I need anyone who reads this to take a particular tone with it. There's a way I speak when I'm being gentle and academic; when I'm reading off my own work in retrospective and nuance; and I'm trying to invoke it now. It's hard to do that in tone. I'm trying to do it now.
As such, I will admit that I was a lot meaner on that night than I should have been. It's a bad habit of mine. What I'm about to say certainly doesn't excuse it, but it does contextualize it: I do have a noted history of getting into arguments with people when I am (to be euphemistic) unwell in the head. I mentioned I was suicidal at the time. I wasn't joking. This isn't the time or place to get into that, of course, but it is relevant to the way I acted and how short I was getting toward the end-- and how panicky I got afterward.
There is about an hour between when we stopped arguing and when I sent my last message where I kept refreshing his page, just trying to breathe, tearing apart my fingers until they bled, pacing in the bathroom where my mother couldn't see me, wondering if this is where I'd gone too far and if someone could get to him in time, realizing just what I had done-- and trying to figure out whether this was my fault or if I was a pebble on the pile that sent it scattering down. I'm not so vain, honestly. I don't hold myself in such high regard as to think it's the former. I have read enough of his posts to think it's the latter; but it's still something I keep in mind-- not him, not necessarily, but what happened, and what could have happened if things went the way they could have.
Clearly, he's still alive. His friends are glad for it; he's glad for it (sometimes; it shows in his posts about the things he's glad for, I think, if nothing else); and what else can you say about it?
I've always tried to be better than that (better than mean. Better than horrible). Now I just try harder. Recently, I kept myself from engaging with someone when I was in a similar position because it wasn't a good time for either of us and I didn't want it to devolve in the same way; I didn't want this on my hands again.
That is to say, I am glad he's alive. I am. I hope he gets the funds he's asking for; I hope he gets what he needs from the doctors he has posted about; and, beyond that, I hope he's thriving (now, in the future, whenever you're reading this).
And I'm sorry for the things I said at the mid-end point. I could cut myself some slack. I was giving back the energy given to me and to others. Perhaps I shouldn't be as kind as I am sometimes; but that is a phrase I can't help repeat in my own head in a stereotypical white woman's voice, and, if there's one thing I shan't become, it's my aunt's boss's forebears. Entitlement and an inability to apologize will get me nowhere; and, so, I do. Perhaps I should have just backed off. I was right, but I should have backed off.
Perhaps. What a nonsense word in this context. I should have backed off. I should have explained myself better. I should, I should, I should-- Do you see the trap? Do you see the issue of this kind of infighting? What does this gain us? What does this gain any of us? I tell someone to stop putting words in other people's mouths (I call him an asshole); he calls me an ableist loser (he tells me doesn't care); I tell him that putting words in the mouths of people disagreeing with him doesn't help his point or help solve the issue he's upset about (I do not help anyone and I do not salve his wounds); he calls me insane and tells me I'm lying and puts words in my mouth and calls me a cunt and deletes his messages the next morning so I look horrible and insane and like I'm attacking him and then I scratch open the side of my leg and--
Why rehash it? Why am I rehashing it?
With my preamble out of the way, I have come to the meat of what I wanted to say now.
Listen, I don't like to play the identity politics game when it comes to myself. I don't. If I wanted to, there's plenty in the above (including things I pointed out, the "insane" comment z1ish noted, and things neither of us mentioned that we can all see-- unless we can't, because I didn't provide an ID; which I do apologize for, but I'm not going to ameliorate at the moment and probably... won't in the near future). I could, very easily. It would be fairly easy to point to the repeated use of the word "cunt" and go "Wow. Calling a woman a cunt after she told you to stop? Sexist. Calling a mentally ill woman insane? Telling a woman with a disorder that causes vertigo to fall down the stairs? I'm adding that to the callout."
To drop the semi-formal tone for a moment, I think that's a fucking bonkers thing to do and I'm not going to do it. I, especially, am not gonna do that. And if someone is going to write a callout about me, come and consult me on it so you can get it right, OK? Come get the photo of me shooting skeet and call me a gun-obsessed right wing Trump apologist or something. (Don't do this. I will die of like seventy panic attacks stacked like conditions in Pathfinder. They don't tell you that in med school, but you can unlock a feat where you can get Frightened 5 if you're uh... me. (I didn't go to med school.) This bit's done. Moving on.)
Except in the very genuine, very necessary cases of "This person has genuinely assaulted, abused, or murdered me," I don't like callout posts. I think they're stupid. Too often, they're filled with pieces of text and screenshots interpreted in bad faith. I, in particular, don't trust my ability to not interpret myself correctly. Again, my disorder isn't an excuse here, but a reason for this; I have a hard time figuring out when and how things should be interpreted where I am concerned. It's much easier when it's someone else. When it's me, every alarm bell goes off as "they hate me and I need to either kowtow to martyr myself or get up on the table to announce I am blameless." Neither are appropriate in these discussions, are they? By the time I come up with an appropriate response, it's far too late. Besides, I don't like to respond, honestly. Not anymore. With at least a week and a half of hindsight, I can let anyone think anything about me-- and therefore, you can think anything you want about me from the series of deleted comments on the original post misconstruing me as arguing with air; and you can think what you will about me from the above. It's okay. Come to your own conclusions.
Perhaps this is an extension of what I was trained to do in college, but I'm more of a fan of simply... presenting the evidence, stating my conclusion ("here is [X] thing; I verify it is what it is; that is my conclusion"), and leaving it be for other people to come to what decisions they will based on it. Be your own jury, then. Make your own decision.
I must, though, bear my own expert testimony, if the court will allow it; and, with the above exhibit entered properly and referred to extensively, I will then refer to things I am not going to screenshot and not going to enter into-- I'm done with my court language. Goodness.
To the point about disability and being "disabled enough," however: this is something Morg does. He isn't the biggest fan of letting people who aren't the most disabled discuss their disabilities within his vicinity.
I'm not going to disagree that it's probably annoying and, at times, disheartening (among other things) to try to engage in forming some sort of community here online and find a fair number of people whose disabilities are primarily neurodevelopmental, are invisible, or aren't to the degree that yours are. I get it. I don't have that experience, but I get where you're coming from. I'm not going to understand what it's like to have such intense spinal injuries; I'm not going to get what it's like to have bipolar disorder; and I'm not going to understand what it's like to have lived experience as a transgender man with either of those conditions. Those aren't things I can experience. I never purported to.
By extension, it has to be annoying to hear the same things over and over again in the notes of your posts about people you're already annoyed with. I get it. I am vastly annoyed with radical feminists; they latch onto my posts; and I can not filter them out. If I had to multiply that out to a scale as massive as the audience his posts get, I would actually fucking lose it. I would eat a plastic cup. I have one in front of me. I'll eat it. I will. (Let me eat the cup.)
But here's the thing: is someone using a tag on tumblr actually going to destroy the sanctity of your disability rights movement? If someone with POTS who uses a wheelchair because their condition has gotten bad enough that they can't walk decides to use (as a tag that totally isn't relevant at all) the cripplepunk tag out of sheer ignorance, are you going to die from it? Or can you be charitable? Time and space are resources, yes, but they are infinite; and someone speaking about ableism they have faced because they are autistic is not materially harming or (more generously to those detractors) taking anything away from physically disabled people.
Or, if I wanted to be a little meaner: "ohhh, oh noooooo, an autistic person talked about their disability! it messed up my heart more SOMEHOW and now im DEAD. that's how disabilities WORK." JFC.
TLDR: while I can and will be charitable to Morg (crippled-peeper) and anyone else, it's like z1ish said. He has a lot of sway (good for him, honestly); he's fairly mean; and he honestly doesn't owe it to anyone to be nice, but he has a pattern of doing things like what he did to myself, to z1ish, and to others-- where we'll say "Hey, quit it," he'll go off on us and tell us to fall down the stairs or swallow a cactus (?), he'll interpret everything in bad faith and put words in people's mouths, lather, rinse, and repeat.
Again, this is not a callout or a call-to-action. This is largely a retrospective on my end. I know my part in it. I know his. What anyone else comes away from this with is their business, not mine.
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