For those of you who have found this place because of the poem I posted, thank you. I appreciate you stopping by. As I don’t advertise this little corner of solace. I don’t expect to see many visitors in my server logs but am pleasantly surprised when the number of visitors increases.

Let’s be better

The comments I’ve received after posting my poem have been mostly great. I appreciate the support and I’m happy to know that so many people have felt represented by my words. I was in a head space of rejection and distress for what amounted to me being me. It was a very lonely and anxiety ridden place to be. I’m not good a doing revisions of my work. Usually I knock something out in one draft and make very minor changes here and there so that it flows well when I rehearse it. For this reason I like to get feedback to see if what I’m saying is connecting with the people I choose to share with. Most frequently I share with people who have an affinity bias (friends and family) but this time I went straight to the new community I’d found and just laid bare my most personal and reflective piece to date.

I cried reading all of the private messages and public comments saying things like “OMG! This is my life!”, “I JUST went through this exact same thing with…”, and “I tried multiple times to get my partner to take me seriously when I warned [them] about how we communicate but [they] kept being dismissive…refreshing to know it’s not just me…”. It was helpful to get any feedback at all let alone feedback indicating that I’d managed to make things a little bit easier for others going through similar struggles in life.

What is difficult to come to terms with is the amount of negativity. While well intentioned, I’m sure, comments like “…what you should have done was…”, “…they didn’t deserve your time in the first place…”, and “If this happened to me, I’d….” come across as kinda Jackassy-y. I appreciate your perspective and you can feel free to share it. I’d ask though that you share it in a way that doesn’t contain veiled implications that you are intellectually, emotionally, or interpersonally superior in some nebulous unquantifiable way. “What I’ve learned through my experience…” is much better than any of the above.

Also, please refrain from attacking my abuser. Calling her a bitch, an idiot, a manipulative blah blah blah does no one any good. You don’t know her. You don’t know anything about her other than that I was hurt by her actions. While I’d love to have everyone on my side when I am in conflict with someone the fact of the matter is that there are many factors that go into why people do what they do. Bad behavior is bad behavior. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Some people act out of ignorance, some out of fear, some out of malice. If we assume everyone who behaves poorly is doing so maliciously we’ll always be looking over our shoulders for the next attack. I’ve worked in executive protection for over a decade. It can be exhausting living that way.

Plus we in the autistic community are far more likely than our NT peers to face persistent abuse and be groomed for people pleasing. I myself have a problem with putting my abusers’ emotional needs ahead of my own. I want to know that they are ok because once they are ok I can start to worry about me and fixing what’s going on with myself. It’s shitty, and I’m working on it but that’s what a lifetime of abuse and trauma can do to you.

For those of you who think you’re helping me or showing support by tearing down someone that I loved, please stop. It puts me in the unenviable position of needing to defend the person who abused me. I’d like to take that time and energy and put it toward healing instead.