Tag: Ableism

I was minding my business, checking a former college classmate’s Facebook when I saw a name that I recognized and that I actively try not to think of whenever I can. Of course I gave in to my worst instincts and clicked. And what did I find? A post that made me roll my eyes.

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It’s interesting she cares so much about the mental health of young people or people having a hard time or people with issues with professors now. She didn’t care about them when she was my professor and she marked off on tests where my handwriting was shaky due to lithium. She didn’t care when she refused throughout Fall 2006 to find a placement for my internship until the last moment (because I couldn’t drive at the time due to my disability) and she had no problem ending that internship prematurely either.

She didn’t care when she mocked me publicly as she taught Art of Interviewing and when she mocked me in front of my internship class. She didn’t care as she mocked me privately to my classmates, who would later tell me about it. She didn’t care when she mocked my family being too poor to afford Caller ID or when she knew I couldn’t afford nicer shoes or better clothes because of my being poor. She didn’t care that her decision (along with another professor) to coerce me into allowing them to attend a therapy/psychiatrist appointment with me caused me emotional distress & was traumatizing; nor did she care when it nearly caused me to be hospitalized. She didn’t care when she told me to my face that my diagnosis of bipolar disorder meant that I wouldn’t be allowed to graduate from the program when I had 11 hours to go in the program, that should get a degree in business instead (which I’ve never understood where that came from), and that I really shouldn’t be around people at all. She didn’t actually care when she said I could complete my internship Fall 2007 in January 2007, for me to call her about it in February or early March; nor did she care when she ghosted me on that until the fateful meeting in Fall 2007.

She didn’t care about healthy interactions between professors and students. She didn’t care that her actions and her words caused my mental health to worsen for a variety of reasons and that she made it harder for me to trust authority figures. She didn’t care that she violated my rights or that her actions caused me to be unable to not only get my degree but to get a job, thus making it almost impossible for me to escape poverty.

Maybe she’s not the woman she once was. Maybe she actually gives a shit about mentally ill people like she claims on her Facebook profile. I sincerely hope she’s changed but I doubt it with every fiber of my being because I don’t know that she’s capable of ever having that kind of empathy. I used to question why someone like her would become a social worker, but I’ve learned over the years that social work isn’t free of ableism. In fact, it may be more prevalent in this field than in others; and part of that is probably because people who lack empathy or basic compassion toward disabled people know that they can get away with taking advantage of them very easily in it.

The drama on Twitter I talked about last night in the Taylor Swift gif laden post has continued to build and build. This time I wasn’t hard-blocked by someone who was once a friend, I got the more passive aggressive soft-block from someone who was once a friend.

Yet again it was a person who had tried gaslighting me about my experiences or set boundaries when it came to acknowledging her friends had been abusive toward me. Yet again I knew beforehand that if she was given an ultimatum in a dm room or publicly about them or me, she would pick them, so it didn’t really hurt.

I get that she’s loyal to them. I’ve gotten that the whole time. That was never in doubt, but there’s something cringeworthy in you telling people that they can’t possibly be having mental health crises at times that are inconvenient for you or for your toxic friends. That’s especially true when the same friends are the ones who claim mental health crises around the time they start shit.

Honestly, I never fully trusted her. Honestly, I doubt that I will miss her in the long run. Honestly, I’m glad I won’t have to see her retweets of the people who harassed me last January or the people who harassed my best friend the year before.

On the way to celebrate Thanksgiving at my aunt’s house on Thursday, my mom told me that she and my dad had had a conversation recently about me. She told me that she told him that I would be happier and easier to get along with if I was on mood stabilizers. I was horrified.

My first response was, “what?” That was followed by my pointing out that I had tried every mood stabilizer and that I had adverse reactions to a large chunk of them (lithium, antipsychotics, and several anticonvulsants) and a zombie on most of them. My mom told me that I hadn’t. (I have taken all but two FDA-approved and off-label mood stabilizers.)

I’m actually much happier and feel relatively stable off of them. Being happier is why I’m not at home as much. In fact, the goal of my mental health care over the last decade or so has been to increase my ability to leave the house with the hope that one day I could actually live separately from my parents. And my treatment plans have had to accommodate my inability to use mood stabilizers.

When I told him what she’d said, Chris said it sounded like she wanted me to be compliant and stay home all the time. Unfortunately that was what I thought too. I haven’t told him all of the times she has said she wants to be my representative payee or have me placed in a program through Social Security that would eliminate my access to a bank account & remove my ability to run my shop. It would keep me without true resources.

It makes all of her talk through the years about my lack of control & my inability to live without continued assistance of my parents seem all the more sinister. Not to mention how it colors my view on her wanting access to my accident settlement (she wants it in her bank account) and how she wants to raid my cash box for the festivals I’ve sold art & jewelry at. I’m fairly certain she’s been repaid most of the change she thinks I owe her on that. Then again, this is a woman who has threatened to sell or throw out my belongings before, so who knows what she thinks about that money?

It makes me want to make sure I definitely get a studio out of this house so that I can definitely gain independence. It also makes me want to stay out of my house all the time. I don’t feel like she views me as a person.

Last night, I accidentally stumbled upon a thread of trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) making assumptions about the cause of asexuality. In their opinions, it was a result of the puberty blockers given to trans and non-binary kids, of teenage girls and women in their early twenties deciding to avoid men because of things the men have learned from porn, and because people take antidepressants because they’re sad. And all of this was prefaced by an argument that accepting asexuality is some kind of conspiracy by the transgender community.

Oh. My. God.

No!

First of all, asexuality is not a result of those puberty blockers. If it was, then there would be no asexuals over the age of 18 and trans and non-binary kids would mostly be asexuals. Most aces that I know are well past 18, cisgender, and have never used puberty blockers. Most trans and non-binary folks I know aren’t asexual.

Secondly, what is the logic in saying girls are choosing asexuality because of porn & not wanting to date? That makes no sense to me. And why only girls? The first asexual person to come out to me was a man.

Their third and final “point” was just flat out mental health stigma and ableism. It’s not surprising to see a TERF say something ableist or that stigmatizes mentally ill people. In fact, it’s pretty normal for them to be bigoted on multiple fronts.

Exclusionary feminism relies on hate and misunderstanding of marginalized groups. It isn’t uncommon for a TERF or a SWERF, the sex work equivalent, to be racist, ableist, homophobic, biphobic, classist, xenophobic, fatphobic, intolerant of various religions, or sexist. Yes, they are often sexist, and they seek to uphold patriarchal values or side with groups that seek to keep cisgender women and those assigned female at birth (AFAB) stuck in gender roles that they claim to abhor. These groups even try to limit access to basic human rights for cis women and AFAB people.

TERFs will proclaim that men cannot speak for or over women and do not belong in women’s spaces, but they will encourage pile-ons and harassment campaigns by so-called radical feminists who happen to be men. These men will harass, demean, defame, and talk over cis women and trans & non-binary folks. The hypocrisy, like everything else, is based in hatred.

These individuals say that bisexual women who have dated men are heterosexual and have been tainted. It’s the same kind of bullshit that incels say about women who have had sex. The sex work exclusionary feminists push for legislation and policies that limit the ability for people who have been or currently are sex workers to have PayPal, Venmo, or bank accounts. They claim that those who seek out sex work and pornography are exploiting women and girls, but fail to understand their actions are a form of exploitation. Their outright hatred of sex positivity is yet another way that they uphold the patriarchy.

I used to say that there was nothing radical about this type of feminism, but the reality is that it’s extremely radical; what it isn’t is feminism. Exclusionary feminists are not feminists. That’s not me gate-keeping; they just aren’t feminists. They stand for absolutely nothing but hate. They do not seek liberation. They do not seek empowerment. They do not seek a better world. They only seek a more fearful world for those who they do not like. They are no different from any group that seeks to limit the rights and safety of any marginalized group.