Conflict Is Not Abuse

Good Families Don’t Hurt Other People
Today, a “good” family model is based on an ideology called “loyalty” or, more neo-liberally, “being supportive

step out of the victim/perpetrator model and focus instead on what happened, why it happened, and how to make things better. It is our job as conscious adults to overcome blaming-the-victim scenarios, confusing fault with participation, so that the reality of this connection between childhood and adult conflict can be faced and honestly understood

most violence takes place between people who know each other

Of course the greatest challenge to feminism has always been and continues to be the family itself, and the Queer Family may not be the exception

And as families adhere to governments, nationalist ideology and the state, they extend their institutional reach of punishment

Opposition is true friendship.
—WILLIAM BLAKE

And in order to delay, they all agree, one needs to be in a community: a relationship, friendship circle, family, identity group, nation, or people who encourage us to be self-critical and look for alternatives to blame, punishment, and attack

When we are stuck,” she says, “we need a reminder of belonging to reconnect … Groups can move us if they are conscious, meditative, communicating groups. Being in a group can move us from fight, flight, freeze, where there is hostility, to attend-befriend

When anxiety is at the wheel, we tragically project, blame, and then separate. We flee reality, which is the fact of conflict as part of life, rather than confront difference and expand our understanding of ourselves

most cases it is petty and primarily a way to avoid an adjustment of the self that is required for accountability. If it has no terms for resolution, it is simply a form of asserting supremacy and imposing punishment, and punishment, as we know, rarely does anything but produce more pain