thinking a lot about how phrases like
“I’m at capacity, I can’t engage [with you] right now” / “I don’t have the capacity to reconnect” / “I don’t have capacity for more connections” / etc.
“Thank you for sharing [your vulnerability]”
“These are my boundaries, I’m articulating them so we can better show up and care for each other / be in community with each other”
“I want to honour your needs and boundaries” / “What do you need / what are your boundaries?”
“What’s bringing you joy these days?”
“I want to be intentional with our plans” / “I’m setting an intention to…”
“Let’s unpack that” / “There’s a lot to unpack here” / etc.
“Let’s practice authenticity”
“I’m looking for slowness and intentionality”
“I want to be mindful of…”
& other such vocabulary popular in the lexicon of western social justice communities, gentle parenting and nonviolent communication circles, tenderqueer social circles, various new age / woo / healing social spheres, etc etc
just feel like lies, codes, ways of obfuscating and justifying, getting away from really being direct and honest (while ironically purporting to be direct and honest forms of communication), ways to say “wow you’re toxic / oversharing / crossing boundaries / immature / clearly in need of healing / etc, get away from me” without actually saying it
I need to articulate this more, but I guess it all feels related to my thoughts on liberal boundaries discourse
I do use some of this language too, sometimes, both out of necessity and exposure and habit and whatever, often because it feels like the only way to communicate with all these people who don’t even realize how deeply individualistic and alienating this kind of communication is, I’m not saying it’s always terrible or should never be used or whatever, it’s complicated obviously
but then I have to feel guilty both for using the language when it feels so fake *and* for feeling angry about the language itself since apparently that means I’m just a terrible person who doesn’t believe in boundaries or respect or whatever at all 🙄
anyway I need to articulate this more & there’s so much constantly swirling in my head about it but it all feels very very much part of disposability culture, the thing we do not name or talk about enough or properly, all these ways to seem so “evolved” and “self-actualized”
honestly i would just prefer if you said
“I’m exhausted I can’t deal with this”
“I’m angry about [xyz], I don’t want to talk to you anymore”
“yeah I don’t trust you, bye”
“why are you oversharing so much” / “that’s too much information” / “just shut up now”
“yeah if you do this again I’m leaving, bye”
“if you can’t communicate in a healthy way then I don’t want to talk to you”
“why are you so upset all the time, can’t you be happy sometimes”
“you’re too chaotic to do things with”
“this is too overwhelming”
“I don’t want to deal with all that”
“yeah you’re being too real, stop it”
“that’s crazy, get away from me”
“okay whatever but that’s too much again”
and, you know, it’s valid (haha) to feel overwhelmed, tired, scared, etc
and I wish we could just say that
instead of inventing all these ways to obfuscate and act like we’re so “in touch with our feelings” when we are really, really not
theartofmadeline
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dededos
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