(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Heroes, Villains and Monsters: who is beyond redemption? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-19 This diary spins off comments on DK member MeJean’s diary which I’ll link below. And it was partly inspired by the picture you see above. ABOUT LAUREN BOEBERT One of MeJean’s of points was that Ms. Boebert probably or may not have known how to behave better given her being raised in poverty, working minimum wage and coming from a dysfunctional family. Then there were posted multiple comments in response to that diary about how when a person reaches a certain age—say, 30 or 40—that “most people” should know how to act in public, how to behave appropriately with others. Anyone of a certain age should know better regardless of the dysfunctional family or the poverty they were born into. To which I say, bullshit. Because I too grew up in poverty and from a dysfunctional family that from what I read was a lot worse than Boebert’s. There are so many directions I could take this—and I’m sure people will take it in directions I neither expect nor want. And I’m at work so I can’t spend as much time on this as I normally would—meaning hours sweating over every line and every detail. I have to be relatively quick about this. Back from 2002 to 2008, I used to belong to a comic book fan community called Talk @ Newsarama. Newsarama was bought by Games Radar many years ago and that fan community no longer exists. We talked about everything and I mean EVERYTHING on those message boards. One of which was a discussion about the 2008 Presidential campaign. Most of those there were liberal, but there were definitely more than a couple conservatives, too. One topic of conversation was would you run for President. Would you do it given the scrutiny and the pressure? I gave that a lot of thought. And what I ultimately decided was my campaign would boil down to one central idea: Who is beyond redemption? Not that I had the ultimate answer to that question. On the contrary, that wasn’t the point. It was to get the discussion about that going. We live in a world nowadays where opiate addiction and overdose is an epidemic. All these people, though, are not going to die en masse from overdoses. Many of them need treatment or are getting treatment. What happens when they complete treatment and want to return to work, to renting an apartment, to reintegrating themselves into their respective communities? I’ve been struggling with addiction to crystal meth amphetamine since it was introduced to me by a guy I hooked up with in 1995. I finally have almost 5 ½ years clean & sober. (For those who are wondering, yes, I’ve had overnight “slips” periodically every 3 to 5 years—but I think all that is far behind me now.) The point is, it’s a part of my past that I can't pretend didn’t happen. That is also true of the incest in my family that happened when I was a child. I can’t just forget it and move on. We know Ms. Boebert grew up poor and working minimum wage fast food jobs. I have the same background. I spent 12 years right out of high school working fast food and retail. My mother had Borderline Personality Disorder. The short version is, my childhood and adolescence was a hellish nightmare of near daily drama and trauma. And that is the extremely abridged, painfully short version. Some of the comments about how people should know better by age 18 or 30 or 40 really hit a nerve with me. Because I can tell you, I didn’t have it all figured out what it meant to be or act like a normal person. Okay, yes, I knew how to behave in theaters (and I suspect Lauren did, too, just that she got caught on camera and couldn’t get out of it by lying). But that isn’t the point. No, an arbitrary chronological age doesn’t mean you just one day wake up and “know better.” Watching other normal people behaving and interacting doesn’t fix you or your problems. I mentioned my mother’s Borderline Personality Disorder because of these 2 books which helped me immensely… The first book (I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me) I discovered while cleaning out and organizing an ex-boyfriend’s garage in Diamond Heights. He was one of the few gay men who could tolerate me and also happened to be attracted to me. He was one of my early Daddies in the Leather community who tried to help me, but eventually I walked away from him for multiple reasons. Then the second book, the DBT Training Manual, was suggested to me by a therapist I had in San Francisco from what was then called New Leaf counseling center. CAVEAT: I AM NOT NOW NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN DIAGNOSED AS BPD. But my mother definitely had BPD and my therapist thought I wasn’t BPD like I was afraid I was. He did, however, believe I picked up many of her self-destructive behaviors, such as suicidal ideation or parasuicidal actions. (My mother repeatedly threatened to kill herself with knives for decades.) DBT teaches basic living skills in four categories: Emotional Management Distress Tolerance Interpersonal Effectiveness Core Mindfulness One of my favorite quotes from the DBT manual applies squarely to those asserting that Lauren Boebert or anyone of a certain age should know better. I’m paraphrasing here, but the gist of it is: A common mistake of patients is assuming and/or acting as if all are prepared to act. ALL ARE NOT! I may have bungled this as I’m quoting from memory. But the point is, no, everyone is not prepared to act correctly or appropriately or even do anything at all. The assumption of a bare minimum level of basic life skills from individuals based on age is a fallacy. All are not prepared to act, appropriately or otherwise! And author Marsha Linehan’s observation is directed at her patients in treatment who have BPD—not those who don’t! Just because you learn DBT’s basic life skills, especially interpersonal effectiveness, does not mean they will always work! Because some people are NOT able to cooperate or interact effectively or appropriately themselves! Then you have to engage core mindfulness, distress tolerance and emotional management precisely because all the interpersonal effectiveness in the world won’t help you if the other person does not know how to behave effectively themselves. Okay, I’ve spent over an hour, maybe 2 working at this while at my job. (Shh! Don’t tell on me!) But this where I get to the title and the picture attached to it. People with Borderline Personality Disorder lean on “splitting” to cope with the trauma they survived. That means splitting people into all good or all bad—they are heroes or villains. Angels or Monsters. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS EVERY WEEK HERE ON DAILY KOS. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are all good and Donald Trump and the Republicans are all bad. Heroes and villains; angels and monsters. In fits of frustration or outrage, people whitewash Democrats of all their faults and demonize all Republicans obliterating all acknowledgement of any good qualities they might have. Couple that with making the same mistake patients with BPD make that Ms. Linehan teaches them which is that mastering all 4 basic living skills will not fix everything. THAT FOR ME WAS THE HARDEST LESSON OF ALL! I became a master of DBT’s basic skills...yet still I struggled. Still people disappointed me or wouldn’t accept that I changed for the better, that I had improved in my ability to deal with life and with people. This isn’t just about Lauren Boebert—it’s about believing or assuming a level of basic competency from people that simply is never a given. ALL ARE NOT PREPARED TO ACT! And here is my addendum to that: ALL ARE NOT ALL GOOD OR ALL BAD. ALL ARE NOT EITHER HEROES OR VILLAINS. The comments from DK members in MeJean’s diaries presume most people have basic life competency in both self-care and interpersonal relationships. Linehan puts the lie to that assumption with Dialectic Behaviorial Therapy when she warns her patients recovering from BPD that sometimes their skills won’t get them perfect or even perfectly consistent results. Everyone is not all bad nor all good. You can master basic skills for living and dealing with people and still situations and conflicts will not work out. People will not cooperate. Your efforts and execution of your skills may be nearly perfect and still the outcomes will anger you, frustrate you, trigger you. In regards to Republicans, poor people, high school dropouts, etc., condemnation of them as all bad—beyond redemption—accomplishes nothing. Worse, it discounts and eliminates any possibility of positive change or improvement. If you want people to make changes to their behavior to solve the climate crisis? If you want them to support abortion and birth control? If you want them to stop demonizing people of color and LGBTQ folks? Writing them off and discounting any chance they’ll change for the better means you’re helping to keep a group of people in a category where they can never, ever help—only do harm. That they can never, ever be a part of the solution. Lastly, I submit myself as the primary example of my thesis. At one point in 1994 when I was 27 years old kvetching and venting in my living room about all my problems in life to a man I was sexually involved with said this: “Oh honey. It should’ve happened by now.” His point was that my life and my efforts were all a failure and that the situation was hopeless. I should just give up and accept my lot in life. 1 year later, feeling despondent and doomed, I said yes to crystal meth when it was offered to me because...well, I was a failure and this is what my circumstances led me to. So obviously, this is what God or the Universe meant for me to do. Of course, that wasn’t true. I just had lost hope—and most of my gay male peers had given up on me ever making something of myself. And wanted nothing to do with me as a friend or a lover. I made a decision in 1988 that I wasn’t going to just settle for managing a Wendy’s and living in an apartment in Dayton. I left from my parents’ home, got on a bus to California and started a new life. When men I knew through my 12 step meetings or the Leather community gave up on me, socially ostracized me, gossiped about me and told me “You’re not one of us!”, I still kept trying. People who survive traumatic childhoods of abuse and incest or people who fall into addiction as many in Appalachia, the Deep South and everywhere else deserve a second chance. Sometimes they need 3rd, 4th or 77th chances. Each person is an individual—not all bad or all good. And their chronological age may not accurately reflect their mental or emotional age. Everyone does not know how to manage their emotions, tolerate distress or be effective at interpersonal relationship. That does not make them monsters nor does it make them bad people. In our rush to vent our feelings or our spleens, it’s fast, easy, convenient and feels good to label others as heroes, villains or monsters. But in the process of painting people as black or white, all or nothing? We instead become villains and monster ourselves. Who is beyond redemption? I don’t know the answer to that. But I hope and pray and even believe that very few people are. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/19/2194255/-Heroes-Villains-and-Monsters-who-is-beyond-redemption Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/