Reading Karyn's posts and DrMeg;s makes me feel very sympathetic for Watson. I really do get how a prolonged period of abuse at the hands of others can narrow your view of the world and make you bitter eventually.
I get it. I want to just hug everyone who has been hurt. But I can't. Can't. Not an issue of I wouldn't. Or a lack of want.
I think a lot of people have issues teasing apart the different discussions. My heart lies with Watson. I know few will believe that, but it does. No one should have to put up with being threatened or bullied in an attempt to silence them - ever. If the discussion was about the bullying of Watson, I would defend her. And that's where my sympathy ends.
Being mentally ill affords me a different view of life than most I think. A big part of my illness is that I have had an incredibly tough life, absurdly tough, to the point I find myself questioning my own recollections, even documented ones. And, a big part of it is that I have an insidious, creeping fog of irrationality that seeps in from time to time and it attempts to take control (and does more often than I am comfortable with). But, I have learned no matter what excuses I have, no matter how much I try to offset my actions and thoughts on the past or on some illness, that I have to stand up and take responsibility for all my actions - everyone.
Everything I do, everything I say is on me. I am the one who chooses how I will act when something occurs. You can call me an asshole - but at least I acknowledge whatever causes one to call me that was caused by me, not others, not the past. I have no one to blame for the way I act. This makes me uncomfortable and ill at ease at times - especially when I think of the past.
I hold others to the same standard. When I deal with my kids I try to impress upon them that it doesn't matter what others do or say, what matters is how the deal with the action or the information. No one in this life can make you do anything. No one in life can take away your ability to think before acting. No one in the life is responsible for how you present yourself, how you deal with a situation or how you rationalize your behavoir. I don't care if someone calls my son X, all I do care about is how my son acts. If my son acts poorly it's on him - end of discussion.
This can make for very comfortable talks, talks where I come of insensitive. I am not. I am anything but. If any thing I am far too sensitive. And that's the problem. One, I think, Watson needs to think about. One that seems to be institutionalised in certain groups. We have people who haven't been victimized, traumatised by the few who have. If women who haven't been victimized are afraid of being victimized it's for a reason. Watson needs to own this, as do others who have made it a point to paint a picture of the world that is slanted and skewed to their own experiences in life. If I projected my experiences on others - well, the Road wouldn't begin to convey the way the world looks.
