respect

[Portia]

anotherguest:

I wonder how all his tens of thousands of victims feel about those pics... rather, the ones that are still alive.

I don't know. What do you think about The Sun publishing the pictures?

[jophil]

To Cripes, in recognition of your pretentious pedantry - I want to ship you a carton full of commas in the typeface of your choice. You are surely a compulsive 'right fighter' and so you will be looking to have the last word - go ahead. I will not spoil your victory with a reply.

[Portia]

Can I ask a quick question please?

Jophil, I am puzzled when you say:

I want to ship you a carton full of commas

I don’t want to get involved here but I am curious (bad habit, I know) – do you mean Cripes uses too many commas, or too few? Or maybe I’m misunderstanding more than I can think and you don’t mean that at all? Sorry, I just don’t like not ‘getting it’ because then I feel stupid.

Hope you sort whatever it is out and sorry to interrupt.

[mudpuppy]

Hi Portia,

As Jophil indicated he may not return here let me hazard a guess as to what he meant. Cripes appears to use a lot of commas in his/her writing style. It would appear to be a jab at Cripes in response to Cripes' jabs at jophil.

Which brings me to another subject; the title of this thread. I see a lessening of respect on this board and frankly it is pretty depressing. I only post occasionally on the open board anymore. Most communication I do is through PMs to people I can have an honest, helpful  discussion with.

I wonder if I might ask Cripes a question or two?
What was the point of your long dissertation to jophil when he had merely made reference to Luke?
Why did you refer to it as preaching?
If he had quoted the Buddha or the Bhagavad Gita would you have reacted similarly? Are you a Buddhist or Hindu scholar as well?
You state that in your opinion we should all stick to Ns and how to deal with them, and then make two subsequent posts which are snide, snotty  attempts to provoke jophil and have more to do with his spelling than Ns or how to deal with them.

I wonder if you've considered that perhaps, umm, is it possible, that I'm a genuine party?

Why did you ask this question?
At no point did jophil state or even imply that you are not a 'genuine party'.
Why would you feel the need to even raise the subject?
I know why, do you?

mudpup

[bunny]

I'll stick my oar in. Here's what I think happened. Someone quoted the Bible. That was a huge trigger (it usually is) and another person, or people, reacted. Then it turned into the usual bickering and "Let me just ask you this" questioning. It can be stopped, we can just pretend there's a red light on this stuff, put on the brakes, and then turn on a green light refocusing on the topic. That's my observation for what it's worth. Carry on.

bunny

[cat]

You know, I was really interested in hearing more about respect and now this thread seems to be getting off topic.

How do you respect a N when it is your own mom or dad?

[mudpuppy]

Hi cat,

This thread appears to have been a train wreck from the get go.
You might have better luck with your respect question if you start a new thread.
I struggle with your question as well, but have no intention of addressing it in the context of this derailed mess. Maybe someone else will though. Good luck.
Just my 2cents as the saying goes.

mudpup

[write]

that some people will hate their abusers or tormentors, and I've felt like that too, so angry I thought my head would explode. I've made myself physically sick with anxiety and rage.

But I also think that being able to let go of that is essential for me- and that means I have to accept that that person is sick or damaged or just evil or whatever and they deserve no relationship with me but a respect, yes.

I used to think- I wish (s)he'd die( about more than one person actually )
I was so consumed with impotent rage.

How could someone hurt me like that?

Now I have respect- very much so given the damage I know particularly my father can do.

But it's respect which says- you deserve your life ( and whatever you've reaped therin ) and I deserve to go on with mine. Without your voice in my head, without your pernicious presence in my life.

And it's applying the same thing to all the other relationships I've got into because of this faulty pattern of relating.

I don't think until I lose all the anger and bitterness that I will consider myself healed and ready to move on.

[bunny]

My guess is, you're saying, "I respect myself, and I respect your right to be a messed up abuser. In fact, I respect your disorder and sickness so much that I will detach and remove myself from it. Have a nice life." If that's the case, I agree.

bunny

[Brigid]

Mudpup,

Which brings me to another subject; the title of this thread. I see a lessening of respect on this board and frankly it is pretty depressing. I only post occasionally on the open board anymore. Most communication I do is through PMs to people I can have an honest, helpful discussion with.

I have to strongly agree with you my friend.  It seems there are a lot of negative comments flying around in regard to many subjects and I can't understand why this is happening so suddenly.  I guess I am going to have to get myself a pm so I can distance myself from all this bickering and negativity.

Brigid

[mudpuppy]

Brigid,

Looking forward to a PM from you sis.

mud

[write]

anything I don't understand or doesn't feel it pertains to me.

I think I've missed something- I also find it incredibly hard to concentrate to read lately, especially on the computer.

But I hope I haven't said anything to offend anyone here.

[write]

"I respect myself, and I respect your right to be a messed up abuser. In fact, I respect your disorder and sickness so much that I will detach and remove myself from it. Have a nice life."

I think that's exactly how I need it to feel!

Sometimes I've felt so resentful that people who can be so cruel or thoughtless seem to get away with it, and in my mind I thought I was punishing them with my feelings. But it was just holding me in that position.

I'm not going to care if the handful of difficult people win the lottery, fall in love, have great success- and of course I know they'll flaunt it if any of these really happen.

I'll try to concentrate on the people who do give me positive feedback, and the next time I find myself in the midst of someone's emotional fireworks just extricate myself and book a therapy appt then move on.

I've wasted half my life on people who will never value or care about me and it's definitely a pattern I want to break.

Someone said in another thread- why would I want a non-reciprocal painful relationship.

The answer is I don't.

I'm going to concentrate on detaching and I'm afraid the only punishment I can dish out to people who hurt me is to move on as fast as possible and deny them having wonderful me in their lives! ( smile )

I don't really think that yet, haven't built myself up to that, but that's going to be my next goal, to feel so good about myself and my life that if someone hurts me it feels awful and immediately out of place...and I shout stop...not make excuses so I can catch a few crumbs of affection and feel like I should be grateful.

[daylily]

But it's respect which says- you deserve your life ( and whatever you've reaped therin ) and I deserve to go on with mine. Without your voice in my head, without your pernicious presence in my life.

Respect is a very odd commodity, in my opinion.  I think one of the complicated issues here is how to respect yourself, and consistently act on that respect, without belittling other people.  It so often seems like an either/or proposition.

I know that I always have to be careful not to confuse my desire to "live" self-respect with my (rather less mature) desire to "demand" respect from others--when what I'm really demanding is attention.  I think "respect" for others is all about recognizing both their rights and their sovereignty, and above all, to recognize that one of those rights is the right to choose not to have anything to do with me.  That doesn't have to be narcissistic or abusive, it can just be.  Certain people in my life are never going to love me, accept me, recognize me, and the more I'm "in their face" about it, the more I'm disrespecting both them and myself.

It's hard to make sense of this--at least, I suspect I'm not doing a good job--but I think any discussion of respect has to include this distinction between respect and attention.  Someone can "respect" me (i.e., not infringe upon my boundaries) while paying no attention to me at all.  And I can do the same.

In that sense, I think what outrages us about the idea that criminals and abusers deserve respect is that these people consistently violate individual and societal boundaries.  They barge into other peoples' lives and take things that do not belong to them (or which they cannot legitimately claim).  And in doing so, I think they forfeit their right to respect (at least, as regards the offending behavior).  They still maintain certain "human rights," but they lose individual sovereignty--control over their own space, associations, and so forth--because they have failed to govern themselves.

I work in the criminal justice system, so I get a lot of opportunity to contemplate issues surrounding offending behavior and the social contracts through which we react to it.  So I guess almost everything I say about "respect" passes through that filter.  Sorry if anything I've said is way off base.

Very interesting issue.

daylily

[Portia]

Write, please keep writing, I’m finding a lot of sense in what you say.

Daylily

It's hard to make sense of this--at least, I suspect I'm not doing a good job-

Daylily, you’re doing a blooming great job in my book  (if my opinion is worth posting? ). I’ll come back to digest your words some more.

I think one of the problems with ‘respect’ is how we define it. Over here (UK) I perceive that when we say respect, we think of deference, and that isn’t what we mean here at all (and it isn’t the true meaning of the word from what I can tell). Great thread, very educational for me. Thanks all