Even not having to live in a group home. Even just having to live with an intermittently visible, intermittently obnoxious disability.
There is literally no range of tone available to me other than "cheerful" about this. If I use any other emotional tone to talk about any disability issues, I am parsed as less MENTALLY COMPETENT. I am parsed as less able to WRITE FICTION, BAKE THINGS, BE A FRIEND. Whether people treat me as a person who does literally anything at all, ever, is dependent on my ability to not, ever, express any frustration with disability in a way that is not wry and witty. Ever. And I can never, ever lose a tone of calm good humor when describing anything my body is doing, or I am the problem.
People do not register that I have told them that I went off to puke in the bathroom in the middle of a nice dinner in a restaurant with friends (some of them right around here), or in the middle of taking my grandmother to a concert or church, or anything like that, because there are only two modes: quiet and competent or hair-on-fire, and hair-on-fire negates any competence about LITERALLY ANY TOPIC. So I can have no sympathy for having to endure any of that, because there is only sympathy for total incompetence and incapacitation, OR there is the ability to go on, but NEVER BOTH.
Relevant to recent conversations: one of the reasons our until-recently-mutual-friend-now-not-so-much made me so very angry is that I had so little range allowed to me to begin with. I was not allowed to scream at him to STOP TELLING ME HOW I AM DOING because then the problem is immediately and completely the screaming irrational cripple, who is then also presumed incompetent at EVERYTHING. I was not allowed to yell that telling me how great I "get around" with a cane shuts off my frustration at not having a spare hand, having to juggle--negates how quickly something like an unexpectedly oversized library book becomes a problem in my day even when I've gotten a ride to the library. So I got to explain politely and request politely. For years. And none of it made a dent. For years. As it never does. Because it doesn't have to be important from the outside, because look how calm she is, obviously we are having a trivial conversation no one need heed.
And if you lose it and start screaming, the conversation is about how irrational and incompetent you are. At everything, your competence points blank out across the board.
You know this from gender stuff. If you start screaming STOP TOUCHING ME WILL YOU STOP FUCKING TOUCHING ME I AM NOT A SCRATCHING POST AND YOU ARE NOT A CAT FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF then you really should have kept control and been polite and you are the problem, but if you say, please don't do that, I would prefer not, then it can't be that important and no one has to pay attention.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-07-01 01:24 pm (UTC)Even not having to live in a group home. Even just having to live with an intermittently visible, intermittently obnoxious disability.
There is literally no range of tone available to me other than "cheerful" about this. If I use any other emotional tone to talk about any disability issues, I am parsed as less MENTALLY COMPETENT. I am parsed as less able to WRITE FICTION, BAKE THINGS, BE A FRIEND. Whether people treat me as a person who does literally anything at all, ever, is dependent on my ability to not, ever, express any frustration with disability in a way that is not wry and witty. Ever. And I can never, ever lose a tone of calm good humor when describing anything my body is doing, or I am the problem.
People do not register that I have told them that I went off to puke in the bathroom in the middle of a nice dinner in a restaurant with friends (some of them right around here), or in the middle of taking my grandmother to a concert or church, or anything like that, because there are only two modes: quiet and competent or hair-on-fire, and hair-on-fire negates any competence about LITERALLY ANY TOPIC. So I can have no sympathy for having to endure any of that, because there is only sympathy for total incompetence and incapacitation, OR there is the ability to go on, but NEVER BOTH.
Relevant to recent conversations: one of the reasons our until-recently-mutual-friend-now-not-so-much made me so very angry is that I had so little range allowed to me to begin with. I was not allowed to scream at him to STOP TELLING ME HOW I AM DOING because then the problem is immediately and completely the screaming irrational cripple, who is then also presumed incompetent at EVERYTHING. I was not allowed to yell that telling me how great I "get around" with a cane shuts off my frustration at not having a spare hand, having to juggle--negates how quickly something like an unexpectedly oversized library book becomes a problem in my day even when I've gotten a ride to the library. So I got to explain politely and request politely. For years. And none of it made a dent. For years. As it never does. Because it doesn't have to be important from the outside, because look how calm she is, obviously we are having a trivial conversation no one need heed.
And if you lose it and start screaming, the conversation is about how irrational and incompetent you are. At everything, your competence points blank out across the board.
You know this from gender stuff. If you start screaming STOP TOUCHING ME WILL YOU STOP FUCKING TOUCHING ME I AM NOT A SCRATCHING POST AND YOU ARE NOT A CAT FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF then you really should have kept control and been polite and you are the problem, but if you say, please don't do that, I would prefer not, then it can't be that important and no one has to pay attention.
The game is rigged.