I feel a bit Republican right now, I’m sorry to say.

I’ve arrived at a place where all I can do is throw up my hands and walk away.

Some people absolutely cannot be helped.

Some people don’t want to be helped if getting help means expecting them to help themselves.

The person in question finds fault with everything I’m doing, in spite of the fact that I’ve expended time and energy on their behalf, in spite of the fact that I’ve given them pointers that could help them if they applied their personal effort.

This person wants something given to them – something I can’t afford, something that I really cannot ask others to give without strong justification.  And it’s something that’s within their power to obtain if they applied themselves instead of expecting it to be automatically given to them.

Everybody screws them over, or so they tell me.  Nobody ever does anything right by them, always takes advantage of them, and expects them to risk too much.  Yet they cannot see that risk is everywhere, that getting up and walking across the room is a risk; even those of us in the direst states will have to risk something just to get out of bed in the morning.  There is no way to make things absolutely safe and sure.  In this case I can only educate them about the risks, ask them to learn stretch and learn something; I can’t make it all better with a wave of a magic wand, particularly when I’m already exposed and at risk myself in even making an attempt to reach out.

Agh.  I am going to have to walk away.  Obviously, I can’t do a thing for this person.  Or I am not the right person to help them in so many ways.

The hardest part of this equation?  This person has a disability that may have affected their cognitive skills.

I’m not trained to know whether I’m dealing with someone who has been so emotionally battered through life that they are bitter and hostile to everyone, or whether this person suffers from a form of paranoia induced by their disability.

I’d like not to take their comments personally, but they’ve already taken their toll.  I commit a lot of my personal time to activism, from meeting with other activists and organizing to standing with other activists in rallies.  But there’s a point at which my family comes first; there’s a point at which my resources are limited.  There’s a point at which I must say no.

Perhaps it’s because of my personality type that I’m driven to advocate and encourage.  Maybe it blinds me to other’s inability, lack of capacity, personal barriers -- you name it.  Sometimes I just don’t get why some people aren’t able to see the 800 pound gorilla sitting in the living room of their life, or when they finally discover it, why they can’t do something, anything, to shoo it out or make friends with it instead of bitching about it helplessly, indulging deeply in the toxic brew of victimology.

Or maybe it’s the darker side of the coin, having been a victim of verbal abuse for a number of years.  This situation has the same formlessness, the same kind of quicksand feeling, something I can’t put my finger on but it’s right there.  Perhaps I’m dealing with a verbal abuser – someone who may have been a victim themselves for a lifetime, but who now lashes out in retribution at anyone who gets too close.  It’s so hard to tell, given the entire set of circumstances; there’s so much back story that I don’t know, either.

Whatever this situation is, I am and have been a believer in opportunities.  I believe I have a moral responsibility to make opportunities available for people, by reducing barriers and by providing nurturing circumstances.

The rest is personal responsibility; it’s their karma, their choice, to take advantage of opportunity when it presents itself.

In this case, I’ve tried.  I pointed out a number of opportunities and only received negative feedback.  I’ve found other options where others haven’t, stuck my neck out by violating my personal security in the course of this bizarre dialogue.  Unfortunately it all comes back to the repetitive, circular dance of victimology.

It bothers my conscience that I can’t do more to reduce barriers, but something just doesn’t add up on both sides of the opportunities/responsibilities equation.

Or perhaps this really isn’t about the so-called victim; perhaps this is a learning opportunity for me, a point at which I exercise empowerment to deal with a potentially abusive situation before it gets worse.  This is something I was unable to do at other times in my life.

This time I can walk away.

11:22:16 PM    comment []