There’s a certain convenience in discrediting someone who displeases you.
A few casual conversations about their character, their personality, their many shortcomings. Before long, everyone knows “what they’re like”.
And then, even the most diminishing and degrading treatment can be framed as a natural consequence of how they are.
The characterization doesn’t even have to be accurate. It just has to be sufficiently accepted.
I am in a program of recovery for those whose lives have been affected by someone else’s drinking, drug use, mental illness. I am newly learning faith, hope, and courage, practices not witnessed by me, in my childhood, with my family. Sadly, No Contact, as a last resort, is how I keep safe from diminishing words and actions directed at me. I think I have listened for the last time to how I deserve mistreatment. By holding out for something more wholesome and loving, I have been both banished and demanded to return. I prefer serenity to proximity. I will continue with my program and faith in the best possible outcome, so long as I do my part– to stalk GOD as if my life depends on it.