Thread by @sympathetic_opp, subtweets incoming when someone brings up personal emotional trauma in a disagreement, [...]

subtweets incoming

when someone brings up personal emotional trauma in a disagreement, it can be emotionally pushy

obv there's a spectrum. bringing up personal trauma in a disagreement is pushier emotionally when youre talking:
-in public
-to a stranger or someone you haven't already shared reciprocal vulnerability with
-live/irl (this factor didnt come up in the convo im thinking of)

bringing up personal trauma in a disagreement is also pushier emotionally when the trauma is:
-common enough the other person might also have it
-invisible enough u wouldnt know whether the other person had it
-sensitive enough the other person might want to keep it private

bringing up common/invisible/sensitive/private personal traumas is more likely to be emotionally pushy bc those factors make it more likely you're pushing on a trauma the other person has

the reason bringing up personal trauma in a disagreement is emotionally pushy doesn't primarily have to do with triggering emotions in others, but with the incentives that are created. compare it to bringing up personal traumas to express agreement or support someone's point

when u bring up personal traumas to express agreement/support a point, u might make the other person feel some kind of way but hey they chose to have a public convo & it's their job to be mature abt that. they might want to share their own trauma, but they would have no reason to

feel punished by choosing to maintain their privacy. they might want to take emotional care of you, but they would be unlikely to feel an obligation to provide additional emotional care, bc you kinda turned their original point into emotional care

wow had to take a tweet break to receive this awesome xmas gift from my best friend (socially distancedly) LOOK

but i do have some more thoughts abt this

when u bring up personal trauma in a disagreement, esp publicly, the other person might feel like yr pushing them to provide emotional care such as walking back the original point you disagreed on, & that if they don't do so they will look bad to others and/or hurt u emotionally

when u bring up common/invisible trauma in a disagreement, esp publicly, the other person might feel pressured to reveal that they have the same trauma, or risk seeming cold abt yr trauma or their point seeming less grounded in experience than yours

this happened a lot when i was in a woke writing workshop. ppl wd submit work based on their personal traumas, i wd try to offer useful crit, & their friends wd push back that it was not my place to criticize their lived experience--when i often shared the experience

eg:

me: "in yr poem abt struggling w an undiagnosed heart issue, 'it felt like a heart attack' isnt a useful analogy bc its too different to be literal & too similar to be literary. its at the wrong literary distance, its out of focus"

their friend: "well this is based on their

lived experience so it's not your place to question that"

when i actually have struggled with a heart problem! but i shouldnt have to say that to make a point in a class discussion, its like a hipaa violation or something lol

anyway back on track....when u bring up personal trauma in a disagreement, esp publicly, its disincentivizing ppl from maintaining boundaries & incentivizing them to share an intimacy & vulnerability that they might not have wanted to otherwise

& to me the fact that it creates disincentives is more like, morally salient than the fact that it creates incentives i guess

disincentives feel pushier than incentives & its bad to push someone into being vulnerable w you

when im emotionally vulnerable w someone, it changes the way i think w them. it like, dims my reason slightly by making me put more weight on what they have to say. i can't change that & i think a lot of ppl have the same thing going on w vulnerability as i do

also, afaict vulnerable information is necessarily information you can use to hurt someone

as said by someone whos thought abt this more than i, when "someone is opening up to be affected by you...you aren’t infallible, you might hurt them"

so when someone is disincentivizing me from NOT being vulnerable w them, i feel like they're (consciously or not) doing something that will allow them to slightly hijack my brain

when someone pushes me to be vulnerable with them, i do not assume they're being intentionally manipulative

however, i also don't feel an obligation to turn them down politely and gently, like im receiving a party invitation. i dont think someone else's pushiness can create such an obligation in me. i wouldn't insult them but slight prickliness feels called for

if someone did things that felt emotionally pushy to me & backed off after being rebuffed, i would be like "eh, just one of those things, happens sometimes"

however, if i rebuffed someone for putting me in a situation where id feel socially punished for not being vulnerable w them, & then they publicly posted unflattering assumptions abt ppl who rebuffed their attempts at vulnerability, in a way that was recognizable enough as referr

ing to our convo that friends sent me the posts, i would feel more socially punished than if they had just backed off a little

i would trust someone more if after being rebuffed they introspected abt ways they might have unintentionally been pushy, & if they only speculated abt ways the rebuffer might have been previously traumatized, i would not have a reason for thinking theyd be more careful in future

anyway, vulnerability is potent, & when im vulnerable it gives ppl the power to hurt me as well as help me, so i like to do trust checks, move slowly w mutual revelations, & hit the eject button when i feel pushed (whether that pushing is intentional or otherwise)

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