Working on my ableism.
Yesterday, I found out I have ADHD. It explains a lot and having a diagnosis will be some help as far as accommodations go. Knowledge is power and the more I know, the better I can help myself, but that wasn’t my first reaction.
My first reaction was that this can’t happen to me. To think that I’d always been a bit twitchy and had a short attention span, but I certainly didn’t have ADHD. I wasn’t like that. I wasn’t twitchy and hyper, with no control over myself.*
I rejected it out of hand, becuase I couldn’t be like those people, the stereotype of people with ADHD and ADD. I’ve been trying to work on my internalized ableism, but this time I failed. I failed as an advocate, even if only in my head. It just reaffirms that I have a long way to go.
On another note, having another diagnosis is starting to make my life feel a bit unreal. That makes 5 different things affecting my mind, my work, my life. I’m worried I’ll be taken as one of those Munchhausen’s by internet people. I just write about my life and this is it.
*Trust me, I know that’s an offensive stereotype and I am not saying it is valid.
My Fat.
I used to be skinny.
That was before the hardcore medication and the early puberty. I had breasts in 3rd grade and got my first period in in 5th grade. I was 9. I didn’t want this. Things were easier when I was skinny and cute. I quit dance class, becuase you can’t be fat and be a dancer. I felt so out of place.
We got the internet when I was 10 and I found my escape there. I did a lot of forum based roleplaying and found fanfiction. My first fandom was Buffy. It was a good thing for me, although I didn’t get out much. I still read a lot, mostly from the adult portion of the library. I converted to Wicca, although now I’m mostly my own little blend of Paganism.
At least on the internet, no one judged how I looked, fat, oily and pimple covered.
Not having the internet was one of the worst parts of going to the psych ward. I had only books, which I had to ask for before I could read. Considering what happened there, I needed as much of an escape as I could get.
Puberty made the insanity worse. I was more anxious than ever, worrying about things that happened in first grade. Actaully, I still do that. My social anxiety got worse, although I still had friends, so things weren’t so bad. I spent a whole summer not leaving the house, becuase the outside was too much. I got fatter and couldn’t lose it.
The fat was at least protection from leering, looks that I didn’t understand.
I’m still fat, technically, I’m part of the obesity epidemic. People get upset when I say that. I guess it’s becuase I’m not their image of what obese is. I’m okay with being fat. My curves and hollows play with light in an interesting way.
I’ll probably never be able to lose the amount of weight that would make me acceptable, I’ve hovered around the same weight for years. I don’t foresee that changing and it feels good to make peace with it.
For the first time in my life, I am happy with my body.
Legitimacy
As of yesterday, I’m a Certified Disabled Person. I’m now getting Disabled Adult Child Benefits, becuase apparently, I haven’t been malingering this whole time.
I also went got part of a neuropsychological evaluation done, becuase my dyspraxia was diagnosed by someone who isn’t technically qualified to do so, but it’s been pretty apparent that it was what was up and the Neuro seems to agree. So go me for figuring things out.
The benefits thing is so good, becuase I got a back payment, although I don’t know what’s up with my SSI. Still, yay for money and “proof.” It feels almost twisted to excited about this, but I still am. Obviously someone’s ability status isn’t dependent on what the SSA thinks.
So, I’m going to pick up some stuff I’ve been meaning to get, such as a laptop that can run my Dragon Naturally Speaking, which will be awesome, and I might be able to blog more. Of course, I also get to pick up some things I’ve been meaning to get for Figaro and some pajama pants, becuase it’s getting too cold to sleep in the buff.
So, yay on the whole benefits thing, although I feel like a stereotype, damn social conditioning, and boo on this cold weather. I’m wearing so much of my knit wear right now, it’s ridiculous.
RE: Comments.
I think I’m going to have to schedule responding to comments into my week, becuase I keep getting distracted and I feel like shit about it. I do read them all, and I really appreciate any readers I have.
To answer at least one question, I’m a Mainer from a small town. It’s been an interesting life so far.
And Justice For All
I’m queer. To be exact, I’m pansexual, but the word queer flows from my lips like cool water. It’s an identity I fit, for once. Queer. It took me so long to put a word to my desires. Although, I feel I’ve always known. I don’t quite remember ever having a grand realization, it was more of a slow awakening. Like when the dawn fills your bedroom as you come awake and you begin to be able to see it all.
I suppose I’m out. My parents know, although I’m not sure they understand. My old friends, from my life before college mostly don’t but really, that’s because I haven’t seen most of them, nor do I want to. So I guess I’m out. I’ve always said, I just like people, which I do. I’ve never seen much point in limiting myself.
Yet, I guess I do limit myself. By all mainstream counts, I’m a virgin. Not out of any fear of a vengeful god or any sense of morality, just chance, I suppose. I’ve never bothered to pursue a relationship. I’m enough of a romantic, or maybe just insecure enough to not want to share my body fully with anyone I don’t have feelings for. This is odd, compared to how open I am, sexually.
I feel complete with this word, most of the time. However, the GLBTQ community has some serious racism issues, from demonizing black people to erasing POC. It hurts, a great deal. Being told that I would vote to take rights away from people like me and that I hate people like me is insulting.
I want to scream of intersections and privileges, but even then, I am erased. I vote and I write to legislators, but in the wider GLBTQ culture, it’s as if I don’t even exist. I am here! I am real!
Yet, I am still invisible. It’s like in this rush to win the oppression Olympics, we forget that you can’t stuff people into neat little boxes. People are more faceted than that. Intersections of privilege and oppression can not be brushed aside when one is fighting for social justice.
There is often a cry of “What does x oppression have to do with y oppression?!” From the feminization of poverty, to the victimization of people with disabilities, it all is intertwined. Yes, you can focus on one area when you are fighting for social justice, but you can not forget how things are ensnared. You can’t beat another group down to build yours up and still claim you are fighting for justice.
I’m just a girl, with a computer and some words, but I had to get this out there. Feminism is about equality for all people, not just cis gendered, white, TAB, middle class, educated, straight women. I want there to really be justice for all.
Colored Spade.
I’ve never fit.
Little black girls in small Maine towns never do. Little black girls with white parents in small Maine towns are just confused. And little black girls with mental illnesses and white parents in small Maine towns are very confused.
I still don’t know my first mother, but I would like to. I know she has mental illness, like I do. I know I have a sister. I’d like to know them very much. I feel lost, drifting. It doesn’t matter how much the polar bear loves the panda cub, the panda cub will still never be a polar bear, even if she tries to bleach away her blackness.
I wished for that a lot as a child, you know. That I could be white, be pretty. I’d have long straight hair and small delicate nose. I wouldn’t look like a monster and maybe I wouldn’t act like such a monster either.
I was always very angry, or very sad, but that’s just how black people are, that’s what they’d say. People like me are just angry and violent, just look at news. I didn’t know any other people of color, besides my brother, so who was I to disbelieve it?
So I tried to kill my blackness, I’d lay under the moon at night, hoping that it might work as the opposite of the sun and make me lighter. I begged for color contacts when I was in my early teens, becuase it would be so nice to have a real eye color, instead of the deep, dark blackness of my eyes.
Junior year, something snapped. I started calling people out on racism and they didn’t like it. I had always been so good-natured and kept my mouth shut while they made racist jokes. I shouldn’t have rocked the boat. By senior year, I had cut my relaxed hair off. I tired to explain I didn’t want to give into Eurocentric beauty standards, but no one understood. People on the internet did, but it wasn’t the same.
So drifted, I still do. In between worlds, worlds I’ll never fit into.
I am mine.
Slight trigger warning for language.
My body is not for you. My breasts are my breasts, not meant for your pleasure unless I allow it. My cunt is mine, I decide what goes in it, not you. My hair is my mine and you don’t get to feel it becuase you find it exotic. My medical status is mine to know, not yours to approve and disapprove of. My fertility is not yours, not something to be taken from me unless I will it. My hands are mine, they do not toil for you. My feet are mine they go where I will them to, even if I trip and stumble on the way there. My brain is my possession, and I decide what I will and won’t do to alter it. My thoughts are my own and you do not get to dictate them. My ass is my own and If I need to sit and rest on it, that is my business. My skin is mine, not a curse or sexy feature, it is mine and it protects me.
My body is mine. You do not get to experiment on it or put it down. You do not decide what I wear on it. It is mine and not yours to judge.
What It Is To Be A Monster
You know you a monster when almost all the depictions of your condition in the media show you as either a joke or a jerkass. It gets to you. You begin to wonder if those you call your friends see you the same way. Are they keeping you around for the crazy antics? Do they like the real you, who ever that may be?
Bad bairn tells you what to what it wants, and you must, because what the monsters want is what they get. Besides, you are a god and who cares who you hurt, there is only the here and now, the touch and sound and light and you, you are infinite. You are the light and the sound and gravity and colors and it is you. There is nothing outside of you because all is you. But…
The sadness comes and it’s fast and hard and you can’t run from it because it’s inside of you. It’s in your veins and skin and brain. Maybe you try to cut it out of you, but you can’t. You are the monster in your nightmares. You are the monster in the paper because you are the same.
You are a psycho, a crazy, a freak. Would it be so bad if you were dead? You know, know it in you blood and bones that when people look at you, they can see the monster. You you build walls and wear masks and as long as you can hide in plain sight, you are safe, and safety is all you can ask for.
Eventually, playing the game gets hard, always wondering if they can see it, if they notice what lurks beneath. You can’t get close to anyone, because you know they’ll see it. You haven’t gazed into the abyss, you are it. Everything you touch crumbles.
And you are alone and you must be because you have to keep them safe. Maybe then, you won’t be damned. It’s so cold when you are alone, you you decide to just not feel. Feelings are a liability.
Maybe after a few months, things return to normal, whatever that is. You have some friends, maybe you laugh and smile, but you never, absolutely never let them get too close, because monsters always come back.
This is how I live my life. Happiness is a fleeting emotion, if I’ve ever felt it. I’m not sure on that front. To paraphrase, “From within you, it devours.” I know what happens and so I stumble, trying to preform that balancing act, try to be human.
Mind fog
I haven’t abandoned the blog, I’m just having trouble concentrating for more than five minuites at a time. I need to talk to my doctor. This is really the last thing I needed.
On work.
I’m not sure I’m really qualified to write about working, what with my longest official job lasting around 6 weeks. I didn’t get fired, but it was seasonal.
My doctor’s don’t ever think I’ll be able to work full time. and stay sane. I mean that literally, not in the cutesy sense people like to use the word sane. I’m still figuring out what I want to do. I’m considering switching my major to disability studies or graphic design, but I’m not sure what I want to do just yet.
I’m also, and I hate to admit it, a bit scared of the fact that I’m going have to ask for reasonable accommodations under the ADA, but it is necessary. It’s not as if a work place is going to believe that Figaro is a service dog on my word alone.
To be honest, because I can pass sometimes, even if it does take up spoons, I’m not sure I want to bring him to interviews. It feels dishonest to spring him on the employer once I’m hired, but I at the same time I don’t want to be counted out because of assumptions. Of course, it’s just a function of my privilege that I can hide sometimes.
I’m not sure where I stand on passing right now. I can’t pass as white or male if I wanted to, so it feels odd to have this option of passing in the context invisible disability. I never really passed as straight, but I can do it if I put effort into it, like when I’m in my hate filled home town.
Passing in order to get privileges is just very interesting to me right now, especially as it relates to work and school. A good part of my failure for the last two semesters can be traced to my urge to pass and refusal to use accommodations that I need. I’m still struggling with identifying as disabled in meatspace, even though I’ve been this way since I was a toddler.
Thus, I work on how feel and keep mulling things over. This didn’t turn out as quite the post I wanted it to be, so I’ll write one that is a bit more generalized latter this week.
What’s wrong with me?
Having disabling mental illness is interesting. Insanity is brilliant at times. Feeling like you own the world feels pretty damn good, but makes it hard to function. However, what really makes it hard is the anxiety, the gloom and anger.
I wish I was a rich eccentric and that I had fine house and servants. I could be free in my madness. Nothing that I disliked would be in my house. I would have so many pets and I would not be alone. There would be none of those god awful lights so many stores have in them and no loud noises beyond music when I wished it.
Sadly, I’m stuck in the real world, with all of its lights and colors and noises and crowds. So many things I can’t escape. I have no choice but to live in the city, because the very thought of driving leaves me weak with fear and worry. Oh, but the crowds, they can’t be escaped and they press in on you, smothering you. People are… They are so fucking loud and pushy. Putting on a mask takes all I have. Pretend to be normal so they don’t see the animal I am. Can’t break down and yell at them to make it stop, that simply wouldn’t do. I’d be locked away again.
So, I smile and take my pills and pretend to be human, to be one of them. Some of them, the ones with a touch of madness, they seem to understand. Their friendship is a blessing, an anchor. Prehaps, one day, I’ll find someone touched with insanity as well. They won’t shy away and we’ll burn and melt together.
But, as you can see, these are all just the ravings and dreams of a complete lunatic. Prehaps now that you’ve had a glimpse, you’ll shy away as well. That’s for the best, because I tend to drag others down and I know that once you see what I am, you’ll never treat me quite the same again.
