How would you react? (TW)
I’ve had numerous conversations with my therapist, but one in particular remains etched in my memory even three years later. I was recounting the bullying I endured as an Asian student in an all-white school, and I found myself justifying the mistreatment, attributing it to my differences. It was a moment of unconscious self-defence, rationalizing the abuse I had suffered. It wasn’t until my therapist interjected with a pivotal question that my perspective began to shift:
“What if your daughter came home and told you the same thing?”
My blood went cold.
“I would’ve lost my shit”
She then asked me why I couldn’t feel the same towards myself. I fell silent. She asked me again.
“If your daughter came home and told you people teased her, pushed her, pulled her hair, would you tell her she deserved it?”
I never answered her that day, I just cried.
During our next session, I practised a hypothetical I was sure she wouldn’t be able to win.
“If I was drunk at a party and had sex, would you say it was consensual?”
She remained calm.
“Depends, was he drunk as well?”
I shifted in my seat “Tispy”
Her answer was blunt and direct.
“That is not consensual”
“But what if I didn’t say no?”
“Did you say yes?”
“What if I was wet?”
“That is a biological reaction, Karyee. That is out of your control”
“What if I came?”
Her tone remained steady. “Another biological reaction”
I grew frustrated and raised my voice,
“I didn’t say no!”
She remained seated and her calm demeanour didn’t falter,
“But you couldn’t say yes. In this hypothetical you were intoxicated, unable to consent.”
I was losing.
“In this hypothetical I wasn’t raped.”
In my fifteen-year-old mind, bullying only happened to the innocent and rape only happened when a party visibly showed disinterest. In my mind, I was neither.
“If your best friend had the same experience, would you say it was consensual?”
I fell silent once again. What if. What if. What if. Something so simple had the power to alter all my perceptions.
This disparity in how we treat ourselves versus others is stark and unsettling. It’s as if we have two sets of rules: one for everyone else, which is compassionate and understanding, and another, much harsher, set for ourselves. This double standard is deeply ingrained, often rooted in years of internalized prejudice, societal expectations, and a lack of self-worth.
So, what would you do if the roles were reversed?
*I would also like to say, that my conversation with my therapist about SA was purely hypothetical, the bullying however was not.
