Dear Rachel:

“I still have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that people who share identities aren’t always empathetic towards each other. It confuses me.. expecting that someone who shares my identities or beliefs would be kind to me, and then that is not the case, but I have a hard time accepting the truth”-

– there is a person with whom you, Rachel, share identities perfectly: same race, same gender, same sexual orientation, same nationality, same.. everything, and that person is you. Are you always empathetic towards yourself?

So many people are often un-empathetic toward themselves, so many people are aggressive toward themselves, thinking things like: I shouldn’t have! How stupid I am! What’s wrong with me?! etc. etc. That’s aggression toward the same-identities self.

When a person is aggressive toward herself (or himself), too  often, she is also aggressive toward other people who share her identities. If a woman hates being a woman, she is not likely to be aggressive toward men; she is likely to be aggressive toward other women. If a person hates being black, he or she is unlikely to be aggressive toward white people, and likely to be aggressive toward black people. Etc.

“I thought dating a woman would be better than dating a man. It wasn’t”- women have softer skin than men, but not softer hearts; women have smaller physical features than men, but they are not less aggressive. It is a myth that women are gentler than men. Women are as capable as men to be insensitive, aggressive and cruel.

“this man I knew.. he was white, enjoyed guns, and went on to become a cop. I thought he was a bad person because of these things. But he ended up treating me with kindness and respect”- we talked about judging people earlier, and I suggested to you that depending on the context, judging people can be the right thing to do, or the wrong thing to do. In the context here, you judged this man based on stereotypes, and that is wrong to do. We should all be careful to not judge people based on stereotypes.

“Thanks for saying I express myself well… I always blamed myself during my relationship that I couldn’t articulate properly”- you articulation is excellent! If you weren’t able to articulate well in the abusive relationship you had, it must have been for lack  of  air to (“Then I would come home to her and feel so depressed, like the air had been sucked out of my lungs”).

“I don’t want to punish people who hurt me”- better do what we can so that people who hurt us do not have the opportunity to hurt us anymore. If we can protect vulnerable others in some way, from the people who hurt us, then we should.

“I do  see myself as someone chained to suffering: mentally. I still ruminate over these things that have happened, and have flashbacks. It’s as if these things are still happening. I am stuck in the past in many ways and would like to be free from it all”-

– You must have had times when your thinking was clear about things that confused you before, when you had an aha moment, and you felt unchained, free…?

But then time happened, and the thoughts returned, and you were disappointed, thinking something like: I thought I had it, I thought I got it, I thought I was free! (?)

This is what I experienced over and over again on what I refer to as my healing path, or my healing process. Healing, freeing oneself mentally from those chains, takes months or years of an ongoing, intentional effort and work throughout the day, every day. The effort requires having  a set of tools, such as taking breaks from thinking and trying (breaks that don’t harm, ex.: taking a long walk when stressed), problem solving skills, assertiveness skills, increasing Mindfulness (plenty of literature and exercises available on that, in books, magazines and online), and more.

anita