I always feel like I'm really hard on my parents here when they're pretty great people and also overpathologizing your kids is such a stereotypical rich person thing, I can't even. But I've written a lot about how I think it's super important for disabled people to be able to make bad decisions without that being seen (especially in the case of people who are receiving services or "dependent" on someone) as a reason that they shouldn't be allowed to make decisions or a reason that their self-expression and decisions should be seen as "part of their disability" in a way that means those things should be suppressed or ignored.
And I feel that is kind of how I was raised; things that in retrospect seem pretty innocent, or at the most things that I would try to stop my kid from doing but would see as funny and not that big a deal, began to feel like ammunition against me and evidence that I a)was someone to be worried about and b)shouldn't be allowed to make my own decisions. Which does a lot to explain the Supercrip Mongoose you see before you, because I feel that if I need support, I won't be able to have anything.
Two entire humans told me they liked and related to the part of my s/m post that talked about submission as a way to experience parts of yourself that you dislike and/or avoid. I was pleased because that was the part that I totally cribbed from other people and mumbled through to avoid saying anything dramatic and getting it wrong. It seems like dominance would be the opposite, i.e. experiencing power that you don't have in real life and sweeping weakness under the rug, but in fact I feel like it's exactly the same failure embrace just in a different way. After all I do stuff with people who know me so it's not like anyone's under the impression I have super good brains and am really tough.
What happens is not exactly a good thing because it means I really overattach to people I do stuff with (and also develop the biggest savior complex in the known universe, which is gross), but for someone to relate to me in that way and vice versa feels like a really radical acceptance of me as a whole person, which is a huge departure from the tendency to either look at what someone does and deny their disability, or look at what someone doesn't do (or does wrong) and say that that's all of them and means something about how they should be treated. For someone to think that it's okay for me to occupy a certain role and make certain decisions, when they know I have all these cracks, is an acknowledgment of The Elevators in me.
(This will probably end up being TMI, so sorry in advance.)
ReplyDeleteI kind of really like these posts, and I also think the part about submission is right on, at least for me. Some of it probably has to do with being gay for me, but it's still a lot of the same reasons in a broad sense, like I still feel really guilty sometimes for being attracted to girls (in the sense that they'd be creeped out, not religious guilt or something like that), so it feels better in a certain sense to imagine stuff as being done to me instead of feeling like I have an active part it. Um, maybe that's the kind of thing you're not supposed to admit if you're gay though, but I mean, maybe that guilt is something most people grow out of and I just never did even though I'm almost 20.
But yeah, these two posts are like the best thing ever.
Um, maybe that's the kind of thing you're not supposed to admit if you're gay though,
ReplyDeleteThat's totally cool it's so Elevators! I feel kind of the same about girls, but I haven't done anything with a girl so I don't know how those feelings will/would interact with d/s.
You could just stop making my heart explode.
ReplyDelete"things that in retrospect seem pretty innocent, or at the most things that I would try to stop my kid from doing but would see as funny and not that big a deal, began to feel like ammunition against me and evidence that I a)was someone to be worried about and b)shouldn't be allowed to make my own decisions. "
is a lot like my theory of being a failure as a person who CAN versus a success as a person who CAN'T, and the whole concept of people who CAN versus people who CAN'T, and how the same exact action or situation has so many different meanings and results depending on where they decide you fall on that divide.
Your parents did the best they could. Unless they are monsters...they loved you more than life itself. That's how I feel about my kid. I'm sure I've failed him. He's 17 now.
ReplyDeletehi r.b. As I said, I really like my parents and don't intend to write about them as if they're jerks or terrible people. Just a few days ago I got pissed because I saw someone proudly blogging that she had called the police on a woman who left her kid in the car while she went to the grocery store. I thought that she didn't know what that woman might be dealing with and shouldn't try to punish her so harshly for doing something "wrong" parenting-wise.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I don't think that "they did the best they could" is a good excuse for anything parents do. I'm sure we can both think of actions parents might take that are unforgivable, no matter whether "they were doing the best they could." I wouldn't put my parents in that category, but for example, two weeks ago I was dealing with suicidal ideation, self-injury, dissociation, and fits of rage and anxiety, and I came close to killing myself because I thought the only other option would be to take a medical leave and my parents would see me as a failure if I graduated college in more than four years. Fortunately my bad brains have passed for the time being, but if they come back I'm not sure I wouldn't make that decision to avoid being labeled and treated as a failure if I have to go home. I really do have a problem with the fact that I was raised this way, because it means that I value the appearance of success over health, happiness, and even being alive.