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andthebeanstalk · 11 months

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Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

#hlep #original #mental health #my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need.#the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it #i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support #and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist.#the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28!#a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents.#they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of #huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the #longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong.#and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives.#you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead?#or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of.#no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow.#i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel #i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong.#just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop

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gaypiratepropaganda · 4 months

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Izzy's apology in the finale seems to have taken some people by surprise. During the break between seasons, I tried a few times to politely bring up the fact that Izzy was technically abusing Ed. Not because I wanted anyone to stop liking him (you can like a character who's doing abuse! it's not real. who cares), but because I was worried about the reaction when season two came out. I love this show very much and I know how tumblr can get. Most importantly, I love fucked up fictional relationships and cannot abide people making these two boring. So here we go. (I also love lists)

First. Emotional abuse can occur in intimate relationships, family relationships like father and son, or in the workplace (Ed/Izzy triple threat!). Second, it has to be an ongoing thing. Someone doing one of these things once is not abuse. Abuse is a pattern of cruel and frightening behavior in order to control the victim.

(Don't feel bad if you didn't notice this stuff! It's relatively subtle and we're kind of trained to ignore and forgive it, especially from characters like Izzy. I wasn't 100% sure I was right about this either until season two confirmed it. I think a lot of people don't even know what emotional abuse is, at least where I live.)

Below are some pretty solid warning signs (this said "criteria" before but I changed it to be more accurate) for emotional abuse, followed by examples:

•Monitoring and controlling a person’s behavior, such as who they spend time with or how they spend money.

One of Izzy's main motivations in season one was trying to force Ed to act more like his image of Blackbeard. To achieve that, he bullied, belittled, and threatened Ed. He attempted to kill Stede because Ed was spending too much time with him and he felt that Stede was a bad influence.

• Threats to a person’s safety, property, or loved ones

He tried to kill Stede (Ed's loved one) or get him killed several times. Once trying to get Ed to do it himself with the doggy heaven situation, once directly with the duel, and once by calling in the navy.

He didn't directly threaten Ed's safety until episode ten, but he did seem to have Ed convinced that the crew would kill him if Izzy wasn't there to protect him and then when Ed did things he didn't like, Izzy threatened to leave. It's indirect, but has the same result: Ed felt he was unsafe unless he did what Izzy wanted.

• Isolating a person from family, friends, and acquaintances

Izzy seemed to keep Ed isolated from the crew, act as a go-between, and control their perceptions of each other to a certain extent. In the first few episodes, Ed was always shown alone in his goth cabin with Izzy as his only contact. When he started to make new friends Izzy tried to make him kill them.

After Izzy was banished, he secretly sent Ed's ex in to manipulate him and get him away from his new community. Then he got them all arrested, culminating in the deal he made with the English that would have made Ed his prisoner. Not sure that was on purpose, but it was so fucked up I had to mention it.

The bit that really got me, for some reason, was when Frenchie asked after Ed and Izzy told the crew he was sick.

• Demeaning, shaming, or humiliating a person

Izzy is often shown berating Ed and yelling at him. The way Ed reacts suggests to me that he may be used to this kind of treatment from people in general, or from Izzy in particular. He never leaves or asks him to stop, he just takes it.

• Extreme jealousy, accusations, and paranoia

He was so jealous of Ed's relationship with Stede that he got the literal military involved. His explanation to for why Ed enjoys spending time with Stede was that he has "done something to [Ed's] brain." Like, what magic powers do you think he has, Izzy?

• Making acceptance or care conditional on a person’s choices

Izzy made it very clear that he would only support Ed if he conformed to the Blackbeard persona. He also seemed to have Ed convinced that there was no way he could survive without Izzy's support.

I just realized that if you subscribe to the headcanon that Izzy acts as a sort of caretaker to Ed (I do not) then all of this is way more fucked up.

• Constant criticism, ridicule, or teasing.

In season one he criticized everything Ed did, all his plans, even while telling him to come up with more plans. He ridiculed Ed and called him names pretty often: "twat, namby-pamby, insane." Even in season two when he's doing better, most of their interactions consist of Izzy teasing and making fun of Ed for being mopey or in love.

• Refusing to allow a person to spend time alone

I didn't think of this until now, but Izzy is often around when Ed thinks he's alone. He knows about things that happen in scenes he isn't in. Izzy's always sort of lurking, though? And he does it to everyone. So I'm not sure if we should count this one.

• Thwarting a person’s professional or personal goals

He's ok about piracy related goals, but as soon as Ed tried to do something other than that he got so weird about it. "This crew is so talented, why are we even being pirates?" is what got Izzy to threaten Ed. Which is interesting because he was fine with the retirement idea before, when he thought he'd get to be captain.

• Instilling feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness

"insane unpleasant shell of a man merely posing as blackbeard." "I should have let the English kill you. This... whatever it is you've become is a fate worse than death."

• Gaslighting: making a person question their competence and even their basic perceptual experiences.

He called Ed insane and implied that the crew would mutiny if he wasn't there to stop them. This is clearly untrue, as we were already shown that his method of "massaging the crew" consisted of calling Ed half insane and pulling Fang's beard even though Fang hates that. The fact that he calls Ed insane more than once while at the same time trying to get him to act more insane seems like basic gaslighting to me. Then again, Izzy's definition of "insanity" may be like, depression, crying, showing emotions, loneliness, and enjoying softness.

[can't find a gif of this so just imagine Ed in the gravy basket with Hornigold saying "you're worried you're insane."]

Something that wasn't on this specific list but is generally considered part of emotional abuse is manipulation: the use of indirect tactics to change someone's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors in an attempt to influence them for personal gain.

I think Izzy often tries to be manipulative. He's not the greatest at it, but it's the thought that counts. He manages to be surprisingly successful through persistence and repetition.

He's got Ed convinced from the first time we see them that he is useless as a captain without Izzy. That's why Ed feels like he needs him. He tells him that the only thing standing between Ed and a crew constantly on the brink of mutiny is Izzy. Then he tells him that he will leave if he can't live up to his expectations.

He has a pattern of lying to Ed or not telling him the whole truth. He threatens him directly and indirectly in an attempt to influence him and control his behavior. He wants power, whether he gets it by becoming a captain when Ed retires or by making sure Ed remains powerful by any means necessary.

this is what he was apologizing for, along with the years of being terrible to Ed before Stede came into the picture. I never expected him to admit it so clearly like that. He fed Ed's "darkness," poked at his trauma for so long because he needed Blackbeard. It was something they did together, and he enjoyed Blackbeard's dominance and cruelty.

Of course there are other things that can be part of this kind of abuse, like infantilization, silence, and harassment. There are more examples of abusive behavior from Izzy at the start of season two, especially in the scene where Ed's asking Izzy to kill him. but I am not ready to get into that right now.

Anyway, Ed and Izzy's storylines in season two only make sense to me with this in mind. Ed is recovering from not only the suicide attempts but also this fucked up situation he was in, whether he realizes it or not. Izzy learns to stop being such a shitboy and admits he was wrong. ~growth~

if you interpret their relationship differently that's obviously fine. but I think this is the most interesting interpretation, as well as what was intended. It's no fun for me when people make them both equally awful to each other. I like it better as it is in the show: Ed fighting back against Izzy's emotional abuse with physical violence, which only ends up traumatizing him further. It's such a unique and fascinating story.

#our flag means death #Ed Teach #izzy hands #ed/izzy #blackbeard #ed/stede #tw abuse #abuse cw #@piratecaptainscaptainpirates #I should have posted this a long time ago but #I was kind of afraid you guys would kill me lmao #I think we're good now #we can talk about this #if you think of anything else I'll add it #one more thing I didn't know how to fit in here #is the way Izzy really wants Ed to be violent #to other people but also to him #when Ed doesn't want to do that #and is specifically triggered by being violent #also the first thing that really made me go #hey wait a minute #about Izzy was when he apologized to Ed for calling him a 'shell of a man' while he was 'leaving'#Ed said 'no. you were right. about all of it.'#and then Izzy immediately went back to being a dick to him two episodes later #reminds me so much of what one of my friends went through #wow this is so long

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