Caring About What Others Say

Ever since I first started developing memories I have always been able to recall, somewhere around 2 years of age, I have felt a deep need to keep others happy.  I'm not sure why.  I was always sensitive to other's feelings, especially the feelings of non-humans.  (This post is an example of that behavior in action: Sensitivity.)  I do know that once I became an adult, there was a lot I never said, out of fear of offending anyone.  The minute I said anything that got a negative response, I would shut up.  I think this happens to a lot of people.  I think it comes from simply not wanting to be hurtful to others, which isn't bad, until it makes people stay quiet while others are being harmed.

As an adult, I have heard people say that I needed to learn to not pay attention to others who made me feel like I should shut up.  So many times I would hear things like, "Don't listen to them," "Let that shit roll off your back like water off a duck," "Do like a dog, kick some dirt over that bs and walk away," "You really need to stop caring about what others think," etc, etc.  I tried hard to figure out how to speak up about issues I felt were important, without letting other people's negative responses make me feel guilty or wrong for speaking.  I knew I was not ever intentionally trying to say mean or offensive things whenever I wanted to speak up.  I knew what I most wanted to say were words about issues that were very important to me.  Issues like the need for people to get their pets spayed or neutered.   Issues like the ever-increasing occurances of childhood sexual exploitation.   Specific issues like corporal punishment in schools, where I knew very well how my sda school principal had gotten hard-ons every time he got to hack little girls under his care, with the blessing of the school board and the church behind each one of those hacks.  Let me tell you, no teacher was ever gonna hack my kids.  Not with what I knew.  (Yes, I know not all teachers would be turned on by hacking students. Simply not a risk I was ever gonna take with my own children.)  The negative reactions of others to those things I once tried to say, always shut me down.  For many years.  Decades even.  A long-ass time.  Until they didn't. 

I don't know what flipped that switch for me, but I think working in shelter medicine/rescue helped a lot.  I knew the numbers, I saw the abuses and suffering created for thousands of stray/feral animals.  Anyone who tried to tell me I was wrong to speak up about spay/neuter, was a person I realized simply did not know the truth.  It wasn't my place to yell at or belittle or shame that person.  That was something I believe would have been wrong of me to do.  But I finally realized it was right for me to speak the truth I knew about this issue.  I could create a blog post like this, Spay/Neuter, and the misinformation inherent in any negative responses I got, made it easy for me to simply let such responses roll off my back.  I found my key to actually not letting other's opinions about my words get to me.  

My biggest breakthrough in speaking truth without letting negative responses get to me, was when I posted this. (Trigger warning)  My sister compared that post to the day she "came out" to our family.  It probably was somewhat similar.  When I hit "publish" on that post, it was a huge step in my life.  There were things others said about that post that could be hurtful, but nobody who tried to make me feel bad for saying those words about a disturbing issue, could make me feel bad for posting those words.  I knew those words needed to come out, for me, and for those who don't understand what trafficking and child sexualization looks like, how easily and often it occurs, how it is something that happens all around us, all the time.  

I have finally reached a point where I feel comfortable enough not to internalize guilt when others try to make me feel bad for speaking up about an important issue I know needs to be better understood.  The re-exploitation of sexually exploited children is commonplace.  Cis girls are being systemically sexualized in our society from birth/toddler-hood on, and then blamed and ascribed the very agency such childhood sexualization steals from them.  Sexualized and sexually exploited children are viewed as fair game, by celebrities like Marc Maron, and by a lot of society as a whole.  Finally, at 57, I have figured out how to speak the truth about this, and when others try to make me feel bad for speaking it, I can finally kick some dirt over that shit and walk away.