Julia Carrie Wong: feeling unsafe and being unsafe are not the same thing

feeling unsafe and being unsafe are not the same thing

when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression

This, on the scale of an entire subculture that has made a right to oppress and expropriate an explicit core value taught and cultivated over generations. It's really an intractable thing for a lot of people raised in that subculture to see and unpack.

Nothing shines a brighter light on implicit social hierarchies than who’s desire to feel safe outweighs who’s need to *be* safe.

I can’t imagine feeling safe in the company of openly genocidal monsters, and unsafe because I have to go within 100 feet of people protesting against said monsters. I can’t think of anything capable of breaking my brain in such a way.

If only this was legally true for cops.

Sometimes I wish the racists who feel unsafe actually were

I know this wasn't your goal, but folks with PTSD might disagree.

I'm sure many would but that doesn't make them correct. In fact, them having a propensity to form incorrect beliefs on this particular point might maybe be a hint as to why "PTSD" ends with a "D".

BINGO

Are you saying that there are "incorrect" feelings? 🤨 I am definitely not seeking an argument, by the way. Just trying to understand your perspective.

Of course there are. It was about a year ago that Ralph Yarl was shot in the head twice for getting the wrong address. The homeowner felt scared of this 16 year old stranger who was just a little lost. His feeling of fear was incorrect and led him to do something awful.

Well, this feels like a pretty extreme example, but I'll room with it. I'm not comfortable judging another person's feelings but that doesn't mean their reaction or behavior based on those feelings is appropriate. Clearly this is an example of somebody who had the wrong response to an emotion.

No, it was straight up the wrong emotion. He was not a threat. It was incorrect. And even if no action was taken, the fear is still a negative. As someone who feels a lot of things, I hate to say it but sometimes you just have to go "these feelings are not based in reality" and ditch them.

I don’t see where they said people with PTSD have incorrect feelings. They said people with PTSD often have incorrect beliefs on this point of feeling unsafe meaning they actually are or are not currently unsafe.

i mean, yes. yes there are

I'd argue that all feelings are valid. It's the underlying belief that's false. Feelings are based on beliefs. Feeling scared because you believe you're in danger is perfectly valid, regardless of fact. It's the belief that's incorrect, not the reaction. When the belief changes, so does the feeling.

I don't think it's that simple. Like, that's clearly how it ideally works but feelings are stickier than that. They can also be the result of subconscious processing that might not be reflected in conscious, explicit beliefs.

I said beliefs, not "conscious, explicit beliefs" though. 🙂 We can have buried beliefs, beliefs based on experience, beliefs based on teachings from society. And they can be true or not. Change your beliefs, change your feelings. Simple, but not easy. Esp when it feels like that belief protects us!

Interesting that you'd get that from that. Maybe you're being confused by the way "safe" is a rare (the only?) example of a polysemous word with one meaning that's a feeling & one meaning that's a state of the world.

Now if you think that pointing out the existence of feelings that don't match the state of the world they're normally a response to (or cue for) means saying they're incorrect that's your word choice but the phenomenon clearly exists.

I mean, yeah, it wouldn’t be a disorder if there weren’t, but I think you might be conflating morally incorrect (which no feelings are) with factually incorrect (which some feelings are). All feelings are factually incorrect. That’s why we differentiate between feeling & thinking, opinion & fact.

Oh I just understood the confusion! Sorry it took so long! The "them" that weren't "correct" in my tweet was "people with PTSD who don't agree with OP", not "feelings".

Person with cPTSD here: feeling unsafe doesn’t mean being unsafe even if it’s really bad. The cause of the feelings doesn’t change the facts they they are feelings, not measurements.

How does their disagreeing mean what she said is wrong? I'm struggling to see how what you said is relevant. PTSD can make someone think they are in danger, it doesn't mean they are *actually in danger.* That someone with PTSD disagrees doesn't mean they're actually in danger.

Weren't some simply claiming the protests made them "uncomfortable"? That's an even more deliberately wishy-washy standard.

‘Unacceptable’ also gets thrown around in the same way

The unfamiliar can seem unsafe, so the people who refuse to explore or accept anything outside their narrow background feel especially afraid of nothing

www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2024/04... Read this and tell me the students talking about their experiences are overreacting. (This is not to slate the movement as a whole: as one guy quoted said, he didn’t see the encampment itself as antisemitic)

Rabbi advises Jewish students to ‘return home as soon as possible’ following reports of ‘extreme antisemitism’ on and around campuswww.columbiaspectator.com <i>Editor’s note: This article deals with topics of harassment, violence, and antisemitism.</i>

100% Those who live in traumatic situations don't know it. I'm almost a decade later and I still go "OH, HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THAT SIGN!"

Another version is Never confuse your comfort with your safety

And then there is weaponization of bad faith claims of feeling unsafe. Let's not forget the white dog walker and the black birdwatcher in Central Park.

If you feel something, steal something.

Just saw this above a repost of this skeet.

I'm a Jew who's been afraid at Palestine protests. Then, I learned more. I learned that I didn't know what people were chanting. I learned there was a lot to unlearn. Then I decided I don't want my identity used to shield a genocidal apartheid state. www.jphilll.com/p/being-afra...

Being afraid does not mean you're under attackwww.jphilll.com On those condemning anti-genocide protests, but not genocide

Paranoia, right? It's a thing that happens, and we know it, and we try not to be hard on folks who make the mistake of overreacting because, inevitably, somebody will overreact. Folks have to tell them and hold them accountable. You fucked up.

If they keep you from participating in society in a meaningful way, they can be? I’m exactly the wrong person to define where the line between them is, but that’s also why I can’t dismiss the former.

feeling | being doubt there's anything i can learn to differentiate between those two

Ask a therapist about it. For real, it is a pretty life-changing realisation.

"specific soma." "specific situation." replicating what you propose isn't possible. bad advice. thx tho 🥲

Admittedly it takes time to accurately make that distinction and not everyone has that time.

And providing support to those who feel unsafe does not require the same measures needed to aid those who are unsafe.

But it's the feeling that will keep you away from places, events, experiences, occupations etc where you have every right to be. It does matter

Exactly this!

I am both feeling unsafe and being unsafe

Never let the fear set within. 🙏🏼

Huge if true.

Yes absolutely. Do you take the same stance when professors are told to include trigger warnings for upsetting reading material, or to remove such readings altogether from coursework?

are trigger warnings the same as arresting peaceful protesters and having them losing their housing, or is it saying "hey this might not be for you, this is your opportunity to leave and come back later"?

Yes. But how can you be safe if you feel unsafe?

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