I have always believed in treating people with respect. In my life there are people who I feel have physically or mentally abused me, and yet I believe they deserve to be treated with decent human respect, because their few bad actions do not encompass the whole of them. Yet, time and again, I am in circumstances that prove people do not think I deserve respect.

In these cases, people are rarely outright disrespectful of me, though that has happened a few times. It just feels that they are so caught up in their own thoughts and feelings that, even if I make clear to them some words or lack of response on their part would hurt me, they continue to behave in ways they know hurt me. Now, some of them do this because they are so caught up in their personal pain, they cannot avoid it, to avoid doing so would bring them more pain. I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for this, I do this myself. You would think after the height of their pain is over they would then make some effort to apologize or make some room for my feelings or my humanity in our conversations, as I strive to do, but I don’t think I’ve almost ever been afforded with this degree of respect in these situations.

But the ones that hurt the most are the ones in which I have been nothing but good to them, often going far beyond what is expected of a person and really doing so much for them, and yet they cannot bring it in themselves to treat me with what I think is common decency, which comes at almost no cost to them. I think of all the times people I have treated with immense kindness and worked for over the years, who I ask just to tell me if I need to worry they won’t show up for something they’re committed to, to raid, and they can’t bring it in themselves to bother to tell me. I think of the times they come to me and threaten to leave, threatening not just me (because they know it will cause me stress and pain to replace them), but the entire guild and the 20 other people they raid with, if I do not give into whatever it is they want and think they deserve. I think of all the times I helped and defended a person, allowing them to be able to continue raiding when others were treating them unreasonably, and yet when they get upset they don’t even think I deserve a word or any time to react as they flake out suddenly, even though they’re fully aware their flaking out actually means I need to spend hours or days working and agonizing to replace them. I remember off the top of my head several people I had gone out of my way for, who did this to me, and one actually even specifically told me I do not deserve the respect of being given a heads up that they were going to flake on their commitments to me and the guild. Many of these people were, as far as I can remember, only ever treated with kindness and respect, and were often people whom, behind the scenes or directly, I helped a lot, often at great cost to myself.

And yesterday, someone again told me that I lost all their respect. All respect. There was nothing in me, they felt, that deserved to be treated with any respect. In one fell blow, they negated everything about me.

And I cannot help but wonder. People who rape me and abuse me, are they better people than me? I can find it in myself to treat them with respect, yet those I have often been so incredibly kind to and have really often gone above and beyond for, they cannot find it in themselves to treat me with respect. I cannot help but wonder again and again, is it me? How terrible a person I must be, to deserve being treated again and again, by so many people, in this way.