As a society, we should be ashamed of ourselves for creating an environment to encourage and enable excessive co-dependence. It's not that people shouldn't be helped or that we should be left entirely on their own, but we should be able to grow into adults who can at least act in ways where we learn to do things for ourselves or ask people in appropriate ways.
Demanding that someone do something for you is inappropriate. It's not difficult to ask for help where it is needed.
Expecting that someone else will take over the responsibility of solving your problem for you so that you don't have to worry about anything is inappropriate. You should know that you're involved in solving your personal problems, rather than waiting around for them to be solved for you.
And cishet men do this so often. More often, in my experience, than anyone else.
“My whole day is ruined now!”
“I'll have to take the day off of work to solve this!”
Followed by the slamming of everything, like doors and toilet seats. May as well break everything, seeing as that's the only solution to not getting a new toy.
Rather than actually try to solve the problem, rather than make records, rather than do anything at fucking all.
Slam, slam, slam.
... Then there's the whole refusal to engage in the world because one bad thing happened.
“I can't run now because of this.” He still has everything he needs to run. Nothing has changed.
“I can't make dinner because I'm upset.” As if that is relevant, as if he's never made me make dinner while I was upset or in pain or anything at all.
There are so many days where I struggle with not hating him for this kind of shit, but there are so many more where I feel trapped and without option.
Regardless of whether it's true or not, my partner's problems are always inherently worse than my own. Whenever he has an issue that is solvable but requires effort, he refuses to do anything at all except mope around. It's almost as if he wants his mommy to come make things better and do it for him, but I refuse to be his second mother. Fuck that.
If only immigration and financial safety didn't keep me somewhat tied to him... Sometimes, I feel like I'd leave.
The fact that I have to explain to a grown adult who claims to 'stand with workers' that he shouldn't mistreat workers because of an accident beyond their control is absolutely nonsensical.
Every single day, I realise that anarchists in Europe suck ass even more than any other region. And that's because too many of them want the aesthetics but think they're too edgy to call themselves what they really are: useless liberals.
Anarchism has values and beliefs, even if we're not all the same. It never includes capitalism, hierarchies, or oppression. It doesn't enable abuse or support bigotry. Anyone propping up their love for any of that via the path of anarchism is not an anarchist; that's simple.
They're using the aesthetics. They're pretending.
But anarchists in Europe? Patriarchal as shit. Nationalist as shit. Racist as shit. Queerphobic as shit. Colonialist and imperialist as shit. They never even explore their own values, and they never question what they've grown up learning. They just slap the word 'anarchist' on their views and go about as usual.
It is unsurprising to me that, even within anarchist circles which are full of cis men who claim to want liberation for all people, they simply cannot stop themselves from treating all feminine people around them as replacement mothers and caretakers.
Demanding so much and returning so little, always invading our space no matter what we say or how we say it... They perpetually ignore everything and claim that they've been wronged when they don't get what they want.
If we truly want liberation, these (among others) behaviours need to be revisited and dismantled.
“I don't want to ask on every post.”
Then feel free to not respond to me. Reconsider the way that social media and the internet is used. You do not have to engage with me all the time just because you follow me.
I have very often started drafting a response to someone only to delete it because it felt inadequate and potentially invasive. I have changed an entire response to something that asks for permission or grants access. I have prefaced statements with “This is tangential, but I also noticed...”
And with every consideration and change, I have had productive conversations and came up with new considerations and ideas that I hadn't thought of prior to that moment or wouldn't have recognised.
You do not need to simply respond to a complaint with a way to individually fix a problem that someone is pointing out as being infrastructural or systemic. You can just... commiserate.
You can also see it as a time to reflect upon the world around you. If this is an area you're interested in, what does it look like for you? And how do you fix it? And are there more people around you like me who have the same worries and frustrations and needs? Are there others beyond people like me who are being neglected and ignored?
You don't need to respond. Reading can be, and often is, enough.
“What kinds of responses do you want when you're complaining?”
Don't respond at all. Sit and reflect upon your current situation and how you could possibly change it for the better to meet the need of people like me around you. I'm not complaining purely for my own benefit. Recognise that not everything needs a response. Just because you can respond doesn't mean you fucking should.
If you're unaware if I want a solution or help, ask. Do that first and always. I don't know why this is never something that people don't do. If something doesn't start with a clear call for assistance, it might be a good idea to ask if someone wants help... Especially if what they're doing seems like venting frustrations. Your “assistance” is only going to make that person more upset, and you're more likely to get a more receptive person if you ask “Do you need help?” or “Do you want help?” or something than if you just blaze on in and solve their problem without consider what the purpose of their complaint is.
Solutions that involve “just go buy this thing” aren't useful and don't take into consideration a person's financial situation. If part of your solution includes “just go buy this thing,” especially when that thing is quite expensive, it's only going to make someone angry.
Stop individualising everything. Start reading things to see if it's an infrastructural or systemic problem before you go telling someone what they, on their own, can do. Otherwise, you're contributing to the same things they're already complaining about.
I have written numerous posts about how it feels overwhelming to want to make a change but to have no secure way of doing so, only for people to provide useless individualist solutions to a problem that is honestly far larger.
When I say I want to switch from Windows to Linux but that I don't know the best way of doing so because I do not know which is the best Linux variant for me and that I would feel more confident in trying them out within a community, it does not help me to say “You can put it on a USB and boot different ones up.” It still leaves me without having a secure space to try these things, and it still puts the onus on trying to find something more secure... on myself. Which is nonsensical.
When I say I want to de-Google my phone, it does not help to tell me to buy another one. Do you think I'm made of money? Do you think I can just go out and buy a new phone? Especially when certain phones make it easier than others? Do you think I can just figure all this out for myself? Should I even have to? Why aren't the tech spaces who claim to care so much about privacy doing anything for the average person?
Why is it when I say that I want a community of people who can help make it easier and possible to remove Microsoft and Google from my life, I get fucking individualist solutions? That's absurd.
If I feel that way, maybe a lot of people feel the same. You cannot tell me everyone wants to solve every problem on their own! I would never believe it!
And stop giving people advice they never asked for! Stop responding with “help” and reflect upon whether or not the person you're talking to even wants it in the first fucking place. It shouldn't be hard to recognise when they do! In fact, they'll probably ask for it when they need it.
And if you can't figure that out, fucking ask before offering it.
I know I've had people in the past tell me that 'taught' helplessness is a better term, but I still think 'learned' helplessness has a function within certain conditions.
For example, the 'learned' helplessness of a cis man who may not have had their cis father directly teaching them the ways to rely upon their (perceived) feminine partner. They watched what was done, and they learned from it.
It was not something they were taught but something they recognised as possible.