Can certain attitudes change?

A friend asked if there was an alternative way to exist apart from complaining to organisations that crap on you or confronting those that try to bully you.  It's a valid question to a PTSD sufferer ... but there are certain parameters that need to be explored before the issue can be explained to my satisfaction and present a more accurate picture of the issues involved.

In some ways the question is a 'no-brainer' ... but that's from my perspective.  Remember the post a few weeks ago about 'Have you seen that group on Facebook? 'I Dont Need Anger Management ... You Just Need To Stop Pissin Me Off !!'?  The post was called 'Just for a laugh' on 21 April.  While it may have been for a laugh, there was a serious under current within the almost flippant attitude of the post.  I'm going to elaborate on those feelings:

Do I ever start trouble?  No.
Am I rude to people?  No.
Have I had to risk my life or my well-being to help or protect others?  Yes - most of my life.
Should I expect an acceptable code of behaviour from Society?  Hell yes!

By nature, and the various occupations that I've carried out in these 46 years to date, I've always been in the role of one that is defending or protecting someone or myself.  My life has been spent in service of that role.  The way that I do that may change ... but the role remains consitently a part of my journey and is my purpose in life.  I have brought change to various arenas at great personal cost.  It's in my nature.

How am I supposed to react if someone disrupts treatment that I rely on to cope with my disabilities? Or to someone that threatens me with violence?  Even if I didn't have PTSD?  Would you back down from people that tried walking over you or wanted you to live in a shadow of projected fear?  Is that how you would choose to live to avoid confrontation?  It might work in a small community where you rely on eachother to a degree ... but then I think the likliehood of a neighbour in that sort of environment offering physical violence as dish of the day would be rare.  City life is different and when you have a neighbour that fancies himself as the big boy of the close and he's trying to play the big man ... you do have to stand up to him because there are subtle under currents of other issues involved when you consider the politcal make up of the area ... and they all lead to an ugly space.

'Civilised' societys' morals in England, on the whole, are in decline and I don't play a part in that.  I expect decent manners and professional conduct from organisations.  I expect people to act fairly and honestly with eachother.  Even though I know that a good part won't.

If I choose to lower my standards ... what example am I setting for my children?

If I choose not to back down, what message am I giving to the incompetent organisations that may be responsible for my well being?  What will that mean for the next veteran or civillian down the line?

If I choose to back down from a bully, even if it does mean the loss of my life, what does that say to both the bully and society?  The only difference between now and standing up to a bully in the past is that I had a uniform on then.  Nothing much has changed.  Apart from the triggered symptoms of PTSD.

Society is losing its way ... there are small pockets of balanced resitance ... but most of society are sheeple (hybrid of people and sheep) and they'll go toward whoever's pulling the hardest. I'll not lower my standards though. I'll not conform to a society where the leaders feather their own nests rather than look after the populace; where living for one's own ends without any consideration for the greater good is preached.  The salary has become the main motivator of career choice and vocations are becoming a thing of the past ... and ultimately, that will affect how you are treated by other organisations and companies.

So if people like me change and back down, things will get worse for the people that don't stick up for themselves and maybe they'll deserve that society ... but I have to keep trying to make them toe the line ... because my children will inherit all of this and I would prefer that there's still some honour, professionalism and common decency available to them and that they carry those qualities within themselves ... for the greater good.

To some Native Amercian or First Nations tribes, the nature or 'properties' of a wolf is to be a pathfinder, protector and teacher.


So I guess the answer is this:  You can't be a wolf with no teeth  (...and that balances out the caring and supportive nature of the animal).

Wolf

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