Breathe and flow

[greenstorm]

We've had a thaw here: huge full moon over halloween and up to 11C or so, brely dropping overnight. The snow is gone, the water atop slush is gone. Mars (?) has been bright in the sky lately whenever I look.

The BC election has come and gone. The NDP, a labour/traditionally left but becoming centre as society catches up party, got I think their first ever back-to-back governments, and turned a minority government into majority. The greens kept their 3 seats. It's cautiously hopeful.

And tomorrow is election night in the US. For future reference, this is for Trump's second term. Things feel like a powder keg: there will be a very slow return of all the votes because many people mailed or voted early with covid, neither side -- because there's nothing in the US right now that doesn't feel like it has only two diametrically opposed sides -- trust that it will be a fair election. So for those to whom the country isn't already an irrelevant sideshow there is tension, and a waiting breath.

Tomorrow Tucker and I will spend the evening together, doing little projects and trying to keep distracted. Benefit of living in Pacific time is that if there's something to be known by end of day we'll know it before sleep.

Things I can do:

Tidy the plant shelf and start microgreens for winter, I miss eating green things.
Jar up the sauerkraut and the jalapeno carrot pickles and either find room in the fridge and/or pasteurize some of them.
Make another big batch of italian sausage, and maybe a batch of bangers, and freeze or can. I pretty much take all my sausage out of casings anyhow, so I might as well not bother to put them in.
Brush a dog or two.
Make a super old-school boiled pudding with lard instead of suet, is this doable?
Bottle booze.
Sex.
Yoga.

Meanwhile the antidepressants are working well, bringing me definite hope that I have the capability to be happy. The last two days weren't the best but I am going into the worst part of my cycle. The side-effects so far are pretty tolerable: very occasional ringing in my ears that is banished by a change in background sound, a little bit of digestive upset, sleep is a little more fragile than it was but still possible to get with a little more care. And the benefits, well. I brushed the dogs today and we cuddled. Just... something I do because we both enjoy it, not because it's a chore. That's good.

I also spent a bunch of the day reading through the whole Franklin Veaux relationship harm thing. It came up, and last time I paid attention there wasn't such a well-curated site about it. I appreciate reading a range of perspectives on how folks are impacted by various behaviours, and using that to consider my own behaviour and my own boundaries. I feel so so far removed from any poly groups or poly community now, and to be honest I met some neat people in those communities but I don't think I could stomach them now. Poly itself has diversified so much from those days, too; I think there's a set of relationship standards and skills that I share with a bunch of folks who may or not be under the poly umbrella. So it brings back echoes that I'm well away from, but also gives me a bit of a playground to see folks' relationship stuff. And I do like seeing folks' relationship stuff.

A couple more days before we freeze again. It'll be a rough freeze: everything is wet and muddy right no and I think we're supposed to have a sharp drop to -14. Better get everyone tucked away in good deep straw.

I am so curious about what tomorrow brings. Fingers crossed.

Comments

[graydon2]

Franklin Veaux relationship harm thing

I don't think I'd read this yet but it's .. weird to read, especially from a distance. I see three (EDIT: four! see last para) sets of things, and have very different feelings towards each:

First, standard relationship-failure stuff, mistakes that might be a bit more common when one is doing nonstandard or exploratory stuff in one's personal life but which can also probably happen in any type of relationship. This part includes mistakes similar to those I've made myself: failing to communicate, failing to respect someone's boundaries or needs, not knowing one's own boundaries or needs or acting within them, etc. From this perspective it's interesting relationship-story reflection to read and provokes thoughts of how my own failings have affected others.

Second, there's some much more "poly-scene" and/or "kink-scene" specific stuff, which feels like .. I only ever had tangential contact with it and it felt uncomfortable when I ran into it and it's uncomfortable to read here also and I think quite independent: problems around public performance and documentation of personal relationships, a big gap between proclaimed theory and actual practice around consent, conferences and social gatherings mediating and facilitating relationships, but also normalizing and providing cover for misbehaviour. This almost feels like reading the writing from people in show-business or with other highly-visible, powerful social identities.

Third, seemingly Veaux-specific stuff which just seems like .. primarily just like a real inability to dial it down. So many people, so many simultaneously, for so long, at such intensity and personal and professional investment. Like he just seems to have no ability (or maybe desire) to slow down, reflect, be intentional or careful.

And I was going to end it there, but .. I googled him to see what's actually going on from his side and .. this is where it gets fairly weird: his current website still shows professional turbo-poly sex-consultant-dude persona but his blog (or at least its single latest entry) shows a more reflective person trying to recover from what he thinks was a very long and very thoroughly-controlling abusive relationship (which is how he perceives his evidently-now-finished relationship with Eve). I'm fairly sure I don't have the brainpower to parse and interpret "who the real abuser is" by reading and comparing both of their stories, and I'm increasingly hesitant to believe many relationships that are destructive-to-both-partners necessarily even hinge on a single "abuser" rather than a destructive feedback cycle both partners are pouring fuel on. I am pretty sure mediating such things through the internet & blogging isn't doing anyone any favours either. It's strange to read. I don't know what to make of it all.

EDIT: can't entirely look away, and the more I read .. yeah, maybe Eve was bad to him too, who knows, but he goes way past understandable mistakes way too often in these stories from the others. Bleh.

[greenstorm]

Hey, it's really uncomfortable when a bunch of folks, including relationship professionals and many ex girlfriends, compile a page like this and your answer is "two people were both abusing each other" (not a thing, abuse is a power dynamic; two folks can be terrible to each other and can harm each other for sure but we don't call that abuse although it is relational harm) and to ignore the other stories and the context.

People who abuse other people are not cartoon monsters. They don't steeple their fingers and cackle when they do it. They have reasons, and those reasons often involve feeling powerless themselves, so to fix their feelings of powerlessness they try to control other peoples thoughts and actions. They feel entitled to control the narrative, including the social narrative and other peoples' internal narratives.

[graydon2]

I'm sorry for causing discomfort. I acknowledge Veaux has a serious behaviour problem (as I hoped to express, but failed to, in my first comment). I'm sorry I made a statement that equivocated on that.

The more general topic of abuse is not one I think we will be able to discuss well. I'm sorry for having engaged on it, will try to avoid in the future.

[greenstorm]

No, you don't get to do that.

There is context here.

I am an abuse survivor (my dad) and watched my dad abuse my mom for roughly ten years within the relationship and another seventeen or so afterwards, until I guess he lost interest.

I have absolutely perpetuated the abuse cycle on people, and though they're less now my reflexes to do so need my attention. These behaviours come when I feel insecure, and their purpose is to make other people smaller so they don't scare me as much. I refuse to do that to the people I love now that I recognise it. I have absolutely seen its effects and seen it work at the expense of my loved ones.

You are a friend of mine, and have been reading my private and personal thoughts for how many years? Many.

This is my journal, not an intellectual discussion with a stranger on the internet. It's where I come to put my private thoughts and feelings, with some folks are privileged to read.

Whatever is going on with the Veaux thing, there are six extensive accounts from folks on https://polyamory-metoo.com/ which include things like supporting documentation from the times under discussion, sometimes from many years ago.

There is also a strong consensus within folks who study psychiatry and psychology that abuse, including psychological abuse (when folks don't hit other folks) exists. The definitions aren't all congruent, but there is certainly a consensus that it causes harm. I believe there's even research that both abuser and victim are less happy in an abusive relationship, which I would expect to be self-evident but there you go. People who abuse, like people who do anything, have reasons for what they do. That does not mean they don't do harm, and it doesn't mean they're not responsible for their behaviour. It has implications for how we approach and heal these people. It does not cancel the abuse.

Part of the reason psychological abuse works is because the victim believes it's their own fault. Otherwise they'd just see a partner's unacceptable behaviour and leave. When you perpetuate the idea that abuse is rare or that it's usually both people's fault, you are strengthening a culture where people are more easily abused.

You do not come to me, here in my personal space where I have been writing about my experiences for a long time, make what is perhaps a clumsy comment about how one post by a rhetorically powerful dude calls into question all these detailed, supported accounts, sidebar that you don't believe most survivors of abuse, and then get uncomfortable and try to avoid the topic and therefore avoid my response.

I have some homework for you. You have a counselor. You presumably pay them money. Pay them money to go to them and say word for word, "I'm increasingly hesitant to believe many relationships that are destructive-to-both-partners necessarily even hinge on a single "abuser" rather than a destructive feedback cycle both partners are pouring fuel on and someone with an abuse history told me to talk to you about that." Spend multiple sessions on it. Also, read descriptions of how to identify psychological abuse, and about the effects of psychological abuse, from whatever you consider to be a reputable source or ideally sources. Read at least ten or fifteen of this type of article unless you've already done that in the last year.

Doing those things is a reasonable way of making amends for this. Saying "sorry" and trying to shut down the conversation is not.

[graydon2]

Ok. I can engage with you on this topic, if that will help.

I want to say from the outset that I feel like you're putting words in my mouth. I did not say any of these statements, and do not beleive them:

• Abusers don't do harm
  
• Abusers aren't responsibility for their actions
  
• Abuse is rare
  
• Abuse is usually both people's fault
  
• Having a reason for abusing cancels abuse
  

If you want any further conversaion on this topic, I'm going to have to ask for that sort of characterization of my beliefs to be retracted. It's a caricature and untrue.

I can also engage with a therapist if you like and if it is truly the only way you'll hear a "sorry" here. I would prefer not to, but to engage with you a bit here, as one of the specific cans of worms being opened here is "I don't really think therapists have a very coherent position on a lot of topics". I say this as someone who has seen lots of therapists over lots of time and seen lots of people bounce off therapists or just keep seeing them and getting no progress over years of work. I know therapists help some people. They also really, really fail to help others, confusing and entangling them in a jumble of incoherent explanations. And they make some people's problems much worse, and have a very wide variety of very mutually-contradictory theories about many of the subjects they cover.

You note this yourself -- "the definitions aren't all congruent" -- and that, to me, is an understatement. But that does not mean I do not believe abuse exists or that it does not cause harm. I have seen many many instances in my life, including my own experience as a child, and some relationships as an adult, and nearly all of the people who have mattered to me have experienced much more serious and long-lasting abuse. The reason I thought it might be more constructive to just drop the subject is that you and I haven't discussed abuse an awful lot and in this instance you're coming at me from what appears to be a very (understandably) hurt but very didactic "I know stuff, you don't, accept my statements or shut up" sort of position. Which of course you're allowed to do when I hurt you in your journal and so forth, I'm not trying to tell you not to feel or act that way; but it doesn't feel to me like there's a lot of room to actually discuss what we've each experienced or come to believe about about abuse, and I thought maybe dropping it would limit further harm. I'm not trying to run away from it if actual-discussion is the preference.

I haven't seen my therapist in a year or so -- no falling out, just COVID combined with a general lack of reasons to go, and a rarity of substantial positives from years of therapy with many people -- but if it's the only way to make right with you I can call her up.

I understand my first post above started clumsily with reflection on the ways in which I recognized things from my own experiences and my own behaviour in a quick morning skim of a couple write-ups of Veaux's behaviour, and I did not adequately condemn the more serious underlying pattern because I hadn't finished reading it all yet (it's hours and hours of reading -- I'm still working through it). I understand that it was hurtful to equivocate on his behaviour based on his single self-defense, and (if you'll read what I actually wrote) by the end of writing that post I had read enough of the tesitmony to have no doubt in my mind. I truly apologize for the way I live-blogged my process of parsing the stories and his response. But you are now placing words in my mouth by implying that I said anything "cancels the abuse" or that Veaux's post "calls into question" anything said by any of the other writers. If you'll read the final sentence I wrote it clearly says "he goes way past understandable mistakes way too often in these stories from the others". That is me believing the stories, not calling them into question, and considering them non-cancelled by anything Eve may have done in retaliation or self-defence.

I did say -- and I understand that it was a bad place to say it -- that I have an increasing hesitation to view destructive relationships as hinging on a single abuser. That hesitation is real as I have seen many destructive relationships that ultimately don't seem to have a single abuser, despite people feeling hurt and despite the concept of "abuse" glossing closely to the concept of "hurt". The increase in that hesitation is from where it started: I was raised by fairly hard-line radfems in a culture that fairly reflexively defined The Abusive Man as The Problem in every bad relationship. I've had to un-learn that reflex as I meet cases in real life that don't fit it, as I learn of abusive women and abused men -- indeed your own occational writing and push-back on the subject, insistence that people not just classify all abuse as male-abuses-female, has moved me to hesitate more, want to pause and investigate details more, case by case. I've had to learn to try to parse stories for their details, look for patterns of abuse vs. mutually-destructive but well-meaning feedback. To hesitate a bit, while reading and interpreting.

But having that hesitation does not mean I can't parse or understand instances where there is abuse. Merely that it takes some more reading and thinking to be sure sometimes (as I did, literally during the minutes of writing that post, and concluded Veaux was in fact abusive). I said this out of sloppy personal train-of-thought reflection on my own relationships and some proximal ones I have witnessed recently, and I realize it was a bad time to say it and a bad topic to offer it as a refelction on. I m truly sorry for the juxtaposition, it was an inappropriate place to say that.

I do believe abuse exists, I do believe it causes harm, I do believe a fairly large amount of the literature on it is fairly well-developed. I am not a newb on this nor a habitual excuse-maker for abuse. I believe Veaux was abusive of others and I expect he will be again, and the site that was produced to document it is an important instrument to try to mitigate that. It exists to convince people that he was abusive, and it has done so for me. Success.

His case (as far as I can tell, still only on Eve testimony 5 of 9) seems like a variant of a pattern I've not had to deal with in my life, or known anyone who directly dealt with, but it's an absolutely real pattern: celebrity / charismatic-leader abuse, similar to a cult leader. He had neither physical, economic, legal or child-custodial power over his victims, only self-defined fame and moral authority, akin to a religious leader but with no metaphysical claims or institutional structure. I am aware that that can be enough and I know there are extensive cult-survivor networks and a big literature on the subject. He is also obviously a pathological liar and freeloader, boundary-pusher, sexual abuser and psychological underminer. I am not sure how much mileage one is going to get out of examining this through the same lens one examines parental abuse of children, but if that is your preferred angle, I'm not trying to argue against it.

I will continue to read articles and books on the subject, as I have all my life. It is a subject of interest. I will finish with a link to something maybe a little closer to my current beliefs, which was written by Louisa Leontiades, the woman who gathered the testimonies about Veaux for that website; my hope is that reading these words from her rather than me is less provocative or hurtful: when hurt becomes abuse.

[greenstorm]

I mean, we can avoid it and just take more distance, too. But that's not my preference.

[greenstorm]

Oh goodness, I wish I could adequately convey my relief on reading this. Thank you for engaging, for taking what I said seriously, and for taking the time and effort to lay out your context here. It'll take me some time to put together my response but I wanted to get that out there first.

[graydon2]

Thank you for hearing it.

No rush, it is a big topic and I don't need to discuss it at any particular rate or depth; up to your preference.

[greenstorm]

https://www.loveisrespect.org/resources/am-i-abusive-too-the-myth-of-mutual-abuse/ is a good 101