#do not get me started about the invalidation of mental illness's

[howtofightwrite]

Most traditional boxing instructors will tell you that if the opponent is taller than you, has longer arms than you, or is heavier than you, you're fucked and you need to stay extremely aware and work really hard to compensate for all the advantage he has over you.

In a recent forensic survey, it was determined that most traditional boxing instructors who get into real world altercations die when they're shot in the head.

This is the problem with a lot of these kinds of arguments. No one practices traditional boxing. At least, no one does so publicly. How do I know this? Because traditionally boxers fought in the nude. Yeah, we're not seeing that, are we? Now, maybe they meant bare knuckle boxing, but really no one does that either, these days. Boxing without safety equipment is not a particularly good idea, for fairly obvious reasons.

The only reason the word, “traditional,” is in the ask is to lend their statement unearned credibility. It's an attempt to make their statement sound more authoritative, without offering any evidence to support the statement.

Who said that?

“Traditional people did.”

Okay, but, 'traditionally,' people cleaned shit off their ass with a stick. So, maybe appealing to Hellenic sports isn't the best gauge of how a fight will play out.

Also, I know I just said it, but, who are these authoritative sports guys? Because they're not named. We're simply told, “most,” of them agree. Which starts to sound a lot like “four out of five dentists agree.” Who are these instructors? What do they teach? Why are the currently in prison for indecent exposure? And how much did you pay them to get their uninformed opinion? Salient questions which may need to be answered, if the original question wasn't invalid on its face.

Why do I say it's invalid?

Because boxing isn't fighting.

Boxing is a sport.

Boxing has rules.

Kick your opponent in the groin, or shin, and you're punished.

Step on their foot, push them, and watch them tumble to the ground before you start stomping on them, and you'll be punished.

Throwing your opponent will be punished.

And of course, as mentioned at the top, pulling out a gun and expanding your opponent's mental horizons is extremely frowned upon.

These are all things that can happen in a real fight.

These are all things that do not benefit from increased height or reach.

There is one genuinely accurate statement. In a fight, you do need to be very aware of what's going on around you. Everything else is the product of someone who's been punched in the head repeatedly until the CTEs got them thinking that boxing is analogous to a real fight in any way. (And, statistically, will probably end their career sitting in a jail cell over an aggravated assault charge, because their emotional self-control was completely destroyed by those same head injuries.)

The rules that boxers need to follow are designed to (somewhat) protect the participants. It reduces the dangers of a boxer being killed in the ring. In an observation that I would hope to be self-evident, those rules don't exist in actual combat.

It's also amusing, because the original Asker had to go so far as to single out an ill-defined, “traditional” boxing, because no other martial art they checked gave them the soundbite they wanted.

And, of course, women box. Historically, you could say, “traditionally,” there were even boxing matches between men and women. It wasn't until the 1880s that women were excluded from competitive boxing in the UK. (I'm not sure of the exact date when women were banned from boxing in the US, though that prohibition lasted for less than a century, before the modern return of women to the sport.)

So, either these “traditional instructors” don't know the history of their own sport... which doesn't sound particularly “traditional” to me, or they're full of shit.

My advice to everyone would be, maybe, don't take the advice of a sports coach about how he's secretly an absolute badass in all the delusional fantasies he's cooked up about how he'd like to inflict violence on others because they wouldn't date him.

-Starke

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#writing reference #writing advice #writing tips #how to fight write #starke answers

[trans-axolotl]

also: I mostly switched over from saying "antipsychiatry" to psych abolition after I started to see more groups like CPA use it, and thought I'd share some of my thoughts on it.

antipsychiatry is a fundamental part of psych abolition for me, but i think my definition of psych abolition contains a lot more. first, there's a lot more things than just psychiatry that i want to abolish and transform--the whole mental health system and many different belief systems, types of providers, forms of treatment, and types of incarceration that are encompassed in that. i think it's important to name and identify the particular harms of psychiatry as a value system in the way it is the strictest example of pathologizing, medicalizing, and the strongest adherer to the purely biomedical model of illness and how this creates so much harm. but i think that there are also so many other harmful structures + belief systems within the whole mental health system. i also sometimes see therapists, for example, portraying themselves as alternatives to psychiatry, and while that's true in the sense that they are a different treatment option than a psychiatrist, they are often still harmful actors in their own rights and entangled with the state in an equally bad way.

second thing for me is that i think it's really important to intentionally build cross movement solidarity, especially with the prison abolition movement and to expand the way psych survivors currently support support people fighting for abolition of all forms of incarceration. (i drew inspiration from sins invalid and the 10 principles of Disability Justice). I see so many people in psych survivor spaces saying " I can't believe we were treated like prisoners on the ward" with the implication that it's fine if prisoners are treated that way, but it's bad when it happens to them. i think that's fucked up and i think that any psych survivor movement that doesn't actively support people incarcerated in prisons is a movement that does nothing to dismantle white supremacy. we need to be able to recognize the ways carceral logics operate in many different structures, and approach our activism as a shared struggle, where we constantly are led by those most impacted. so i think that naming what we're doing as "abolition" is important (with the important caveat that our organizing must then actually be abolitionist, and especially for white organizers, that we need to learn about the history of abolition, actively support the Black leaders and thinkers who have created the prison abolition movement and not center ourselves, that we actually have to be actively involved in supporting abolitionist work happening in your area, instead of just stealing the work of Black abolitionist scholars to use it for our own benefit without any credit or reciprocity, that we need to actively interrogate ways white supremacy culture and antiblackness are showing up in our movement places so that we aren't inviting our comrades who are people of color into spaces that are not safe for them, or exploiting our comrades of color by expecting them to do the work of dismantling the racism within our shared organizing spaces--don't call yourself a psych abolitionist if you still call the cops on your homeless neighbors, if your solutions to psych incarceration contribute to gentrification, if you refuse to support currently incarcerated comrades, for example.)

third thing is that antipsychiatry as a specific term is often associated with the sociologist theory from the 1960s, some of which i think is useful, some of which comes from antisemetic and racist psychiatrists who should not be given any legitimacy. antipsychiatry also often gets associated with cults like scientology. although i think that scientologists bastardize a lot of antipsychiatry stuff and weaponize it for their own ends, a lot of the public thinks of them if you say antipsychiatry, and it can cause misconceptions. also think that people sometimes assume antipsychiatry is inherently against medication and while i don't think that's our responsibility to clear up every time people misread our words on purpose, i think it's been a lot more helpful for me to talk about medication in the context of autonomy, harm reduction, war on drugs, and the ways that psychiatry creates issues to consent, autonomy, informed use, risk reduction, etc etc etc. and i think psych abolition helps me do that a little better.

i get in a lot of conversations with people who say "well from what i've seen you are just against institutionalization. why not just say that instead of attacking psychiatry?" and my answer is always if we want to end institutionalization, we have to end the structures, belief systems, and power dynamics of psychiatry--psychiatry is one of the logics that enables institutionalization to continue, and abolishing institutionalization without abolishing the structures that allow it to continue mean that it just pops up again in a new form with a new name (asylums to hospitals to group homes etc etc etc). so i think psych abolition to me is a clearer way to encompass the ways that all these systems are interconnected, and that when we're fighting for mad liberation, the right for mad/neurodivergent/mentally ill people to access care, support, healing on our own terms, to be free from institutionalization and violent treatment, and have the right to exist as mad people, whether or not we're "cured."

TL;DR: I switched to saying "psych abolition" rather than antipsychiatry even though there are many core ideas of antipsychiatry that I agree with. I think that for me, psych abolition helps clear up some misconceptions that people have about antipsychiatry, more clearly connects to prison abolition, and makes it clear that we need to transform more of the mental health system than just psychiatry.

#personal #psych abolition #antipsychiaty #psych survivor #surviving psych #mad liberation #mad pride #this is mostly just a ramble of some stuff i've been thinking on lately. terminology is not the most important thing to me #and as always i feel like what terms are the ones that are the most accessible to ppl given their own context #like i am not a huge fan of going up to people and saying YOU NEED TO STOP SAYING THIS BC I SAID so #i guess for me i've been really interested lately in seeing the growing psych abolition movement #and sort of the current era of psych survivior/mad lib activism. the ways its been growing and changing in the current decade

[cemitadepollo]

@tragicallyphosphorescent

You see, the thing about "sociopaths" it's that they're not real. If you open a psychology book, as you apparently hint to have done at some point, you'll discover that the term you're using isn't only scientifically inaccurate, but an outdated and harmful term used to refer to people with ASPD– Anti-Social Personality Disorder. This cluster B disorder is developed as a coping mechanism by people who suffer from childhood neglect, so people demonize literal abuse survivors for their little "serial killer abuser sociopath" fantasy that they saw in their favorite true crime movie. I would love to know where did you get the objective fact that most "sociopaths" don't seek treatment and hurt people.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder, otherwise known as NPD or just "narcissists", is a disorder that's classified in the cluster B category of personality disorders according to the DSM-V, this disorder is also developed because of childhood neglect. People love to armchair diagnose their abusers with this disorder under the ignorant belief that narcissistic people are selfish and that's it, it's used as an interchangeable term, which couldn't be further from reality. So no, I don't believe in "narcissistic abuse". Abuse is just abuse, an abuser is just an abuser, there's no need to slap anything else alongisde that label.

Just because a manifestation of trauma is different it doesn't mean it's bad. People with ASPD and NPD are as likely to abuse someone as a person without them. Lacking empathy doesn't make someone a bad person, empathy is just the capability to instinctually feel another human's feelings, but it's not the same as sympathy or compassion. A good person is one who's actions do good.

Now, I'm not invalidating the abuse anyone has gone through. If you tell me somebody, anybody, abused you, I believe you. But there's no need to demonize disorders in order to find support or validation.

You can find a free PDF of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th edition (DSM-V) easily on the internet, no need to buy the book itself. I suggest you give it a read to clear up that whole "sociopath" thing and to educate yourself more on the narcissistic personality disorder. As a disclaimer, the DSM-V is highly discussed by the neurodivergent community on a regular basis and some individuals, including myself, have a word or two about certain criteria that needs to be met to get a diagnosis, but I'm advising you to read it as a start.

Sincerely, a borderline with fluctuating empathy that's very tired of watching their cluster B siblings get denied treatment and dignity, because in case you didn't know this, lots of us actively seek treatment but get deemed "too hard to treat" or get actively abused by the medic system IF we are even allowed some sort of therapy. As a neurodivergent person, I'd assume you know of the kinds of horrors people like you and me suffer in psych wards, except people with personality disorders and other demonized illnesses still get thrown around and abused since our disorders aren't deemed as "harmless" as people who suffer from depression and anxiety or people with autism.

#ableism #tw narc abuse mention #aspd stigma #tw sociopath slur #s slur #npd stigma #aspd culture is #npd culture is #bpd stigma #bpd culture #cluster b #cluster b disorders #cluster b discussion #neurodiverse stuff #actually cluster b #neurodivergent

[jellystarjam]

lets talk about “impure” regression 💫

from someone who experiences it!

this post references some triggering topics, so please process with caution below 🩷💛🩵🩷💛🩵

if you’re familiar with the age regression community, you’ve most likely heard the terms “pure” and “impure” regression. These are widely accepted ways to describe if somebody’s regression is a positive experience, or a negative one. However, age regressors are starting to move away from these terms, because they’re actually very harmful!

As we know, age regression in most cases is a coping mechanism for survivors of abuse and trauma (but if your regression is purely recreational, that’s wonderful!). Many of us have had our childhoods taken away from us at a very young age. Regression is a way to reclaim that childhood experience and heal from our traumatic memories. As such, sometimes the line between our physical childhoods and our mental child-like states can get a little blurry. This can result in things like flashbacks, panic attacks, mood swings, or harmful stims / coping mechanisms.

many of us may experience involuntary regression- meaning we can’t control when we slip into our regressed states. Sometimes, this means feeling small, vulnerable, and scared in the middle of the day- public places, unfamiliar environments, or even dangerous situations. involuntary regression could also look like uncontrollably regressing to a younger age when confronted with a trigger, or negative emotions like fear or loneliness.

as you can imagine, these are not positive experiences. and when age regressors put these experiences into a category we label as bad, it makes those of us who experience painful regression feel even more lonely and invalid.

many of us, myself very much included, also struggle with a sense of shame, or sometimes even “dirtiness” around our regression. For me personally, i have had others sexu@l!ze my regression and ridicule and berate me for it. Because of this, i often feel like i’m doing something very very wrong by regressing. The term “impure” deeply upsets me, as it brings a connotation of uncleanliness/immorality to my coping mechanism. And I know i’m not the only little who experiences this!

separating age regression into these two categories is a little bit like dividing therapy up into two categories- imagine if we said the people who go to therapy because they feel good telling someone about their feelings, or they want advice, or for any reason other than a psychological struggle, go to “normal people therapy”. And the people who suffer from mental illness, who are trying to deal with trauma, or who are experiencing a crisis go to “crazy people therapy”. It helps no one and hurts those who are already hurting enough.

I’ve seen many people ask for alternative terms to impure regression. Here’s my suggestion: no alternatives. We don’t need to be categorized under a different name- we are the same as regressors who have purely positive littespaces. Whether your regression is “impure” or not; it’s still age regression. Sunshines and Rainbows aren’t a trademark of this coping mechanism. You aren’t in the wrong for struggling with big feelings when you’re feeling little.

And to all of the other regressors who relate to this, know that you are just as tiny, cute, and sweet as every other kiddo out there. You’re not bad, and you’re not broken. And there is nothing impure about giving yourself the childhood you deserve.

that is all <3

#sfw agere #agere positivity #safe agere #age regressor #agere blog #agere community #agere post #age regression #agere little #sfw cglre #sfw interaction only #jam posts #jelly star jar!! #impure agere #impure regression

[compassionatereminders]

i am 26 and i have been good friends with this girl for 7 years. we don't talk about s*x lives etc. she talked to me about dating but i haven't really been talking to her about s*x lives like some friends do. she kept saying for YEARS "why are you single" - she is a person who can't be single not even for a day (not kidding when she break up with someone she has a new guy the next day) because i know her well and i do consider her as a very close friend i told her i never want to date anyone - i would like to date but only if people wouldn't expect s*x. i told her about asexuality and i really opened her up. yesterday she invited me out but i had no idea it was her + her boyfriend + a friend of that boyfriend. basically she told me how i never find the right guy because i'm not looking and that pretty much i need to be mentally ill because i don't want s*x. i was mad at her because her boyfriend was making weird comments when we were out for a drink. pretty much she told him everything i trusted her. she was never so pushy before i "confessed" to her. sure she did ask me why i'm always single but i always told her that i don't want to date. when i said i don't desire s*x she wanted to set me up with someone. her reason was that -she thought i was single but she thought i do have hook ups i don't talk about- that's why she never set me up with someone. now when she knows i don't want s*x she started with "setting me up". i feel upset and betrayed. she also texted me a lot of rude things today about how sensitive i am... i feel like i don't want to open up to anyone about this anymore. and i only did open up because her comments about me being single were annoying me. i feel like i am the bad one because she guilt trips me so much with her text messages. i didn't reply to her but she sent me 5 text messages today i wish i'd block her but at the same time we were friends for so long...

Please block her! You trusted her with something real, and sensitive and honest about yourself and she responds like THAT?!! That's not a friend. She has NO right to act like that or say any of those things. Even if she doesn't understand, that doesn't mean she gets to invalidate and disrespect your experience and your boundaries. I'm so sorry she acted like that! Please don't make excuses for it

#chat with kat #aphobia tw #sex tw

[overwhelmed-overweight]

Oh what's wrong with people :( They think only one extreme is valid (if it makes sense idk) Not to say they're "posers" but... In a way...

It genuinely upsets me when people just don't believe that the "other side" is also valid.... like... Kinda shows how people normalized understating what a "binge" is (AND seeing obesity/being overweight only in a way where it's always the persons fault and never anything else... so messed up honestly), made it a joke, ignoring what damage they're causing.

I hope they don't get to you too much :( You're valid in your problems, they're still problems and you deserve to get better and while I haven't been here much, it's so clear you're come a long way and I think that's really admirable. I believe in you (:

[disclaimer, I struggle with restriction, but... in a way that tends to be "invalid" to those people. So I kind of get the invalidating feeling? I hope this isn't weird. As a guy with mental health problems, I still hear dumb shit about mental illnesses and men in general. So I can relate a little bit, I think, in the way that people think you're just making excuses, but I certainly do not claim to fully understand your struggle. I hope this isn't like, weird. Have a good day/night <3 do something nice for yourself if you feel like it <3 Just, you know, try to remember to be kind to yourself when the dummies get to your head. Difficult, I know, but sometimes reminders are nice?]

Thank you so so much for this, I appreciate you so much you have no idea 😭 thank you for sharing your struggles too, it makes so many people feel less alone (myself included). Particularly as a man with mental health issues, it's that much more important for you to be seen and heard.

That ask didn't really get to me, it's more of a show of how pathetic they are than anything. I just wish people would come off anon if they really wanna start talking shit lmaoooo

It's definitely a hard place to be for all of us regardless of what we're fighting, but that's why it's important to break the stigma regarding non-restrictive (or cyclically restrictive) EDs. We all deserve an equal space to vent our pain.

People like you make this side of Tumblr a better place, even though it's sad that any of us have to be here in the first place 💚

#overweight diaries #overweight answers

[samuwhal]

We need to change how we talk about self-help techniques.

By self-help techniques, I’m talking about: grounding, mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises, physical activity, and--the big one--yoga. I have struggled with my mental health since I was fifteen, and just now, I am realizing how much these things can actually help. I am almost twenty-six years old, and I will have been in therapy for ten years this fall. Let me tell you, I have spent so much of that time renouncing these tools. Recently, though I’ve realized that: holy shit, they can really work...but man they are offered to struggling people in the worst possible light.

TL;DR: Just because suggestions about ways to manage mental illness are framed as “you have to try it or you want to be sick” doesn’t mean that they can’t actually work or that you are invalidating yourself by trying or being helped by them. Featuring personal anecdotes and a boat metaphor.

I know I am not alone in that the idea of these techniques and exercises just made my skin crawl. They made me feel vulnerable in a way which really scared me, they felt impossible to initiate in the moments needed most, and--ultimately--they felt incredibly diminutive. Think about it: people getting sucked into rapids will drown cursing your name if all you do is insist they have to “ride the wave.” “Fuck you.”

When I began taking anti-depressants, it was not without a fight. I’m lucky; my parents were willing and able to put me in therapy as soon as I asked. But with medication, they were concerned it was a shortcut, that I would be on pills for the rest of my life, and that the chemicals would change me and do “the work” for me, as if this was an issue of character development and not brain malfunction. Why wouldn’t I just do something relaxing when I was upset? Why wasn’t I leaning more into my spirituality? Why wasn’t I letting anything else help me?

And that’s the problem! I tried to explain that I would be able to use those techniques easier if medication brought my overall symptoms down. You wouldn’t expect me to paddle upstream against a tsunami, but I could feasibly make progress against a strong current. Even at that point, if I go over rapids, I want a fucking life jacket, not somebody with their feet firmly planted on the riverbank shouting, “Try yoga!” Though I of course continued therapy in addition to medicine, I still resisted any advice having to do with self-help because of that sentiment.

To be clear, I’m still very pro-medication and for eliminating that stigma. Really, though, when somebody is having such debilitating symptoms--emotions--that they feel like they are getting pulled underwater and gasping for air, it’s not fair that the solution could be something as effortless as breathing in while counting until it’s better. That sounds like bullshit. Mental illness physically hurts, but to outsiders, it’s all in your head, and it would be fine if only you could step back and appreciate how good you have it. If “mindfulness” works, then maybe those people are right, and that can’t be true. It hurts too much to be true.

However, I want you to know that your struggles won’t be any less legitimate if something simple actually does end up helping. I have two stories here:

1. Last year, after wanting to start for ages, I finally began exercising: just going to the gym a couple of times a week. My goal was only to feel better in my body, not really to do anything for myself mentally. I even hired a personal trainer to write work-out routines for me to follow, both to hold myself accountable (I won’t skip if I’m paying someone) and just so I wouldn’t be totally lost the second I walked in. But I have felt so many unexpected mental benefits, as well:

Getting my heart rate and breathing elevated--and continuing to exert myself through it--has kept me steadier when anxiety starts to set in. I feel more confident knowing that I can lift heavy things, run distances, and because I did something productive. I’m not stress or bored-eating, not necessarily because I’m afraid I’ll “put the calories back,” but because I’m simply more regulated. I have been sleeping better since pushing my muscles has reduced my lower back pain. I don’t procrastinate showering if I’ve just gotten back from the gym. When I sit down to schoolwork, I focus easier if I had exercised. Something something endorphins. I know I’m starting to sound like a “bro,” but the point is that these are huge benefits to exercising that just don’t get mentioned by the people crudely suggesting that it will fix your depression.

2. A couple of months ago, I was having a bad night, and the “don’t believe any negative thoughts about yourself after 10 p.m.” rule had gone out the window. I did what many of us have taught ourselves to do and asked for a lifeline: I texted my girlfriend in the same room (because vocalizing it was too hard) asking if she would come over to sit with me. I didn’t even realize I was having an anxiety attack, but she did. At first, I felt too frozen and in-pain when she asked me to sit up from clutching the fetal position. Instrumentally, though, she said that she wanted to help, but I had to help myself, too. She was throwing me a ring, but I had to swim and meet her halfway. I sat up.

She held me and led me through a “find five things in the room” exercise, and fuck me: it helped. No, I wasn’t cured. I’m still not. But this broke my self-destructive loop, and I was able to go to sleep relaxed. This was an epiphany for me. I could have provided myself this tool, this comfort, the entire ten years I’ve been dealing with this shit! Instead, I’ve just been enduring it, hoping against everything pulling me down that--instead of drowning--I’ll eventually kick the riverbed where it’s shallow enough to stand.

When self-help techniques are offered to mentally ill people, they tend to be used as a “gotcha:” you could easily be better, if only you wanted to try. To be completely fair, this isn’t always the meaning. However, it only takes a couple of those microaggressions to ensure you shut down when your therapist or a concerned loved one asks if you've tried "grounding” before.

Please, take it from me: these tools aren’t just leaky arm floats that people who never even needed to learn how to swim offer just to feel better as they watch you struggle. They are a life jacket to keep you afloat when you tip, a wider paddle to outrun the rapids, a better rudder and tiller so you can actually steer, a bailing bucket for when things get dicey, or pontoons so you won’t tip so readily. Trying self-help techniques doesn’t disclaim what you’re going through, they just might make it more bearable.

And you’re worth that.

#okay to reblog #mental health #mental health tw #mental illness #therapy #anxiety #anxiety tw #depression #depression tw #grounding #mindfulness #medication #yoga #exercise #meditation #breathing exercises #honest advice #if this helps one person it's worth it #reflection #mental health stigma #end the stigma #you are loved #you are not alone #mild swearing #gym #anxiety attack #panic attack #panic attack tw #anxiety attack tw #about me

[pray4saint]

big big psa guys

tw // almost a call-out. talking about people romanticising mental health issues. swearing bc i'm pissed off. my own trauma is sectioned off to be easily skipped through; although it includes topics of self-harm, suicide, bad mental health, & loss.

holy shit i cannot believe i actually have to make this post. if you disagree with anything in this post, please get off my blog because you're not welcome here.

tldr; don't send in requests for weird shit.

some of my mutuals have received asks surrounding a ”mentally ill reader” & dating a cc inside of a mental hospital/psych ward and uhm. excuse me??? what the actual fuck??? why do you think this is okay and normal? 🤠 why did you think that would be a good idea?? (you know who you are & trust that your block button is looking quite wonderful to the entire publishing house)

i consider myself fortunate enough not to have received those bc i know how triggering they can be and for anyone viewing my blog, so to anyone and everyone who has seen those asks and been triggered by them, i'm sorry. that's not something that anyone should have to see from a stranger on the fucking internet, or at all really.

i feel like i shouldn't even have to say this, but uhm, don't romanticise issues you clearly have no business dealing with? is it really that hard?? if it really is that fucking hard to just not be creepy about real issues, then get offline. this kinda shit is the reason some of mine and my cousin's favourite writers have left tumblr, and it's unfortunate but i understand their frustration.

joking about your trauma with your close friends is one thing, but asking a stranger on the internet to talk about it? that's a big fat no.

– > trauma below

this shit makes me so fucking outraged, especially as someone who's had friends go in and out of wards, who's lost people to suicide, and dealt with horrible self-esteem, body image and self worth issues because of it since the ripe age of 12. it's so invalidating to see it used as a story arc. these are real issues, that real people go through every goddamned day.

i've done things i'm not proud of, things i'm reminded of every time i look at my body. gone through things i wish i didn't have to, and as judah said in her post, i have the right to deal with and cope with my trauma as i wish, i've earned it. but i'm not hurting others. that's the difference.

– > trauma ends here

before sending in asks on any blog, take a moment to think; 'how will this be received?', 'based on their rules, is this okay?', 'is this something i would want my younger sibling reading on the internet in a year?' think before you speak. please.

as i said at the start, if you disagree with anything in this post then get off my page because you're not welcome here. clearly, you're not mature enough to stick around here. i don't care if i sound like an asshole, it must be said.

#saint txt !! #updates n psas !!!! #im actually so pissed off wtf #got the whole publishing house rioting #screaming violently #i think it's time to pick up knife throwing for sport again

[cxncrie]

Honestly. I'm stressed to hell and back. Cutting off that person took a few months of discussion with several people, and I honestly don't feel like anyone believes me. I feel sick on so many levels. Hurt, betrayed, knowing what I do now I just. It hurts. It hurts that someone I trusted just did all these things to me. Maybe I deserved it, I don't know.

I don't care what happens to me, I never do. Fuck me. But anyone else? I can't stand it. It's why I made those apologies that are long overdue. But I don't think any amount of apologizing is ever going to fix that I let a person like that in.

The things I learned today, the fact my boyfriend got doxxed, as well as a close friend of mine of many years, and god knows who else. I feel sick, I feel like throwing up.

I need to take a few days to myself to just .. process everything. To process how much I was lied to, how I was mocked for my mental illnesses, it hurts so much to know that someone felt that way about me. That the fact I have PTSD, Anxiety, Depression, and god knows what else, is worth mocking. When I tried to understand their side of mental illnesses too.

God and don't get me started on how bad I feel for the fact I basically invalidated victims of this person. They didn't deserve what they got, and I feel so disgusted at myself for basically enabling her.

The queue will run like normal, but I need some me time. Time to let it all sink in. It's so much to me, much much more than I can put into words.

My discord will be open, but I'm stepping back from tumblr for a few days to a week depending on how I manage. It probably helps I get to see my therapist tomorrow. But I still need some time.

Thank you for understanding. If you're gone by the time I return, it was nice knowing you. For those who stay, I appreciate you.

#★ ► ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴛᴀʀꜱ ꜱᴘᴇᴀᴋ. ◄ ⌠ Out Of Character ⌡ #drama tw #jic

[aftonfamilyvalues]

I am terrified if men.

I mean my father did everything to me but rape me. And he’d assert dominance over me /threaten me because he didn’t want other guys to sleep with me, date me, didn’t want me to get married, etc.

I’m no contact and he knows better than to contact me because if he does I’ll take legal action. My mom died and she was the one protecting him.

I seek therapy because I want to heal and am repeatedly invalidated about my trauma and about the reality that most men are abusive, sexual predators.

I’ve expressed that I’m sad I didn’t experience ge t romantic love..

Which is only to say that I’m all about separatism and even though I’m not dating men cause I’m traumatized by them, I have this regret over not having been able to explore a healthy sexuality, and a fear of missing out.

The last therapist I had was malicious/emotional abusive. Would read and be on the computer during sessions and deny doing it. Claimed I talked to much, (bad luck with this super narcissistic, very misogynistic old woman, grandmother /in her 60’s,) she ignored me /was very devaluing, then perked up “it can happen at any age!” She either thought I was lying or l exaggerating about being abused, or/and definitely not listening because I’ve never expressed wanting a bf or a husband, ever. Of course I did as a teenager/child. It’s honestly so demoralizing when even a therapist views you as inferior and like your being single is a problem and thinks you’re talking too much and attention seeking.

I’ve never not had a female therapist downplay or invalidate my trauma and male violence. I wish there were more feminist based pyschotherapists / bare minimum, therapists who do not project their family values Bullshit. I’ve never not have had a therapist view me as the problem to all my experiences. I’ve therapists judge me and treat me as subhuman for being childfree and single.

I def need therapy as I’m so traumatized that I’m scared to sleep and not sleeping anymore and it’s impacting my health. I also can’t regulate my emotions well and I’m a fearful avoidant with ptsd, some folks say therapist isn’t necessary because most are bad. I’d honestly argue most therapists have very misogynistic beliefs…

Is there any way to ver that out. I get so gaslight I lost my sense of self/ I’ve had to recover from bad therapy but once out of therapy I start feeling less crazy… I do we’ll months on my own without talking to someone but then need therapi.

I’m legitimently scared of them at this point. I did give my last therapist feed back about her behavior, when I told her “I’m a person, and I don’t deserve this treatment” and then responded with “I don’t believe you” she raged and yelled at me, blaming me for her being distracted, telling me I talked too much.

I’m started to lose hope however that there are therapists who recognize patriarchy and oppression as a root cause to mental illness, rather than a partner as a cure for mental illness 🙄without claiming I’m the problem when I’m the one showing up to therapy for what happened to me. Therapists all just think their patients are mentally I’ll crazy women who can’t get a man. I feel insane when I go to therapy. Because I’m terrified of men and the focus is never on me as an individual, but (I shit you not, and tbh I even told her she was giving me harmful advice,) but tk shift the focus on my “distortion” of why I think I “can’t have that now.”

(I actually believe there are good therapists in just scared to open up now /be devalued/have a therapist not even treat seperatism as viable or even suggest it to me as an option. I don’t need a therapist to suggest it to me but I’d trust one much better who did. It sucks leaving a therapy session feeling worse because you don’t feel good enough.)

I really think most therapists are sexists because they have male bias

i think ive mentioned it before but therapy is more of a business nowadays. all these therapists arent people that actually want to help, very few of them do, most of them saw a growing industry and decided they could bank on it. they dont care to help and heal, they view therapy as a way to make someone (women) "normal" and fit in to society rather than working through trauma and have a healthy life, even if that life isnt the typical one. ive also seen a lot of therapists feed into bad behavior, validating the emotions and victim complexes of abusers all while teaching them a new progressive language to wield against their victims. i still think about how my friend went to therapy and the entire time going culminated into the conclusion of "your life sucks and theres nothing you can do about it" like what???? it seems like traumatized people come out of these sessions worse and i have no doubt that abusers are going into this field to extend their reach. i feel like the more people glamorize therapy the more this is going to happen.

#ask

[my-castles-crumbling]

hey cas,

so, i dont really know exactly how to word things right so please bear with me while i try to explain a bit.

i think i have bipolar disorder (or something similar, im still looking into things), but i dont know if im just going crazy and imagining things. theres not really anyone in my life i can talk to about it to gauge their opinion, so im kind of left by myself to deal with it.

i dont have a trusted adult or loved one i can go to for help, and ive not been to a doctor since probably 2017 at the latest so im not even sure who id be making an appointment with to discuss anything like this. ive considered trying to get myself into therapy but im afraid that if i go in saying that i think im bipolar and have other mental illnesses (im about 99% certain i have anxiety and likely some sort of depressive disorder too, but that might be more linked with the mood swings of bipolar) that its the wrong way to go about it? like, i might just be really ignorant but i dont think thats how therapy works is it?

basically im worried that if i go in saying the disorders i think i have, then theyll tell me im exaggerating or that i need other people to back me up or that i do need to see my gp doctor (which, again, i dont actually think i have one) or that it isnt my place to try to diagnose myself etc.

im not really sure what im asking here? maybe if you have any advice/experience about what therapy is actually like or what i could expect? or a better way to go about getting help? i really dont know honestly aha, sorry

Well, you've definitely come to the right place lol, I've been to and ghosted many a therapist! (Don't ghost your therapist!)

Actually, recently I started therapy again and it's been a great experience, so let me tell you about it. Warning: I live in the US, so if you live elsewhere, it might be different.

When you start therapy, they're going to ask you a LOT of questions. Lots about your background, your childhood, your feelings, etc. It'll feel a bit invasive, but make sure to be honest! Like brutally honest. Like if you're like...'I might be feeling this way but idk if I'm faking..' tell them that. They need to know everything.

Then, if you're a minor, they'll talk to your parents and get their insight. If you have issues with your parents, make sure to tell them that BEFORE this part happens, so they can take what your parents say with a grain of salt.

Last, they'll give you a 'tentative diagnosis.' This means that this is what they think you have, but it's not a die-hard medical diagnosis. They'll treat you based on this, but if you ever wanted accommodations in school or anything for it, you would have to go to a clinical psychiatrist to get it written up.

Here's the thing: the diagnosis my surprise you or even make you feel invalidated. If it does? Tell them that. Because, two things: One- they may have gotten something wrong. Or two- they need to know if you aren't understanding something fully.

To be very personal, I am diagnosed with both depression and anxiety. When I started therapy recently and again got those diagnoses, I wasn't surprised. But I also was told I have 'illness-anxiety disorder' which is the new term for a hypochondriac. I was super insulted because I was picturing the stereotypical hypochondriac who fakes illnesses for attention (this was uneducated of me) but my therapist explained that this version of anxiety more means that I have a lot of anxiety related to being nervous to get sick or the results of getting sick. Which was like- oh. yeah. I do panic every time someone sneezes on me. My therapist said this has become increasingly common since COVID.

All this to say it sounds like seeking out therapy might be a great way for you to get the answers you're looking for. But even if they're not the answers you think they'll be, remember that your feelings and experiences are still extremely valid and no less real.

<3 <3 <3

#ask #asks #ask cas #therapy

[istillseeeverything]

ah.... Long pilisophical post deleted..... I was getting somewhere and having a productive thought train.... Ahhh..... Maybe this is a message from god that I should sleep? Ah.... I think I had some good thoughts* tho so I'll bullet point them

*if anyone starts to study kinning/therapist/otherkin as linked SOLELY to mental illness and therefore making it "invalid" or "crazy" we need to arm ourselves. People need to be weird on the Internet ok

*I don't relate to the two psychotic friends I have... one of them uses the Internet a lot and has some unnoticed biases so that's a given. But the other one doesnt and has gone through a lot of trauma but still looks at me weird when I mention being Jesus IN PRIVACY WHEN WE R HASHING THINGS OUT mind you. He just kind of treats me like an anomaly?? :-( I'm actually very fucking tame$ and polite when it comes to talking about who I am so this upsets me. He might just be shitty but I'm nervous about joining a psychosis support group when I've been treated this way by close friends... Even in the fucking psych ward I was "weird" but those are notoriously cliquey and everyone there was from some form of negative twt

*new bullet point but idk if my friends r just ass but I worry I'm too delusional to fit in in psychosis circles... I miss max a lot... She has schizophrenia and was someone I actually felt comfortable bitching with. I hope she's okay :-(

*right but does anybody who is specifically psychotic (having other disorders as well is fine I don't think I know of anybody with only psychosis) feel this way or have their own takes??? Are psychosis and schizophrenia the same spectrum have I just been wrong this whole time??? I know they're close but what I read online tends to kind of just.... Not acknowledge schizophrenia? Like you will see ppl say it's valid hundreds of times but not actually group it with psychosis.... Am I not looking hard enough???? Where do I go for this-- reddit???

*I like to document my feelings and emotions on Tumblr especially since my memory issues get rid of anything that upsets me

$tame as in model student. Tamed animal. No matter how well composed I am or how much double bookkeeping I experience I am isolated and it sucks :-( I don't view myself as better for doing this, neurotypical people supposedly should but it doesn't fuckimg matter lol. I know this already of course, I just do it so I don't get my autonomy stripped from me

#jesse.txt #Oh God this is so long I'm sorry :-( #I'm just very lonely and want to talk about myself without being like looked at weird #I don't mean to only ever talk about being Jesus... I just mean to mention it and not be creeped on #Also if you do choose to respond please don't refer to my status as Jesus as kinning it's just who I am #Also apologies if I worded anything incorrectly in this... I'm very new to this #Oh God this almost deleted again #I had more tags but I might as well post :-(

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Anti-recovery people: hey, it's okay to be unhealthy. That's not always something you can change and it's certainly not something you have to do. It's okay to exist as you are.

"Pro-recovery" people: OMG YOU'RE what's wrong with the mental health community, you BRAINWASHED me into thinking it wasn't okay for people to seek help if THEY wanted it, this is honestly TOXIC AF.

Anti-recovery people: but ... that's literally not what we said. Most people view recovery as this linear progression of milestones that often includes becoming more palatably neurotypical, which is ableist. What we're saying is that it's okay to recover if you want to, but that doesn't have to look like the mainstream abled version of recovery, and that it's okay to not do so at all. Some people also can't recover to those standards and we celebrate accepting your limitations.

"Pro-recovery" people: So it's OKAY to just harm your friends because of your mental illness? You support being a BAD person and not bothering to change? Also being unhealthy is bad and I'm going to assume because I recovered that everybody is capable of doing so, even if using different methods, and just choosing not to bother because of YOU people.

Anti-recovery people: What? No! Hurting other people is not okay! Do you actually think that these symptoms of a diagnosis are what causes someone to choose to harm other people? That's both super ableist and also a fundamental misunderstanding of what causes harmful, toxic, and abusive behaviors.

Anti-recovery people: In the few cases where someone is truly incapable of controlling a harmful behavior, where someone has extremely high support needs, we support them getting the adequate societal support to have someone help them through these behaviors without anyone getting hurt, but more importantly, without exacerbating their own distress that they are very clearly expressing.

Anti-recovery people: In most other cases, conflating the choices and actions of someone who is mentally ill with their diagnosis is super ableist, as is conflating "it's okay if you struggle to brush your teeth" with "it's okay to treat your friends and loved ones like shit with no consequences". I assume you're defining harm as "actively insulting, belitting, invalidating, physically or sexually assaulting you, though, and not just visibly having symptoms of a mental illness or talking about their struggles, right?*

"Pro-recovery"people: . . .

Anti-recovery people: We're saying that it's harmful to moralize health, for multiple reasons. There's that you are not capable of determining if a person is able to recover, for any given definition of recovery. There's that even if a person is able to, them being unhealthy is not actually harming you, and they have the right to make those choices even if you wouldn't make the same ones for yourself. There's the fact that recovery looks different for everybody, and for many, accepting that you can't "recover" to the expectations set by the mainstream IS recovery. ESPECIALLY given that many things that are called "unhealthy" are perfectly harmless and healthy aspects of neurodivergence that have been unnecessarily medicalized by our ableist society and psychiatric institutions.

"Pro-recovery" people: . . .

"Pro-recovery" people: YOU'RE the reason I wanted to kill myself for a decade and didn't bother to do anything about it! Personal responsibility, ever heard of it? Once I left your CULT I started doing yoga and now I'm BETTER and so everyone else can do that too!

Anti-recovery people: ... Do YOU know what personal responsibility is? All the "anti-recovery" in our names means is that we are against the idea that it's morally wrong to refuse to recover, whether that means refusing to conform to the mainstream ideal of recovery, a choice that you make to not pursue recovery, or an acceptance of your own inability to recover. We are not against choosing recovery as a personal decision if that's what you want - in fact, we support those people.

Anti-recovery people: Anyway, you don't know what led up to someone making this choice. Someone with long-term treatment-resistant suicidal depression is not wrong for not continuing to try meds that have not once worked, pursuing expensive TMS they may not be able to afford which is not covered by most insurance, continuing meds that have some effect but worse side effects than the depression itself, or psychotherapy that may have little to not effect, especially if they have at any point been subject to psychiatric neglect or abuse, which is more common than you're aware.

"Pro-recovery" people: See, I was toxic like you but unlearned all of that so now I'm no longer toxic. Btw I'm currently actively harassing disabled people because they're not 'working hard enough' or using 'better coping skills' and them being unhealthy is a personally harmful to me and everyone that ever interacts with them. What do you mean that's not okay just because the disability is a mental illness?? That's ableist!!1

Anti-recovery people: Okay, so, you haven't even bothered to deconstruct the moralization of healthiness and how that ties into ableism, I see. It's actively bigoted to expect someone to meet certain standards of health when they have a CHRONIC HEALTH ISSUE. This is no different than expecting someone with a chronic illness never to eat or drink anything unhealthy, to exercise regularly, have perfect sleep habits, and otherwise be a paragon of healthy choices or else it's "their fault" for just "not caring enough to put in the work to recover. Of course, you likely also do those things, in which case the comparison is lost on you, because ableists are so rarely ableist against only mentally or physically disabled people and not the other.**

Anti-recovery people: You also seem to believe that you're ontologically incapable of doing harm - you say that it's an "ongoing process" but then your actions show that you haven't bothered learning to listen when people say you're harming them and have just changed your targets to be people who have less societal power than you so they're less able to stand up for themselves and you're less obligated to listen to them. Are you just trying to find a justification for bullying people that others will accept?

"Pro-recovery" people: . . . STOP HARASSING ME!!1

Anti-recovery people: *Looks into camera like they're on the office*

*I have actually harmed others in the past in ways that were influenced by my mental illness. OCD, of all things, was the one that most directly impacted my actions, and I owned my mistakes. That being said, they were still my CHOICE. The mental illness played a role, but it didn't cause the harm I did. You know what wasn't my choice, though? My overreliance on my friends for essentially trauma-dumping and for getting my emotional needs met because I was actively being abused and the system was neither providing me ANY way out nor even adequate mental healthcare (as if that's possible when being ACTIVELY ABUSED WITH NOT EVEN A BROCHURE OFFERED ABOUT HOW TO ESCAPE ABUSE.) I was a drowning person clawing at them for survival, and it was neither of our faults that the system is primed to actively keep disabled people in abusive situations. So don't @ me.

**I would know, I am both multiple physically and multiply mentally disabled.

#ableism #sanism #anti recovery #please I am begging you to use one modicum of critical thought and do like thirty seconds of actual research #I put 'pro recovery' in quotes because these people have actively hindered my recovery for years #like no actually my being unhealthy is harming no one besides myself #and in some cases harm reduction means deciding that 'recovery' would currently be more harmful to me than the illness #like that's BASIC harm reduction #healthy not morally GOOD. unhealthy not morally BAD. you're not ENTITLED to anyone else's health #like some people aren't ABLE to be healthy Karen #even for those that put a lot of hard work into recovery. which if you say you did I believe you. #do you understand that not everybody is capable of putting in that work in ANY capacity? #Also I'll give three guesses as to which types of neurodivergence they are disproportionately saying acceptance of is bad #(I'll bet it's PDs schizospec conditions and dissociative disorders/PTSD/trauma in general) #(they all conflate that last one anyway) #don't @ me I have all three #'pro recovery' people just block me you've done enough direct and immediate harm to me already

[tirfpikachu]

another long vent about my ex lol

okay so. my transmasc ex, who i thought was only into amab people (aka technically heterosexual sex-wise), is happily going on dates w another transmasc guy who passes as male. and they say that they don't care if they actually pass as a straight woman as long as they're dating someone who passes as male. they'd rather pass as straight than as a lesbian. they're more fem now. i can't stop thinking abt how they showed regret abt top surgery once (asked me if breasts could regrow, hopeful, looking crushed when i said no) and once had a period questioning aligning w womanhood in some way, but they said they related to transfem experiences and felt like they lived as a trans woman since they passed as that, the struggles of it and really wanting to get laser for their hrt facial hair... and then i, who was an ultra over-the-top transfem ally at the time, invalidated them by saying they needed to remember it's not the same as trans women and they're more privileged as an afab person. after both those instances they shut down and never mentioned relating to womanhood again.

so they're only into male-passing people. they thought i would transition so they tried dating me, but i identified as partially female and then fully female and they got distant and started acting like a tough macho man instead of their natural personality and femininity, bc i guess if they're more masc they needed to act like The Man Of The House and consistently pass as male (which they later said they hated). bc if they were openly fem and pass as female w me we would pass as lesbians and that was their worst nightmare with dysphoria. i guess radfem-wise they're bisexual in the technical sense, but only wanna date a male-passing person. which is valid. i feel dumb for still feeling a bit hurt... as a detrans woman i'm like damn, if only i had transitioned... but i would've been repressing my true self and been miserable. and we're incompatible in many ways anyway. but oof

idk... it makes me think pretty irrational things :/ they also made a move on me after the breakup (a specific alter did at least, we both have DID) bc it was an alter of mine who relates to angels so doesn't really relate to human gender/sex bc of trauma. it's a mental illness thing. but only then they were attracted to me. they said those specific alters could date, as long as we were polyamorous... but that alter of theirs barely comes out, so they said i should manage my expectations. it felt like it would be a part-time relationship. our relationship always felt like that from the start, honestly... they were always only partially into me, mostly indifferent, which they blamed on autism. we were sometimes romantic sometimes platonic, i was constantly anxious, insecure and yearning. it almost broke me when they did things w me that night and then suggested that. bc all of me was into them from the start (tho now i know that only a woman who 100% identifies as a woman could satisfy me) but they were into only one part of me part-time. that would have been SOOOO unhealthy for me. i had so many meltdowns, thank god i said no

and now they're dating a transmasc person who lives as male... i'm happy for them, it suits them better. i was never enough, and honestly they were never enough for me either... they were almost never affectionate w me for yearssss but now they're loveydovey abt this guy and all romantic. they had wanted to breakup for years but lied bc they thought i couldn't survive without them as a disabled woman (who had lived without them before and did just fine!!! but whatever). and they fantasized about men all that time, and thought of men when we had sex, and hated their life. it SUUUUCKS. how do i even cope with all of that. it all started bc we were roommates and they kept trying to makeout w them while drunk, then apologizing the next day and pretending nothing happened. i always said "no, do it sober instead." i had to call them out on it one day and ask them if they wanted to date. only one of their alters did, they said yes, we dated. more and more alters paired up romantically, but the alters dating parts of me barely fronted. they had a looot of religious trauma, and were raised in heavy homophobia, so them being with an afab person was a huge deal i think. it's good that they openly happily go on dates w another afab person, i guess... i thought for sure it would be amab people only. most of the ppl they showed me on their dating app were amab. but yeah, good for them. it feels like some form of closure. still feels weird, but i'm relieved too, happy for them as their best friend. at least the reason they weren't into me wasn't my sex/agab. it was bc i wasn't on testosterone (anymore) and didn't get top surgery, and didn't identify as nonbinary or male. i still have mixed feelings, it was such a crazy complicated journey... but whatever, it's over. i can finally move on to hot girls who actually truly want me as i am and hopefully eventually find my person <3 i'm so tired emotionally though lol. if you read all of this bs you're a real one ily 💜💜 i would also love some radfem thoughts on this?? idk

#lay text

[vampyrsm]

I already rbed your post in the tags about my boyfriend romanticizing weird/mentally ill girls who are pretty, but, I just wanted to slide into your inbox and talk abt it because I feel like your blog is a safe space.

Like you are SO right about this, and it's so fucking draining when they finally do get a weird/mentally ill gf. Like they get us, and then they want to "fix us", but when they realize they can't, they just kinda put us in a box labeled as "broken" or "too hard to fix", and then they start invalidating us for our depression/anxiety/other mental illnesses. Im currently in an argument with my bf about being on anti-depressants, and at first he was like, "Oh that's totally understandable, I can help you out with your depression too!" And now he's like, "Doctor's words don't mean shit," "you shouldn't take them they're bad for you" kinda thing.

Like men HATE when they realize that get something like us and can't fix us because we're real human beings and not objects.

Also we are working on it and I'm educating him bc he's willing to be educated so 👍🏻

I'm glad you find it a safe space here, because it definitely is. I saw your rb though and I just felt so angry for you - I'm glad you're working on it and I genuinely do hope it works out for you

But yeah, I think men genuinely only want to fix easy things. They don't truly understand the extent of depression or other mental illnesses until they're staring it in the face. It's like they make it a project or something and then get upset when it's not going their way, I truly do not understand the male mindset when it comes to things like that

My personal experience has always been me being cheated on for someone with a similar calibre of mental illness but they're hot so LOL. They don't care as much if you're pretty and let them fuck you whenever they want! (Got off course here my bad)

But yes you're absolutely right. Men do not like facing the reality of mental illness because it's not all pretty and hot - they don't like it when you break down over something that can't be fixed instantly, they don't like it when you can't trust their word on things because something in your mind tells you otherwise, they don't like it when you can't rely on them solely.

As I said though, I truly hope you do work it out with him and that you get through this with him - it's probably really rough and I suck with words, but just know that you are worth everything and more. You're doing what's best for you by getting professional help, never listen to the opinion of a man because he thinks only he can be the source of your wellbeing

#— alex has mail ! #— user anon #sorry if this is aggressive. i just get upset about this #especially for other people #because ik how it feels and it breaks my heart knowing its a common thing #i wish people didnt go through it so much

[urbancripple]

How do you balance recognizing that all disabled ppl need support with the fact that you feel left out of disabled spaces? It feels like a lot of the disabled community/groups/etc have become primarily people (if I'm being real, white women mostly) with chronic pain/fatigue, and while I think those ppl are valid and deserve support it can be hard to be left behind in a space that used to have more people like me. Especially considering I'm not even someone who can't work, I have a relatively normal life as far as crip stuff goes, like I've got a regular job and shit I'm just very visibly disabled while doing it. It really feels like the conversation around disability has started to revolve around white women with chronic pain/invisible disability that disrupts the ability to work, which totally is not at all what I'm handling, as someone who needs to (and enjoys) working and is not white nor a woman.

Like I am very glad that those people get support and visibility etc now. I just hate being left in the dust again, first by abled society and then by what used to be my community.

Hi reader who is most likely not the OP! This is going to be a #longpost. If you don't have the time to read the whole thing before responding and instead plan on letting your eyes dance around the text looking for key phrases to misinterpret, please fuck off.

For the rest of you, welcome and enjoy.

"How do you balance recognizing that all disabled ppl need support with the fact that you feel left out of disabled spaces?"

I don't. I can't, really.

I see a lot of the same problems that you mention in your question. A _lot_ of the disabled community in online spaces consists of white, fem-presenting folks talking about ill-defined, often invisible chronic conditions and advocating for better treatment.

To echo your point: this in and of itself is not a bad thing. Folks who fit into this demographic need better representation and help. But it feels like discussion of disability (especially in online spaces) is largely focused on and driven by this demographic. And for folks outside that demographic, it can feel isolating.

I feel isolated by the current discourse around disability. I feel like I cannot connect with the _vast_ majority of people who identify as disabled online. And it's not _just_ because the average internet user is getting younger.

What it means to be disabled has drastically changed in the last decade or so.

I once attended an award show where someone, upon receiving their award, ran up a flight of stairs onto the stage and proceeded to speak about how important the award was to them as a creative, a woman, and a disabled person.

She was talking about her depression.

As a full-blown cripply-ass human being, I struggle to accept or reconcile my very public, very obvious, very unavoidable physical condition with what that person said on stage vs how they literally got on stage.

Am I being a dick? Do I need to do some self reflection? Are my feelings based on a subconscious aversion to change?

Maybe.

On the other hand, these same conferences hold panels on "disability and representation in media" and then refuse to invite (and accommodate) a single wheelchair user. Instead choosing to fill the panel with folks struggling with "invisible disabilities" and/or mental illness. Why? Because folks with very visible disabilities (especially wheelchair users) are often the most complicated and expensive to accommodate (special transportation, flight arrangements, hotels rooms, bathrooms, service animals, etc.,)

It's frankly cheaper and easier to focus on disabilities that leave you access to four limbs and five senses than it is to make sure the folks on your panel represent the as many different disabilities as possible.

Am I saying that other disabilities are invalid? NO. Absolutely not. Get your hands off that fuckin' keyboard and finish reading this before you send an angry note.

Does it make me feel isolated from a community that I used to be very much a part of? Yes.

Does it make it difficult find, much less reach out to and help other wheelchair users? Yes.

Does it make it more difficult to share my experiences as a disabled person online? Yes.

Does it make it harder to try and raise the bar for disabled people in terms of fighting for a better quality of life? Absolutely. Especially when talking about how "living an independent life" means "having a job" and "taking responsibility for your physical well being"

It is incredibly lonely being a visibly disabled person who works full time, pays their bills, cooks, cleans, volunteers, and has a healthy marriage. Because of how disability is discussed online, I don't get to see disabled people _like me_. I don't feel comfortable talking about my experiences as a disabled person online because I know I'll get shouted down and told I don't belong because I'm not actively struggling to work or pay bills or whatever.

It sucks. It hurts. And I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you. If it makes you feel any better, you're more than welcome to talk to me directly about work or whatever. I'd be happy to be that person that you're struggling to find right now. Heaven knows we could all use a little bit of Community right now.