Such a dumb question and such a large area.
I'm not interested in hate or doubt, I am interested in why comments hurt?
It may be racial, religion, gender or ...........
Why do comments hurt?
If we understand and break them down we may develop tactics to help!
Anti-trans comments of the nasty variety hurt me, even if not directed at me, because they categorize us all as lesser and defective and attempt to isolate us from a normal and productive life. Without even knowing someone they have already decided to shun the entire group.
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We are social beings. We need approval from those around us, and we seek to avoid rejection from them. It is not good for one's mental health to depend for our self-worth on the approval of others, but we can't avoid being social, so we can't ignore the need.
When someone makes a hurtful comment, they are voicing their rejection or disapproval of me. That hurts because it isolates me socially.
In a perfect world, we could just avoid interacting with that person. But we don't always have control over whom we interact with.
No comment ever bothers me the first time I hear it. It becomes painful after prolonged exposure to repeat comments. At first it's just the intentional jabs that hurt, but eventually even the jokes and harmless comments of the same variety become dreadfully annoying. It all builds up until I'm suffocating under a pile of it. When I have to fight to come up for air, people act like I'm the one who is senselessly freaking out.
Quote from: KathyLauren on July 19, 2016, 08:44:48 AM
We are social beings. We need approval from those around us, and we seek to avoid rejection from them. It is not good for one's mental health to depend for our self-worth on the approval of others, but we can't avoid being social, so we can't ignore the need.
When someone makes a hurtful comment, they are voicing their rejection or disapproval of me. That hurts because it isolates me socially.
In a perfect world, we could just avoid interacting with that person. But we don't always have control over whom we interact with.
^^^^ This most definitely. I can control how I react to the comments, but this definitely is it in a nutshell. Hugs
Mariah
This is something I've made great strides in over the years. When I was a kid just about any negative comment directed my way made me very upset. I'd cry and scream and be very emotional for hours. People who knew me took full advantage of this. I'd try to insult them back but they were always older than me. Bigger than me. More emotionally stable than me. So I always lost.
Flash forward to today and it is very difficult to upset me. Some of it is due to being very jaded and apathetic about life. But I like to think that most of it is due to a fundamental change in how I approach comments. When someone says something, good or bad, I no longer just take the words at face value. I take the word and analyze body language. I take that and ask myself...why? Finally, I ask myself "Does this actually harm me?".
A word by itself has absolutely no value. A word without any context has absolutely no meaning. Any word can mean any number of things based on body language and the intent of the user. If I said "Hello" and waved my hands and had a big smile on my face, I'm giving a friendly greeting. If I said "Hello" with my arms folded and a scowl on my face, I'm probably really saying "Why are you here?". Same word, completely different meanings. But we already know about these things from a young age and for the most part act accordingly.
The hard part is judging the intent behind the words. If you don't know the intent, it is easy to just assign something negative to it and get upset. Back when I was a retail manager, I had an employee walk up to me and just bawl me out with every nasty and negative word you can imagine. My response was to just calmly stand there and wait for her to finish. The words were really bad, the body language was really bad, but what about the intent? I could have just assumed she wanted to hurt me, but that wasn't it at all. She was at a really low point in her life and she came to a tipping point where she had to either vent or explode. I just happened to be the target. Despite how awful it sounded, there was no ill intent.
After all of that is taken into consideration, I feel it is just as important to ask myself, "Does this actually hurt me? Is this worth getting upset over?". Several weeks ago my Mom made some rather disparaging comments about transgender individuals. What was said didn't leave much room for interpretation. So I went through my process. The words, the body language, and the intent behind them were all negative. But I'm not out, so the comments were not specifically aimed at me. Do the words actually hurt me? I had to go with no. They were just generic sound waves that I've heard many times before. These specific words used did not change how the world views me or how I view myself. I did not incur any kind of physical damage from the words. I did not suffer any monetary losses because of the words. Nothing happened.
If I'm not hurt, I'm not going to let myself get upset. People have opinions. Sometimes those opinions are racist. Sometimes they are sexist. Sometimes they are based purely on ignorance. I certainly don't agree with those opinions. But I'm not about to give away a part of myself because of those opinions. Getting upset won't have a positive impact on negative comments. In the case of my mom's comments, I use subtle logic to reasoning to prod at her beliefs. Sometimes I get her to walk things back. Sometimes I don't. We're all entitled to our opinions and our words, good or bad. It's up to us to decide if we want to embrace other people's opinions and words or say "No thanks".
A couple of thoughts:
1. For me, transition is very much about, so to speak, rejoining the human race. I'm trying to find a way of relating to people that involves my real self, not the construct I used for so long. The negative comments are, from this point of view, a negation of relation. In particular, I want to relate to other people, esp. women, the way women relate to women, and comments indicating I am seen as a man say that I can't.
2. I have very little self-confidence, particularly very little social self-confidence. Right now, especially, I need all the external support and affirmation I can get, and I'm very vulnerable to anything negative. This is where I am. (And to anyone who has the indecency to say, "just be more self-confident", I'll say a hearty <explitive deleted> in advance. To have been raised to be self-confident is a huge amount of privilege.)
3. Ultimately, the negative comments are reflective of a hostile and potentially dangerous environment. An environment where people feel they can get away with them is one which can turn dangerous -- one trans blogger (http://freethoughtblogs.com/atg/2016/06/29/what-trans-people-mean-when-we-say-misgendering-is-violence/) described such "microaggressions" as the base of a violence pyramid. Each aggression paves the way to the next more violent ones.
While it is very rare for anyone to make a comment regarding my gender anymore, I'll ignore it when they do it surreptitiously. It has been more than a decade since anyone did it out loud. When that happened, I found that one look was all it took to stop it right then and there. While it does bother me, reacting in a manner consistent with a mature woman works well for me.
Quote from: Asche on July 19, 2016, 03:09:41 PM
3. Ultimately, the negative comments are reflective of a hostile and potentially dangerous environment. An environment where people feel they can get away with them is one which can turn dangerous -- one trans blogger (http://freethoughtblogs.com/atg/2016/06/29/what-trans-people-mean-when-we-say-misgendering-is-violence/") described such "microaggressions" as the base of a violence pyramid. Each aggression paves the way to the next more violent ones.
this ^ words reflect thought and that can always lead to violence - words themselves don't necessarily physically hurt you, but the attitudes that those comments reflect definitely can
often also comments from people in the public eye that aren't necessarily violent can lend legitimacy to other people's violent opinions and make them feel that it's okay to have these extreme views - because 'someone finally said it' and it escalates from there
idk if this makes sense
Yes, that makes sense and I think it is especially true when the words come from political and religious leaders.
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Why do comments bother me?
Because I'm not thick-skinned enough to shrug them off.
My partner once commented that he thought I was very fragile.
I would say that some comments bother me. The bad thing is on the internet at least when they are anti trans arguments they arent any good (mostly it will be like i identify as a tire or something) but still a lot of people think its a good.
For myself it would be more that the stupidity of so many people that think that way is frustating more then it is hurtfull to me.
It's not easy to upset me, my expectations of the human race are fairly low - I think it's actually harder to upset me now that I know more about myself. Self doubt makes it much easier to be hurt by words. I have very little self doubt any more. Call me something I deserve? Fair enough. Label me a trans person in a derogatory manner, whoa, aren't you clever to have mastered such a big word! Racial/regional slurs? Egad, I'm totally gonna lose sleep now. Etc. People's words hurt more when you put more faith in their opinions than your own and have a low opinion of yourself. I speak from experience of having a real low opinion of myself once upon a time.
Words only have the power you give to them. It's important NOT to fall into the idea that you are a victim of words or what people who don't matter to you think. You just give the words more power if you do. I'm talking on the personal and psychological level here. Obviously it can be a different matter when people use words for political purposes. When that happens I am not offended, I am wary.
I don't mean to be sounding holier than thou , this is just my opinion about how I perceive the world as it could be. I have a very deeply ingrained belief that humans have such a great potential as far as how we treat each other and the kind of society we could achieve. Imagine a world where hate in any form did not exist at any level of our everyday life. If absolutely no one at any stage in life from cradle to grave spoke ill of anyone else. Many will say that this is impossible , but it's not.
I really struggle with anti-trans feminism because the thought of being hated by another woman because they perceive me as a threat is so disheartening. I'm learning to shrug off bigoted comments, I can laugh off religious arguments, but feminist criticism? That hurts.
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Quote from: Cindy on July 19, 2016, 05:49:28 AM
Such a dumb question and such a large area.
I'm not interested in hate or doubt, I am interested in why comments hurt?
It may be racial, religion, gender or ...........
Why do comments hurt?
If we understand and break them down we may develop tactics to help!
I get a lot of exercise by jumping to conclusions.....
This is such an open-ended question, and a very interesting one to me. 'Comments Hurt" Oh yeah... The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good. (My Homage to Sergio Leone and his opening credits) For many, there seems to be an aspect of self, in conflict, that can, if you allow it to, will latch onto the "Comment" and allow it to appeal to the crocodilian brain and it's immediate needs. The "Hurt" part fulfilling the needs of Shame and Guilt, two prime movers, of many "Well Socialized" people. Of course there are those who will also rejoice in the comment, or....
My wife says I am often "Too Sensitive". Certainly compared to the lifeless, soulless 'Thing' I was. I am now a ton more sensitive, have emotions, and am allowing myself to have feelings and emotions. I am a neophyte at this. But it sure beats not having them. Some comments hurt, others make me grin ear to ear. And others... So what?
If you don't love yourself, if you don't truly forgive yourself for who you are and what you are doing in life, if you harbor too much Shame over things you have no control over, and Guilt over never having done anything truly 'Wrong'.... Well, some words spoken by the right people can and will hurt, no matter what.
"The poor will always be among us"
I saw this today on one of my favorite webcomics. It sums up how I feel about how these discussions often go:
http://www.robot-hugs.com/barrage/
Quote from: Asche on July 26, 2016, 04:43:33 AM
I saw this today on one of my favorite webcomics. It sums up how I feel about how these discussions often go:
http://www.robot-hugs.com/barrage/
Yeah, so true!
I've been thinking about this since my first reply. What it really comes down to is that it's a violation of basic human decency contrary to my ethical view on the way things should be . . . As opposed to how things actually are.
Quote from: stephaniec on July 20, 2016, 09:12:44 AM
I don't mean to be sounding holier than thou , this is just my opinion about how I perceive the world as it could be. I have a very deeply ingrained belief that humans have such a great potential as far as how we treat each other and the kind of society we could achieve. Imagine a world where hate in any form did not exist at any level of our everyday life. If absolutely no one at any stage in life from cradle to grave spoke ill of anyone else. Many will say that this is impossible , but it's not.
I agree, it's possible and we should aim at that, but there'd need to be a revolution of some sort
why do comments hurt?
Because one of the most fundamental part of the human being is its social side, obtaining social approval and being part of a group and recognized as such by the members of that group is almost as important as eating for a human being
Quote from: KathyLauren on July 19, 2016, 08:44:48 AM
We are social beings. We need approval from those around us, and we seek to avoid rejection from them. It is not good for one's mental health to depend for our self-worth on the approval of others, but we can't avoid being social, so we can't ignore the need.
When someone makes a hurtful comment, they are voicing their rejection or disapproval of me. That hurts because it isolates me socially.
In a perfect world, we could just avoid interacting with that person. But we don't always have control over whom we interact with.
yes but...
Quote from: KathyLauren on July 19, 2016, 08:44:48 AM
It is not good for one's mental health to depend for our self-worth on the approval of others, but we can't avoid being social, so we can't ignore the need.
not good? it's totally human, a basic need
why do you say it's not good? that's how humans have functioned for at least 40,000 years
or is it that the mutant new humans (of the Western World) are not as social as before? yes they are, nothing changed basically, we are still the same human beings, just the surface changed, and individualism took over, and that's why the world is going nuts. We are actually designed genetically to live in small herds of about a hundred where everyone knows everyone. Our technology changed so fast, our genetic and social behaviors did not have time to adapt.
So that's why comments hurt.