for the record, folks

Tags

ableism, disability

content warning: this post contains a metaphor involving spiders. This post is technically in response to an old issue, but its points still need to be expressed. So i’m posting it anyway.

it is possible to be disabled and ableist.

ableism is an aspect of systematic oppression. the thing about systems is that they are complex – they are like spider webs that stretch out for miles and all of the strings intersect with each other. a single movement on the web affects the entire thing. something gets caught in the web – a minority in this case – and as it struggles against the strings to get free, it can shake the careful balance of another into the sticky strings and get them caught as well. as it struggles, it can also alert the majority to the presence of those caught in the web, dragging their comrade down with them. maybe the first is aware of this, maybe they aren’t. but either way, by not having been careful and considerate they too can contribute to the downfall of another, even in their struggles against the same web.

systematic oppression is so prevalent that it seeps into every aspect of daily life. the majority, those in control of the system, in turn have control over dozens of things that we interact with throughout our lives: the media, education systems, our families and friends. perspectives that are prevalent in the societies we live in are taught to us continuously throughout our lives by our families, our communities, television and internet ads, even casual conversation spoken by strangers as we walk down the street. from a young age, prevalent perspectives start to become drilled into our minds, affecting how we think about ourselves and others. we are the products of our civilizations. and unless we find ways to contest them, many of these perspectives become harmful. oppression shapes us into weapons, and boy do we use them well.

This is why it’s important to always be aware of our privilege, even within our own communities. If we don’t, we can do or say things that negatively impact our peers. Unknowingly, we could be contributing to the same harm that is brought upon them from outside of the community, but from within our own safe spaces. These are the spaces where we’re supposed to feel like we can get away from that – they’re supposed to be safe for a reason. When people of our own community can’t acknowledge their internalized ableism, it shows others in our community that nothing is ever safe. How do you think it feels, to not be able to trust anyone? It’s hard enough not being able to trust people that aren’t part of the community, people that don’t get it… how are we supposed to feel when we can’t trust the people that are supposed to get it?

The reason i get on people’s cases so much about language and behavior is because communication is the focal point of society. Everything we do to interact with other people is a form of communication. It doesn’t just have to be words, either – body language is another means of trying to communicate, or get one’s point across to another. Imagery is a form of communication. art, music… whether it has words or not, it attempts to convey emotions or concepts to its viewers or listeners. Communication, paired with psychology, directly influence how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about others. It influences how we interact with others and our overall behaviors in response.

Systematic oppression is in itself a form of communication. It is communication that tells people of minorities the dangerous and harmful viewpoints that people of the majority have of us. It is what tells us, in an incredibly complex way like the threads of the spider web, that we are worthless, unloved, unwanted, dirty, broken. Slurs are an extension of this, because they mean all of these different kinds of words and concepts in a small little package aimed straight at your heart. They are designed to damage us. They are designed to be weapons. That is why they hurt so much, because they are the development of a system that wants us locked away, made prisoners of their demands or dead. They are some of the many tools created by this system to control us and our emotions, to put us in our place. They are code words for every nasty thought that bigots have of us. And because of how language is learned and grows in cultures, these slurs become so commonplace that they infest our safe spaces. Actively or not, the majority’s system of oppression is taking advantage of the way that language is learned and shared in cultures in order to distribute these weapons to more hands. To cause more damage. And it’s “easy” to hide it under the guise of the “evolution of language”…

but that doesn’t change the impact it has on people. It doesn’t change the harm it does to people’s minds and hearts. It is the origins that matter, not necessarily current usage, especially when current usage is defined by the majority – after all, they’re the ones in power and have access to these lovely things called dictionaries and these are supposed to be our rulebooks of language, people’s emotions and histories be damned. The origins tell us the context of how they became common, how they became instilled in the minds of our peers and our children. The context tells us the damage it does, and why it hurts so.

So the next time you think to yourself “it’s just a word, it means something different now” when someone tells you something is a slur, remember these words i have told you. Remember the spider’s web and how it impacts us all. And remember that history has power… and there are people that want you to forget that fact.

i won’t apologize anymore

Tags

ableism, assumptions, disability, disability erasure, personal

my heavily threaded guilt complex developed over oh so many years has been getting to me. telling me that i should feel bad for not posting as frequently as i have, as i should, about subjects that i know i should be talking about but just haven’t had the energy for it.

but see, the problem with that is that i shouldn’t have to feel that way. it’s bullshit, ableism fed to us telling us that we should be more productive, that we should be performing for people, that our bodies and minds do not matter in light of the demands of others.

things have been quiet here. not because i’ve given up, or because i’ve lost interest in writing, but because i’ve been doing my best to take care of myself first. the battles with relapses do not leave much energy for lengthened, eloquently constructed, edited posts. and while a part of me feels as if i should be sorry for this, i need to come to terms with the simple fact that i shouldn’t. my health is a higher priority, even when blogging about said health, and i won’t be shamed about lessened ‘productivity’ anymore.

i won’t apologize anymore. it will be a long and tedious battle, but here it is a start. a journey to reclaim my body and mind for me, not to be taken from me by the demands of the people around me.

there are a few posts and ideas that i’m still in the middle of working with. they’ll be posted eventually, possibly ‘late’, once i can get all of my thoughts together. which isn’t an easy task, but one to be done on my own time.

the mole hill that is dermatillomania

Tags

ableism, assumptions, disability, mental health, mental illness, neurodiversity

trigger warning for description of compulsive actions (hell, i know it’s happened to me) and a long rant about society’s sexist body shaming

[image is a zoomed in snapshot of someone’s lower face. showing just the lips, cheeks and chin below the nose, the contrast between their incredibly pale skin and several open red sores is significant.]

so. i want to talk to you about dermatillomania. dermatillomania is the compulsive need to pick at one’s skin. sometimes it’s related to stress and anxiety, sometimes it’s related to bodily dysmorphia (where one perceives their body as literally warped in ways that are not apparent to society), sometimes it’s related to obsession and compulsion. sometimes it’s related to more than one of these things at once, leaving addressing it very, very difficult.

how one perceives their dermatillomania is always different. i would not be able to tell you how it feels for someone else. but i can say that for me, it’s related to obsession over skin being ‘imperfect’ with all of its little bumps and variations. i rub my fingers against my skin when i’m thinking and when i’m stressed or anxious, which makes me aware of those little bumps. and because i have ocd, and in my head it focuses a lot on what isn’t ‘perfect’ or ‘in place’, that rubbing becomes clawing. and that clawing does not stop until the imperfection is gone.

now. why did i call it a mole hill? because that’s how society perceives it. they feel that we are ‘making a mountain out of a mole hill’. that we are making a big deal over nothing, and just need to stop and act normally like everyone else.

if that’s the case, then that’s a pretty damned big mole hill.

the thing about dermatillomania and many other related anxiety or compulsion disorders is that it’s not something you can just ‘stop’. it’s triggered in one way or another, sometimes trauma, sometimes the person’s individual ability to process and handle stress (which, before people start up on that too, is neurological and thus not something that can just be ‘stopped’ or ‘chill out’). and then it becomes one of someone’s various compulsions when coping with stress. some pull at their hair. some grind their teeth. some bite their nails. and some of us pick and claw at our skin.

when you’re dealing with something that becomes a large part of how you respond to stress, it’s not exactly easy to stop. i’ve tried bandages, both on the sores themselves (or the scars and scabs they produce) and on my fingertips. i’ve tried people verbally correcting me. [1] i’ve tried people physically correcting me. [2] i’ve tried cutting my nails. and so far, nothing has worked.

why?

because what i am battling is not just my need to claw. no. what i am battling is society having taught me that our bodies are flawed, and that we have to seek out every manner possible to correct it. we have to fight against a world that says our skin must be smooth and clear, no matter what. we’re told that airbrushed models are real depictions, that these are what we have to look toward, that if we can’t achieve this we’re of little worth – if any. we battle a standard of beauty and perfection that is artificially created by industry, constantly tossed products and labels in order to make us buy ourselves into this dream world that doesn’t exist outside a magazine producer’s copies of photoshop.

and because of it, is it any wonder that most people who have dermatillomania are women? and those of us who are subject to society’s rampant sexism because of how our body is, even if we don’t necessarily identify with it or how society perceives it?

like many, i was fed this garbage from a young age. and with the development of my ocd comes compulsions shaped by society’s perception of me and my life. and so i strive internally for that perfection, for the smoothness that my fingers seek.

and yet instead of the smooth, flawless skin that society has taught us that we should reach for, sores and welts form. glaring redness that grabs people’s attention, in a fashion that is far from desired. for seeking what society has told us to seek, we are shamed for what that society perceives as disfigurement and self-injury. the skin that we try to fix, we are told to hide away because it bothers others.

because yes, people do notice. and people do comment, and people do try to correct you without you wishing them to. i have had complete strangers, that i had no desire to speak with, try to give me tips on clearing acne.

this mole hill? is not so small. this mole hill is much bigger than you perceive it to be, because it’s been told to hide for so long.

and the real mole hill is society’s lack of concern for the harm it inflicts upon people, for telling them who they must be and how and why. the real mole hill is the fact that people don’t give a damn unless your ‘disfigurement’ bothers them.

we are not making a big deal over nothing. this is a big deal. because it’s directly related to the system our society has constructed, that attacks so many people for not meeting up to some preconceived standard that is impossible to achieve.

[originally posted on tumblr]

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1. no, having people correct me when i do something i want to stop is not abuse or harassment. i’m kink, and discipline is a large part of how my mind functions. if someone i view as holding a position of authority over me that i care about and hold them to of my own accord, then i am more likely to listen to their verbal corrections over my own.

2. i don’t mean with smacks or anything. i mean gently moving my arm away from where i’m compulsively reaching to when i start to claw (typically my face). smacking me would probably just make it worse and make me lose trust in who i’ve entrusted this to.

misdiagnosis and being the crazy patient

Tags

ableism, assumptions, blog carnivals, mental health, mental illness, neurodiversity

This is my post for may’s Blog Carnival of Mental Health, developed by Astrid and hosted by the madosphere, on the theme ‘patients and professionals.

mental health professionals and i don’t have a very good track record.

ages ago, i remember my mother trying to get me to go to therapy. i declined, because i was sure at the time i was fine. this was after the hell that was middle school, but before the mental and psychotic hell that was high school. as far as i remember, the only reason she brought it up was because a psychic told her to. i remember her saying that the person insisted that i wasn’t crazy, but i still needed the help. i think she was just trying to reassure my mother that the stereotypes surrounding mental illness aren’t true, and while yes, my trauma did significantly impact my development and perspective of the world, by no means was i like society’s depiction of the crazy person that paces back and forth talking to themself(ves) [1]. that came later.

high school hit and things went to hell again. this time i became so drenched in my own darkness that i couldn’t see the reality outside of my own. this is what led to my hospitalization the year of my graduation.

that hospitalization is why i’m so skeptical of mental health professionals in regards to my own situation.

during my two week stay, i attempted to make it clear that i was hallucinating, i was delusional at the time, and yes even though because i’m crazy i knew this and could make people aware of such.

except that instead of listening to me, they went with their perspective of my health, diagnosed me with depression, fed me medication that i never needed and never worked, and forced me into social situations that made me incredibly uncomfortable. i was forced to participate in group therapy and group activities, despite my severe social anxiety, and any attempts to resist this would lead to me being written up. for those unfamiliar, being ‘written up’ is essentially like written warnings – you got only so many before your ‘privileges’ (see: group activities that i never wanted to be a part of in the first place, or use of colored pencils for drawing or writing) started to be revoked. being more afraid of confrontation than my peers at the time, i didn’t push any further. had i known the extent and reasoning behind my social anxiety, maybe i would have pushed harder.

needless to say, this was a problem. by instilling a hierarchy of power, and asserting that power in a way that worked on their perspective of the patient instead of accepting and working with input from that patient, they did not allow for the development of trust. any lack of trust, and thus any ‘acting out’ based on their perspective of the situation, resulted in the patient being punished for their ‘behavior’ instead of any acknowledgment for why they might be acting in the manner they are. not allowing for the development of trust means less communication between the patient and the mental health team (staff, nurses and psychologists/psychiatrists), and less willingness to work with each other. less communication means less progress, and can result in continuous spiraling or, like in my case, hiding every problem in order to be left the fuck alone, and eventually discharged on the idea of ‘improvement’ that was never actually there, just a farce i put up to be left the fuck alone.

now, because of that lack of development of trust in this first attempt, i have little to no trust of any mental health professional i come into contact with, meaning i’m less likely to seek help with coping with my illnesses. granted, i did eventually seek out help again, but it took an abusive relationship and psychotic breakdown to do it. that and DID – someone in our system seized control long enough to actually get us to push forward toward therapy and treatment, instead of ignoring it entirely. because we would have.

this story isn’t the first. far from it. there’s a lot of us with these horror stories, largely in part because of the stereotype that crazy people don’t know about their own mental distress and thus can’t be trusted to actually seek treatment, because obviously they’re not in touch with reality to know that they’re, well, not in touch with reality.

except for one small problem – uh, actually, frequently we do. the problem isn’t that we don’t know, though in some instances we may not. the problem is that when we do, people don’t listen to us. because in their eyes, we don’t actually know, the fact that we think we know must be a delusion. and thus they focus on their perspective of how we feel. WHAT THE FUCK?

see, treatment of one’s illnesses and disorders (be they mental or otherwise) is dependent on two factors – the professional treating the condition(s) and the patient being treated. the patient must articulate the symptoms and what they experience so the professional knows what to possibly treat, and what direction to look in when coming up with said treatment and diagnosis. the professional must listen to these described symptoms in order to come to a reasonable diagnosis that makes sense with the symptoms described. because, yanno, treatment won’t work if you’re treating a condition that’s not there.

no, just because we’re crazy doesn’t mean we’re making it up, or we’re wrong because we obviously perceive our symptoms differently than how the rest of the world does (hint: this concept doesn’t actually work, as how symptoms work is how we’re affected by them and thus perceive them). believing this creates that hierarchy, placing the ‘professionals’ above the patients instead of them working together on equal ground. and that hierarchy affects trust and how willing we are to work with those professionals in the first place. if we do not trust you, you cannot adequately treat us, and no, you can’t force treatment on the unwilling. that disconnect just makes things worse in the long run.

we might be the crazy patients, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know how we’re affected by our crazy. after all, that crazy is affecting us – we are the ones that live with it day in and day out, the hours of the days and the days of the years. we are the ones that see inside our heads, hear the thoughts racing through our minds, feel the emotions that roll up and down and inside and out. this isn’t something you can just put a hat on with shiny lights and see everything that we think and feel. you have to be able to trust us, that we’re the ones that know how mental illness affects our lives. but to know that, we have to trust you. and that doesn’t work out so well when the system and the people within work against us.

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1. i know my wording here seems awkward. basically, i use the term themself as a singular gender neutral term to refer to other individuals, while reserving the term ‘themselves’ for those of DID or plural systems. typically folks use ‘themselves’ even in reference to one individual, but due to my experiences with the DID and plural communities, and being nonbinary with a self-preference of the singular they for pronouns, that usage always feels awkward for me, so i avoid it. i understand that this isn’t typical usage, hence the clarification.

Tags

ableism, disability, mental health, mental illness, psychophobia, social conflicts

i feel like i’m floating.

laying on my back, staring at the sky as i drift upon this river of…. ???

i’m not sure. i can’t see it. i feel its waves splashing against my skin every so often, ice cold one moment and boiling the next. and each boiling wave leaves patches of scars, numb to sensation, numb to the world. until another wave splits them open, leaving the raw muscles and nerves exposed. waiting for the next wave, bracing myself for the pain to come as this unseen force jabs needles into the open wounds. waiting for another boiling wave to seal them, to numb me until the next assault comes.

but then i realize, in the fog of my mind that fractures and fades into abstract nothingness and yet pierces with such clarity for brief moments of obsession, that i do know what this river is. i know what these waves are, and why they assault me so.

can you sense it? the clattering of voices, family and friends, peers and coworkers, absorbed in their own worlds as, without their knowledge or understanding, their voices turn into those waves, those needles that pierce my exposed soul with such calculation.

this river, so carefully constructed by the structures of society, swallows up all of those it deems its victims, drifting them into nothingness one moment and screams of such intensity that one can’t see nor hear anything else the next. this river, which flows with such ferocity and yet delicacy, the master of the puppets within its currents, the puppets that attack us and yet have no understanding of why, or why we’re bleeding.

this river, which goes by the name of ableism.

this river, which goes by the name of psychophobia.

i feel it, its splashes against my limbs, the moist chill that remains as each wave fades away, the numbness of my skin as all warmth is sapped from me.

do you?

or do you sit along the banks, watching, waiting, as it swallows up another ‘neath its fangs?

will you work with us, as we fight against the current downstream, to build a dam and wrest its control? will you work with us, as we climb along the walls of this dam, limbs quivering as the pain drains every last drop of energy, to reach the top and try to find those still drifting?

or will you sit, watching, waiting, feeding this monster with each oblivious word, wondering why people are drifting away and seemingly not bothering to cry out for help?

blogging against disablism day: this divisive world we live in

Tags

ableism, assumptions, blog carnivals, disability, mental health, mental illness, neurodiversity

The Blogging Against Disablism Day logo. It is a five by four grid of various color backgrounds and colored icons of people. One of the icons is of a wheelchair user, the standard icon that is used to mark accessibility services for people with disabilities. Another icon features a person with a cane. The image links to the official release of the Blogging Against Disablism carnival for 2011.

So many hands. So many different hands. Yet, they’re all striving for the same thing.

Click.

Watch the screen flicker. Once. Twice. Three times. A wave of color, forever flowing. So many colors, and yet so few. Like a rose. The rose of sanity, pure white in color. Flicker. Watch the petals change, the colors of the rainbow morph into each other. Red to purple and back again. A never ending cycle.

What do you see today?

Look at the TV guide as zombies claw at the screen. Rotted skin, barely attached to bone. The broken nails, striving to get out. Flicker. Another zombie. Flicker. A third zombie. One, two, three. Three bodies of decaying flesh and bottled insanity, screeching as they try to climb out.

Click.

There goes a picture frame, flying across the room. This woman just found out her husband was cheating on her with her sister. Another picture frame. A lamp. A clock. Feel the gun out in the open, the bullets rushing through the air. One, two, three. Three bullets implanting themselves into a liveless body, blood staining the carpet as it tries to escape.

The rose of sanity, forever changing. Forever wilting as the petals crumble to dust. One, two, three…

Click.

One last flicker of the screen, and it goes black. Waiting until tomorrow to begin. Another day. Another rose.

this was written on October 4th of 2004, before my eventual hospitalization. typically i do not publish things that were written in my private journals. but today is my exception.

society’s concept of mental illness is connected to one idea – a starch lunacy that lacks any form of rationality, that no one ‘sane’ can connect with and understand. behaviors that seem without meaning, ideas that seem impossible, responses to worlds that do not exist to the senses of others. these are the ‘others’, the crazy ones, the insanity that cannot be trusted and must be locked away. these are the ones who, if they attempt to speak up and portray ‘rational’ thoughts, are not to be believed. after all, they’re crazy. right?

and then, for those who are able to present rational and coherent thoughts, who can articulate themselves in ways that make sense to both the person speaking and to those that are listening, their mental illness either isn’t as severe as others or as the person claims it is, or they’re faking. for attention. funnily enough, if you ask, many times us crazy folk will tell you we don’t even want the attention to begin with, we just want to be left alone!

this sort of mindset turns society’s concept of mental health into a dichotomy, where mental illness is irrationality and incoherency, and ‘sanity’ is when one is able to articulate rational, coherent thoughts while maintaining a suitable level of functionality in everyday life. and this dichotomy ignores any possible levels in-between these concepts, as well as failing to address the fact that it’s blatantly wrong to begin with. the quote above, in stark contrast to my typical posts, is an example of how rationality and coherency doesn’t determine levels of mental health, be it whether or not one is mentally ill or how ‘severe’ that mental illness is (for them).

this dichotomy is one of the reasons why so many people with mental illness aren’t taken seriously, because people assume that it’s all about raving madly, lack of control and throwing cats out windows. people ignore that when they’re communicating with people, they’re not communicating with the mental illness itself. it is a part of us, but it does not define the entirety of us, and it varies just as much as individuals themselves do. it’s also one of the many reasons why many people with mental illness do not receive adequate care. a lack of recognition for anything outside of one’s preconceived notion of what mental illness entails, and a lack of recognition for the people affected, both by mental illness and others’ asshattery.

we’re not taken seriously when we seem sane, and we’re not taken seriously when we seem insane. what kind of twisted irony is that?

supernatural or schizotypal? what does it matter?

Tags

ableism, assumptions, disability, mental health, mental illness, neurodiversity, psychophobia, schizotypy, self acceptance, social conflicts

yesterday, my car told me her name.

after an evening storm, the roads were coated with fog. when driving on the unlighted side roads that twisted and turned every few yards, the only thing one could see was about a foot of pavement underneath a dense blanket. nights like these are rare, but when they do happen, my body and mind merge with her. more precise navigation, more communication, more connection. we are no longer a team but one entity.

people tend to get confused when i explain these concepts, thinking that it must be some elaborate metaphor – after all, it’s not possible to connect with technology. to communicate with it on an intimate level, feeling a living essence in your hands when you touch a cherished computer case or the wheel of one’s beloved vehicle. when i attempt to explain that it’s not a metaphor, it’s very real, two general assumptions tend to result. one is that the connection is spiritual or supernatural. granted, that assumption is actually fairly uncommon. the more common of the two, and the one that leads to much frustration and rage, is “that’s crazy talk”.

see, the thing about being psychotic, be it a part of the schizophrenic spectrum or another disorder, is that when people argue that religion and spiritual beliefs are irrational, they frequently use us to do it. our personhood is stripped, and instead we become a strawperson argument used to attack people for having different religious and/or spiritual beliefs, whether they be neurotypical or not. and typically, people who conflate religion and spirituality with psychosis haven’t the slightest clue about the psychosis, psychology or neurology that they’re spattering on about.

while there is a link between religious and spiritual beliefs and mental illnesses of various sorts, the reason for that link is far from what people assert it to be based on their preconceived notions. several psychology journals have found that folks with mental illness are more likely to be religious or spiritual, but not because they are more delusional – rather, because it helps them cope with severe symptoms.

some disorders, such as those within the schizophrenic spectrum, are known to often be accompanied with ‘odd or peculiar beliefs’. these beliefs could be stemmed from delusions or hallucinations, or perhaps a combination of both (like my thinking that i was chosen by the sprites i saw to pass on their legacy). or, another possibility that is often ignored (after all we crazy people are crazy, and thus not to be listened to due to being silly and irrational), is personal bias among peers or medical professionals. if someone already thinks that certain religious or spiritual beliefs are wrong or delusional, they’re more likely to pass off the religious or spiritual beliefs of someone with mental illness as being a part of that illness. that their illness is making them believe these wacky things, and thus they’re not to be taken seriously.

with former in-depth exposure to the pagan community and thus a wide variety of religious and spiritual beliefs that differ from the ‘norm’ that people are accustomed to (typically watered down forms of christianity), certain personal beliefs are harder to distinguish between one’s predisposition to delusion and the supernatural. my affinity with technology would be among these. it could be argued that the affinity i feel is from the life essence that flows in its wiry little veins, the electricity powering various gears and switches and breakers. or that it’s related to the living essence within the elements that make up the technology such as copper.

but in truth, these arguments are simply speculation. i do not know the cause behind my affinity, why that connection feels more than just holding an object in my hand. i don’t know why i thought in various mixtures of programming code throughout high school, having to translate what people were saying into pseudo-code in my head just so i could understand what they were saying. i don’t know why my artwork feels like an extension of my mind, heart and soul, every part of my emotions and being seeping into the pixels under the shadow of my cursor. i don’t know why i feel the soul of ‘my’ car, who now trusts me enough to call her by her name donna, staring back at me when i touch her steering wheel or dashboard. i simply know that i do, and that some part of me feels at peace through these connections. so what if it could be because of my tendency to delusion and psychosis during times of stress? or that it could be a part of something bigger that i choose not to explore? if they bring me peace and help me cope with the stress of living in a world built by the neurotypical, what does it matter?

funnily enough, i’ve found it matters most to those not directly affected by it, whose sense of self-security is shaken just by the existence of those of us who are neurodiverse.

i wonder why that could be. donna and satin wish to say hello.

Of Video Games and Reclamation: The Butt of the Joke, Take #2,357

Tags

ableism, disability, disability erasure, gaming, privilege, social conflicts, World of Warcraft

A while back I was introduced to the web comic Looking For Group (LFG), published by Blind Ferret (the name of which is highly problematic, and is quite telling of later attitudes). While it has a concrete and unique story line, the comic is heavily based on WoW – the classes, the races, the environment, and mobs (worms and dragons, for ex). As such, it’s closely tied with the gaming community, of which my relationship to has always been strained. Nevertheless, the comic was one of my guilty pleasures, despite its many cringe-worthy moments, as I closely identify with one of the main characters (Richard, our beloved destruction-obsessed warlock).

Eventually though, enough was enough. For those who do not keep up with LFG’s story line, the people led and defended by the protagonists are currently threatened with the force of a mass army, while trapped within the confines of their establishment’s small walls. The leader, seeing opportunity and ‘the best defense is an offense’, decided that he was going to gather a force to strike at the antagonist’s city heart through the very portals their army was coming through.

Which is all well and good, until a throwaway joke was made regarding, in essence, who is capable and valuable enough to be on the attacking front and who is to be left behind for the onslaught of the antagonist’s massive army. Who was singled out? People with physical disabilities and speech disorders.

Having a low tolerance this morning, I opted to shoot an email to Sohmer, the author of LFG’s comics. Typically I would have left comments, as I did with the Nix Buxom fiasco, but short of forums there is no public comments option that I could readily find before work. With a cup of tea and having put myself into “customer service mode” for work already, I did my best to carefully word my criticism of the comic and attempt to articulate why exactly it posed a problem.

Dear Sohmer,

I’m a long time reader of the comic you write, Looking For Group. I identify closely with some of the characters, including Richard as I mained a highly eccentric warlock over the years.

However, the most recently posted comic hit a very sore note for me. See, I’m a gamer with disabilities, and overall my value as a player within the gaming community is already diminished by other people’s perspectives of disabilities and thus one’s abilities to play – regardless of one’s actual abilities. Gamers with disabilities often have their individual capabilities ignored in favor of preconceived notions through things like stereotypes.

The most recent comic the LFG team has posted makes a joke at the expense of people with disabilities, both physical and verbal. It uses archaic terminology (crippled) that is regarded as a slur by the disabled community, one that is frequently used to attack us, our integrity and our value in society simply for our differences. Especially when being disabled or having speech impediments may have no bearing on one’s ability to do various things, such as contributing to society as a citizen.

So the comic hurt quite deeply, hitting a spot very close to home due to my experiences as both a person with disabilities and a gamer. And I am not the only one who is affected by jokes and attitudes such as this. There are countless others.

I sincerely hope that you will understand where I’m coming from, and thus understand why throwaway jokes and comics such as this one are so hurtful and problematic.

Best regards,
Static Nonsense (Quentel)

However, it appeared that my best efforts were in vain, as the response I received was not one of understanding and acknowledgment, but dismissal as political correctness, offense and language of the era.

Hey bud-

I do apreciate the feedback and can understand your feelings.

Still, I stand by my work. Not to make offense in any way, but that the world of LFG is set in it’s own one, not ours, where we constantly strive to be politically correct. This is the language they would use in the middle ages, and I try to keep it in that time frame.

I hope that made some sense.

As I noted above, my initial take on his response was one of dismissal through the power of privilege. Because part of the reason why throwaway jokes are so powerful and people cling to them so tightly is because one, they assert that they do not actually believe what they are joking about, and two, deep down our societies actually do have people that believe it, but they’re separated as the ‘actual’ problem while everything else is sanitized without noting the deep levels of intersectionality regarding power, privilege and perspective.

Regardless, I held still to a thin thread of optimism, hoping that maybe if I further clarified and explained just how it relates to the current era instead of simply being a thing of the past he would be more understanding.

The thing is though, the language that consists of the joke is only part of the problem. Though I’m a bit confused as to why you would want to stick with older language for part of the joke, but include more recent terminology for speech disorders. Jokes are more than just the language that constructs it, but also the meaning and context behind it. The context you’ve given in the comic suggests that their efforts (for example, the child that was depicted) are less valuable and thus not deserving to be on the ‘attacking’ front – instead leaving them for the defense, that has already been suggested as a dying effort, quite literally even.

There are eras of difference, yes, but in this difference we are also able to choose what to depict, what it means when doing so, and how to respond to situations that arise as a result of such depictions in the current era. While depicting an earlier era, the depiction of questionable taste affects people now, people who are still affected by such attitudes daily. And the fact that when we try to bring up these issues with others, it gets dismissed as offense and political correctness instead of an legitimate issue regarding power, oppression and human decency.

I will also quickly note that stating that you don’t intend to offend does not actually soften the blow. If anything, it makes the situation worse as it reads like you don’t actually care about what you are hearing.

I was hoping that this was going to be one of those few instances where my concerns would be legitimately heard instead of passed off and derailed. It appears that my hopes were too high. Optimism for possibility, realism for, well, reality.

May your journey be well. You will have lost readers, but hopefully you’ll also have gained perspective in the meanwhile.

SN

I kid not when I mention the loss of readers, as I’ve already removed the comic from my RSS reader. And it appears rightfully so, as the final, one-line response given noted how I’ve “already made up [my] mind” and feel “happier with [my] righteous anger”.

Though I don’t think he quite understood what he said himself – words thrown in passive attempts to insult, but actually giving power and integrity to those of a minority.

Ignorance will crush us, destroy all that we have
So let us rejoice that, the powers in our hands
To shape us and make us keepers of fellow man
So let us rejoice that the powers in our hands

All That Remains – Keepers of Fellow Man

Your words continue to fuel the very movement you’re dismissing, Sohmer. But while I’m moving on to the rest of my life and advocacy as a person with disabilities and stuttering, I’ll be tossing Looking For Group and the rest of your work into the pile with the rest of the WoW community I’ve already shed. Thank you for reminding me of why I left the community in the first place. It’s been grand.

Of Video Games and Reclamation: Moving On

Tags

ableism, gaming, psychophobia, racism, Rift, sexism, World of Warcraft

Yes, you read the title right.

I won’t say that I don’t like WoW anymore, because that’d be a lie. But I will admit that it’s been wearing on me as of late. With the pigeonholing and simplification of specs, constant references and examples of racism that are essentially encouraged through quests, and the continuation of the ‘villain gone mad’ trope, the coming of Cataclysm has sapped a lot of the enjoyment of the game from me. The trolls have been thrown into the ‘slums’ for Vol’jin daring to question the methods and perspectives of Garrosh as the new Warchief of the Horde. Neltharion, aka Deathwing, is the new psychophobia personification that we all must fight against because him having gone mad is causing him to destroy Azeroth. And let’s not forget several new quest chains that involve taking out those who have gone mad, such as one in Uldum where you’re rolling up ‘crazed’ gnomes by the hundreds into a giant ball of fire. I assure you, I wasn’t thinking of this crazy evil that must be stopped when I was doing that quest – the entire time I found myself taking out my frustration of this endless trope through this giant flaming ball. While therapeutic at the time, I’m not sure if it was entirely worth it.

After a while, even with the implementation of new achievements and factions to grind reputation with, I found myself struggling to enjoy playing. Sometimes the drive felt more like an obligation to complete daily chores than an actual willingness to play. I did my auctions and dailies and that was about it. The people I came across in PUGs didn’t exactly help matters. With the stresses of winter and aches and pains throughout my being, my tolerance of douchebags was wearing thin and has led me to drop groups far more often than I usually do.

So, with all that in the back of my mind, my fiance and I grabbed copies of Rift and gave it a try. Originally, the idea was just to see what it was like. Curiosity and all. I was reluctant at first, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t ready to leave yet another MMO just yet. But the more I played around with it, the more it started to grow on me. The soul system is appealing to my desire of complete customization, because other than caps on points in a given soul based on your current level, you could do whatever you wanted with them. You unlock new skills based on the points you put into each soul, and you can swap the souls out with other ones if you wish to, so long as you’ve done the quests to obtain them. Souls are not restricted by race, only by the class you choose to play as, and there are seven for each of the four classes. On top of that, you can have up to four different roles, similar to primary and secondary specs in WoW, where you can come up with entirely different builds. Feel like being a warlock today? Or your group needs additional heals in times of struggle? Bam, you can just switch roles.

Another thing I grew to enjoy, even though I struggled with it at first, was opening and closing rifts. Rifts are kind of like PUGs, only across the map instead of in dungeons (though there’s dungeons too), and groups can come together simply by being nearby when a rift is open or an invasion is coming your way. But the thing I like the most about doing rifts and invasions? No one talks. DPS kills the mobs they need to kill, healers heal who need to be healed, and melee (usually) help out the casters that pulled. Even on the invasion bosses, which are essentially the equivalent of raid bosses, people typically don’t say a word. We just focus on downing it and then move on. Which means that I can get the enjoyment of working with a team without the constant ableism, sexism, racism et al. We do what we need to do, and that’s that. I was reluctant at first because I still get nervous with groups of people, given my experiences with PUGing in WoW. But when I realized that people don’t need to talk to handle the rifts, I found myself purposefully seeking them out. I can’t say anything about dungeons yet, as for obvious reasons I haven’t given them a shot. But otherwise, I find myself enjoying playing again.

And have I mentioned the levels of customization available for things like hair and skin color? Instead of just a few pre-established templates, you can choose among a wide spectrum available for your character’s race. This is something that’s bugged me in games for a long time, because frequently characters are whitewashed or limited to generalizations of more ‘well-known’ races, erasing everyone in-between. Rift goes beyond that and lets you, the player, decide the racial representation of your character, instead of being forced into limited options from the developers, options that are typically affected by subconscious elements of systematic racism.

There’s just a few problems.

First, no (current) support of addons. Seeing as I use addons to help me play with my disabilities, this has been quite a blow. It’s taking a lot of time to figure out how to manage despite this. So far it’s been working alright, but I still struggle with cooldowns, remembering the cast time of my skills and thus when to refresh them, watching threat, and bags. Oh the bags. In WoW I used Arkinventory, which not only threw all of my items into one bag window, but let me organize the items into various categories based on type. Without that, I find myself having to rearrange my bags all the time because not only can I not find what I need, but it makes my OCD twitch to not have like items in one of my five bags.

Second, no subtitles or colorblind mode. The lack of subtitles (even the option) left me very confused with the opening sequences since my hearing was acting up at the time. This is something that many players have been complaining about since pre-release, and they still haven’t been included. Same with colorblind mode, though I’m not personally affected by that.

Third…

A screenshot of a female-depicted Meridian guard (known as Centurions), wearing a highly intricate helmet, plate boots, bikini top and loincloth. The NPC is wielding a glowing blue staff or mace, as if that's going to help against getting stabbed in the stomach.

 

The armor. Oh, the armor. Seriously, with armor like that, it’s no wonder we all died. And of course, these asinine design choices are used for female-depicted characters and NPCs, while the male-depicted get to wear shit that actually looks practical. I say looks practical because the rate of which one can swim while wearing plate armor makes no logical sense. But at least they have a reasonable level of deterrence to getting stabbed in the stomach or thighs. And of course, icons are misleading – what makes you think will be a pair of pants (or even shorts) turns out to be nothing more than panties. Those three letters make a world of difference, I assure you.

The elements of psychophobia and ableism are still there, such as references to ‘madness filling your mind’ that pop up in the center of your screen during invasions in Freemarch. And people are still assholes in chat, as usual. But I’m still finding myself enjoying my time in Telara more than I was in Azeroth as of late. Eventually, He and I canceled our subscriptions to WoW. The fun just isn’t there anymore.

Here’s hoping the enjoyment stays with me throughout my journey in Rift.

Of Video Games and Reclamation: It Shouldn’t Have To Hurt This Much

Tags

ableism, blog carnivals, disability, gaming, mental health, mental illness, neurodiversity, psychophobia, social conflicts

This is my attempt at a post for February’s Blog Carnival of Mental Health, developed by Astrid and hosted by Differently at Ramblings of the Differently Sane. I say attempt because whether or not this post fits the subject is still up in the air. But it’s an important topic for me, so I’m trying anyway.

I didn’t used to speak up for myself. I’ve felt the impact of psychophobia pretty much all of my life, though my younger years I wasn’t aware of what it was – my loved ones and I just thought I was on the odd side. Sometimes they still think so. But that pain was still there, with every assault on my personhood simply for behaviors that are natural to me and not seeing the world as others do. For years this continued, even as I moved to new areas, and all the while I said nothing.

I think the first time I actually spoke up was toward my highschool psychology teacher when he was talking to the class about Schizophrenia. Granted, I didn’t ‘speak’ per say, largely out of fear because my classmates had a tendency to harass me and I didn’t want to give them more ammunition, but instead wrote a note and gave it to him at the end of the class. He was the first to respond positively, actually apologizing, something no one had done for me before. I think he knew the impact such perceptions could and often do have on folks like me, folks living with mental illness. He even warned me ahead of time about the movie he was going to play in the class later in the semester (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and how my classmates may respond to it, giving me the option to opt out of class for that day. I didn’t understand the significance of that until I started blogging, but it’s still one of the reasons why I started actively speaking up for myself and advocating for better treatment of people with mental illness by the people in our given societies and cultures.

Though I still struggle with doing so in real life. In real life I don’t have much power over my surroundings in case shit goes bad. Most of that power is actually in my games, where if something goes wrong or someone starts giving me shit about it, I can block them or simply stop playing. This has given me an empowerment that just isn’t there in the rest of my life, and is probably why I spend so much time online. For once, I am in control, and I can determine whether or not I put up with the shit people dish out.

But it still hurts. It always hurts. Frequently I find myself dropping out of dungeon groups or dropping gaming blogs I read because of psychophobia. Because many times, when I call out complete strangers on their behaviors or attitudes, they don’t care and I’m pegged as being ‘oversensitive’ (I fucking hate that word). So I do the only form of self-advocacy I can do in those situations – I leave and do what I can to preserve my mental health at that time. And because of it, my characters are sorely lacking and I’m falling further and further behind in the Cata rush. But I continue to do it because I know that if I don’t, the effects of staying and putting up with it will be far worse. Gear and levels can wait, keeping a grip on one’s reality (whatever that may be) can’t really, since everything we do is so dependent on it. Without it, everything becomes a downward spiral and the last thing I want is to be hospitalized again because people are assholes. Because yes, that’s pretty much what it amounts to, though that’s putting it in really simplified terms that probably won’t be understood to people outside of such situations.

Sometimes, like in guilds, I’ll speak up. Mostly because I feel like I can, either because I’ve grown to know the people involved and thus they may have some level of sympathy or because I know I can drop if I need to. And unfortunately, it doesn’t typically end well. The last guild I was in, things blew up when I pointed out on the side that being crazy doesn’t necessarily mean doing something outrageous and vice versa – and even if it was the case then, so what? But I was taking away people’s words, even when that wasn’t what I was trying to do. Eventually I wound up leaving because I just couldn’t handle something like that happening again, especially from people I was getting to know better. In another guild, the guild leaders had a habit of saying ‘that’s insane’ for everything they deemed outrageous and bad-things-not-to-do. Of course, there I couldn’t say anything because the one in charge was the ‘I’m not PC, if people are offended it’s their own problem not mine’ sort who had no level of empathy for anyone, let alone me.

The thing is, it shouldn’t have to hurt this much. It shouldn’t have to be a battle of which scenario is going to cause more harm, defending oneself and advocating for the deconstruction of psychophobia and better treatment of people with mental illness or keeping quiet and letting the cycle of harmful behaviors and attitudes continue. We should be able to speak up about the things that harm us and be listened to, having people actually give a shit on a regular basis instead of being told to fuck off and that we’re making things harder for others. But it does, because that’s the sort of world we live in, especially in the gaming community where you’re constantly graded on your performance and how dare you have feelings while doing so! Just stop complaining and go back to your duty, noob.

And that sort of attitude is the worst, especially when this is a community where you feel most comfortable. You’re not expected to be a person and have all of the complexities of such, you’re expected to be a white-cis-straight-male robot that’s socially programmed to conform to the attitudes and behaviors of the dominant majority around you.

The fact that this sort of thing still hurts, and the fact that it shouldn’t have to, is part of the reason why I keep fighting against it. Because it won’t go away on its own. And even if I don’t make it through to many people, I can still reach some – and that shows me that there are people that really do care and will listen. That’s what matters to me. If I can reach someone, and that person is willing to listen, grow and learn about how such attitudes harm people with mental illness, that makes it worth it. I bear this pain because I know others do as well. And we shouldn’t have to.