Abhorrent Behavior

I went to a class in the FD about workplace violence.  In almost every case, the people who worked closely with or knew the person (who committed the crime - the bad guy) said they could not believe that person was capable of doing such horrible things.

When they interviewed these people in depth, a different picture emerged.  The bad guy that everyone thought was harmless, had a series of escalating behaviors that people just disregarded.  The bad guy would make what people thought were harmless threats and people laughed at him.  They just said oh that is just him/her don't pay attention.  The bad guy would be at work at weird times (very early and late) and he started to dress strangely (a winter coat in the middle of summer).  He was the weird guy at work.  There is one in almost every workplace. 

This is real story.  It turns out the guy started toying with the idea of hurting or killing his co workers.  His escalating behavior was his way of testing the waters.  The last thing he did before actually shooting people was some test runs of bringing guns to work and seeing if he would get caught (winter coat in middle of summer).  He shot 4 people at his office.

The truth of things is that we all accept abhorrent behavior from people.  How do you get used to or accept abhorrent behavior?   The answer is so simple it is painful.  Simple repetition works all of the time.  People who abuse drugs or alcohol are adept at getting anyone to accept truly abhorrent behavior.  It is incremental, the person who throws up, passes out, has blackouts, or does really crappy, offensive things while under the influence does it repeatedly.  It gets incrementally worse and it gets harder to see that the more you are around it.  The worst part is that anyone can come to accept that as part of who the person is.  It stops being abhorrent and it just becomes a pain in the ass.  It is part of who they are.  It should NEVER stop being abhorrent.  Trust the voice in your head that tells you how abhorrent it is.

There are people in my life that I have had to walk away from.  You simply cannot threaten, cajole, or convince a hard core drug or alcohol user to stop.  Hard core users need reasons to stop that come from inside of themselves and they need the help of a professional.  You cannot stop or slow the decline for them.  You simply become a witness to a tragedy.  These people need a tragedy and they will always find someone to witness their self destruction.  For reasons I will never understand, people who are self destructive need people to witness them doing it.   

So what do you do?  You walk away and you don't look back.  And another hard truth is that while you are feeling crappy for doing that, they will be plugging someone else into your spot.  They will not feel bad at all, they will find another person to fill that need for a tragedy witness.

Some bridges need to be burned, so that person does not have the ability to follow you and suck more life out of you.  Give your life and love to the people who want to give the same to you.  These bottom feeders need you for a reason that has nothing to do with life or love.

Love Dad