Rational vs Irrational
Posted by Danielle DiewSeptember 4, 2021Posted in Surviving the System
If you work with the public, and you have authority over a person’s life, stability, ability to gain access to resources or the ability to survive then you need to be qualified for the position. There should be NO exceptions. You need education, training, and experience, or a combination thereof, that qualifies you to help the populations you serve. If you don’t have it, you shouldn’t be on that job! People’s lives hang in the balance with the decisions you make every day, your power trips are unjustified when you derail a families’ life, so are your lies.
There is no excuse for abuse, yet you continue to make them. Why?
If you can’t get past your own ego, bias, preconceived notions, or insecurities and they interfere with your ability to do your job according to THE LAW, not your personal opinion or an ideology you adopt, then you are violating the human rights of the people you affect. Usually the most vulnerable.
The fact that no one is going to believe the client when they complain or that there is no access to justice for them when their inalienable and human rights are violated makes the situation more severe. That should cause you to make better choices, not the worst ones. Your job is to help, not harm.
You already know these behaviors will have a negative impact on people’s lives. No one has to tell you that, you know what you are doing. If you feel justified in doing it because you are told that you have to, you are failing yourself and the people you are supposed to be serving. If you continue to choose abusive behaviors that violate people’s rights, what makes you think you are justified in doing so? What makes you think that people don’t have the right to defend themselves? What makes you think that you have the right to label, slander, destabilize, assault, and attack anyone, for any reason? What makes you think any of those behaviors are rational, particularly in THIS current volatile climate?
I have been in your position, I consistently chose to do my actual job, help the client, and change the system where needed. It’s a choice.
I’m not required to live up to anyone’s ideal or expectations, I am required to live up to my own. I know who I am and what I need you don’t have the right to interfere with that for any reason, regardless of how many excuses you give yourself. You don’t have the right to define me and attempt to force me to conform to your perception of who I am. You don’t have the right to withdraw my human rights because YOU think I don’t deserve to have them. If you believe this YOU are an unstable person.
It’s not rocket science, it’s actually quite simple. It’s taught in Kindergarten, “do unto others.” For those of you who are religious, it’s in your sacred texts, “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
Then there is international law, it doesn’t skip America, in fact, America helped draft the laws!
Then there is Constitutional law which is summed up beautifully with this statement:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Where do you see that I am excluded in the coverage of the aforementioned?
Then there is state law:
§ 18.2–57. Assault and battery; penalty.
A. Any person who commits a simple assault or assault and battery is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor, and if the person intentionally selects the person against whom a simple assault is committed because of his race, religious conviction, gender, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, color, or national origin, the penalty upon conviction shall include a term of confinement of at least six months.
B. However, if a person intentionally selects the person against whom an assault and battery resulting in bodily injury is committed because of his race, religious conviction, gender, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, color, or national origin, the person is guilty of a Class 6 felony, and the penalty upon conviction shall include a term of confinement of at least six months.
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/18.2-57
Yet I should overlook it because YOU think you have the right to take away my rights? If I have no access to justice, as you know, then it’s up to me to defend my rights. But YOU assess me as being mentally unstable because I do? The is literally one of the greatest hallmarks of abuse.
Abuse of Authority
(1) The term “abuse of authority” means an arbitrary and capricious exercise of authority that is inconsistent with the mission of the executive agency concerned or the successful performance of a contract or grant of such agency.
But I’m supposed to believe that all of these laws do not apply to me because YOU have decided that they don’t? Or because the system that you are attached to doesn’t care when my rights are violated and no one ever hold’s anyone accountable?
Opinion and ideology do not usurp my rights regardless of what you imagine. It doesn’t matter what your beliefs are, someone should have taught you. If you didn’t know (which is insane) then you should have taught yourself. I learned my rights in elementary school, how did you go to college, even grad school, even above sometimes and not learn?
If you are the kind of person who conforms to other people’s expectations, that’s your choice. I have never been free to be my own person, now that I fought for that freedom I won’t let it go for any reason! You can’t imagine what I had to go through to get to this place where I could for the first time in my life speak my truth. Why should I give that up, for any reason? If it makes you uncomfortable, remove yourself from the equation. But I won’t neglect my own health, life, safety, stability, and protection of my family because YOU think you have the right to trample on my inalienable and human rights. That’s completely counterintuitive and irrational, but you question MY mental stability?
I always find it interesting when people who are unqualified even for the job they DO have think they are qualified to assess my mental health, though that is not their job. Where are your credentials for the clinical assessment? Who licensed you to diagnose? Has your assessment taken place in a clinical setting? Do you have a background as a trauma expert (because I do!) to be able to assess a trauma survivor’s mental health? Do you have a background with assessment at all, and if you do then you MUST understand that they must take place in clinical settings. If you aren’t going to follow the guidelines of your own licensure then you shouldn’t put yourself in a position of stepping above and beyond your credentialing to an even higher level in an attempt to label someone inappropriately.
People are not files and records, and if you think we are then you are not qualified for your job. If you were doing your job, I wouldn’t need to point this out. It shouldn’t be my responsibility to do so, it’s YOUR responsibility to do the correct thing. Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. If it’s your job to help yet what you are doing is harmful, stop. Be strong enough, conscious enough, intelligent enough, and courageous enough to respect boundaries, human rights, and human life. If the system you work for is broken, be honest about it and work toward fixing it. Don’t take it out on the vulnerable populations you serve by dismissing abuse, oppression, and human rights violations. The system of abuse and oppression continues because you maintain it, be brave enough not to. If you aren’t you’re in the wrong field, be honest enough and ethical enough to judge yourself, admit it to yourself, and leave the position open for people who not only can but will do the correct thing.
The difference with me is, I don’t choose to harm other people because of MY choices. Or for any reason other than self-defense, even then I choose the least threatening means necessary to diffuse a situation. Why do I know this and you don’t, yet you work with vulnerable populations? I will most certainly defend myself at all times, if I didn’t I would indeed be weak, suicidal, and mentally unstable. My life has always dangled on a thread at the hands of abusers, now that I fought my way to freedom I must fight to maintain it. When Black people break free, they are always labeled as mentally ill, this is nothing new in America. It’s just sick and sad that it still goes on today, 9/4/2021. I am not your projection. I will defend myself so if you don’t want to deal with it, don’t abuse me and I won’t have to!
You see me as the one in need of mental adjustment, but I am not the one harming vulnerable populations, you are! So which one of us is irrational and unstable? It’s probably not the former paramilitary operative who survived torture and trafficking who went on to become a trauma expert, victim advocate, and human rights activist with expertise in human analysis. It’s most likely the person unqualified to assess trauma, unqualified to diagnose, and continues to minimize, deny, and scapegoat vulnerable persons as “unstable”. When everyone around you behaves the same way, the system literally rewards you for behaving that way. You know that you cause harm EVERY TIME you do it, you have obvious warning signs that you continue to ignore. “Just doing my job” is not a good enough excuse, it never was.
Be better.
