Pchelik's hive

Три різні черепаляниці!

Черепаха + паляниця = черепаляниця 🙂‍↕️

You can go by Addy, maybe say it’s short for Addison or Andrew, or decide to change your name to something like Ron or Casey or Forest or some other completely different name to separate yourself. But that doesn’t erase what’s on your birth certificate. That doesn’t change the fact some people will call you Adolf. Doesn’t change the fact that Adolf is a name for you even if you don’t like it. Hiding it only reminds your more of how it’s there.

You can wear the name like anyone would wear their unproblematic name. But every time you introduce yourself or someone else says your name, someone will say “like Hitler?” There’s no avoiding it. You will always be compared to that awful person. You won’t be your own person, you won’t be seen as you separately from him. You will always be “like Hitler”

Or every time you introduce your self as Adolf, you can say “but I don’t support the actions of dictator Adolf Hitler, I didn’t choose this name, I don’t like that this is my name but it is my name unfortunately.” But people will still point it out. People will still make fun. People will still accuse you of supporting him because you won’t change it. People will ask you why you don’t change it. People will call you weird for stating “I don’t support him” over and over. People will accuse you of trying to absolve yourself of his crimes. Crimes you didn’t commit.

Or you can go “Yes, like Hitler. I know. What about it? Why do you care?” But that raises the same problems. And adds on being rude to the mix, which servers to strengthen the negative association. Your not allowed to be angry or tired of it when people stereotype you. If you are, or if you snap, your “just like Hitler.”

It’s more complex than that but that covers part of how it feels. Treating a fictive or a system as “bad” because their source turned out to be problematic is like calling someone bad because of something out of their control. Introjecting a fictive is something outside of our control, we didn’t choose it. It just happens. It’s part of the experience. It sucks when someone’s treated as “less than” or “evil” or “undeserving of human decency” over a name and face we didn’t choose

At least we have the ability to lie and pretend we go by a different name and face, no matter how much it hurts or reminds us “I am seen as evil no matter what and my existence is something that needs to be hid”. Imagine if we couldn’t hide it at all. Would you think someone was a bad person because they were born a certain way?