Heads up: This page contains discussion about disability and ableism following abuse. No details except the ableism, but if you don't want to read it you should go to another page.
I originally posted this on Melonland forums in a discussion about writing about heavy topics on personal websites after how we're used to social media demanding self-censoring. I've slightly reworked it to work as a stand-alone page here.
Me writing about it or not is not about preserving privacy. It's that unless I do my best to imitate a bot, I am taboo. Not the things I've experienced, me. Otherwise supportive places can write about how it's narcissistic of people like me to not want to die because if we exist we ask others to risk knowing about us, and they face no backlash at all for essentially telling people with extreme trauma to just die already because we're uncomfortable to have around. I can't get close to anyone without them knowing. My answers to regular getting to know each other questions are taboo.
"What do you do for a living?"
"I'm disabled"
"Oh, from what?"
The answer is taboo.
"How did you get interested in shipping (meaning large watercraft) history?"
The answer to that is taboo.
"What are you doing for [holiday]?"
"Probably watching some movie"
"Oh, aren't you gonna celebrate with your family? Why not?"
The answer to that is taboo
"Do you want a drink (alcohol)?"
"Nah, I don't drink. Feel free to have some though"
"Oh, why not?"
"Doctor told me not to drink with my medicine"
"Oh, that's too bad. I hope it gets better"
It's taboo for me to not pretend that it will when it won't. And if I don't the next question is about how I'm so sure or maybe they're wrong or that they thought that antibiotics were supposed to be temporary. And any response I could give is taboo.
Do you see what I mean? It seeps into everything even when it's not the main focus. And there's a huge pressure on people like me to be inspirational. The thing I've been asked most often when people find out about my background of abuse is "how are you better off because those things were done to you?" People want me to wrap it up with a pretty bow to make it digestible. And there is no pretty bow. I get told that it made me who I am as if that's a good thing and I should be grateful. Like I would've been evil without these experiences and they were for the best. I have a question for those of you who do your best to be kind and haven't been abused. Do you commonly get told that you should've been abused so that you'd be even kinder?
I'm guessing that the answer is no. But I frequently get told that it's a good thing that I was abused before I could walk because that made me kind and "kids are resilient". No, they're not. I was in survival mode before I could walk and I didn't leave it. I'm completely broken from it. The moment there's any pressure I shut down completely. I'm just now coming out of having been shutting down for a year the moment I tried to do anything creative because I've been trained by society to think that people like me have to earn the right to exist by being the best of the best to atone for what others have done to us. And I wasn't even able to keep a regular drawing schedule.
I've given up on online support groups because the youngsters in them who grew up on social media see me as bad representation. For example, I'm at the intersection of asexual and disabled. Many ace people in those groups don't want me there because I apparently reinforce the idea that ace people are traumatized and that it's a medical issue. This is no doubt coming from the fact that it was classified as a mental disorder until 2013. And meanwhile many disabled people are pushing back against the idea that disabled people shouldn't have sex, and here I am being bad representation and reinforcing stereotypes by not wanting it. I don't blame the people who weren't comfortable having me in those groups. I blame the society that pushed them to that point. If someone at this intersection has found a group that accepts you without you having to hide, I'm happy for you. I haven't had the same luck. And it adds an extra layer when even people who have been rejected for something they can't change reject you for not being palatable.
I don't want to have to go out of my way to hide anymore.
