Giggled my way down a black hole

Love as Acceptance

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

The next day he was called into a meeting where he was insulted and grilled about “ruining the party” and “stealing his co-workers’ joy”, which caused him to have another panic attack and start doing coping behaviours like hugging himself, at which point his employers decided he must be angry and was going to turn violent. They then suspended him for days and later told him he’d been fired.

So yeah, it’s not over an “unwanted birthday party”, it’s over employers repeatedly failing to accommodate someone’s disability, trying to frame them as the villain for having accessibility needs, and firing them for not conforming to some stupid office politics.