender identity? advocate, write, speak, teach… Just don’t get too indignant about people you do not know and do not care about, missing you, or projecting things on you, or not knowing the fullness of your being.” That’s fragile.
Letting others know who we are is fully on us, not on them. if we care… if we even care…
So, the other day, someone asked me if I am “consenting to touch” and I said, “are you really projecting this level of fragility on me, that if you had touched me and I was not OK with it you wouldn’t know?” He laughed, he knows me well. And yes, there are people who still freeze, and we cannot just assume that they will be able to shove us off, or that it will be safe for them to tell someone to bugger off… If I feel that the other person cannot handle their own boundaries? I have a concern for them and I am a no to them. I will recommend a good wilderness or psychedelic therapist for them though.
Love Grenade
So you go to a dance with a broken toe, and you are not even aware that it is broken anymore. You have been walking on the foot forever, and you completely forgot that it was ever wounded.
The following is a real thing that happened.
I was on a call with my coach, and he pulled out… a grenade. On camera. It was full-sized, right colour, the ring still attached - a pretty convincing live grenade. I had a moment. I am a war zone graduate. I grew up steeped in this, though I was not exposed to it much over the last 15 or so years, until last October.
Looking at this spectacle, and knowing that this really may be real, I lost connection to the present moment and my brain was calculating going back and forth between reptilian and the cerebral cortex. Is he in danger? Is this his way of playing with death? Of shocking me? I can’t say that I freaked out, I didn’t, but I definitely was in a “what da…” calculating out-of-body second and a half. A cloud ran over my face, and I think I lost some colour. We continued talking normally for a moment before I said:
”This triggered me, give me a sec.” I rarely use this language. I was already fully back in my faculties, and wanted to calm my systems before I understood what is in front of me.
“Yeah, I should have thought that it might trigger you, with your history, I should have said something.” He said. He showed me it was plastic, and explained its meaning. It was not a live grenade… it was a Love grenade. Aww. He started saying something about trauma, or trigger warnings or somesuch. I stopped him.
“First, I am totally fine.”I said. “I am grateful for the reminder that I have things to still process and work on. But fuck if I am going to let you take responsibility for an impact that has nothing to do with you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
I was not holding my punches… This topic is critical.
“What if my dad raped me when I was a child while saying "I love you”, would you think that you were not okay ever using those words? What if someone killed my mom in front of me, while laughing, would you think that we should ban laughter, because it might be very ‘traumatic’ for someone? Just laughter around me? Laughter in general? Does this make any sense?”
“The worst had already happened,” I said. “The worst had already happened.”
“You couldn’t have known what my history is, you shouldn’t worry about guessing everyone’s potential triggers for them, and I definitely have no expectation from anyone to never ever trip my wires. or take responsibility when they accidentally do it, it is NOT their responsibility, it is mine, and the community’s. And sometimes the perpetrator, if they are capable of taking responsibility, but hey, they are not the ones I would choose to be fixing this. It is my job to do that, with a little help from my friends. I am grateful that you tripped my wire because now I know that I still have some residue there. That’s on me to work with, and on what caused this, but how could this ever be on you??”
We cannot possibly be protecting every possible context of harm, just because someone experienced something within it. We cannot as a society start banning All The Puppies, AND “I love you”s, AND Laughter, AND men, AND sex, AND touch, AND pronouns. COME ON you people. COME ON. When did we become so fragile?
My son, by the way, was startled pretty badly by a dog when he was little. He was terrified of dogs for quite a while. When we met a dog on the street, I would say to the dog owner that my kid is still afraid of dogs, and would they be willing to mitigate his fear? They were invariably very sweet. Some picked up the dogs or leashed them. And some introduced the dogs to him. Little by little, this kiddo became a very proud dog whisperer. Now he loved dogs. You could feel his pride the first time he stayed despite his fears and decoupled some of the ideas he had about dogs. Isn’t it marvellous how the brain can do that too?
This may be the edgiest example yet for me: If I hear another person say to me that though they are truly poly in their core identity, they are committed, skilled, present, loving (in the true sense of the word, don’t get me started…) but they cannot date other people because their partner “was traumatised” by their latest cheating ex? I will scream. They were a bad person, not you. Your partner definitely has some shit to work through, and I am so so grateful that you love them so much that you want to show up to the process. Hopefully, you will be a truly loving partner, who will not be controlled by the context of your partner’s pain.
Did I mention that I am a Wilderness therapist? We are essentially outdoor behavioural therapists, we help to heal things by healing their context and by healthy conscious exposure, in this healthy context, to decouple the firing wirings. Not by avoidance.
We arrived at a time when no one can do anything anymore without catering to a specific type of fragility. Instead of raising people to have spines, strength, and stamina, regardless of gender, WITH the societal mechanisms of (preferably loving) restitution, we raise humans to be delicate fragile indignant beings and tell them that the way to go is to make sure that the world will not be shitty to them. Because they are oh so precious! And they cannot handle even the simplest things… and anyone who says “she” is an ignorant meanie. They may be ignorant, they may be mean, they may have a whole nother idea about pronouns, they may be available to learn something about you, and maybe cannot remember your name, so why are you bugging them now with your identity in the context of gender?
Are we really that fragile? How did we come to that?? No one can handle that their mom was not super warm when they were little, so they harm others. And demand that everyone will be “trauma-informed”.
So here we are. Now. Did I say that we shouldn’t be taking care of people who are hurt? harmed? Did I say that people with broken toes shouldn’t go dancing? Where did I say that? I did not. All I am saying is that the worst had already happened. No one who triggers it by touching the context accidentally is a harm-causer. Period.
So what are you suggesting, Nitsan? That we should just walk around with impact and not be doing anything about it?! Quite the opposite.
I want everyone to be trauma-informed about themselves. I want our society to be trauma informed in strengthening and stabilising harmed people into health and resilience, like an ER and hospitals do. Not moving them into living in cotton wool and padded cages and punishing non-malevolent clumsy beings for stepping on toes.
I think that when we are triggered, it is a reminder that there are things that still need attention, care, and healing. There’s still a wound and a pain that is not resolved and can run us and make us into assholes who attack other people righteously and indignantly because we were hurt. Which is likely exactly what causes their pain, and maybe even someone like that causes your pain in the first place.
It is not necessarily our job to take care of it all on our own. That’s why we have friends, therapists, shamans, healers.
I think that as a society we should create more recognition, restitution, rehabilitation, and much more. But we shouldn’t do is cater to triggers and pad the world. Padding the world prevents growth and perpetuates harm.
And there is also intentional harm. But let’s not throw the baby with the bath water. Let’s not throw all the puppies with the biting dog. Let’s not throw all the non-malevolent accidental toe steppers with the person who broke your toe to begin with.
Let’s help people heal instead of allowing them to attack or attack anyone who comes near them.
Please, please, please
No more melodies
They lack impact, they're petty
They've been made up already
Please please please
No more maladies
I'm so tired of crying
You'd think I was a siren
But me and everybody's on the sad, same team
And You can hear our sad brains screaming:
Give us something familiar
Something similar
To what we know already
That will keep us steady
Steady, steady, steady
Steady, going nowhere.