I was reading about Mel Gibson’s anti-semitic rants, and his apology about being drunk* when I remembered this meme. I agree with the meme, that our brains tend to feed us what we’ve heard from our environment, but our conscious mind overrides that with our processed thoughts.
People use “he didn’t mean it, he was drunk/high” as an excuse for racist/misogynist/whateverist comments. The response is typically “you don’t become racist when drunk, you just drop your inhibitions and reveal who you are.”
But if you agree with the First Thought meme, what if being impaired isn’t revealing what you really think, but is preventing you from thinking at all, and just getting stuck on your conditioned response?
*Gibson is just an example. This post is not about litigating whether he personally is racist, but about this sort of behavior in general.
This is how my mom was growing up. Didn’t matter what did or didn’t happen through the week, at least by Friday night you were going to get her real opinion about whatever she didn’t like about you, or whatever you may have done to upset her. One time after my brother passed away she jumped on top of me when I was in bed and started clawing at me with her fingernails yelling “The wrong son died”. She was as sweet as can be when she was sober, and would pretend like getting black out drunk and having a weekly melt down was totally normal. She finally stopped drinking by the time I was about 25, but I don’t remember a single holiday or family vacation where she didn’t get absolutely destroyed and act just as mean as she possibly could. It drove my brother to substance abuse which killed him when he was 20. “Mean” drunks are just people who hide their emotions the rest of the time, and they’re toxic to be trapped with.
Yikes. I’m so sorry you grew up with that. I’m sorry you lost your brother. I hope you’re doing alright now. You said it only happened when she drank; I’m glad she stopped, and I hope she’s okay now too ♥️