You Need to Act ‘Right’

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 09-20-2023

It’s no secret that people compulsively run away from discomfort, or push away discomfort. They want to run away from emotions, push away other people’s emotions. They may want other’s to act or behave in a way that does not ‘trigger’ their emotions. With this comes the very prevalent and bad societal habit of ‘policing’ people. We do this by teaching and pushing our moral and behavioral agenda. “You should do this”, “You shouldn’t do that”. With the online world, this has reached expanding heights/ audiences. Now we can even police people behind the comfort of a screen, or attempt to, rather. I just watched a funny online Reel for example, and laughed out loud. I realized while I was laughing that it seemed like a video that had the potential to be slightly offensive. So I decided to check the comments. Sure enough, there were swarms of people judging the video and preaching about how ‘it’s wrong’ to talk that way. Meanwhile, other people ran to this person’s defense and reminded people to lighten up and learn to laugh. So, for today’s blog, I have decided to write out ‘how we are supposed to act’. Or, how we ‘would act’ if society got to have a say in every decision we made. These will be my educated guesses, of course.

You Need to Act ‘right’ when:

You are being verbally abused or harrassed at work You must either shut the harrasser down yourself in a brave fashion and move on with your life, or report them through the ‘proper channels’. Regardless of the fear of stigma or fear that you ‘will not be believed’. Forget about the fact that there is a history of cases where the victim was not believed, forget how popular your perpetrator is, ‘no one will be bias’. (sarcasm) You might get retraumatized when retelling your story to investigators over and over and over again as they ask questions that clearly lead to a ‘victim blaming’ agenda for the case. You also might feel ostracized by the rest of the work section as most of them will not be mature enough to just stay out of it and focus on their own work; but deal with it. Don’t act like a victim even if you were a victim. Keep doing your job and the investigation will just ‘sort itself out’. Also, don’t be shocked if people can’t understand why you might have PTSD and that it will surely impact your daily work, work through the trauma. Or, you can just quit your job that you worked so hard for. Money is a non issue right?

You are dealing with the aftermath of a toxic break up with an Abuser Yeah, you were abused, but, that’s over now. Get over it. Also, you should have seen it coming. You should see why ‘you were the problem too’. Take the time to be single, but don’t be single forever. Through all your pain just remember one day you will find ‘The one’! Just remember that all of your friends and family called it, they knew that person was bad for you, they didnt say much to your face… but whatever. They knew. Just know that they knew, and you didn’t. You’re actually stupid. If you were abused remember a part of it is your fault, develop that belief through all your pain and rage. Dont’ talk smack to the abuser or about the abuser ever, ‘rise above’. Remember to let everyone talk crap to you about how foolish you were, but also remember no one will ‘call out your abuser’ about the PoS that they were. Everyone confronts the victim, no one confronts the abuser. That’s life, deal with it. Oh, but if in ten years the abuser ends up killing someone, then you are at fault for ‘not outing them more’.

You are Online Mostly post positive and happy things to cheer people up, but remember if you do that too much you are triggering many people’s insecurities and you will be ‘arrogant’ for it. So don’t post too much about your success. Also, don’t post a lot of negativity because that comes with another label. Don’t post too much about politics at all! Otherwise you are spreading an agenda. But, make sure you post a picture of you with the “I voted” sticker come election year or else you are a hypocrite for not voting. What else? If you post too much, everyone will assume you are unemployed so be careful about that. And Selfies? They love them, as long as there isn’t too much make up or a heavy filter. Body pics where you have a hot body? Heck no, especially if you’re a women, then you are screaming for the wrong attention. Always like your friends baby and kid pictures, always like the ‘just married’ announcements/ pics even if it’s a known toxic and abusive relationship that your friend has been DMing you about for years. Post your significant other but not too little or too much! Too little means you’re trying ‘to look single’. Too much means you are obsessive and cringe. If you’re a writer? You’re F&%$ed, sorry to say it, but how do you even expect to compete with TikTok videos of all those people with tremendous ‘talent’? That’s comical, give up while you are ahead.

You are parenting ONLY breastfeed unless you have some serious problem preventing it… then… I guess you can use formula. Public school means you are poor and didn’t work hard, private school means they will be a snob, and homeschooling means they wont’ have social skills. Your house better be clean, always. Just like those Momfluencers on the Gram… let’s forget about the fact that they might have hired help with a rich spouse, you’re just making excuses if you bring that up. Mom, your body better be back to your pre pregnancy weight within months or else everyone is going to wonder what you are doing with your life. You know… besides raising kid’s and all. If you’re posting your kid that’s okay, not too much though or you’re giving their identity away to predators. If you’re a stay at home parent, be grateful, it’s a luxary. If you are a working parent, you are probably selfish because your kid isn’t getting enough attention. If you are a single parent, it’s your fault and you deserved it. The other parent isn’t here to blame so we will just blame you. If you are a stepparent you better post memes about ‘how you love those kid’s as if they were your own’, otherwise, you’re the most selfish of them all. And most importantly, NEVER complain about being a parent. EVER. You chose that life.

You are suffering from a Mental illness Yes, you are allowed to say that you have a mental health condition now. It’s more acceptable and people will call you brave if you put out the label. But, don’t give the details. No one wants details, they only want the word of the condition so they can know. Details are too overwhelming so you best keep a lid on that condition. If you’re depressed, get your damn sunlight and eat healthy. If you are anxious, just relax, and eat healthy. If you are traumatized, forget about it, and then eat healthy. If you have insomnia, just sleep, sleep is important, and then make sure you wake up and start eating. If you have ADHD, just focus better, and eat healthy. If you have an addiction, be sober, and eat healthy. If you have an eating disorder, well you really NEED to learn to eat HEALTHY! Bottom line, you are going to make people very uncomfortable if you don’t heal just by eating healthy and resting. So, pretend that holistic health will give you permanent healing, and if you need meds, don’t even mention it. Just don’t. Don’t tell people the biopsychosocial factors that contribute to your condition because that complex info will just give them a headache.

You are in formal education Do your classwork and homework, don’t interrupt the teacher of course. Make sure you raise your hand 1-2 times per class to contribute. Any less makes it appear that you did not do the required readings, anymore than that, then you are a ‘know it all’. Whatever political affilation your college has, that is now your poltiical affiliation too. If you appear to be on the fence of undecided, or on the opposite end of the political line, the classroom will swarm you like Bee’s until you run out crying. Only argue with the teacher when your Mom or Dad is a Doctor or Lawyer, that seems to work sometimes. But make sure you mention it, that’s important. It’s perfectly acceptable to pretend you know everything about a subject if you took one semester of it in college. Go with that… you’re “educated’ now. If you have a B, that is unacceptable. (despite even if you skipped half the classes that semester) You must be perfect, so be sure to swarm the teacher with last minute make up assignment requests in the last week before Finals. It always seems to work.

You are serving in the Military First and foremost, you signed up for this. So never complain. (Despite the fact that the rest of the population literally complains about college, parenting, civilian jobs and so on) You now have two set’s of laws to live by, the Uniformed code of military justice and the country laws. Keep track of all of them. Perform at 100%, 24/7. Get called into work in the middle of the night? Don’t complain. Work overtime with no overtime pay? Don’t complain. Get verbally abused by a ‘higher up’ in front of everyone you work with? Don’t complain. Deploy to a war zone? Don’t complain. Listen to everyone else whine about how hard their life is when you are in a war zone? Don’t complain, you fought to give them those rights. Get treated like crap when you return home by jealous coworkers and insecure civilians? Don’t complain. Don’t brag about it either. Hide your awards. Barely post yourself in uniform. There will be many movies that glamorize war, but, it’s for entertainment so don’t complain. Make sure you ‘move on’ after your military trauma. Get a new job and get on with life. Find a new sense of purpose, and learn to be happy with it.. even if it doesn’t give you 25% the adrenaline the military did. And despite the fact that Stats show Veterans have the highest rates of unemployment, chronic pain conditions, TBI, PTSD, substance abuse issues, homelessness and suicide… you’re still going to be treated as an outcast if you ‘fall apart’. So don’t!