#peer abuse

[this-is-deformimisia]

people laugh when my eyes drift and I’ve been called all manner of animals such as goldfish, chameleon, and such. even my friends think it’s funny. i usually don’t care but it’s starting to upset me that they joke about my eyes.

This is deformimisia. You deserve better friends.

[only-knives]

remembering a time when i was young. in early grade school

there was a girl named aofie in my class and she got made fun of a lot for being visibly, culturally Irish. she did tap dancing and wore traditional dress. i think she knew some Gaeilge too but i can't remember.

all i did was look up to her. i wished my parents would put me into Irish dance. tried to learn myself (very poorly). i read a lot about Irish folklore. a lot of historical fiction. i also chose to learn italian against my dad's family's opinions. they thought it was useless and that i should learn spanish bc "thats how it is these days." i hate most of my dad's family.

but. when it came to it, i just kept thinking about all the people who came before me. how cool it was that there were people who lived in a different time and place than me. i never knew them, but they're still connected to me.

they had their own traditions and languages, and they... resulted in me being born. i wouldn't be alive without them. especially after learning that, on the Irish side, they survived an Gorta Mór (The Great Hunger, aka, a genocide). and then my family conformed here. colonized here. but i don't have to conform to that. i can learn and choose different. anyone can, it's just. too many people refuse.

i guess i kinda have always been like this huh. i hope aofie is doing okay now. i think she eventually switched schools. i don't blame her. i didn't finish school in our district either.

p.s: her name is pronounced "ee-fah" =) there is no other correct pronounciation of HER name!! i am still so fucking angry at how people refused to learn her name and would purposefully mispronounce it. and it's been decades.

so idk. if you were bullied in school. it's entirely possible another bullied kid admired you, remembers you, misses you, and hopes you're doing well.

[bitter-and-angry]

constantly walking on eggshells

[bullied-and-traumatised]

I feel so sad sometimes... imagining the person I could have been

what would I have liked? how would I have spoken? how would I feel about myself? about other people? would I have been more social? would I still have the same hobbies?

I'll never know. those little things. They took that choice from me

[this-is-neuropsych-ableism]

neurophych ableism is your mental problems means its very easy for you to blame yourself for things going wrong in your life (as opposed to other people not being co operative and noticing a thing they do is not working the way they'd hope(d)) and people taking advantage of you're friendship making method (give give give give sacrifice give) + then leaving you hanging when they actually have to put effort in. Basically I think people are slack to me because sometimes my brain is slow or my understanding of things is simple and it means I take more blame then I deserve and get taken advantage of in general. It's not all my fault all these people didn't get it.

This is neuropsych ableism and peer abuse.

[imsosocold]

People shocked that a peer abuser abused their peer

[1863-project]

Wow, okay, it's been one realization after another this week, I guess.

As I've spoken about before, I was a victim of peer abuse growing up (I'm using that term because bullying doesn't really cut it here). It was primarily conducted by my male peers - sure, there were occasionally girls who participated, but most of the girls were just neutral to me and some were actually kind. It was the boys who were the ones doing the damage.

I turn 37 in a few months and I've never properly tried to date because the whole thing gives me massive anxiety - after all, all I learned growing up was that I liked boys but they very much did not like me. I tend to dress down to keep myself fairly hidden because if I stand out too much I'll get attention that I don't necessarily want. When I worked at a public library for half a decade, I got hit on (and harassed) more when working the reference desk than I ever had before or have since.

Whenever someone regardless of gender hits on me, I actually get anxious, since I'm so guarded about things that I find it hard to allow myself to experience attraction to real people because I know they won't like me back (and because I have to figure out how to gently turn down people of genders I'm not attracted to back). But when it's a man in my age group who hits on me, I have an acute panic response.

My brain literally sees being flirted with as a threat, even though this is something I want to be able to experience, because it expects to be made fun of or hurt. I am fully prepared for it to be a joke, or to be called ugly again, or to be reacted to with disgust for acting like myself. So my brain flags any potential interest in me as a dangerous emergency, and I make zero progress on working towards being okay with things I want to be okay with.

I fucking hate this.

[ext1ncti0n]