Let me tell you a story
Back in early high school, I had a big crush on this friend of mine. I really liked him. He was, in my perception at least, a big reason why I chose to stay alive. So I told him that. A lot. I thought he’d be grateful, but he wasn’t and eventually cut contact with me.
Upon recent reflection, i acted this way because my mom treated me the exact same way, almost down to the letter. It damaged me and would have damaged him as well. I still haven’t had a chance to apologize.
Another friend who cut contact with me (for different reasons) recently got back in touch and she apologized to me for cutting me off. I had to just straight up tell her that it was probably for the best that she cut me off because I was toxic.
Was my trauma, possible borderline disorder, and learned behavior an excuse or an explanation?
An explanation, obviously.
Maybe its something I’m taking too seriously or I’m just too literal, but an excuse is a reason why it should have happened, basically a reason for exception. Everyone is supposed to go to school, but if you’re sick you’re told you should stay home, and you have an excuse for missing that day, because you have a reasonable explanation for why you ought to not have.
If you miss a day of school and say “oh, it wasnt an important day,” that’s an explanation, the reason reflecting your character for why you didn’t do something you were supposed to. You still shouldn’t have done it, and maybe there should be consequences, but it’s a reflection of why you made that decision.
So in my case it was an explanation for why I acted the way I did. But what does that mean exactly? Am I 100% personally to blame for how I hurt others? I’m obviously biased but I’d say no, because I had no way to know I was doing something harmful.
I still shouldnt have treated them that way, but there was a reason I did. It’s something I had to learn from a deal with. No one was wrong in this situation. I was taught horribly how to be kind to people, but i was still hurting others, so they had no recourse but to cut me off. And in a way it did help me realize my problems.
I think that’s my thing. There doesn’t have to be a “right” or “wrong” in certain situations. I know this sounds like one of those enlightened centrist tumblr posts, but really, that’s what i think.
If someone is bipolar and doesn’t know it, they shouldn’t be judged for what they do in manic or depressive states, but others shouldn’t be judged for anything reasonable they do in response to harm from these states. Or if someone is bipolar, they should be given some sympathy for what they’re going through.
If a “normal” person is having outbursts because you’re not following their every word, then obviously they are in the wrong. But if someone with OCD is emotionally distressed because of the symptoms of their illness, then it’s not really their fault. They’re only in the wrong if they use it as an excuse for why they ought to do something. Saying something like “oh well I have ocd so you have to listen to me.” Is obviously wrong.
But how many people actually do this to the extent that you need the platitude mentioned in the title? More often than not i see it used against people who literally can’t control it [i.e Tourettes, people whom have that syndrome do legitimately have an excuse for their actions] rather than people who can.
If you want to be personally inflamed by someone I get it. My mother probably has mental illnesses herself, she was also treated poorly in childhood. I don’t think it’s healthy for me to be around her, and sometimes I really do feel like i hate her for what she did, but I’d never want to see her punished because that won’t fix anything. She has her explanations, i have mine, we should focus on actually trying to be constructive rather than just saying “theyre wrong, fuck em.”
I’m hoping this is coherent, if you need clarifcation on something feel free to ask.
I have also really struggled with this phrase or concept in my life. Especially as a kid, I would get in trouble for one thing or another and would try to explain my thoughts or actions to try to create some understanding only to be cut off for making excuses. I probably learned some negative patterns from that.
Explaining that you understand the underlying cause of a issue is a way of assuring that you will stop it happening again if you can. You say what happened and why it happened because you don’t want it to happen again. Its not justification it is proof that you have learned from the mistake and don’t want to do it again.
At least that is how I an autistic person see things. NT people often see this as making excuses.
The thing with proverbs like that is that they don’t stand alone. For every one of them there is an opposite and, at the end of the day, none of us are alone, we’re subjects of incredibly complex systems of interactions. Arguably incomprehensible to us.
Now somehow and I don’t exactly know why, but somehow we ended up building a world where Individual > Collective. The consequences of this are arguably apocalyptical. People are systematically forced to compete with others, in order to survive. Those who lack the brutality are eliminated. Those who lack clarity treat symptoms, not the cause. Those who do have clarity and resist are targeted by the system itself.
Perhaps this is the reason why Hell was conceptualized. When you stand before God you cannot say: “But I was told by others to do thus or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice.” Sometimes I wish this was true, but as we can see this idea in itself doesn’t seem to be capable of creating a better world either. Some say it ended up bringing even more suffering.
I should add this:
No matter how bad you think you are, remember there’s countless people out there who are just as bad as us or worse, but they’re completely okay with it. Us being aware of our own flaws enables growth, if we come together and work hard we will surely crush the self-righteous. Their porcelain hands stand no chance against the mighty hammer.
Perhaps this is the reason why Hell was conceptualized. When you stand before God you cannot say: “But I was told by others to do thus or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice.” Sometimes I wish this was true, but as we can see this idea in itself doesn’t seem to be capable of creating a better world either. Some say it ended up bringing even more suffering.
Reminds me of the tv show The Good Place. Potentially big spoilers about how that show unfolds, but:
spoiler
Basically, in that story’s universe, it turns out most people are not getting into its equivalent of heaven and from what I remember the detail of social commentary is limited, but it’s kind of implied it’s to do with capitalism and people being involved in shitty behavior on a regular basis, even though a lot of it is indirect through participation in the system.
It fits well with the Christian conception of facing down temptation and overcoming it with individual will. But as you point out, this alone does not fix the world. Because urging people with fear of hellfire to be a better person and emphasizing their individual power to overcome can’t change the reality that their willpower is actually pretty limited in most situations and the range of their behavior derives in part from the limitations of what their surrounding environment, culture, etc., has taught them. Instead, what I find is it causes people to be overly hard on themselves about their failures and wrack themselves with guilt over perceived wrong they did that was often more multi-sided than they think; or on the flip side, try extra hard to shift blame in order to avoid feeling like, or being named as, “the bad person”.
It is oriented, in other words, toward marking people on their use of willpower (sinner, virtuous, corrupted, forgiven) rather than being oriented toward identifying cause and removing harmful causes where possible, in order to avoid repeats.
