*ponders* I also think perhaps more importantly that your body doesn't continually cause you misery, either because of physicality or because of emotional stuff totally rooted in your body.
And "misery" here is chosen specifically, as opposed to pain, because they're not necessarily the same thing. I think your body probably causes you a lot more pain more often than mine does me? But that I have observed, I have not seen the state of your body directly being responsible for you being MISERABLE.
And I think it is inherently unfair/unsupportable to demand that people have warm-fuzzy positive feelings about something that is making them miserable.
Pragmatically, the solution to this may be to find ways to enable them not to be miserable, whatever those happen to be (less pain, more empowerment, etc), but for some these are really not available yet or likely to be in their lifetime: for someone who really, really wants, with all their heart, to do something that their body simply does not allow them to do . . . well sometimes that problem is not solvable, and that misery is hard to relieve, and at that point it becomes kinda out of line to demand that they find Positive Feelings about it.
And in this case I don't think it's "degree", as it were, of Disabled (or Dysphoric) that does it as such? But whether or not the body is at the core of that misery.
It's not cool to demand that people Feel Positive and Fluffy and Fuzzy-Warm Good about something that's making them miserable, which is more or less what the body-positivity movement often comes off as being/doing*. And which does get pushed at particular kinds of disabled people a lot, tangling up with other ways in which it's demanded they be Positive and Upbeat and Happy, and thus hits over into I GET TO FEEL AS FUCKING NEGATIVE AS I FUCKING LIKE GO TO HELL kind of thing.
Basically crosses over into "I get to have the emotions that I have, I get to feel the way I feel about things". Which has ways it connects to the "gratitude excercises" issue too: a lot of the people who have very negative reactions to the idea are those who have had Positivity Demanded of them at great length (which I tentatively get the sense is not something that happened to you so much? You more had abusive parental negativity shoved at you 24/7? I could be wrong!), who were NOT ALLOWED to have/express negative feelings or to be upset?
So then it becomes "this body you have that causes you misery all the time? You must LOVE it and feel GOOD about it and be POSITIVE about it because it is GOOD and POSITIVE and - " and at that point one wants to eat everything's face and then light it on fire.
Now I think there are actually a LOT of other options other than either WARM FUZZY SUNSHINE FEELINGS ALL THE TIME or "of course I loathe my body and it is awful horrific and I hate it how dare you suggest otherwise."
But I think even broaching them, it's important to start with "you know what? you are absolutely ALLOWED to hate your body. And it is an absolutely reasonable thing to have hugely negative feelings towards something that causes you to be miserable." And from THERE you can move on to "so it is significantly possible that it will lessen misery if we approach it like this: your body is not actually a malignant force out to get you, and it doesn't MEAN to be terrible, and while it's frustrating and unhappy-makiing that it does X or won't do X or whatever, it's probable that you will get better results in Being Less Miserable if however you feel, you approach treating it with some basic kind of compassion and care, and here are some ways to do that."
*and note: they usually do this because they're fighting back at a culture that is telling them that their body is not ALLOWED to make them Positive, Happy, Feel Warm Fuzzy Feelings! And when one's perspective is that this is ALL AROUND ALL THE TIME, it can be hard to remember that other people are experiencing the other direction.
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regna
THOUGHTS, TEAL AND DEERISH.
Date: 2017-09-12 10:52 pm (UTC)And "misery" here is chosen specifically, as opposed to pain, because they're not necessarily the same thing. I think your body probably causes you a lot more pain more often than mine does me? But that I have observed, I have not seen the state of your body directly being responsible for you being MISERABLE.
And I think it is inherently unfair/unsupportable to demand that people have warm-fuzzy positive feelings about something that is making them miserable.
Pragmatically, the solution to this may be to find ways to enable them not to be miserable, whatever those happen to be (less pain, more empowerment, etc), but for some these are really not available yet or likely to be in their lifetime: for someone who really, really wants, with all their heart, to do something that their body simply does not allow them to do . . . well sometimes that problem is not solvable, and that misery is hard to relieve, and at that point it becomes kinda out of line to demand that they find Positive Feelings about it.
And in this case I don't think it's "degree", as it were, of Disabled (or Dysphoric) that does it as such? But whether or not the body is at the core of that misery.
It's not cool to demand that people Feel Positive and Fluffy and Fuzzy-Warm Good about something that's making them miserable, which is more or less what the body-positivity movement often comes off as being/doing*. And which does get pushed at particular kinds of disabled people a lot, tangling up with other ways in which it's demanded they be Positive and Upbeat and Happy, and thus hits over into I GET TO FEEL AS FUCKING NEGATIVE AS I FUCKING LIKE GO TO HELL kind of thing.
Basically crosses over into "I get to have the emotions that I have, I get to feel the way I feel about things". Which has ways it connects to the "gratitude excercises" issue too: a lot of the people who have very negative reactions to the idea are those who have had Positivity Demanded of them at great length (which I tentatively get the sense is not something that happened to you so much? You more had abusive parental negativity shoved at you 24/7? I could be wrong!), who were NOT ALLOWED to have/express negative feelings or to be upset?
So then it becomes "this body you have that causes you misery all the time? You must LOVE it and feel GOOD about it and be POSITIVE about it because it is GOOD and POSITIVE and - " and at that point one wants to eat everything's face and then light it on fire.
Now I think there are actually a LOT of other options other than either WARM FUZZY SUNSHINE FEELINGS ALL THE TIME or "of course I loathe my body and it is awful horrific and I hate it how dare you suggest otherwise."
But I think even broaching them, it's important to start with "you know what? you are absolutely ALLOWED to hate your body. And it is an absolutely reasonable thing to have hugely negative feelings towards something that causes you to be miserable." And from THERE you can move on to "so it is significantly possible that it will lessen misery if we approach it like this: your body is not actually a malignant force out to get you, and it doesn't MEAN to be terrible, and while it's frustrating and unhappy-makiing that it does X or won't do X or whatever, it's probable that you will get better results in Being Less Miserable if however you feel, you approach treating it with some basic kind of compassion and care, and here are some ways to do that."
*and note: they usually do this because they're fighting back at a culture that is telling them that their body is not ALLOWED to make them Positive, Happy, Feel Warm Fuzzy Feelings! And when one's perspective is that this is ALL AROUND ALL THE TIME, it can be hard to remember that other people are experiencing the other direction.