How Dare You?

After knowing me for three days, after I shared my vulnerabilities in a group space dedicated to “learning to listen,” you decide you know me, you decide you can tell me what my “problem,” you use the most prototypical “global labeling” cognitive distortion and tell me, “I always ‘project’ everything!” in response to me becoming upset at an utterly unwarranted insensitive comment you’ve made.  (not even comment – you went as far as to physically mimic and mock me).       

After you have known me for three days, you make a wide-sweeping statement, using universal language like “always” and “everything” ?

You weaponized my vulnerability, my thoughts about suicide, you tell me I’m generally angry, and you tell me my anger is misdirected in this situation.    

You feel so assured of yourself in this moment, that you not only have the knowledge to diagnose me and my problem, you have the right to do so?

You ignore all the teachings we are here to absorb, about subtlety, about observation, about learning to listen and declare yourself an expert on me and claim that I am the one refusing to listen. 

How dare you?

I am fucking angry.  I am angry that I am this complex human being with a set of unusual experiences that I wouldn’t dare to relay in entirety to anyone — I’m 38, it would take too long  and I’m not that self-absorbed in my own life’s narrative — but with a few signifiers, a few nuggets of information, of things I’ve willingly disclosed and other things they’ve gleaned, others can not only assess my life experience, but feel emboldened enough to share with me their assessment? Sure, most people are not so obnoxious to say to me “this is what your problem is,” but let’s be real, all the unsolicited advice I get is just jumping to the next step, they won’t tell  me the problem, but they are readied with a solution (which presupposes an understanding of the problem).

Has anyone learned to listen?

If you are reading this, are you thinking, this angry woman, she cannot take feedback, or criticism, and she’s not willing to hear what others are telling her to better understand herself?

Fuck you too. 

Of course, we meet people, we listen, we assess, we seek to understand, we take what we know of the world and we try to put them in a box.   That’s our cognitive functioning.  It’s how we are designed to organize information.  We are not capable of absorbing all the subtlety and nuance in this world.      

And maybe a lot of the world hasn’t been in therapy since they were 14 years old, and are not self-aware and could use a little direction to help with self-reflection.

But if I tell you I suffer from a serious mental illness, if I offer my truth, if I am authentic, that is not an open invitation for you to weigh in on me.  If I explain that I grapple with pain, with not being able to find a purpose or will to live.  Can you just shut up and listen?

I can’t help but feel, with others, people who are married with kids and proceeding along with careers, who don’t readily offer to you the challenges they face, you wouldn’t dare to pry, to tell them what they’re doing wrong, or what’s wrong with them. 

How dare you do that with me?