The Velvet Rope of Pity
How kindness can mask systemic exclusion and the dismissal of human rights.
By Nicola-Jane le Breton
Before You Read: Seeing Below the Surface
To understand why systems of support often feel like systems of control, we use a tool called the Iceberg Model.
When we experience a difficult interaction – like being pitied or dismissed—we are only seeing the event (the tip of the iceberg above the water). But beneath that surface lie systemic structures (the rules, policies, and gatekeeping) and, at the very bottom, mental models (the deep-seated beliefs that drive everything else).
The following story by Nicola-Jane le Breton illustrates what happens when we look “beneath the waterline” of a single interaction with a General Medical Practitioner (GP).
The Velvet Rope of Pity
There’s a kind of kindness that feels like a velvet rope: soft on the outside, but unmistakably a barrier. It’s the kind I encountered during the years I lived in a small town in south-western Australia. At the time, I was navigating the long, shadowed alleyways of chronic depression and complex trauma. Most days I managed to function. I raised my children, worked, and studied a little, and showed up for life with a smile that often masked the truth. But inside, I was unravelling.
My GP was a woman who had known me for several years. She was not unkind. In fact, I know she thought she was helping. But her manner carried the signature of condescension… the kind that says, “You could be doing better,” even while she nodded sympathetically.
| Reflecting on the Iceberg Model: The Event (Above Water) – What is happening? A professional offers sympathy but treats the patient as a “burden” or a “failure”. Systemic Insight: Condescension is often a symptom of the ‘professional as the expert’ mental model which drives systemic barriers to our good life vision. It creates a hierarchy where the mental health consumer seeking support is seen as less than. |
She had built a life of respectability. I could see it in her woollen slacks, her crisply collared shirts, and those looming framed degrees that peppered her office walls. I, on the other hand, was struggling to work much more than eight hours a week and needed her approval for mental health care plans and Centrelink forms just to survive.
I sensed in her a weariness—a dutiful tolerance rather than genuine care. She seemed to pity me but not truly respect me. Through her eyes, I felt I was squandering my privilege, intelligence, and education. Each appointment reinforced an internalised sense of failure. I would leave her office feeling like a burden on the state, my intelligence wasted. Slowly, I began to understand that I was no longer being met as a person, but as a problem to be managed.
| Reflecting on the Iceberg: Systemic Structure (Deeper) – What causes the patterns? Notice the requirement for “approval” to access basic survival resources. This is conditional support. The Pain Point: This interaction stems from a paternalistic legal framework. This structure grants absolute authority to professional titles, rather than with the person living the experience. It’s assumed that a mental health challenge automatically equates to a lack of capacity to direct one’s own life. Systemic Coercion: Because the professional holds the gatekeeping power over your income and healthcare, you are forced into a state of incapacity. You cannot simply be a partner in your care; you must be a subject. The mental model that “formal knowledge is superior” strips us of our wholeness. It reduces human beings to case notes and compliance. When a system prioritises a degree on a wall over the lived experience of the person in the chair, it stops being a system of care and becomes one of management. |
And in doing so, it undermines two fundamental rights: the right to be recognised as equal before the law (Article 12 of the UN CRPD), and the right to live independently and be included in community (Article 19). When systems and services demand endless justification, they rob us of dignity. When they mistrust our accounts of our own lives, they deepen our wounds. And when they position professionals as the sole arbiters of truth and recovery, they silence the wisdom of lived expertise.
Years later, I met another GP whose approach was entirely different. When I spoke about my history and the struggles I had navigated, she did not question or minimise it. She simply said, “No wonder.” In that moment I felt something shift. I was no longer a case to be assessed, but a person whose experience made sense. She met me with curiosity and respect, and together we could think about what might support my wellbeing. That small difference—being treated as a partner rather than a problem—changed everything.
A good life—a meaningful one—cannot grow in that kind of soil. It grows in relationships rooted in respect. In communities that value the insights forged in hardship. In systems that honour what people already know about themselves.
It grows when someone says, “I believe you.” When someone says, “We’re glad you’re here.” When someone says, “You don’t have to prove anything—you already matter.”
And it grows when we listen long enough to hear the next step rising from within. When we trust people to know what they need next—offering presence instead of prescription and curiosity instead of correction— we offer the kind of scaffolding that allows a person to lead their own life. When we unpick the mental models we’ve inherited, we don’t just heal ourselves—we begin to remake the system from within.
Take the Next Step
This story is part of a larger conversation about our rights. If you want to learn more about how to identify and challenge these invisible barriers, we encourage you to read our full resource:
‘Understanding the Barriers to a Good Life’
This guide provides a deeper look at the Iceberg Model and identifies the common mental models that keep us from our rights. By learning to name these barriers, we gain the power to challenge them together.
[Download the full resource here]
Reflection Questions
- Have you ever felt that your own “lived knowledge” was dismissed because it didn’t match someone else’s “formal knowledge”? How did that impact your confidence to lead your own life?
- If you are a professional, how does the paternalistic framework of your workplace force you to act as a gatekeeper rather than a scaffolder (building a foundation of support)?
- What would change tomorrow if the system assumed we had the capacity to make our own decisions, rather than requiring you to prove it?
About the author
Nicola-Jane le Breton is a Community Story Weaver and Certified Core Gift and Focusing Trainer with Befriend Inc, Perth, where she facilitates the Possibility Fellowship and Befriending Within, walking alongside community members as they discover their gifts and unfold their next step.