Venting. Pardoning and liking people who have done wrong to us

[Azul]

Long story short, I have reasons to believe one teacher used pejorative labels for me for months, indirectly, and also done other forms of subtle provocation.

I have suffered greatly this year because of that, but finally I don't have to see this person anymore.

I took some courage and called out her insensitiveness as politely as I could. Some people didn't like that, and she herself unsurprisingly pretended to not understand me, even if she understood it previously, when I spoke with her privately.

But finally, after letting out what I felt, I feel in a strange position where I can forgive her. I'm unaware if this is a defence mechanism, but I've grow to either like/empathize or identify myself with the person who were bullying me - ironically. I noticed as time passed that she isolated herself from social gatherings and preferred to enjoy herself quietly. Also that she has a flat affect. The only expressions I ever noticed of hers were of smiling to other people, being surprised and then showing me disdain. She also didn't look into my eyes, but so I didn't look into hers. She's good with words, something people tell me sometimes I'm also good with it (that is, if I could prepare before, if not I'm a confuse mess). As much as it pains me (still) remembering her look of disdain or disgust when she interacted with me, I think I identified with her and semi-automatically started liking her, even if I'm stricken by anger when I sometimes am in her presence.

To make it weirder, I once felt a platonic attraction. I'm not lesbian, but if I were I might have been sexually attracted to her.

I think she's inconsiderate in what she has done, and that she felt angered and hurt when I (correctly, in my mind) showed how apart were her discourse and her actual actions. Simply put, it were hypocritical. And I believe, due to a series of misunderstandings beginning with another person who is a liar (the typical snake), she understood many things wich I did or said wrongly. While I don't think her actions were acceptable, I suppose and sort of understand if she felt angered by all of it, specially my criticism, because it seems to be a core belief of hers the belief in her absolute ethical behaviour. Now that I don't have to suffer her shades anymore, it is easier to see it as just a failure, even if a greatly damaging failure, of an otherwise well intended and caring teacher.

It's a pity. If she didn't dislike me so strongly it might have been a good relationship.

I'm in a weird dilemma of disregarding her as just an insensitive bully or of lamenting a person I would otherwise remember fondly of.

And to my chagrin, my superstitious brain half who insists in believing in some sort of spiritual sensing or intuition of people and realities makes me have hope that one day all will be resolved and some good and dandy term might be reached. To wich my rational and bitterly cynical other half side of my brain reproaches as senseless and unnecessary lengthening of suffering.

Most likely, she either deeply hates me now or is happy she won't have to see me anymore.

But at the very least I'm not walking on aches as before. Now to wait for them to cool off (and for me to stop ruminating).

(The indirect labeling hurt deeply.

They were about being an acritical complainer, inferior to the other true critical students, and later a student with peter pan syndrome, who would become a professional "more of the less".

The "complainer" label were repeated through a whole bimester and really stung. I've received labels in life sometimes, for arguing, for reasoning, questioning. Stuff like "full of herself", "petulant", "rebel", "only sees in black and white", "annoying", "dumb" and probably others I'm forgetting, not to say other hostilities, like suffering scorn, being bullied, being threatened physical aggression and others. All due to simple epistemological disagreements.

Even if purely generic, "complainer" is also an ad hominem attack, since it diminishes and disregards what one might say because the person complaining is, after all, a complainer, lesser and emptly defiant. It works wonderfully and perversely as a preemptive silencing tactic. If one arbitrarily decides who is the true critic and who is merely the complainer, he gets to choose who gets heard or muted, who maintains social status and who loses it. "Stigmatized, shunned and sanctioned", indeed, borrowing from the paper of Milton Damian.

That a teacher, of all social positions, would explicitly offend me and falsely gossip (the snake) or indirectly label me as a complainer for questioning a grade (the bully I speak of), specially when these teachers themselves were the noisiest about emancipatory education, were a sour surprise and showed me how hypocrite and unprepared they were to deal with disagreements.

It might be they simply don't give the true value to those principles as they say they do, or perhaps they were unprepared to deal with actual epistemic conflict, and thus angered themselves when I insisted on reasoning. I could write an essay on why and where all probably have gone wrong.

The fact is, even if they didn't know how to deal with it, I felt deeply to be much likely called by them, of all people, someone who is lesser and whose words are empty noise, unvaluable.

Not to make a big discourse on education but a commentary, but I believe a teacher must be prepared to deal with any kind of epistemic conflict, even if apparently meaningless, because it is never meaningless. Treating the other with respect, ethics and intellectual rigour, even in the face of vast cultural differences or unbridged disagreements, is a dialogical principle worthy in itself, as minor the subject matter might seem, and, as such, an educational principle they should have upheld.

And while it were all indirect, I think there's sufficient explicit information for me to infer with a degree of certainty what the repeated and unusual "complainer" rethoric refers to, moreso when she actively ignored or silenced any criticism I made, all of them about the lack of logical fundaments and possible harmful effects of her rethoric.)

Rant finally over, I like her and I wish we could just bridge our misunderstandings, even if probably not possible anymore.

 

[Azul]

Sorry! I think I posted in the wrong subforum. I just asked for someone to move it.

 

[Jordy]

Never forgive someone who deliberately wronged you for no good reason. If at some point you are in the power to make their life worse you should.

 

[Misery]

Never forgive someone who deliberately wronged you for no good reason. If at some point you are in the power to make their life worse you should.

Nah, that's sinking to their level... or even further below. Pretty gross behavior.

Besides, even some of the worst bullies arent necessarily quite who you think they are.

I knew one, back in my school days... nastiest kid around. This being during highschool. Real piece of work, if you know what I mean.

But, fast forward years later, and I learn some things. This person who had been such a bully before was now the absolute opposite. Turns out the lashing out at school was due to pent up anger and general pain from an abusive home life, made worse by the fact that this kid was transgender, and so going through the torment of THAT (and I sure know how much that hurts). So... both at once? For all of her school days? ALL of them, without exception? Oh yeah. I'd have likely snapped too. I never was the best at anger management.

But without that torment now (moved away from abusive family and such)... yeah. She aint the bully she used to be. Indeed, there isnt even a shred of that left.

And I'm glad I never struck out at her back in the day. I wouldnt be able to forgive myself if I'd done that, to someone who was already suffering greatly... even if I hadnt been aware of it at the time.

Dont get me wrong: There were a couple of other bullies who had no real excuse for their actions. One in particular ended up being a real shady guy, even into adulthood. But even so, me doing the bully thing right back at him would have just brought me to his sunken level... and to me, that's THEIR victory, not mine. Because it would mean that I allowed them to pull me down. Surely, I'm stronger than that, so I prove it by not allowing that.

Just throwing out more hate isnt a sign of strength, it's a sign of weakness. Any braindead doofus can do THAT, after all. But it takes actual strength to overcome and defeat hate instead of letting it take control. And doing it builds further strength and confidence.

It's why I'm here, for that matter.

 

[Slime_Punk]

If at some point you are in the power to make their life worse you should.

There's actually nothing more empowering in this world than looking evil square in the eyes and showing it kindness.

 

[Misery]

There's actually nothing more empowering in this world than looking evil square in the eyes and showing it kindness.

Well said.

 

[Lysholm]

I think you have a pretty good handle on what's going on, and you're smart enough to have self-doubt about your judgements and are brave enough to confront them head-on. Good for you.

However, most people are not like that. They are driven to easy judgements that are provoked by psychological mechanisms designed to help them cope with their lives - even if the point of them leveraging their power over you is as inconsequential as a dopamine hit. Most people do not have the intelligence to self-diagnose or the courage to look critically inward, instead they latch onto lies that allow themselves to always feel they are acting morally. This is why cruel people are cruel - they have concocted an excuse for acting how they do and have reasoned why they are justified in doing so. The result is unbridled self-richeousness when they are called out on the behavior (which can really make an accuser second guess themselves).

I get it: You just can't believe someone society labels as "smart and selfless" (the lip-service so often given to teachers) could possibly be cruel deliberately - no, it must be a mistake and you are missing something, you are the one in the wrong. Sorry - this person is probably the monster you suspect they are. Half of teachers are creeps who never mentally left the grades they ended up teaching, the other half are people who've taken the job because they couldn't get anything better. Somewhere in there are a few true saints...but I've never met one.

My advice is to simply let the experience go after labeling the person a bad actor. Don't hold a grudge, but don't put yourself in a position to be affected by them ever again. Also realize that others may get along with this person just fine - there may or may not be a reason for this - but don't go out of your way to bad mouth the person. I'd say the main takeaway from this experience is: those with power over you aren't qualified to be there.

 

[Outdated]

me doing the bully thing right back at him would have just brought me to his sunken level... and to me, that's THEIR victory, not mine.

This is also my belief. Bullies try to change you in to copies of themselves, I refuse to let them win.

I'm not big on forgiveness, and my mind never forgets, but my favourite form of revenge is just to sit back and watch them destroy themselves. You get what you give in life.

 

[Azul]

Most people do not have the intelligence to self-diagnose or the courage to look critically inward, instead they latch onto lies that allow themselves to always feel they are acting morally. This is why cruel people are cruel - they have concocted an excuse for acting how they do and have reasoned why they are justified in doing so. The result is unbridled self-richeousness when they are called out on the behavior (which can really make an accuser second guess themselves).

I get it: You just can't believe someone society labels as "smart and selfless" (the lip-service so often given to teachers) could possibly be cruel deliberately - no, it must be a mistake and you are missing something, you are the one in the wrong. Sorry - this person is probably the monster you suspect they are. Half of teachers are creeps who never mentally left the grades they ended up teaching, the other half are people who've taken the job because they couldn't get anything better. Somewhere in there are a few true saints...but I've never met one.

It indeed is hard to make sense of her behaviour and conciliate how she treats others with how she have treated me.

To 99% of the students I see her interact with, she's a great and empathetic teacher. She truly cares for them, and not in your typical (or NT), fake and pretending way teachers use to treat younger students. Her preoccupation is genuine and unaffected. She takes care to not criticize any student directly to not inhibit them, even if she disagrees and makes general comments to counterbalance those. This annoys me to no end, because I "catch" sometimes she's critical of certain beliefs of mine, usually because she doesn't understand those, and indirect and generic criticism makes it harder to answer and dialogue. However, she does that in principle by good intention. She's also forgiving in grading. I can see she doesn't want to hurt students.

Even then, I think partially because of the stress of her profession (dealing with ill mannered child and adolescents who you have to treat with care must be a heavy toll on mental health, and teachers are among the three professions who most suffer those - the other being medical and policial), she sometimes doesn't hide her ill spirit to a few students.

A friend of mine who is older than your typical undergraduate, enough not to buy into people's bs, or moved by rose tinted discourses anymore, told me this teacher were very rude with her. I fully believe her account, she's old, savvy, and sufficiently NT to perceive these things.

So it's a hard cognitive conciliation to have a teacher who, by all evidence, really believe in educational principles and at the same time disdain a few unfavorites and is even mean.

In the end, she's just human and can't keep a positive behaviour all the time, even more in a demanding profession like this. It is my belief all people have their blind spots, and might be cruel from time to time, either consciously or unconsciously. And I can do that while also not accepting her actions and even while struggling in finding a middle ground between hate and detachment. I certainly had my blind spots too, and might still have some.

.

Now, regarding teachers, I've never defied them too much (to discover it by trial and error). But I think I were lucky enough that I met a few I admired and who took it seriously. I cannot forget the one calculus teacher who patiently explained me why a certain mathematical definition would lead to a given formula being a certain way and not the other, through half an hour, and even though she was busy. I didn't get fully convinced, but hey - most teachers would get angry very fast, and seemed to be enjoying herself instead. I think it is even possible she might have being an aspie, thinking now.

.

And about lying to himself to justify one's own acts, I think that's a risk anyone is subject to. Sure, some people have way more awareness than others, but it is practically impossible to detach ourselves from our own biases.

I completely agree with your last paragraph. Despite all that, it is better to keep a safe distance and not to expect she'll act any different.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

It indeed is hard to make sense of her behaviour and conciliate how she treats others with how she have treated me.

To 99% of the students I see her interact with, she's a great and empathetic teacher. She truly cares for them, and not in your typical (or NT), fake and pretending way teachers use to treat younger students. Her preoccupation is genuine and unaffected. She takes care to not criticize any student directly to not inhibit them, even if she disagrees and makes general comments to counterbalance those. This annoys me to no end, because I "catch" sometimes she's critical of certain beliefs of mine, usually because she doesn't understand those, and indirect and generic criticism makes it harder to answer and dialogue. However, she does that in principle by good intention. She's also forgiving in grading. I can see she doesn't want to hurt students.

These situations are really invalidating. I had a boss like this, once. I was a caseworker for disabled people, so I would have to submit service requests for her to review and pass on for approval. But, whenever I did this I would have to follow up for weeks with her. I noticed that other caseworkers didn't have to do this. She'd talk to them if something was missing and get the request submitted. So it was clear she treated me differently. We never had an argument or awkward moment, but she just didn't like me for some reason. In my case I was able to leave, but it was very annoying.

Hopefully you'll find a better situation in life when you don't have to deal with your teacher anymore.

 

[Jordy]

Some people are just plain malicious and sadistic. It has nothing to do with them feeling miserable or want to turn you into a bully. If you see the signs never trust that person again, and if they wrong you or someone else the morally righteous thing to do is to show them that there are consequences to their actions. I am not sure why anyone would think showing them kindness would work as it's a language they don't even speak. They see it as weakness.

And even for people that aren't necessarily completely anti social, if they wronged you should never let your guard down around them again and give them any opportunity pull something.

 

[Rodafina]

I am not sure why anyone would think showing them kindness would work as it's a language they don't even speak. They see it as weakness.

I think this because it has worked. I have taken the time to show kindness and gain understanding from those who have acted horribly. I believe that kindness is something many of these people don’t get and it throws them off their game. In a good way. It allows us to converse in a common language that we actually understand.

I believe this is important because of who I want to be in the world. I am not a cruel person, and therefore I cannot allow others to turn me into something I am not.

My experience is singular and anecdotal, but time and again my kindness has been recognized as a strength. More importantly, in my heart it feels like a strength.

@phantom, your feelings are valid too. It’s just that you said you don’t understand why anyone would think showing kindness would work. I am an anyone who believes that.

 

[tree]

Sorry! I think I posted in the wrong subforum. I just asked for someone to move it.

Looks like it's ok where it is, assuming you are actually open to replies.

The Ranting thread is the place for mere 'venting.' No replies
or suggestions for help there.

 

[Azul]

Some people are just plain malicious and sadistic. It has nothing to do with them feeling miserable or want to turn you into a bully. If you see the signs never trust that person again, and if they wrong you or someone else the morally righteous thing to do is to show them that there are consequences to their actions. I am not sure why anyone would think showing them kindness would work as it's a language they don't even speak. They see it as weakness.

And even for people that aren't necessarily completely anti social, if they wronged you should never let your guard down around them again and give them any opportunity pull something.

That some people are like this I learned with the first one, the snake. After she offended me when I questioned a grade, I noticed some teachers started treating me differently. Then I naively asked her if she got angry because of the discussion. She dissimulated, put some words in my mouth and tried to gaslight me to appear I had been aggressive. I was too cool at the moment to call her out. I'm usually slow for this kind of thing. Days later another teacher started treating me differently - the bully.

So she basically pulled some social manipulation to discredit me after being aggressive. I guess this is the kind of people who turn work settings into toxic environments.

For her I have no pity. It's just a kind of person I will make sure to avoid if I spot them.

On forgiving, for me it's less a question of giving the other face and expecting a different behaviour, and more a question of reframing the other's behaviour so that it is at least comprehensible. By reframing it, it becomes more "bearable" to me.

 

[Misery]

I am not sure why anyone would think showing them kindness would work as it's a language they don't even speak. They see it as weakness.

It's because "they see it as weakness" is just an assumption, and a frankly illogical one.

Why? Because you dont know that person. You've no idea why they act the way they do. You can ASSUME why, but... well, what is it they say about assumptions?

I already gave an example of what I mean, and it's not like I even had to go digging for it. That person I talked about never saw kindness as weakness. The reality was that she simply hardly ever saw kindness towards her at all since her home life was so abusive. Getting out of that situation and going somewhere where people WERE kind is what finally allowed her to change and become so positive.

Dont get me wrong: There are some people who are just jerks, even deep down, and some who are far worse than that. But others arent so bad, not truly. But you cant know that just from surface-level interactions. And that's worth keeping in mind.

but time and again my kindness has been recognized as a strength. More importantly, in my heart it feels like a strength.

Yeah, I'd agree with this.

 

[Jordy]

It's because "they see it as weakness" is just an assumption, and a frankly illogical one.

Why? Because you dont know that person. You've no idea why they act the way they do. You can ASSUME why, but... well, what is it they say about assumptions?

I already gave an example of what I mean, and it's not like I even had to go digging for it. That person I talked about never saw kindness as weakness. The reality was that she simply hardly ever saw kindness towards her at all since her home life was so abusive. Getting out of that situation and going somewhere where people WERE kind is what finally allowed her to change and become so positive.

Dont get me wrong: There are some people who are just jerks, even deep down, and some who are far worse than that. But others arent so bad, not truly. But you cant know that just from surface-level interactions. And that's worth keeping in mind.


Yeah, I'd agree with this.

Taking frustration out on other people because you had bad home situation is not okay and people who do that should be punished for it it's not acceptable or forgivable.

For every "has a bad home situation bully" there are 10 more with though life who don't resort to that kindof behaviour

 

[Rodafina]

Taking frustration out on other people because you had bad home situation is not okay and people who do that should be punished for it it's not acceptable or forgivable.

Woah. This sounds harsh. Who is the judge and jury for who deserves punishment and what that will be? Who determines acceptable? Who is the one so perfect to withhold forgiveness?

I am grateful to have known people who are willing to forgive and those who are not willing to punish.

 

[Rodafina]

For every "has a bad home situation bully" there are 10 more with though life who don't resort to that kindof behaviour

This is not an accurate number. This is not a fact.

 

[Jordy]

Woah. This sounds harsh. Who is the judge and jury for who deserves punishment and what that will be? Who determines acceptable? Who is the one so perfect to withhold forgiveness?

I am grateful to have known people who are willing to forgive and those who are not willing to punish.

People in their environment should hold them accountable for their misbehaviour.

 

[Rodafina]

People in their environment should hold them accountable for their misbehaviour.

“Holding accountable“ is very different than delving out punishments or withholding forgiveness in my view.