《 BYF 》

🐱 Hey! I'm Jules (he/they), previously @/soft-spoonie. I'm a plural, ND, & disabled person who's surviving complex trauma. I'm also medium support needs. My ex co-host's blog is @violentdyke.

🌈 This blog is for:

💌 This is a personal blog, not an advice/support blog. Even though I do want people to find comfort here, I'm struggling too. Almost every serious post I make is just as much a message to myself as it is to others.

💗 We support all neurodivergent and disabled people here. This includes endogenic systems and demonized people (ex: plurals, psychotics, people w/personality & factitious disorders, paraphiles, substance users).

⚠️ Trigger warnings are tagged in "#[trigger]" and "#[trigger] tw" format. Vent posts are tagged #vent.

often times i cant think too hard about the idea of good people and bad people bc of ye ole hell brain black and white thinking making me spiral into self loathing but. what's comforted me the most is that whether we're seen as good or bad people is contextual. it depends on how people know us, how we treat someone, etc.

so our presence as good or bad people is something we can alter. we can choose to add good into the world where maybe a few months ago we would have added bad. we can take what we know of our capacity to do good and use it to unlearn wrong things.

we can't change what we've done or who we were in the past, but we can decide who we are now. we're not static.

childhood trauma is an absolute bitch i swear to god

i am so glad i have fostered a following where i can make these posts that would get me metaphorically shot on sight anywhere else. we're all about radical disability advocacy over here. boot up bitch. we're making a better world one person at a time.

I mean yeah, you have the right to feel however you want towards your abuser. I'm not going to police your healing process. But that wasn't the point of the post. The post was directed at people whose mental illness is part of the reason they do wrong (note i say reason, not excuse). It's about how they still have the capacity to live happier, safer lives. It's also about how (im)morality doesn't make ableism or sanism okay. People have human rights and realistically require support to grow.

Also, this group of people that I speak of is not solely made of abusers - we all have the capacity for harm and hurt, and our mental illness doesn't live in a vacuum from that. There are plenty of mentally ill people who have simply fucked up big time - I'm pretty sure most people have done that at least once. But even for abusive mentally ill people... someone viewing themselves as a monster and being ostracized from everyone and everything... is not going to lead to positive change. It just isn't. Humans do not grow from isolation or excessive guilt. We just spiral down.

And again, victims have the right to decide how they relate to and interact with their abuser. This is not about victim-abuser relationships. This is broadly about mental illness, unhealthy/harmful behaviors, ableism, and where community support and healing all come into play from that. Ultimately meaning.. mentally ill people who've done wrong still deserve mental health support (and not just the psychiatric kind). Bc ykno. Health is a human right.

I hope I've explained this in a way this makes sense.

I dont really have any advice on this unfortunately, it's something I struggle with a lot too and I haven't found a solution. Mainly cuz being present usually goes hand in hand with realizing how awful my situation is, so dissociating is a protective measure that I guess I just need to accept. Ik that's just my experience, though.

something about the phrase "end of (the) line" resonates so deeply with me and i can't articulate Why. i think there's just something about it that brings forth the idea of having no where to go - the finality of it all, the closure. the end. what's next? is there anything after? or is it just. over?

i want to preface this ask by saying your experiences are yours and you do get to choose how to talk about them. you don't have to call it assault or anything - it truly is up to you. that's not where i'm going to end this ask, though. and if you aren't in a place to consider it might be assault, i would recommend not reading the rest of this ask. and if you're choosing to read on, i want you to know i'm saying all this because i care.

if a kid at say, the LGBT center I volunteer at, told me their father and uncle were slapping their ass "as a joke"... i would immediately go to my supervisor because i would consider that child abuse. even if the kid said it didn't bother them, a counselor would have to be alerted. i dont know the protocol after that well enough, but i can say we would take this seriously - for the wellbeing of all our participants.

so with that in mind.. however you feel/felt, or however you want to talk about it, it doesn't make what they did okay. that's not an appropriate way to treat a child. so it wouldn't be unfair to change your mind - they were doing something wrong, and that is not your fault. it's theirs. you're allowed to feel and speak in whatever way you need to - whether you consider it assault or not.

if it helps any to hear, i made that post because i've been realizing it can count as physical/sexual assault (no matter the reason), and i experienced it too. it's hard to grapple with, and thinking about this makes me feel vulnerable and upset. and that's ok, even if it feels awful. we're all allowed to feel how we feel, and work to understand our lives. whatever that means to us.

ykno phrases like "crippling anxiety" aren't wrong, right? like. anxiety can cause/worsen high blood pressure or high heart rate. it can make you faint or overheat. it can make you hyperventilate and unable to breathe. it can make unable to move or speak. etc. etc. and it isn't the only mental health condition that can cause symptoms like that.

there's no denying that the word cripple refers to "physical" disability the vast majority of the time, but the mind is part of the body. the line between "mental" and "physical" disability is.. not a line at all. they're forever interconnected. mentally ill and neurodivergent people can be crippled.

never going to get over how some people truly think slapping your kids ass is justified and effective parenting. like. you do realize that's physical and sexual assault, right? you're hitting them on a vulnerable, private part of their body? and exposing them? that's wrong!! that's abuse!! all you're teaching your child is to fear you, that their body doesn't belong to them, and that they're not safe!