10 tweets · December 2020 · 8 likes · 1 retweets · read on Twitter
This thread may be *more* true for autistic people, but I think it is true for almost everyone: that at the times when others feel most threatened by us, we feel most vulnerable and afraid. And vice versa: those attacking us, on the inside, often feel profoundly powerless.
As a source, I'll share this book, whose basic thesis is about exactly this dynamic. People internalize powerlessness as kids, then as adults explode with dangerous rage *while feeling powerless*. The author figures this is what generates cycles of abuse.
The truth of this (and it's only a partial model - it probably doesn't, for instance, apply to sociopaths) is what underpins the way in which protectiveness doesn't actually work as a stance, because it produces/escalates Arms Race system dynamics.
AND! Protectiveness is not wrong, but necessary and sacred. What I'm saying here is not "be vulnerable" but "develop internal strength & self-trust that learns over time to be safe without being guarded—which is a way more *stable* safety"
The stance that I seek to embody instead is one that is profoundly respectful of all protectiveness & distrust:
People tend to be wary of respecting others' protectiveness, as they fear that that would be a kind of "giving in". This wariness is itself a kind of protectiveness, and afaict tends to reinforce the very thing it's trying not to reinforce. But you can't just "not do that".
Whatever parts of you are raising objections have some important point to make, about a way in which whatever your concept of "respect" here might actually be naive or self-undermining. Those concerns matter and integrating them is whence non-naive trust.
My question is: what would you need in order to easefully, confidently trust that you have a way to respect others' protectivenesses that would not undermine your own vulnerability nor whatever aspects of them you cannot actually trust at the moment?
(it's a little hard to articulate that question in abstract; when I'm working with someone one-on-one about a particular challenging relationship/conversation, I can actually make it a lot more specific & situated, which helps it be a lot more clear)
Would love to hear which parts of this make sense to you, which seem confused/unclear, or any protectiveness that arises! One of my top priorities is refining my articulations of the framework I've developed this year out of which all of what I've said here emerges as obvious.