your friendly neighborhood abuse victim

venting, mental illness, serious business, and trauma blog. will tag triggers if asked. it/its pronouns pls. call me whatever you want idc

[diserbillyti]

tbh I find it kind of hard to take selectively pro-cop or pro-psychiatry leftists all that seriously, especially when their leftism is very "comfort-based feminism" flavoured.

So, it is actually pretty dangerous to leave the house and be in public while seriously psychosocially disabled. Cops routinely assault people for shit like "acting strange," and the common line when they do so is "well I thought he was high on something." They are almost always cleared in court and seldom if ever even suspended with pay for being like this.

I was once slammed to the ground, pinned, handcuffed, dragged to the station and almost charged because I mistakenly thought I had the legal right to use a bus while schizophrenic.

See, I was pacing around talking to myself, as one does, and some nearby white woman called the cops on me. You MUST understand, there is always a Nearby White Woman. I wasn't threatening anybody, getting up in anybody's business, nothing like that, I was a fair distance from everybody else. I know because she fucking filmed me the whole time she was waiting for the cops to arrive lol.

Then old mate in the uniform comes right up, hand on his gun. "What have you taken? What have you taken?" The thing is, psychosis often comes with disorganized speech, and he's interpreting my answer as evidence that I'm high. Uh oh.

Then for forty eight hours I'm in the psych ward. Blood tests, invasive questions. Explain to me why Dr. Densecunt had to ask me about my sexuality. Explain to me why Dr. Densecunt is asking me if I masturbate. Explain to me why even after a blood test came back clearing me Dr. Densecunt is asking me about if I'm on The Substances. Explain to me why Dr. Densecunt is refusing to call my family when I tell him to. They have no idea where I am. My grandma's losing her mind. Explain to me why Dr. Densecunt's answer to "when can I leave?" is "when we're confident you're safe," as we're the only demographic it's legal to hold captive indefinitely without the violation of any crime on suspicion alone.

You don't see schizophrenics outside unless we're homeless because you are a danger to us, Heather. Our safety depends on your comfort, Heather, and you are never fucking comfy, Heather.

And the thing is, I tell this story in leftist circles, and some fucking Melany, some Susan, some Cassandra or her wannabe boyfriend Mark always slithers out to tell me that I need to be sympathetic becuase wh wh what if she had trauma.

What if the sight of a disabled man fifteen feet away from her existing in public really triggered her tr tr tr trauma. Her mental health, defined as her comfort, is more important than your mental health, defined as a right to exist in public spaces, because you are ontologically a threat. Does this actually keep Heather safe? Fuck no it doesn't. Mate, the shit they do to disabled and especially schizophrenic women. You call the pork patrol on a schizophrenic woman, you have almost guaranteed she's going to be sexually assaulted, but what's worse? A disabled woman's rape, or Heather being expected to share a fucking sidewalk. Goddamn

You cannot be serious with viewing either disabled men as automatically a threat to you, or the police as existing to protect women. Exhausting. One day I will kill god for allowing the creation of the true crime podcast

[jamjarblues]

i truly think that this recent trend of “if you relate to a post about a different identity than your own you are ~derailing~ and taking over the conversation” is incredibly harmful.

i recently experienced some pretty severe transphobic abuse in my workplace (children’s home) that included having food thrown at me, being called slurs, being told i was a pervert because i am trans. one of the managers talked with me afterwards and shared that he had had a similar experience as an Asian man. this wasn’t him derailing my experience, or talking over me, or making things about himself. he was communicating “hey, i know how it feels and how much it sucks. you’re not alone.”

THAT is what solidarity IS. i don’t know what it’s like to be Asian, he doesnt know what it’s like to be trans, but we both had a similar experience and we were able to turn a horrible experience into an opportunity for bonding and comfort.

stop looking at people’s attempts as solidarity as an attack. and hey, you never know - you could find an opportunity to grow closer to other people.

[what-if-a-dog]

Tumblr for the past month

[autistichalsin]

Hot take for this site I know, but replacing "having a penis makes you evil and a ticking time bomb of a rapist/abuser" with "having he/him pronouns makes you evil and a ticking time bomb of a rapist/abuser" is not progressive at all, actually!

[luckyladylily]

If you are really mad about maleness for whatever reason, trans men make a very easy target. If you yell at trans men no one in greater society will give a shit on a scale that matters.

Which should be a pretty good clue that trans men are not part of the oppression class. I'm not saying trans men are saints or whatever, just that if someone gets punched, so to speak, and they lack the capacity to punch back with the uncontested weight of popular opinion behind their punches, that's kind of a critical component of the definition of the oppressor class. In order to be part of the oppressors, you have to have the ability to wield the tools of oppression. Trans men as a group are universally denied access to the power of the oppression class, and in particular the power held by cis men.

Treating trans men as part of the oppression class, and in particular with the hostility and suspicion marginalized people reserve for the oppression class, simply because they are men doesn't make sense. Most obvious thing in the entire world. Takes like two minutes to reason it out. But god damn if there are not a lot of people on here doing exactly that. It's become probably the biggest queer infighting discourse currently.

There are the people just parroting other more influential people, of course, but it had to start somewhere. And based on the particular points often discussed, it feels like some number of queer people were really traumatized by men and then discovered a group of men they could throw punches at without suffering the kind of life destroying consequences that can occur when you attack part of the oppression class.

And like. Maybe I'm a radical thinker or whatever, but maybe treating another subset of socially outcast queer people as consequence free punching bags to take your frustration out on is not cool. Wasn't cool when people were doing it to Bi people, wasn't cool when people were doing it to ace and aro people. Aint cool now.

[luckyladylily]

Simply by maintaining the position that being dicks to other marginalized people is not fighting the oppression class, a position I have held since I was class conscious enough to articulate it, I keep on ending up having to say shit like this. And I don't feel special or smart for saying this shit. It's like the most luke warm obvious ass default take in existence that we figured out basically forever ago and I've just been coasting on don't be a dick 101. I feel like Luigi. Lily wins by doing nothing.

[luckyladylily]

This is basically point for point the exact justification that exclusionists always give. I'm not even going to bother dismantling it.

You know what the smoking gun is though? If this is actually primarily about bigotry trans women experience at the hands of trans men then why is so much of the discourse publicly litigating the validity of trans masculine identities and establishing trans women as having more serious issues than trans men?

This is what always happens. 10 years ago people were clutching pearls about how lesphobic bi people were, which is why we just needed to talk constantly about how bi women can't use the words femme and butch, and a few years later people were just so concerned about all the prejudice coming from aces which is why it was vital we constantly challenged their status as queer. And the terfs will never fucking shut up about how they are constantly victimized by trans women while they call us men.

If this was trans women defending themselves from mean prejudice trans men we would not be talking about if transandrophobia is a valid concept or playing oppression olympics.

But I do fully believe these people believe trans men as constantly attacking them because exclusionists come to believe that the identity of their target group is inherently a threat. That is why exclusionist discourse always revolves so heavily around points of identity.

"Maleness is not a vector for oppression" Does it fucking matter if this is actually about trans women experiencing prejudice?

[luckyladylily]

I think there is one more aspect of this that is worth talking about. I appreciate these tags, thank you, but notice the part I underlined. "The theory argument has no actual relationship to the behavior of the group". The things is, from the viewpoint of the exclusionist, the theory has *everything* to do with the behavior of the group.

This is actually the reason I brought it up. If this is about trans women dealing with bigotry, why are we talking about the validity of trans masculine identities? Because exclusionists believe that the identity itself is an attack.

Among the reactions to my initial post was the assertion that it was ignorant and anti-feminist. Which is weird because what could possibly be considered anti feminist? I only presented three ideas: Trans men are not part of the oppression class simply because of their identity as men, people who are not part of the oppression class make for poor targets if your goal is stopping oppression, and some people lash out at the wrong people when they are hurt because they are a convenient target.

The second and third points are so widely accepted anyway that it beggars belief that someone would try to deny them. It isn't so much activism as basic logic and psychology respectively. And in fact both are important ideas in feminism, so they can't be anti feminism.

Which means my apparent anti feminism has to be in the idea that trans men are not part of the oppression class simply because of their identity. To this person, transmasculine identities are inherently a threat.

Oh and I am sure they don't believe that on a conscious level, I'm sur they have plenty of trans masculine friends they are not afraid of or bothered by, but that's just the thing. prejudice is always a blind spot. My mother in law swears up and down she isn't racist and isn't afraid of black people and she truly believes it, but that doesn't change the fact that she crosses the street when she sees a "suspicious" black man.

So what makes a trans masculine person "suspicious" in the mind of an exclusionist? Well, based on the fact that a central point of the ongoing discourse is maleness as a vector of oppression and the emphasis on TME/TMA, it would appear that asserting their identity is a major trigger. Being too assertively male in a queer space, particularly a queer space that is traditionally female.

Now that is an explanation of what is going on, not proof of it. But the pattern starts to become alarmingly clear when you look at every other exclusionist movement ever. They always focus on matters of identity as the reason the group should be excluded or minimized, basically always by focusing on isolated aspects of the identity in question and drawing parallels to the oppression class via mis or over applied theory.

With the original rad fems excluding bi women, it was the perceived "heterosexual" part of the identity that made bi women a threat. How could gay women ever be safe among half heteros? Heteros are the enemy!

With rad fems and trans women it was all about how trans women were different from women, had different experiences, were "socialized male", and how can women ever be safe among people who are socially male?

With aros and aces the theory justification was all about how gay people experience oppression because of who they are attracted to. Being attracted to no one (a gross oversimplification in and of itself) is not that at all, therefore they are practically heteros! Would you feel safe with cishets in your queer community?

It's the same fucking thing every time. People grossly misappling theory insisting that anyone who doesn't agree with them is lesphobic or anti feminist or anti gay or whatever because ~theory~. This time people got their panties in a twist about maleness again. Trans men are men! How dare they say they are oppressed for their identity! That's so anti feminist, I read book on feminist theory during my queer formative years that said maleness isn't a vector for oppression, that obviously trumps any observed reality of oppression or change of context!

Utter nonsense.

It's not even a pattern reserved for queer exclusionists. Over reliance on theory instead of observed reality? Hostile reaction to a threat to their world view? Attacking the validity of the identity? Sounds familiar!

"It's adam and eve, not adam and steve! Hur hur hur got'em"

Homophobes are transphobes are biphobes are aphobes are transadrophobes. Exclusionists are exclusionists. There's no real difference.

[catgirlstalin]

i cannot take any of your views on sexism, patriarchy and gender seriously if you genuinely believe that women and men have different brains please stop putting this bullshit on my dash and stop believing in misogynistic pseudo science thank u

[catgirlstalin]

the amount of posts ive seen recently on my dash that uncritically parrot the myth that "trans womens brains are closer to cis women than cis men" as if that is in any way a progressive take is egregious. the idea that womens brains are different to begin with is scientifically unsound and rooted in misogyny, specifically the idea that women think differently and are less capable of logic and rationale while being more emotional. and you absolute idiots are taking this completely uncritically and going "yeah this is true women actually are more stupid. trans women included <3" just stop posting

[catgirlstalin]

tumblr users will just admit that they believe women are biologically and intellectually inferior and then think its progressive because they believe it applies to trans women also

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Do not go into the notes of this post if you want to retain any faith in humanity. The sheer amount of pseudoscience in there is off the charts.

[miserableonsideblog]

Genuinely if you tell a trans man he doesn't know how misogyny works you're just a 4chan poisoned piece of shit. We've lost the fucking plot. Call your internet service provider and shut your internet off until you regrow the basic concept of logic.

[miserableonsideblog]

Polka Dot Man is so fucking stupid but like that's just how it fucking is when ur mom abuses u

[dailyflicks]

PAPRIKA (2006), dir. Satoshi Kon

[miserableonsideblog]

Another day of hating my body and myself. Sad.

[miserableonsideblog]

Wow, y'all enabled a hateful bigot and then found out said hateful bigot hangs around pedophiles and thinks they're fine people, actually. Did I just post about Donald Trump or the latest trans man hater on tumblr dot com?

[miserableonsideblog]

I like opening Tumblr and just seeing blatant transphobia. This is good.

[miserableonsideblog]

I am now the fat-ass pet of two people that take care of me and love me and it's kinda fucking awesome. Everyone should do this.

[humanfist]

A question most people successfully avoid asking: can institutionalized patients ever have sex? The answer is ‘mostly no, unless they are very good at sneaking past nurses’. They also can’t kiss, hold hands, cuddle, or have any other form of romantic contact.

I worked in a mental hospital where two patients snuck past nurses and had sex once. It was treated as a public health crisis of approximately the same urgency as somebody throwing a bucket of Ebola-laced chimp blood all over the dining room. Both patients lost all their privileges, earned themselves 24-7 supervision by nurses, got restricted to their rooms, and had to go through a battery of tests for every STD in the book. We the doctors got remedial training with helpful tips like “If two patients seem to like each other too much, put them on opposite sides of the unit so they’re never in contact.” -SSC

[lyxthen-reblogs]

This is true of other emotional connections too, by the way. You are heavily discouraged from making friends with other patients on the basis that you “may enable each other’s mental illnesses.” When I was hospitalized we were forbidden from trading contact information. Every conversation we had was heavily surveiled by staff so we didn’t really get to talk about personal topics or build genuine friendship because anything emotional could be seen as a risk and would get us punished.

It really is that bad.

[halfabouros]

One of the doctors when I was institutionalized was actually very caring and concerned about the patients she worked with. She would actually listen to us and as a result everyone she worked with ended up liking her a lot.

We weren’t allowed to give anyone as much as a handshake. Even if we had family visiting us, if a doctor or nurse came in during that time, and found as much as me (a teenager) hugging my sister, it got treated like I was holding her at gunpoint as a hostage in a bank robbery. My visitation was revoked, I was placed in solitary for a few days I can’t really remember well, and still got set with 24/7 constant monitoring even in the bathroom for a while afterwards.

This nurse was kind enough to just awkwardly and visibly turn away during this time. She always chose this because everyone was Infinitely more comfortable with her showing us she wasn’t watching than the people who would watch us like a hawk and would report if we tried to cover our chests or crotch.

She’d also recognize when someone with an eating disorder just actually couldn’t eat what was expected of us to eat. And she would have snacks and other things for us to eat instead, and wouldn’t punish us if we couldn’t finish our plate.

She got fired. She was accused of being a child predator because the small kids and the teenagers liked the one person who treated them like a human being. There was a criminal investigation that literally led to nowhere because SHE didn’t commit any crime. She was still barred from entering the profession ever again and had to fight to keep it off her permanent records.

The exact thing that got her pushed over the edge? A kid asked for her specifically after they had a bad panic attack

We weren’t allowed to keep in contact with anyone. we weren’t allowed to make friends. If we were too friendly we’d be taken away from each other, but anyone hostile was allowed to remain together. You’d be woken up at 6 am sharp by a nurse checking your vitals and you’d be expected to stay awake and active for 16 hours a day, through anything else going on. Going to your room was a privilege before nighttime. Going to the bathroom was a privilege. Choosing between eating lunch or drinking water was a privilege. Getting to fucking do homework was a privilege. They didn’t teach you anything for once you’d actually get out because they don’t expect you to be well enough for Out Patient.

[miserableonsideblog]

I technically work for a "good" "liberal" company and they still suck AND their contract is full of bullshit. Genuinely it's capitalism that sucks and you can't rehabilitate this shit.

[transfemme-shelterdog]

To expand on a post I made earlier, one of the things that makes roachification so appealing is the fact that for those that are into it being done to them, it's a radical acceptance of the effects of T, and for those that are into it being done to others it's about the radical love and acceptance of the most shamed effects of T.

I browse FtM forums all the time, I see how often trans guys comment that their partner doesn't want them to grow a tdick, doesn't like them hairy, doesn't like the chances in body odor or libido.

You have all those effects and more on T, and to not only tolerate, but also fetishize them is a radical stance.

Way too often, you have people saying "well, if you get fat and hair on T, that's ok!", which is good, we should have more acceptance of fat hairy trans guys. It's another to say "I want you hairy, I want you stinky, I want you absolutely addicted to jerking off all day". Way too often, people just accept the changes on T, and tolerate the changes that happen to trans guys who go on T.

It's another to say "I find those changes that most see as tolerable or undesirable absolutely desirable and I want to encourage them". That is a radical stance that most don't take. Partners of those on T just tend to "tolerate" the changes, and offer help to deal with them (oh shave more often, wear this deodorant, masturbate in moderation), but it's not often that you see someone actually encouraging the embracing of those changes on T, those changes that would make one a roach.

That is a completely radical position to take, and I feel like it's a stance that most people don't take, even though IMO it's the most accepting position to take when you love trans guys.

To fully embrace and encourage the "undesirable" and "gross" changes on T is the most accepting and radical stance one can take when you account for how often the changes on T are demonized and treated as gross side effects of masculinizing HRT.

[transfemme-shelterdog]

Also, another thing, side note here:

does anyone else feel like the demonization of roachification, and just the effects of T-based HRT are based in the demonization of "female" sexuality, and the commodification of the female body?

Like, way too often you hear about women posting about how their sexuality is seen as gross and scandalous for simply owning a vibrator, and how people often act like they own their bodies.

Then you have trans guys who were AFAB who are treated like gross animals for also having a sexuality (jerking off with higher T) and people acting like they own their bodies (demonizing hair growth, and less than perfect hygeine)

IMO, demonization of roachification is rooted in the issues that a lot of women face, and these guys still face even after transitioning away from womanhood.

[miserableonsideblog]

Not entirely related, but this is how I feel about feedism as well as a fat trans man myself. I've been shamed all my life for my fat, my hair, for being manly or whatever. When my boyfriend encourages me to be stinky and hairy and fat and feeds me on the rare occasions we do that sort of thing, it feels so good on both a sexual and nonsexual level. It feels like my body is finally loved and accepted, not just tolerated.

[sapphling]

it is always really palpable to me that like, when we discuss mental illness and advocacy, there's a large percentage of people who conceptualize the "real crazies" -- people with psychosis or schizophrenia, people with dissociative disorders that significantly impact their memory or day to day functions, people with recurrent suicidal episodes, people with actionable and severe self harm impulses, so on -- as an Other category that can't possibly be presently engaging in the conversation. you'll see this a lot especially when discussing things like mandatory reporting and institutionalization with people whose relatively mild and manageable mental illness have crafted them into self-declared experts; they'll tell you very confidently "hey, the institutionalization thing is actually overblown -- i've always been totally honest with my therapist and there's never been an issue! those laws are just there in case you say something really crazy to them." it betrays this real confidence on their part that there's no way they're talking to one of those frightening and unpredictable mentally ill people, the ones those laws are really there to punish save from themselves, because they'd of course be able to tell right away if somebody was the sort of irrational actor who needs and deserves to have their autonomy stripped at a moment's notice

[random-thought-depository]

A different subject, but this reminds me of a time when I read a housing policy discourse post that was like "you gotta realize that a lot of people in subsidized housing are people you really wouldn't want to have as neighbors" and the person who wrote it expressed, like, "are you in touch with the grim realities of the part of society we're talking about or is this all theoretical to you?" by asking "Are you a social worker?"

Well, no, I'm not a social worker, but I am in the process of applying for various subsidized apartments and Section 8, I am a member of the population you're discussing in these "what are we going to do about them?" terms (and I don't think my family much resemble the picture you're painting of our class but a sample of three is poor statistics), and your assumption that members of that population aren't participating in this conversation and the only people with lived experience of this issue who might appear in this conversation as participants instead of as problems to be solved are members of the class assigned to manage us feels very revealing. What, do you think we're all too low IQ and too busy smoking crack and mugging joggers to attain such rarefied intellectual heights as interacting with a rat-tumb post?

[miserableonsideblog]

As someone who was classified as a "person you wouldn't want as a neighbor" because my family and I were "white trash" as other white people put it (drug addict father that tried to kill us whenever he was pissed off and was on a ton of psych meds, mom that screamed at us all the time and abused us, and we were very poor), I've learnt not to trust anyone talking about these things unless they've lived it themselves or they have interacted extensively with people like me and have a substantial amount of compassion and a willingness to learn (extremely rare imo). We're subhuman to these kinds of people and they never believe we have our own autonomy or thoughts and desires or the ability to use a damn computer.

These types never tried to help us. We only ever got help from our fellow "white trash" or neighboring black families or old people that were in the same area. Yet they think they're qualified to speak on the matter at all when they won't even throw us a dime or go vote in local elections for shit that would help us. Genuinely sickening.

My boyfriend and I are both part of those groups and I'm scared for him every day because he's a man of color, and I've had racist family members disown me for dating him because he acted strange in front of them and they decided to accuse him of a variety of crimes that he hasn't done. These same people are all "Mental health is important!!!", hell, one of them wants to be a nurse. They're all liberals too. It's obvious that they decided there are "Mentally Ill" people that need help or whatever and "Crazy Insane" people that need to be locked up.

This shit sucks.