y'know, sometimes blaming other people IS the right thing to do

Especially if they're people who chronically take no responsibility for their behavior and its affects on others. Bullies, I'm talking to you. You have officially been put on notice. This is from here on out a

ZERO TOLERANCE FOR BULLIES ZONE

This thought came up because I was replaying, yet again, the last battle between me and my youngest brother, and realizing I was letting him off the hook. (I would call it a 'conversation', but anything that left me feeling that raw, ragged and destabilized was nothing short of a personal attack, hence the choice of the word 'battle'.)

When I started to think about how to reconnect with him while not bringing up any of this unresolved stuff, my throat started to get sore, I had trouble swallowing.

These were spontaneous, instantaneous reactions.

My first thought was, Oh, shit, I'm getting sick!

And then I thought, No, you're not - this happened way too suddenly to be about catching a cold. I realized: What's going on is you blocked yourself from expressing what you truly feel, which is that you're pissed that your brothers, and your SIL, and other people in your world, can be such assholes and get away with it.

And the fact that they're nice at other times doesn't fucking make it ok. (The SECOND I acknowledged this to myself, my throat stopped hurting.)

See, this is what I'm going to call, for want of a better term, the 'gaslighting' effect - where people say one thing and mean another, and know perfectly well that you may not have understood their full intent, and they use this to take advangtage of you. It's that last bit that's the key to understanding all this, I think - what the person's intention or motive is.

[edited 5/24/09 to add: re-reading this, I realize this tangles two separate thoughts together: One, that bullies can also be nice. The behaviors are not mutually exclusive. And two, sometimes the bullying can be fairly subtle - in this case I'm not really thinking of me being bullied so much as middle niece. But because in my mind the sometimes nice/sometimes cruel behavior and the 'gaslighting' are on the same continuum of messing with somebody's head in a way that makes them feel stupid, incompetent, bad about themselves or otherwise hurts their feelings, I sort of lumped them together as if they were one thing. Hope that's clearer.]

Now here's where I get into a bit of a mental tangle: I know that sometimes I, myself, get angry with somebody, or act mean to them.

The difference is that if they're someone I care about, or claim to care about, I feel responsible for having hurt their feelings.

I have one 'friend' (he periodically gets downgraded from this category) who has said, more than once, I'm not responsible for your feelings.

I understand that this is shrink-think, and I think it has a certain amount of validity - but not the way he's using it. The way he's using it is as a 'get out of jail free' card to avoid taking any responsibility for his behavior!

Well, fuck that shit. I grew up with that shit, and to this day, as witness half the entries on this blog, if not all of them, I'm still untangling myself from taking responsibility for everything that happens between me and other people.

See, this is the result of the power imbalances in relationships: The person with more power feels no responsibility to maintain the relationship, because they're already getting what they need. The person with less power has to work all the harder, because they're the one whose needs are going unmet. (I'm not sure that said what I meant it to, but it's a starting place.)

Wandering sideways a bit, I came across another Metafilter comment yesterday about a way to think about direct vs. indirect communication styles: Ask Culture vs. Guess Culture:

This is a classic case of Ask Culture meets Guess Culture.

In some families, you grow up with the expectation that it's OK to ask for anything at all, but you gotta realize you might get no for an answer. This is Ask Culture.

In Guess Culture, you avoid putting a request into words unless you're pretty sure the answer will be yes. Guess Culture depends on a tight net of shared expectations. A key skill is putting out delicate feelers. If you do this with enough subtlety, you won't even have to make the request directly; you'll get an offer. Even then, the offer may be genuine or pro forma; it takes yet more skill and delicacy to discern whether you should accept.

All kinds of problems spring up around the edges. If you're a Guess Culture person -- and you obviously are -- then unwelcome requests from Ask Culture people seem presumptuous and out of line, and you're likely to feel angry, uncomfortable, and manipulated.

If you're an Ask Culture person, Guess Culture behavior can seem incomprehensible, inconsistent, and rife with passive aggression.

Obviously she's an Ask and you're a Guess. (I'm a Guess too. Let me tell you, it's great for, say, reading nuanced and subtle novels; not so great for, say, dating and getting raises.)

Thing is, Guess behaviors only work among a subset of other Guess people -- ones who share a fairly specific set of expectations and signalling techniques. The farther you get from your own family and friends and subculture, the more you'll have to embrace Ask behavior. Otherwise you'll spend your life in a cloud of mild outrage at (pace Moomin fans) the Cluelessness of Everyone.

It seems to me that the 'ask' style may be based on an underlying premise of 'we're equal, so I assume you'll be just as honest with me as I am with you.' Whereas the 'guess' approach may be based on maintaining a power imbalance - the person who is best able to manipulate the relationship without ever asking directly for what they need or even letting on that they have needs, at all, is the one with the most power.

***
Ballastexistenz says something about bullying (internet trolling, in this case) in a way that neatly sums up some of the things I've been trying to say about power imbalances, social inequities, and people who believe that might makes right or that 'that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger':

The problem with sink-or-swim approaches is that some people sink. And it would completely dishonor the memories of people who have died as a result of cruelty, to perpetuate the very same cruelty that killed them. To claim it makes people strong makes it sound as if these people didn’t exist, or were weaker than people who survived, even if it’s only luck that determined some people’s survival over others. And I refuse to participate in, or glorify, practices that can and do ultimately kill people and then degrade even their memories. Like so-called “Internet eugenics”.

And like they said earlier in the article — it’s the opposite of a properly-functioning society. They want the leeway to do anything they want, but give others no leeway at all. No matter how much they dress it up, there’s no ethical justification for that, and I suspect they know it.

This is what I keep trying to tell my brother, and convey to my SIL about the middle niece: You think treating her this way will make her tougher. Her bed-wetting, stomach aches and constant resentment and frustration are telling you something you should be listening to: It isn't toughening her up - it's making her sick. Literally. And it isn't going to get better unless you help her. Which, first and foremost, involves getting clued in to how your own behavior is hurtful, destructive and damaging to your own daughter; and then to change how the family structure operates so that bullying and power over, or domination, are not the primary m.o.

Because otherwise, your daughter is going to become one of the losers. And it won't be her fault.

***
Re-reading the beginning of the post, trying to make it clearer, I realize I'm struggling (yet again) with someone who's made it quite clear that he doesn't want to do any of the work.

So I just have to walk away.